mention the word "Imperialist." Then he burst out with, "That word and
'Empire' have been so done to death by every wretched little Jew
stockbroker in this country that I am fairly sick of them." "But surely
you are not a Little Englander, Mr. Merriman," I said, "or a follower
of Mr. Labouchere?" To this he gave an evasive reply, and the topic
dropped. I must relate another incident of our sojourn at Cape Town.
Introduced by Mr. Rhodes's architect, Mr. Baker, we went one day to see
a Mrs. Koopman, then a well-known personage in Cape Town Dutch society,
but who, I believe, is now dead. Her collection of Delft china was
supposed to be very remarkable. She lived in a quaint old house with
diamond-paned windows, in one of the back streets, the whole edifice
looking as if it had not been touched for a hundred years. Mrs. Koopman
was an elderly lady, most suitably dressed in black, with a widow's cap,
and she greeted us very kindly and showed us all her treasured
possessions. I was disappointed in the contents of the rooms, which were
certainly mixed, some very beautiful things rubbing shoulders with
modern specimens of clumsy early Victorian furniture. A room at the back
was given up to the Delft china, but even this was spoilt by ordinary
yellow arabesque wall-paper, on which were hung the rare plates and
dishes, and by some gaudy window curtains, evidently recently added. The
collection itself, made by Mrs. Koopman at very moderate prices, before
experts bought up all the Dutch relics, was then supposed to be of great
value. Our hostess conversed in good English with a foreign accent, and
was evidently a person of much intelligence and culture. She had been,
and still was, a factor in Cape politics, formerly as a great admirer of
Mr. Rhodes, but after 1896 as one of his bitterest opponents, who used
all her considerable influence--her house being a meeting-place for the
Bond party--against him and his schemes. We had, in fact, been told she
held a sort of political salon, though hardly in the same way we think
of it in England as connected with Lady Palmerston, her guests being