the chief executed the first
passerby and then considered the source of the trouble removed. The only
thing that really departed was the head of the innocent victim.
Lobengula had sixty-eight wives, which may account for some of his
eccentricities. Chaka, the famous king of the Zulus, whose favourite
sport was murdering his sons (he feared a rival to the throne), was an
amateur in crime alongside the dusky monarch whom the British
suppressed, and thereby gained what is now the most prosperous part of
Southern Rhodesia.

The occupation and development of Rhodesia are so comparatively
recent--(Rhodes and Dr. Jameson were fighting the Matabeles at Bulawayo
in 1896)--that any account of the country must at the outset include a
brief historical approach to the time of my visit last May. Probe into
the beginnings of any African colony and you immediately uncover
intrigue and militant imperialism. Rhodesia is no exception.

For ages the huge continent of which it is part was veiled behind
mystery and darkness. The northern and southern extremes early came into
the ken of the explorer and after him the builder. So too with most of
the coast. But the vast central belt, skirted by the arid reaches of
Sahara on one side and unknown territory on the other, defied
civilization until Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, and Grant blazed the
way. Then began the scramble for colonies.

Early in the eighties more than one European power cast covetous glances
at what might be called the South Central area. Thanks to the economic
foresight of King Leopold, Belgium had secured the Congo. Between this
region which was then a Free State, and the Transvaal, was an immense
and unappropriated country,--a sort of no man's land, rich with
minerals, teeming with forests and peopled by savages. Two territories,
Matabeleland, ruled by Lobengula, and Mashonaland, inhabited by the
Mashonas, who were to all intents and purposes vassals to Lobengula,
were the prize portions. Another immense area--the present British
protectorate of Bechuanaland--was immediately south and touched the Cape
Colony and the Transvaal. Portuguese East Africa lay to the east but
the backbone of Africa south of the Congo line lay ready to be plucked
by venturesome hands.

Nor were the hands lacking for the enterprise. Germany started to
strengthen the network of conspiracy that had already yielded her a
million square miles of African soil and she was reaching out for more.
Contr