interests in Kimberley were amalgamated, should be so drawn that the funds of that corporation were available to help towards the realisation of his dreams. Moreover, Rhodes was now a man whose word carried weight and authority in Downing Street. Consequently, when he sent his emissaries to seek concessions from LoBengula they were men of very different type from the concession-hunters who had preceded them, and LoBengula could feel that undertakings given on Rhodes' authority would be respected, and that white men entering the country on his service would be subject to his control. In the result, and in spite of all the intrigues of opposing interests, LoBengula, on Oct. 30, 1888, granted to C. D. Rudd, Rhodes' partner, to Rochfort Maguire, who had been Rhodes' friend since Oxford days and a Fellow of All Souls' College, and to Matabele' Thompson, a concession conveying the monopoly of the mineral rights throughout his territory. This, known as the Rudd Concession, was the original basis of the British South Africa Company.

Having secured it, and having arranged with certain other parties who had obtained trading concessions from LoBengula for the fusion of their interests, Rhodes and his associates proceeded to approach the Crown for a Charter of incorporation for a company to acquire and work these concessions. Their proposals were well received; and the following extract from a letter of May 16, 1889, written by direction of Lord Knutsford, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, to the Foreign Office shows what was in the mind of the British Government at the time :

'I am also to enclose a copy of a letter from Mr C. J. Rhodes, of the Cape Colony, and two other gentlemen who, as representing the holders of what is called the Rudd Concession from LoBengula, state that they have arranged with Lord Gifford's Company to co-operate in any such scheme as that proposed. In fact, it is understood that the combination, of which Lord Gifford and Mr Rhodes are the leaders, hope to be able to unite most if not all the existing British interests in the Protectorate and the countries to the northwards.

'I am to observe that, in consenting to consider this scheme in more detail, Lord Knutsford has been influenced

* Parliamentary Paper C. 5918, No. 88.

by the consideration that if such a Company is incorpora by Royal Charter its constitution, objects, and operati will become more directly subject to control by Her Majes Government than if it were left to these gentlemen to in porate themselves under the Joint Stock Companies Acts they are entitled to do. In the latter case, Her Majes Government would not be able effectually to prevent company from taking its own line of policy, which mi possibly result in complications with Native Chiefs others, necessitating military expenditure and perhaps e military operations. The example of the Imperial F African Company shows that such a body may to some siderable extent relieve Her Majesty's Government fr diplomatic difficulties and heavy expenditure. Knutford's judgment such a company as that proposed the Bechuanaland Protectorate, if well conducted, wo render still more valuable assistance to Her Majesty's Gove ment in South Africa.

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'At present nothing could be more unsatisfactory the the condition of things existing in that quarter. Every y large grants have to be obtained from Parliament nomina in aid of civil expenditure, but almost altogether swallow up in the maintenance of a semi-military police force, wh the peace of the country is by no means as well assured a ought to be, and fresh demands are being made on 1 Majesty's Government for further expenditure on an incre of the police and telegraph construction, pronounced to absolutely necessary for the safety of the country.'

Shortly afterwards, on July 13, 1889, the form petition of Rhodes and his friends for the Charter v submitted to the Crown. It set forth :

That the existence of a powerful British Company, c trolled by those of Your Majesty's subjects in whom Y Majesty has confidence, and having its principal field operations in that region of South Africa lying to the no of Bechuanaland and to the west of Portuguese East Afri would be advantageous to the commercial and other intere of Your Majesty's subjects in the United Kingdom and Your Majesty's Colonies.

'That Your Majesty's Petitioners desire to carry in effect divers concessions and agreements which have be made by certain of the chiefs and tribes inhabiting the st, region, and such other concessions, agreements, grants, a treaties as Your Majesty's Petitioners may hereafter obtɛ

te within the said region or elsewhere in Africa, with the view Oof promoting trade, commerce, civilisation, and good govern

ment (including the regulation of liquor traffic with the Onatives) in the territories which are or may be comprised in such concessions, agreements, grants, and treaties as aforesaid.

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'That Your Majesty's Petitioners believe that if the said concessions, agreements, grants, and treaties can be carried into effect, the condition of the natives inhabiting the said territories will be materially improved and their civilisation 8 advanced, and an organisation established which would tend to the suppression of the slave trade in the said territories, and to the said territories being opened to the immigration of Europeans, and to the lawful trade and commerce of Your for Majesty's subjects and of other nations.'

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The Charter itself, which was dated Oct. 29 in the same year, recited the intentions of the petitioners as above expressed, and announced that the Crown, 'being satisfied that the intentions of the petitioners are praiseworthy and deserve encouragement, and that the enterprise in the petition described may be productive of the benefits set forth therein,' constituted and incorporated the British South Africa Company.

