Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/206

192 750 miles on that northward journey the progress of the funeral train was accompanied by all the outward and visible signs of mourning which as a rule are only to be witnessed on the burial days of kings. At every blockhouse which guarded the line the troops turned out to salute the silent dead to whose resistless energy was due the line over which they stood on guard. When Bulawayo was reached, the whole city was in mourning. But a few years before it had been the kraal of Lobengula, one of the last lairs of African savagery. Only the previous year a memorial service had been held there in honour of President McKinley, and now the citizens were summoned to a still more mournful service. With an energy worthy of the founder of their State, a road was constructed from Bulawayo to the summit of the Matoppos. Along this, followed by the whole population, the body of Mr. Rhodes was drawn to his last resting-place. The coffin was lowered into the tomb, the mourners, white and black, filed past the grave, and then a huge block of granite, weighing over three tons, sealed the mouth of the sepulchre from all mortal eyes. There, on the Matoppos, lies the body of Cecil Rhodes; but who can say what far regions of the earth have not felt, and will not hereafter feel, a thrill and inspiration of the mind which for less than fifty years sojourned in that tabernacle of clay?