Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/338

 sacrificed the lives of their followers with equal recklessness On the four sides of the notable monument near Rhodes's grave are bronze panels showing scenes from various campaigns in Rhodesia; the figures are of heroic size, and executed with so much faithfulness by John Tweed that many of the faces may be recognized From Rhodes's grave, the Matopo Hills may be seen in all their remarkable desolation. The place looks like hell with the fires out; like the world upside down. Rhodes had a model farm of 115,000 acres just outside the Hills, and spent $150,000 on an irrigating dam. He expected this dam to irrigate 2,000 acres, but it actually irrigates less than 700. Rhodes spent considerable time on this farm, and frequently went to the high hill where his body was afterwards buried. In moods of despondency, when he knew his illness must soon result in death, he spent several moonlight nights on the spot where his grave is now located. Several attendants accompanied him, but he said little to them; he silently looked around at what is probably the most majestic scene of desolation in the world. Rhodes was less than fifty when he died, and his thoughts about the vanities of life would have been exceedingly interesting in print. He was one of the remarkable characters of recent history, and I shall long remember him; especially because of a statue erected in his memory at the crossing of two principal streets in Bulawayo. This statue is a wonderfully lifelike reproduction of a man, and I have repeatedly looked at it with more interest than I usually look at works of art On the journey to the Matopo Hills, we saw frequent bunches of wild baboons; in