Chapter 18 - Page 2

example, in that enormous
donation to the Irish party by which he made a bid for their
parliamentary support, and in the story of the Jameson raid. A certain
cynicism of mind and a grim humour complete the parallel. But Rhodes
was a Napoleon of peace. The consolidation of South Africa under the
freest and most progressive form of government was the large object on
which he had expended his energies and his fortune but the development
of the country in every conceivable respect, from the building of a
railway to the importation of a pedigree bull, engaged his unremitting
attention.

It was on October 15th that the fifty thousand inhabitants of
Kimberley first heard the voice of war. It rose and fell in a
succession of horrible screams and groans which travelled far over the
veldt, and the outlying farmers marvelled at the dreadful clamour from
the sirens and the hooters of the great mines. Those who have endured
all -- the rifle, the cannon, and the hunger -- have said that those
wild whoops from the sirens were what had tried their nerve the most.

The Boers in scattered bands of horsemen were thick around the town,
and had blocked the railroad. They raided cattle upon the outskirts,
but made no attempt to rush the defence. The garrison, who, civilian
and military, approached four thousand in number, lay close in rifle
pit and redoubt waiting for an attack which never came. The perimeter
to be defended was about eight miles, but the heaps of tailings made
admirable fortifications, and the town had none of those inconvenient
heights around it which had been such bad neighbours to
Ladysmith. Picturesque surroundings are not favourable to defence.

On October 24th the garrison, finding that no attack was made,
determined upon a reconnaissance. The mounted force, upon which most
of the work and of the loss fell, consisted of the Diamond Fields
Horse, a small aumber of Cape Police, a company of Mounted Infantry,
and a body called the Kimberley Light Horse. With two hundred and
seventy volunteers from this force Major Scott-Turner, a redoubtable
fighter, felt his way the north until he came in touch with the
Boers. The latter, who were much superior in numbers, manoeuvred to
cut him off, but the arrival of two companies of the North Lancashire
Regiment turned the scale in our favour. We lost three killed and
twenty-one wounded in the skirmish. The Boer loss is unknown, but
their commander Botha was slain.

On November 4th Commandant Wessels formally summoned the town, and it
is asserted that he gave Colonel Kekewich leave to send out the women
and children. That officer has been blamed for not taking advantage
of the permission -- or at the least for not communicating it to the
civil