He takes pride in his indolence, and declares that the man who performs more labour than his physical needs demand is a fool. He says he never makes a long speech because he is too lazy to expend the energy necessary for its delivery. He declines to walk more than an eighth of a mile unless it is impossible to secure a vehicle or native hammock-bearers to convey him, and then he proceeds so slowly that his progress is almost imperceptible. His indolence may be the result of the same line of reasoning as that indulged in by the cautious man who carries an umbrella when the sun shines, in which case every one who has travelled in the tropics will agree that Mr. Rhodes is a modern Solomon. The only exercise he indulges in is an hour’s canter on horseback in the early morning, before the generous rays of the African sun appear. Notwithstanding his antipathy to physical exertion, Mr. Rhodes is a great traveller, and is constantly moving from one place to another. One week may find him at Groote Schuur, his Cape Town residence, while the following week he may be planning a new farm in far-away Mashonaland. The third week may have him in the Portuguese possessions on the east coast, and at the end of the month he may be back in Cape Town, prepared for a voyage to England and a fortnight’s stay in Paris. He will charter a bullock team or a steamship with like disregard of expense in order that he may reach his destination at a specified time, and in like manner he will be watchful of his comfort by causing houses to be built in unfrequented territory which he may wish to investigate. So wealthy that he could almost double his fortune in the time it would require to count it, Mr. Rhodes is a firm believer in the doctrine that money was created for the purpose of being spent, and never hesitates to put it into practice. He does not assist beggars, nor does he squander sixpence in a year, but he will pay the expenses of a trip to Europe for a man whom he wishes to reconcile, and will donate the value of a thousand-acre farm to a tribe of natives which has pleased him by its actions. His generosity is best illustrated by a story told by one of his most intimate friends in Kimberley. Several years before Barney Barnato’s death, that not-too-honest speculator induced almost all of the employees of the diamond mines to invest their savings in the stock of the Pleiades gold mine in Johannesburg, which Barnato and his friends were attempting to manipulate. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the diamond miners lost all the money they had invested. Mr. Rhodes heard of Barnato’s deceit, and asked him to refund the money, but was laughed at. Mr. Rhodes learned the total amount of the losses--about twenty-five thousand dollars--and paid the money out of his own pocket.