Assembly or Lower House during that
session, and it was instructive to note the faces of the Opposition when
Rhodesia and its undoubted progress were subjects of discussion, and
especially when Mr. Rhodes was on his feet, claiming the undivided
attention of the House. It was not his eloquence that kept people so
attentive, for no one could call him eloquent; it was the singularly
expressive voice, the (at times) persuasive manner, and, above all, the
interesting things his big ideas gave him to say, that preserved that
complete silence. But, as I said before, the faces of his then
antagonists--albeit quondam friends--hardly disguised their thoughts
sufficiently. They were forced to consider the country of the man they
feared--the country to which he had given his name--as a factor in their
colony; they had to admit it to their financial calculations, and all
the time they would fain have crushed the great pioneer under their
feet. They had, indeed, hoped to see him humbled and abashed after his
one fatal mistake, instead of which he had gone calmly on his way--a
Colossus indeed--with the set purpose, as a guiding star ever before his
eyes, to retrieve the error which they had fondly imagined would have
delivered him into their hands. Truly an impressive and curious study
was that House of Assembly in the session of 1899.

The number of people, more or less interesting, whom we met at Groot
Schuurr, seemed to pass as actors on a stage, sometimes almost too
rapidly to distinguish or individualize. But one or two stand out
specially in my recollection. Among them, a type of a fine old
gentleman, was Colonel Schermbrucker. A German by birth, and over
seventy years of age, he had served originally in the Papal Guard, and
had accompanied Pio Nono on the occasion of his famous flight from Rome.
Somewhere in the fifties, at the time of the arrival of the German
Legion, he had settled at the Cape, and had been a figure in politics
ever since. His opinions were distinctly English and progressive, but it
was more as an almost extinct type of the courtly old gentleman that he
impressed me. His extreme activity for his years, his old-world manners,
and his bright intelligence, were combinations one does not often meet,
and would have made him an interesting figure in any assembly or
country. Another day came Judge Coetzee, erstwhile Kruger's confidant
and right hand, but then of a very different way of thinking to his old
master. H