clubs, and what else, that have since grown out there,
just as in a Drury Lane pantomime a palace rises out
of the ground by the stroke of a magic; wand, I cannot
help thinking what a great and marvellous man is the
magician who worked this wonder. .As Mr. Stanley is
the greatest African Explorer, so Mr. Cecil Rhodes stands
out as the greatest African Statesman that ever existed,
and their names will live for ever in the history of what
once could be called the Dark Continent, but which has
now been turned into the land of the future by two of
the greatest men of this century.
I drew up my waggon near one of the only two trees
that stood in the middle of the plain, and I sent my driver
with the oxen to bring a thorn tree in orij$| to make
a thorn enclosure round my camp—a very necessary
precaution if one did not wish getting one’s waggon
looted.
Having given these orders, I was soon joined by Major
Maxwell,1 who took me to the huts occupied by Mr. Colen-
brander, the agent of the Chartered Company, to whom
I presented the letter of introduction Mr. Cecil Rhodes
had given me for all the officials of the Chartered
Company. I was most cordially received by Mr.
Colenbrander and his charming wife, and they invited
me to come and take my meals with thel^, and to
make use of their quarters so long as I should stay
at Bulawayo. They apologized for being unable to give
me a hut, but they were themselves very short of
accommodation.
I could not help admiring the pluck of Mrs. Colenbrander
: a most remarkable woman, fearless of danger,
a splendid rider, a capital shot, and possessing the
knack of ' doing what she liked with the natives,
most difficult to handle, and who would have been too
glad to seize the slightest pretext to assault an unprotected
lady. But many a time I have seen her, in her
husband’s absence, turn out two or three Istalwart natives
136
drunk and most threatening; more than once she had to
seize her gun and to threaten to use it. It was a pleasing
sight to see these savages, who rather despised most white
men, quail before this plucky British lady. She had
considerable influence over Lo Bengula. Often when
she visited him she used to sit boldly on his throne
(an old wooden chair); a sacrilege that would have cost
any man’s life. But the old African chief used merely to
laugh.
“ What funny people you white men are,” he used to
say, “ to bend before a woman. If you were my wife,”
he used to add, turning to Mrs. Colenbrander-----
“ Well,” she usually interrupted, “ if I were your wife I
should make you do what I liked. I should be the
King of the Matabele, and you—well, you would be my
husband.”
Then Lo Ben used to roar, and grant what she had
come to ask for. 1 hrough her many a difficulty was
smoothed down that might otherwise have become most
serious.
I was most anxious to see the famous Lo Bengula of
whom I had heard so much; he was then away at a kraal
some six miles from Bulawayo, and Colenbrander sent
messengers to ask him to grant me an audience. In the
meantime many were the stories I heard about him, and
from all accounts he appeared to be an eminently wise
and far-seeing man. Until the occupation of Mashonaland
by Mr. Rhodes’s pioneers, he had held his people with an
iron hand; understanding that his young men wanted
some outlet to their over-exuberant spirits, he used to
send yearly expeditions to raid neighbouring tribes,
Mashonaland being their favourite raiding-ground. In
this way his power soon extended far and wide, and
all the Mashona chiefs acknowledged his rule. These
raids had also the advantage of preventing conspiracies,
a thing he was most afraid of. For that reason he would
never allow any of his subjects to own or use waggons,
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