South African Memories: Social, Warlike & Sporting from Diaries Written at the TimeWilson, Sarah Isabella Augusta, Lady
History
South African Memories: Social, Warlike & Sporting from Diaries Written at the Time
Wilson, Sarah Isabella Augusta, Lady
South Africa -- Description and travel; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Personal narratives
Before leaving the _Tantallon Castle_, however, I must pass in review
some of those whose home it had been with ourselves for the best part of
three weeks. First I remember the late Mr. Alfred Beit, interesting as
the man who had made the most colossal fortune of all the South African
magnates, and who was then already said to be the most generous of
philanthropists and the kindest of friends; this reputation he fully
sustained in the subsequent years of his life and in the generous
disposition of his vast wealth. I have often been told that Mr. Cecil
Rhodes owed the inspiration of some of his colossal ideas to his friend
Mr. Beit, and when it came to financing the same, the latter was always
ready to assist in carrying out projects to extend and consolidate the
Empire. In these latter years, and since his comparatively early death,
I have heard those who still bear the brunt of the battle lament his
loss, and remark, when a railway was to be built or a new part of the
country opened up, how much more expeditiously it would be done were Mr.
Beit still alive.
Other names that occur to me are Mr. Abe Bailey, well known in racing
circles to-day, and then reputed a millionaire, the foundation of whose
fortune consisted in a ten-pound note borrowed from a friend. Mr. Wools
Sampson,[2] who subsequently so greatly distinguished himself at
Ladysmith, where he was dangerously wounded, had an individuality all
his own; he had seen every side of life as a soldier of fortune,
attached to different regiments, during all the fighting in South Africa
of the preceding years. He was then a mining expert, associated with
Mr. Bailey in Lydenburg, but his heart evidently lay in fighting and in
pursuing the different kinds of wild animals that make their home on the
African veldt. Dr. Rutherford Harris, then the Secretary of the
Chartered Company; Mr. Henry Milner, an old friend; Mr. Geoffrey Glyn
and Mr. F. Guest, are others whom I specially remember; besides many
more, some of whom have joined the vast majority, and others whom I have
altogether lost sight of, but who helped to make the voyage a very
pleasant one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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