The documents thus bear witness to the threefold object which Rhodes had set before himself: to establish British ascendency in South Central Africa, to develop the potential wealth of that part of the world, and to Traise the lot of its native inhabitants. The subsequent whistory of the Company will show the extent to which this purpose has been achieved. Avowedly the Company's Charter was copied from earlier models: avowedly Her Majesty's Government granted it because by this means it was thought that British influence could best be extended over the regions of Africa concerned with the minimum of risk, responsibility, and expense to the Crown. Once more as in earlier centuries the merchant adventurer had been called in to do for his country work which his country might have been supposed to be willing to do for itself.

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The British South Africa Company was floated with an original capital of 1,000,000l.; but it was not born without travail and heavy labour. The original feat of obtainbing the Rudd Concession was a remarkable achievement Vol. 241.-No. 478.

F

on the part of Messrs Rudd, Maguire, and Thompson; a the task of securing its practical exploitation remaine In a recent address to the African Society* Maguire, now President of the British South Afr Company, has given an interesting account of the i pression produced on his mind by LoBengula's attitu towards the problem of contact between his people a white civilisation. That attitude, Mr Maguire felt, v one of haunting fear of something which, though t strong to be ultimately resisted, should, nevertheless, deferred so far as possible. It is not wonderful, th that there should have been a real danger that I Bengula might repent of the grant which he had sign Rival would-be concessionaires were at his elbow warn him and his people that he was giving away country, and were so far successful that LoBeng actually put to death the induna whom he held answ able for having advised him to sign the Rudd Concessio thus drastically applying to the circumstances of F own savage monarchy the doctrine of ministerial sponsibility. The influence of Her Majesty's Governme was required to persuade LoBengula to stick to bond, but would not of itself have sufficed for th purpose, had not two adventurous journeys been ma to the Chief's kraal by Dr Jameson as the person Ambassador of Rhodes.

The story of Jameson's life has been told by Mr I Colvin in two brilliant volumes. If his work is a le closely woven historical narrative than Mr William 'Life of Rhodes,' less accurately documented, and such less valuable as a book of reference, it is that of young man who has sat at the feet of one old enoug to be his father and has loved him with a filial devotio It is filled with the very spirit of hero-worship. It is glorious tale of courage and daring effort, of marvello journeys, of high achievements, of catastrophic failur and of patient brave recovery.

Jameson indeed, the beloved Doctor' of Kimberle days, Rhodes' physician and life-long friend, was of a the characters in this romantic story the most wholl possessed by the Elizabethan spirit of adventure. H

* Journal of the African Society,' vol. XXII, no. lxxxvi.

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was the first of the Rhodesian pioneers, explorer and ed administrator. He was to be the leader of the Raid, to know the inside of an English gaol, and afterwards to rise again to be Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, to be im- with General Botha the chief architect of the Union of ude South Africa, and to end his life as President of the British South Africa Company. He was gifted with an intelligence of lightning quickness, a radiant and infections humour, personal charm amounting to witchery, and courage passing the bounds of audacity and physical endurance. LoBengula was not proof against a personality whom very few could resist. Jameson's skill relieved the pain of the gout from which the stout old Chief suffered. The Chief took Jameson into high favour, made him an 'induna' of his favourite regiment, kept his word with Jameson's principals, and at his last interview with him promised him the road' that is to say, undertook to admit to his territory the emissaries of the Company which was to develop its wealth.

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At length, in the latter part of 1890, the preparations for the Company's entry into Rhodes' 'North' were complete, and a force of pioneers and police, as daring a band of adventurers as ever Pizarro or Cortes led, started from Macloutsie, in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, for the promised land. Accompanied and inspired by Jameson, guided by the famous big-game hunter Selous, they skirted the south-eastern edge of Matabeleland proper, where the young bloods of LoBengula's impis were with difficulty restrained by their Chief from falling upon and destroying them. Their difficulties were endles, their danger incessant; but they came safely through into the uplands of Mashonaland. On Sept. 12 they planted their flag at Fort Salisbury, now the capital of Southern Rhodesia, and Rhodes' race for the North

To retain what had been acquired needed as much hardihood as its acquisition; but it would be impossible here to do more than allude to Jameson's labours in establishing the nucleus of a civilised Government for

pioneers and the natives surrounding them, in Bencouraging their infant industries of mining and agriculture, and in finding for them a road to the sea at Beira Mr Colvin has told the tale; and all that need