erainty been placed in his hands by England
and British rule in South Africa vested solely in his person.

During a brief interval in his political leadership Rhodes pursued his
work in Rhodesia. In those days the famous British South Africa Company,
which was to become known as the Chartered Company, was definitely
constituted, and began its activity in the new territories which had come
under its control. Ere long, though, the tide of events brought him again
to the head of the Government. This time, however, though his appointment
had been considered as a foregone conclusion, and though very few had
opposed it, he no longer met the same sympathetic attention and
co-operation which had characterised his first administration of public
affairs. The Colony had begun to realise that Mr. Rhodes alone, and left
free to do what he liked, or what he believed was right, was very
different from Mr. Rhodes under the influence of the many so-called
financiers and would-be politicians who surrounded him.

An atmosphere of favouritism and of flattery had changed Rhodes, whom one
would have thought far above such small things. Vague rumours, too, had
begun to circulate concerning certain designs of the Chartered Company
(one did not dare yet mention the name of its chief and chairman) on the
Transvaal. Rhodes was directly questioned upon the subject by several of
his friends, amongst others by Mr. Schreiner, to whom he energetically
denied that such a thing had ever been planned. He added that Doctor
Jameson, of whom the man in the street was already speaking as the man who
was planning an aggression against the authority of President Kruger, was
not even near the frontier of the neighbouring Republic. The mere idea of
such a thing, Rhodes emphatically declared to Mr. Schreiner, was nothing
but an ill-natured hallucination to create bad blood between the English
and the Dutch. His tone seemed so sincere that Mr. Schreiner allowed
himself to be convinced, and voluntarily assured his colleagues that he
was convinced of the sincerity of the Prime Minister.

The only person who was really alarmed at the persistent rumours which
circulated in Cape Town in regard to a possible attack in common accord
with the leaders of the Reform movement in Johannesburg against the
independence of the Transvaal Republic was Mrs. van Koopman. She knew
Rhodes' character too well not to fear that he might have been induced to
listen to the misguided advic