anti-British Englishman, Mr. Merriman, the deed of concession was sealed, and its validity was recognised by the Government. And thus in 1888, after years of patient endeavour, Cecil Rhodes at last had made the way clear for the realisation of his mighty scheme. The sinews of war had now to be found; and Rhodes, in anticipation, before the granting of the concession, had made his provisions. First he had brought about the amalgamation of the diamond-mining companies, and then, as head of the great De Beers Corporation with its rent-roll of four millions sterling a year, he, in 1887, effected the alteration of the De Beers Trust Deed by a liquidation of the Company, so as to give the De Beers directors power to apply the Company's funds to outside objects, that is, to the development of the North. Messrs. Barnato and Beit agreed to this on the condition of being made life governors, and ever since loyally co-operated with Rhodes in the execution of his scheme. The next step was the granting of the charter by the British Government in 1889, and the creation of the British South Africa Company. Then Rhodes sent out the famous Pioneer Expedition to Mashonaland, and the white men established themselves in Rhodesia. It must be borne in mind that at that time and for years afterwards Rhodes had to be ever closely watching and cunningly circumventing the German Boers and Portuguese, who spared no effort to keep us from the north. Bismarck's agent, Count Pffeil, was sent on a secret mission to South Africa and all but succeeded in anticipating Rhodes, and in winning for Germany a broad strip of territory that would have connected her eastern and western possessions, so forming a bar across Africa from ocean to ocean that would have effectually shut us out. Then there was the Boer trek into Mashonaland in 1891, when the Rhodesians guarded the drifts against the invaders--a scheme of Kruger's that was frustrated without the shedding of blood. Even when the Pioneer Expedition was on its way, the energetic Portuguese D'Andrade was distributing the flags of his country among the chiefs, and attempting to get concessions that would cut Mashonaland off from Matabeleland. To defeat his plans Rhodes entered into a treaty with Umtassa, and obtained the Gazaland concession from Gungunyana, a concession which would have extended the Chartered Company's possessions to the shores of the Indian Ocean had not Lord Salisbury refused to ratify it and acknowledged the claims of Portugal. Then again in 1889 Rhodes, whose Intelligence Department always supplied him in good time with information as to the doings of his rivals, hearing that Germany intended to cut us off at the head of Lake Nyassa, secretly sent Mr. H. H. Johnson to hoist British flags at Port Abercorn on Lake Tanganyika and other places, as proof of our occupation. The Portuguese also hoped to erect a wall against our expansion by connecting her eastern and western territories, and for this purpose an