But "Governments" of the elected type come and go, making the most lavish promises and denouncing "the other party," who, on turning them out, do ditto. And so it came to pass that The General made his third journey to South Africa, in 1908, when seventy-nine years of age. His life ran serious risk, because his going to Rhodesia himself was considered indispensable in order so to impress some British or South African "statesmen" that they might give him the needed help to establish an Over-Sea Colony there. And, then, all the "statesmen" denounced to Colonel Kitching by one of themselves as "a set of ----fools" say that "nothing can be done at present." And the old man returns to die with his great dream unrealised.
The following account of one journey taken by Colonel Kitching alone, who was not only his Secretary but his representative in many directions throughout his latest years, shows the loving willingness of an Army Secretary to do and bear anything for Christ's sake, and, what our Staff Officers generally understand by the words "indefatigable," and "unconquerable":--
"After a long journey of thirty hours I reached ---- railway station, expecting, in the virgin simplicity of my youthful mind, to find his place within sight--perhaps across a couple of stiles--instead of which I found that it was thirty-six miles or more--four hours' drive in a Cape cart. The only 'boy' at the station with a vehicle was engaged, so I bade him come back again for me as soon as he had got rid of his fare, which he did in something over an hour, although he had said he should be 'back in a second.' When he did come he was unwilling to take me without his baas' leave, so we set off to find the baas; he was not at his house nor at his stable; he might be at church. I went and routed him out of his devotions, finally bargaining with him to take me there and back for £3!
"Now Mr. ----'s 'farm' comprises some eighteen or twenty different farms, of which about 160,000 acres are in one block, and some 80,000 acres more in three or four separate pieces. Each of these farms is managed by a farmer who is responsible to the top manager, who also has charge of one of the individual farms. My destination was a farm where Mr. ---- was believed by the railway people to be that day.