hern work he was judged to be the only man who could become
Prime Minister in the parliamentary crisis of 1890. There was, by that
year, little question that he was the most influential man in South
Africa. He had a large holding in the Transvaal goldfields, discovered
in 1886; he was head of the great De Beers Corporation of Kimberley; and
he was chairman of the newly-created Chartered Company. To many it
seemed impossible that one man could combine these great financial
interests with the position of First Minister of the Colony; but at
least it was clear that the interests of the companies were subordinated
to national aims, that the money which he obtained from mines was spent
on imperial ends, and that his political position was never used for the
promoting of financial objects.

[Note 65: _Cecil Rhodes: a Monograph and a Reminiscence_, by Sir
Thomas Fuller (Longmans & Co., 1910)]

But it is time to return to the development of the north, the greatest
of his schemes and the one dearest to his heart. The year 1885 had
secured Bechuanaland to the river Molopo as British territory, while a
large stretch farther north was under a British protectorate. One danger
had been avoided. The neck of the bottle was not corked up: a way to the
interior was now open. The next factor to reckon with was the Matabele
nation and its chief, Lobengula. They were a Bantu tribe, fond of
fighting and hunting, an offshoot of the Zulus who fought us in 1881.
They had a very large country surrounding the Matoppo hills, and
Lobengula ruled the various districts through 'indunas' or chiefs, who
had 'impis' or armies of fighting men at their disposal. To the
north-east of them lay the weaker tribe of the Mashona, who paid tribute
to Lobengula and whose country was a common hunting-ground for the
Matabele braves. Over the latter, so long as he did not check too much
their love of fighting, Lobengula exercised a fairly effective control.
He himself was a remarkable man, strong in body and mind. Sir Lewis
Michell describes him as he appeared to English visitors: 'A somewhat
grotesque costume of four yards of blue calico over his shoulders and a
string of tigers' tails round his waist could not make his imposing
figure ridiculous. In early days he was an athlete and a fine shot; and
though, as years went on, his voracious appetite rendered him
conspicuously obese, he was every inch a ruler.... Visitors were much
struck by his capacity for governme