unknown Northern Territory almost at a moment's notice. He had obtained
concessions from the black tyrant, Lobengula, when all other emissaries
had failed; backwards and forwards many times across the vast stretch of
country between Bulawayo and Kimberley he had carried on negotiations
which had finally culminated, five years previously, in his leading a
column of 500 hardy pioneers to the promising country of Mashonaland,
which up to that time had lain in darkness under the cruel rule of the
dusky monarch. During three strenuous years Dr. Jameson, with no
military or legal education, had laboured to establish the nucleus of a
civilized government in that remote country; and during the first part
of that period the nearest point of civilization, from whence they could
derive their supplies, was Kimberley, a thousand miles away, across a
practically trackless country. Added to this difficulty, the
administrator found himself confronted with the wants and rights of the
different mining communities into which the pioneers had gradually split
themselves up, and which were being daily augmented by the arrival of
"wasters" and others, who had begun to filter in as the country was
written about, and its great mining and agricultural possibilities
enlarged upon. Finally, goaded thereto and justified therein by
Lobengula's continued cruelties, his raids on the defenceless Mashonas,
and his threats to the English, Dr. Jameson had led another expedition
against the King himself in his stronghold of Bulawayo. On that occasion
sharp fighting ensued, but he at length brought peace, and the dawning
of a new era to a vast native population in the country, which, with
Mashonaland, was to be known as Rhodesia. In fact, up to then his luck
had been almost supernatural and his achievements simply colossal. Added
to all this was his capacity for attaching people to himself, and his
absolutely fearless disposition; so it is easy to understand that
Kimberley hardly dared breathe during the next momentous days, when the
fate of "the Doctor," as he was universally called, and of his men, who