CECIL RHODES]

When you see the _kopjes_ you can readily understand why it took so long
to conquer the Boers. The Dutch knew every inch of the land and every
man was a crack shot from boyhood. In these hills a handful could hold a
small army at bay. All through this region you encounter places that
have become part of history. You pass the ruins of Kitchener's
blockhouses,--they really ended the Boer War--and almost before you
realize it, you cross the Modder River, where British military prestige
got a bloody repulse. Instinctively there come to mind the struggles of
Cronje, DeWet, Joubert, and the rest of those Boer leaders who made this
region a small Valhalla.

Late in the afternoon of the second day you suddenly get a "feel" of
industry. The veldt becomes populated and before long huge smokestacks
loom against the sky. You are at Kimberly. The average man associates
this place with a famous siege in the Boer War and the equally famous
diamond mines. But it is much more for it is packed with romance and
reality. Here came Cecil Rhodes in his early manhood and pulled off the
biggest business deal of his life; here you find the first milepost that
the American mining engineer set up in the mineral development of
Africa: here is produced in greater quantities than in any other place
in the world the glittering jewel that vanity and avarice set their
heart upon.

Kimberley is one of the most unique of all the treasure cities. It is
practically built on a diamond mine in the same way that Johannesburg
rests upon a gold excavation. When the great diamond rush of the
seventies overwhelmed the Vaal and Orange River regions, what is now the
Kimberley section was a rocky plain with a few Boer farms. The influx of
fortune-hunters dotted the area with tents and diggings. Today a
thriving city covers it and the wealth produced--the diamond output is
ninety per cent of the world supply--exceeds in value that of a big
manufacturing community in the United States.

At Kimberley you touch the intimate life of Rhodes. He arrived in 1872
from Natal, where he had gone to retrieve his health on a farm. The
moment he staked out a claim he began a remarkable career. In his early
Kimberley days he did a characteristic thing. He left his claims each
year to attend lectures at Oxford where he got his degree in 1881, after
almost continuous commuting between England and Africa. Hence the Rhodes
Scholarship at Oxford created by his rema