At the north end of the town we come to a gate leading to an avenue
which ran perfectly straight for two miles and a half. The carriage
road, which it is intended to macadamise, is about 30 feet wide, and
running parallel with it on either side is an enclosure 50 feet wide, to
be planted with shade trees. Thus the avenue embraces a width of about
130 feet. At the extremity of it is the Government House, standing in
grounds which four years ago were occupied by Lo Bengula's kraal. We
were all curious to see the place, and one of the first objects shown to
us was the small tree under which the Matabele king dispensed his bloody
judgments.
Here is a description of the place from "Zambesia": "The King's capital
stands upon a ridge on the northern side of the Bulawayo River, in a
most commanding position, overlooking as it does the entire country
round. Every yard of the ground was covered with dung, layer after
layer; the whole place was filthily dirty. The King used to sit on a
block of wood in the middle of a great pole stockade, surrounded by
sheep and goats."
The first sentence is most misleading, though not inaccurate. The kraal
stood upon the same level as the plain of New Bulawayo, but the
"Bulawayo River"--a dry watercourse most of the year--has scoured out a
broad hollow to a depth of about 20 feet in the plain, and, as the kraal
was seated on the brow above it, it enables one to have a view of a
circle of about fifteen miles in diameter, within which are probably
three or four of these long, broad swells of plain land.
Government House is a long, low, white-washed house, in Dutch Colonial
style, with a pillared verandah outside. It is the property of Mr
Rhodes, as well as the avenue just mentioned. I am told he possesses
about eighty square miles altogether hereabouts, and, by the way he is
developing his estates, it will some day be a beautiful as well as
valuable property.
FROM CAPE TOWN TO BULAWAYO MR RHODES SPOKEN OF "WITH UNQUALIFIED
ADMIRATION."
This reminds me that I have not once mentioned Rhodes, though when
describing Rhodesia one ought not to omit his name; but the fact is he
has preferred to remain in the veld rather than undergo the fatigue of
the banquets and ceremonies. From Cape Town here many men have spoken
of him to me, and always with unqualified admiration. I know no man who
occupies such a place in men's thoughts. His absence has given rise to
all kinds of conjectures as to the cause of it. Some say it is due to
the fact that the Cape elections are approaching, and he did not wish to
be forced to a pronouncement of policy; others that it is due to Dr
Jameson's zealous care of his health, as he suffers from heart
complaint; others again say it is due to a wounded spirit, which too
long grieving might easily end in a Timonian moroseness. Whatever the
true cause may be, he has so planted himself in the affections of the
people that no eccentricity of his can detract from his merits. When a
man scatters 200,000 a year on the country out of which he made his
wealth, it covers a multitude of sins in the minds of the recipients of
his gratuitous favours.
"He does mad and fantastic execution
Engaging and redeeming of himself,
With such a careless face and forceless care,
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all."
The festivities of the celebration end to-night, or rather to-morrow
morning at 1 a.m., and then Bulawayo will be left to itself to begin its
own proper work of development. We have seen what Bulawayo is as it
terminated the employment of the ox-wagon, and had just emerged out of
the sore troubles caused by war, famine, and rinderpest. The next train
that arrives after our departure will be the beginning of a new era.
The machinery that litters the road will be brought up, and the
ox-wagons drawn by fourteen oxen, and the wagons drawn by twelve mules,
and those drawn by twenty donkeys, will haul it to the mines, and hence
we may hope at the end of a year or so that Rhodesia will have proved by
its gold output its intrinsic value as a gold held. In my next letter I
mean to touch upon this subject.