And he was not slow to take advantage of this circumstance.

Kimberley was a wild place at that time, and its distance from the civilised world, as well as the fact that nothing was controlled by public opinion, helped some to amass vast fortunes and put the weaker into the absolute power of the most unscrupulous.

It is to the honour of Rhodes that, however he might have been tempted, he never listened to the advice which was given to him to do what the others did, and to despoil the men whose property he might have desired to acquire.

He never gave way to the excesses of his daily companions, nor accepted their methods of enriching themselves at top speed so as soon to be able to return home with their gains.
From the first moment that he set foot on African soil Rhodes succumbed to the strange charm the country offers for thinkers and dreamers.

His naturally languid temperament found a source of untold satisfaction in watching the Southern Cross rise over the vast veldt where scarcely man's foot had trod, where the immensity of its space was equalled by its sublime, quiet grandeur.