of Diamvnd Fields and Early Kimberlcy Days 135 



may have made, the insignificant creatures who 

 calumniate him, are not worthy to tie his shoe 

 strings. 



I greatly admired his breadth of view, his per- 

 sistency and courage and open handedness, although 

 I could not pretend to keep pace with him ; he was a 

 man who only appears in a country once in a 

 generation. It is not likely that a second Rhodes 

 will visit South Africa or have the opportunities the 

 diamond mines offered, of carrying out his grand 

 programme of Imperial expansion in the " Dark 

 Continent." 



The pertinacity of Rhodes and his far sighted - 

 ness were characteristic, as also his contempt for 

 money except as a means to an end. How many 

 men we still have with us who would have been 

 less missed in these critical times in South Africa. 

 I did not stay long on the diamond fields, the life 

 did not suit me. Any money I made I sent to 

 Natal to pay off in coin some accounts that I owed 

 and which I would not pay in Transvaal Notes 

 worth only 2/6 in the although they had been 

 made legal tender ; and Boers had taken advantage 

 of that to pay long standing accounts they owed me 

 in this worthless paper currency. When mother 

 and Arthur both got ill, I took them back to " The 

 Willows" and disposed of my interests in the diamond 

 fields.. One valuable claim in the middle of 

 Kimberley Mine I left Lexy Maclean to work but 

 he never attended to it, and sold it for a fraction of 

 its value. 



Jew diamond buyers called ( "Kopje Wallopers" ) 

 went the rounds of the sorting tables daily buying 

 small parcels of stones. Most of them developed 

 into merchants, magnates and millionaires, many 



