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By Root 3336 0

titans, Rhodes the taciturn plotter, Barnato the vaudevillian, fought each other for years, and then one night they stood face-to-face in the cottage of a man destined to be famous in South African history: Dr. Leander Starr Jameson. At four in the morning, after eighteen hours of tense bargaining, a deal was struck whereby Othello would eventually surrender all his control to Mars for a check whose photograph would be widely displayed throughout the world: £5,338,650. As Barnato capitulated, bleary-eyed and worn down, he said, 'Some people have a fancy for one thing, some for another. You, Rhodes, have a fancy for building an empire. Well, I suppose I must give in to you.' But he refrained from doing so until Rhodes promised that he would personally sponsor Barnato for membership in the ultra-exclusive Kimberley Club, where no Jewish Othello from Whitechapel would normally be welcomed.

If Barney's recitation of Hamlet had been surprising to Frank, his campaign for election to Parliament was stupefying: he purchased a whole new set of Paris suits, an imperial landau pulled by four dappled horses, European gilded uniforms for six footmen, a handsome costume for a postillion who rode ahead blowing a long trumpet, and a brass band of eighteen to follow behind. 'I voted for him,' Frank told the young gentlemen, and to his delight he found that they had, too. And he suspected that Mr. Rhodes had done the same, for as he once said, 'There are few men in this world who achieve everything they seek. Barney Barnato is one. He's played Othello to applause. He's recited Hamlet on his head. He's won the boxing championship of the diamond mines for his weight. He's had his own imperial guard. He's been elected to office. And he's the richest Jew in the country, with a full-fledged membership in the Kimberley Club. What more could he want?'

The young gentlemen were saddened when they heard that this man who had conquered the world by courage and sheer brazenness had committed suicide by throwing himself off the England-bound Scot in the middle of the Atlantic.

When Cecil Rhodes acquired control of the diamond fields, his attention was free to focus on the greater goals of his life; mere money, of which he now had prodigious supplies, interested him little except as a path to power. In the years when he was one of the richest men in the world, he continued to live with his young gentlemen in austere surroundings. 'Every man has his price,' he assured Saltwood, 'and often it's a hankering for luxury. With enough money you can buy any man. For example, the king up in Matabele-land wants guns. Above everything else, he wants guns. So let's see that he gets them.'

Selecting a team from among his Kimberley staff, he began to suborn the king, and this left him free to study the perpetual problem: 'Frank, we have at our end of the continent a priceless land governed by three races. Englishwho ought to rule. Boerswho don't know how to rule. And Kaffirswho should never be allowed to rule. What's to be done?'

He allowed Frank to study this problem for some days, then gave his own answer: 'It's clear that England was intended to govern all of Africa. We're people of vision, decency, honor. We know how to govern, and to everyone we govern we bring added virtues. So we must gain control.

'The Boers? I love them. In some ways they're sturdier than the English. But they lack vision. They will never be able to provide good government. The republics they occupy must become part of our enterprise, and I think I see ways of accomplishing this. When they join us, they must be given every consideration, for we need them. But join they must.

'The Kaffirs? I stand ready to offer full citizenship to any man regardless of his color, so long as he is civilized. Would it be proper for them to have the vote while they remain in barbarism? I say they must be treated as children, and we must do something for the minds and brains the Almighty has given them.' He added, 'We must lord it over them until they gain civilization. Above all, Frank, never let them have