Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/18

This page has been validated.

4

THE WILL OF CECIL J. RHODES.

be buried in the Matoppos^[1] on the hill which I used to visit and which I called the “View of the World” in a square to be cut in the rock on the top of the hill covered with a plain brass plate with these words thereon—“Here lie the remains of Cecil John Rhodes” and accordingly I direct my Executors at the expense of my estate to take all steps and do all things necessary or proper to give effect to this my desire and afterwards to keep my grave in order at the expense of the Matoppos and Bulawayo Fund hereinafter mentioned.

The Shangani monument.

I direct my Trustees on the hill aforesaid to erect or complete the monument to the men who fell in the first Matabele War at Shangani in Rhodesia the bas-reliefs for which are being made by Mr. John Tweed and I desire the said

↑ Mr. Bertram Mitford says:—“For grim, gloomy savagery of solitude it is probable that the stupendous rock wilderness known as the Matoppo Hills is unsurpassed throughout earth’s surface. Strictly speaking, the term ‘hills’ scarcely applies to this marvellous range, which is rather an expanse of granite rocks extending some seventy or eighty miles by forty or fifty, piled in titanic proportions and bizarre confusion, over what would otherwise be a gently undulating surface, forming a kind of island as it were, surrounded by beautiful rolling country, green, smiling, and in parts thickly bushed. High on the outside ridge of this remarkable range, about twenty miles distant from Bulawayo, towards which it faces, there rises a pile of granite boulders, huge, solid, compact. It is a natural structure; an imposing and dominating one withal, and appropriately so, for this is the sepulchre of the warrior King Umzilikazi, founder and first monarch of the Matabele nation.” Rhodesia says:—“It would appear, according to the discovery of a Native Commissioner, that the hill on the summit of which the remains of Cecil Rhodes have been laid is known in the vernacular as ‘Malindidzimo.’ The literal translation of this is given as ‘The Home of the Spirit of My Forefathers,’ or, without straining the meaning unduly, ‘The Home of the Guardian Spirit.’ It does not appear that Mr. Rhodes was aware of this rendering when he expressed a desire to be buried on that spot after his race was run.”

[1] Mr. Bertram Mitford says:—“For grim, gloomy savagery of solitude it is probable that the stupendous rock wilderness known as the Matoppo Hills is unsurpassed throughout earth’s surface. Strictly speaking, the term ‘hills’ scarcely applies to this marvellous range, which is rather an expanse of granite rocks extending some seventy or eighty miles by forty or fifty, piled in titanic proportions and bizarre confusion, over what would otherwise be a gently undulating surface, forming a kind of island as it were, surrounded by beautiful rolling country, green, smiling, and in parts thickly bushed. High on the outside ridge of this remarkable range, about twenty miles distant from Bulawayo, towards which it faces, there rises a pile of granite boulders, huge, solid, compact. It is a natural structure; an imposing and dominating one withal, and appropriately so, for this is the sepulchre of the warrior King Umzilikazi, founder and first monarch of the Matabele nation.” Rhodesia says:—“It would appear, according to the discovery of a Native Commissioner, that the hill on the summit of which the remains of Cecil Rhodes have been laid is known in the vernacular as ‘Malindidzimo.’ The literal translation of this is given as ‘The Home of the Spirit of My Forefathers,’ or, without straining the meaning unduly, ‘The Home of the Guardian Spirit.’ It does not appear that Mr. Rhodes was aware of this rendering when he expressed a desire to be buried on that spot after his race was run.”

[1]