But at last by patient
study I have managed it, I believe. As I understand it, the Uitlanders
and other Dutchmen were dissatisfied because the English would not allow
them to take any part in the government except to pay taxes. Next, as I
understand it, Dr. Kruger and Dr. Jameson, not having been able to make
the medical business pay, made a raid into Matabeleland with the
intention of capturing the capital, Johannesburg, and holding the women
and children to ransom until the Uitlanders and the other Boers should
grant to them and the Chartered Company the political rights which had
been withheld from them. They would have succeeded in this great scheme,
as I understand it, but for the interference of Cecil Rhodes and Mr.
Beit, and other Chiefs of the Matabele, who persuaded their countrymen to
revolt and throw off their allegiance to Germany. This, in turn, as I
understand it, provoked the King of Abyssinia to destroy the Italian army
and fall back upon Johannesburg; this at the instigation of Rhodes, to
bull the stock market.
CHAPTER LXVI.
Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
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