#WilliamHills: Rhodes wonders how he will be received in Port Elizabeth
“I may be wrong but I am inclined to think that Rhodes owes his position to his wonderful insight into the human heart and an almost magnetic sympathy."
Benoni City Times founder William Hills sweet-talked his way into the cabin of Cecil John Rhodes on his arrival in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) aboard the Pongola in 1896 after the Jameson Raid.
Before this, he had often wondered why Rhodes should command such unbounded belief from his followers, ‘now I wonder no more’, Hills wrote.
“For half an hour I endeavoured to discover in what the charm consisted only to end by finding myself as fascinated as his most ardent admirer and this against my reason.”
Hills was writing in an article on his life as a journalist, published in 1940.
“I may be wrong but I am inclined to think that Rhodes owes his position to his wonderful insight into the human heart and an almost magnetic sympathy.
“He is a man first, a statesman, a capitalist and a ruler after. Starchiness is as much absent from his character as it is from his shirt.
“With all and sundry he is ‘hail fellow well met’ and possessing a wonderful memory for faces never forgets either enemies or friends.”
That he got to meet Rhodes showed his kindly spirit, Hills wrote.
“… For who wants to talk high politics to a junior in a cabin when he is shortly to make a full explanation to his fellow South Africans.”
Actually, what Rhodes did ask him was what kind of reception Hills thought he would get.
“… And I unhesitatingly replied that he would have a great welcome and all the ladies dressed in their best would be there to welcome him.
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“I am afraid the last remark was rather tactless, for Rhodes was not a ladies’ man. About the warmth of the reception later in the day there was no doubt,” Hills wrote.
“Rhodes made his speech – it was the celebrated speech in which he said ‘Jameson had upset my apple-cart’.
“I often wonder what was the real truth about the raid, and how far or how little, if at all, it was prompted by Rhodes.”
(Article: Carol Stier).
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