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FIRE IN THE EARTH
a
man, as they say. He went down into South Africa as a digger in the
fields, they say, and in spite of his Oxford accent shared the
hardships and leisures of the rough, motley crew about him. But there
was one thing always on his mind, they say: to buy out his neighbor's
claims and build toward greater financial strength in his new-chosen
field of endeavor.
How
he was in the beginning, how he changed from that beginning to the
ending, history will attest. To find out about him in the beginning I
read this in Hedley A. Chil-vers's The Story of De Beers, which comes
close to being an authorized story of the organization, and in which he
quotes one John X. Merriman, a South African statesman, as follows:
"I
suppose I am among the very few who recollect Rhodes as an untidy but
very interesting lad in Kimberley in 1871. Many things have happened
since then, but I always retain an affectionate memory of Rhodes before
he became changed by wealth and power."
In
time Rhodes met Charles Dunell Rudd (Harrow and Cambridge), who had
gone to the Cape in search of health. He and Rhodes acquired a
quarter-claim in what was known as Baxter's Gully, which they worked
for some time. Meanwhile, Rhodes kept meeting famous men and, in the
words of Mr. Chilvers, "got the angles of their views."
In
1873 he linked his De Beers holdings, which he had now acquired, with
those of Rudd and the two bought up other claims. By 1887 the company
achieved complete possession of the De Beers Mine. But there was one
man in the way of Rhodes's ambitions: Barnett Isaacs, who called
himself "Barney Barnato" Grandson of a rabbi, he was the opposite of
Rhodes in background and training, though
(46)
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