After the Matabele Rebellion, during which occurred one of the most famous episodes in the life of Rhodes, Mrs.
van Koopman had been loud in her praises of the man whom she had been the first to guess would do great things.
The episode to which I refer, when he alone had had the courage to go unattended and unarmed to meet the savage chiefs assembled in the Matoppo Hills, had, by the way, done more than anything else to consolidate the position of the chairman of De Beers in South Africa.
During the first administration of Cape Colony by Mr.Rhodes, when his accession to the premiership had been viewed with a certain suspicion by the Dutch party, Mrs.van Koopman made tremendous efforts to induce them to have full confidence in her protege.

And the attempt succeeded, because even the shrewd Mr.Hofmeyr had at last succumbed to the constant entreaties which she had poured upon him.

Thenceforward Mr.Hofmeyr became one of Mr.Rhodes' firm admirers and strong partisans.

Under the able guidance of Mrs.van Koopman the relations between the Dutch party and their future enemy became so cordial that at last a singular construction was put upon both sides of the alliance by the opponents of both.

The accusation, already referred to, was made against Rhodes that he wished to make for himself in South Africa a position of such independence and strength that even the authority of the Queen might find itself compromised by it.