There is no
doubt that the men who made the most mischief, and who for years
embarrassed the President, were the "Hollanders," or officials sent out
from the mother-country of the Dutch. They looked on the Transvaal only
as a means for getting rich. Hence the fearful state of bribery and
corruption among them, from the highest official downwards. But this
very bribery and corruption were sometimes exceedingly convenient, and I
remember well, when I revisited Johannesburg in 1902, at the conclusion
of the war, hearing people inveigh against the hard bargains driven by
the English Government; they even went so far as to sigh again for the
good old days of Kruger's rule. Now all is changed once more, after
another turn of the kaleidoscope of time, and yet it is well to remember
that such things have indeed been.
CHAPTER V
THREE YEARS AFTER--LORD MILNER AT CAPE TOWN BEFORE THE
WAR--MR. CECIL RHODES AT GROOT SCHUURR--OTHER INTERESTING
PERSONAGES
"There are many echoes in the world, but few voices."
GOETHE.
On May 6, 1899, we sailed from Southampton on the S.S. _Norman_. We
purposed to spend a few months in Rhodesia, but such is the frailty of
human plans that eventually we stayed in South Africa for one year and
three months.
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