, he and his countrymen laughed
at a conceit which evidently appealed to them. But his Honour relapsed
again into a grunt when I inquired what he considered must be the upshot
of the agitation. On pressing him, he replied that he was not a prophet.
I tried to draw him on the loyalty of the Cape Dutch by saying that they
had even more reason to be loyal than the English, seeing that if
England were ousted from the Continent the Germans would come in; but he
evaded the question at issue by asserting that if the Cape Dutch
intrigued against the Queen he would neither aid nor countenance them.
Then, as the conversation seemed in danger of languishing, I did what I
had been told to do and mentioned Rhodes.

It was odd to observe the instant change in the President's demeanour.
He lost his stolidity, and became voluble and emphatic. Rhodes was
evidently his sore point; and he abused him with fervour and with
emphasis. All trouble in this wicked world was due to Rhodes; if Rhodes
had not been born, or had had the grace to die very early, South Africa
would have been little less than a Paradise. Rhodes was a bad man, whose
chief aim was to drag the English flag in the dirt. Rhodes was Apollyon
and a financier, and the foul fiend himself. And as the old man worked
himself into a spluttering rage, he emphasised every point in his
declamation by a furious slap, not on his own knee, but on the knee of
the journalist who was interpreting for me. Every time that heavy hand
came down I saw poor W---- wince; he was shaken to his foundations. But
he endured the punishment like a martyr, and said nothing. I dropped ice
into the President's boiling mind by asking him if he thought it would
remove danger from the situation if Mr Rhodes and Mr Chamberlain were
effectually muzzled by the Imperial Government. His peasant-like caution
instantly returned; he smoked steadily for a minute, and then declared
he would say nothing on that point. It was not necessary; he had showed,
without the shadow of a doubt, that he was an old man who was, in a
sense, insane on one point. Rhodes was his fixed pathological idea. This
Tenterden steeple was the cause of the revolutionary Goodwin Sands.

As a last question about the Cape Dutch, I asked if, when he declared he
would not aid them against the Queen, he would act against them; he
replied denying in general terms the right to revolt. I said, "But the
right of revolution is the final safeguard of liberty"