CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 199, 1 December 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A GREAT MAX'S GRAVE. The cabled news that the Duke of Connaught and his party visited the grave of Cecil Rhodes is a reminder of the special reasons for making the Matoppas the last resting place of the greatest figure in British South African history. The memory of the great empire-builder is indissolubly connected with the Matabele campaign, and it is because of the undying admiration of the wonderful black fighting people that his grave is in the Matoppas at "The World's View." The Matoppas stand on a plate,hi six thousand feet above the sea-level, and above and around are rugged masses of granite. The whole view is widly impressive. Cecil Rhodes entered this rugged country with but three companions in the days of the Matabele war. Unarmed, he walked straight into their camp, and rebuked them for their cruelties to women and children. The big children were shamed, and when Rhodes left the camp the war was over! Rhodes' grave is cut three feet deep in .the smooth granite of a small natural platform, and all round it are tremendous boulders, except on the one side that gives a view of the valleys beneath. There is in the centre a poor statue of the empire-builder, bareheaded. The Matabeles, in their ehild-like simplicity, believe that the hatlessness of the White Chief has occasioned the drought of the past years. They believe that when Rhodes puts on his hat—signifying to them his pre-eminence over the lesser creation —there will be heavy rain. It is not too much to say that the grave of Rhodes in the lonely Matoppas is an Imperial fortress, for it has the tremendous moral effect of quelling any possible turbulence of the Matabeles, who honor the memo-y of a man who, like themselves, was without physical fear. Outside the circle of stone enclosing the Rhodes monument, is one to Wilson and the other white men who laid down their lives at Shangani. This was erected by the express orders of the uncrowned king of South Africa, and designed by himself. He admired in others the qualities that so distinguished himself.

AN AUSTRALIAN "PROMISED LAND."

Mr. A. W. Canning, the Australian explorer who recently carried out the work of forming a stock road through the Northern Territory of Wesien A.'isiTalia for the Government of that State, has been interviewed in London and ?'olds forth a glowing prospect of the future of the country through which he has just travelled. He says that the climate is perfect, the general run of the iand being about 1200 feet above ?ca level, while the country is in ever;,' way suitable for dairy farming and fc the growing of wheat, cotton, rice''sugar ai;d all tropical crop 3. He found that a groat part of what had hitherto been considered as desert land was covered with edible spinifex, while "saltbush," an excellent food for sheep, was also to be seen in. abundance. Mr. Canning emphatically denied that the Northern Territory was "not a white man's country." Although the heat was often as much as 120 degrees, it was a dry heat, and did not produce the same lassitude and other ill effects as the same temperature would in a moister climate. One of the principal results of Mr. Canning's sojourn in Australia's barren lands has been the discovery of a plentiful supply of artesian water right along the route he followed. He stated that he had constructed a chain of wells from Wiluna, 450 miles north of Perth, to the River Sturt, near Kimberley. The wells, which were placed on an average fourteen miles apart, yielded in many instances more than 7000 gallons an hour, and the smallest was capable of supplying 300 to 500 head of cattle. The water supply, too, was found to lie near the surface, a flow of 4300 gallons an hour being obtained from one well at a depth of nine feet. He considers that it will be found to be the finest pastoral country in the world, and that its present population of a little over 1000 will be multiplied tenfold within a few years.