Part 1 (1/2)
An African Adventure
by Isaac F Marcosson
FOREWORD
From earliest boyhood when I read the works of Henry M Stanley and books about Cecil Rhodes, Africa has called tothe Great War, however, that I had a definite reason for going there
After these late years of blood and battle America and Europe seemed tame Besides, the econole as bitter as the actual physical conflict Discord and discontent becaet as far as possible from all this social unrest and financial dislocation
So azine articles which first set forth the record of my journey that I was prompted to expand them into this book It may enable the reader to discover a section of the one-time Dark Continent without the hardshi+ps which I experienced
I F M
NEW YORK, _April, 1921_
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
CHAPTER I--sht on the political and economic chaos that has followed the Great War and you find a surprising lack of real leadershi+p Out of thepersonalities ee survives amid the storm of party clash and Irish discord Down in Greece Venizelos, despite defeat, re patriotisives fresh evidence of his vision and authority
Although he was Britain's principal prop during the years of agony and disaster, Lloyd George is, in the last analysis, enius of opportunism One reason why he holds his post is that there is no one to take his place,--another coreatness There is no visible heir to Venizelos Besides, Greece is a small country without international touch and interest sest of the trio, looms up as the most brilliant statesman of his day and his career has just entered upon a new phase
He is the do actor in a drama that not only affects the destiny of the whole British Enificance for every civilized nation The quality of striking contrast has always been his The one-tiht Roberts and Kitchener twenty years ago, is battling with equal tenacity for the integrity of the Imperial Union born of that war Not in all history perhaps, is revealed a more picturesque situation than obtains in South Africa today You have the whole Nationalistepisode In a word, it is contemporary Ireland duplicated without violence and extre the Great War He stood out as the most intellectually alert, and in so the array of nation-guiders hom I talked, and I interviewed them all I saw him as he sat in the British War Cabinet when the Ger across the Western Front, and when the Gerh seas I heard him speak with persuasive force on public occasions and he was like a beacon in the glooland in 1917 as the representative of General Botha, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, to attend the Imperial Conference and to rereat was the need of hined He signed the Treaty under protest because he believed it was uneconomic and it has developed into the irritant that he prophesied it would be
In those war days e foregathered, smuts often talked of ”the world that would be” The real Father of the League of Nations idea, he believed that out of the ier fraternity, econoreat and yet a practical dream
More than once he askedFrom my boyhood the land of Cecil Rhodes has always held a lure for me smuts invested it with fresh interest So I went
The se on his native heath, wearing theon a Government with aon the horizon, was the saist who had raised his voice in the Allied Councils Then the enemy was the German and the task was to destroy the menace of militarism Noas his own unreconstructed Boer--blood of his blood,--and behind that Boer the larger proble peace as bitterly as it waged war shter, with the fight of his life on his hands
Thus it caoes out to South Africa froland on those Union Castle boats so falish novels Like the P & O vessels that Kipling wrote about in his Indian stories, they are a the favorite first aids to the makers of fiction Hosts of heroes in books--and some in real life--sail each year to their romantic fate aboard them
It was the first day of the South African winter when I arrived, but back in A was in full bloouese adventurers of the fifteenth century when they swept for the first time into Table Bay Behind the harbor rose Table Mountain and stretching frolare with the African sun that was to scorch my paths for months to come
Capetown nestles at the foot of a vast flat-toppedthe natural elevations of the world She is another le Kaffir and Boer, Basuto and Britisher, East Indian and Zulu The hardy rancher and fortune-hunter frolobe-trotter In the bustling streets modern taxicabs vie for space with antiquated hanso names like ”Never Say Die,” ”Home Sweet Home,” or ”Honeysuckle” All the horse-drawn public vehicles have naet a familiar feel of America in this South African country and especially in the Cape Colony, which is a place of fruits, flowers and sunshi+ne rese California There is the sense of newness in the at of the abandon that you encounter a the people of Australia and certain parts of Canada It co that within a coe doe
What strikes the observer at once is the sharp conflict of race, first, between black and white, and then, between Briton and Boer South of the Zambesi River,--and this includes Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa,--the native outnu at a reater rate than the European Hence you have an inevitable conflict Race lies at the root of the South African trouble and the racial reconciliation that Rhodes and Botha set their hopes upon reot a hint of what sainst theand he sent an orderly to the stea me to lunch with him at the House of Parlias he said: ”You will find this a really interesting country, full of curious problems”
How curious they were I was soon to find out
I called for him at his modest book-lined office in a street behind the Parliaether to the House Heretofore I had only seen him in the uniform of a Lieutenant General in the British Are suit and a slouch hat was jae from khaki to mufti--and fewsome of the character of their personal appearance,--he re wistful in his face--an indescribable look that projects itself not only through you but beyond It is not exactly preoccupation but a highly developed concentration This look seeh which he was then passing In his springy as a suggestion of pugnacity His whole manner was that of a man in action and who exults in it Roosevelt had the same characteristic but he displayed it with much more animation and strenuosity