The cartoon was published in the 10 December 1892 edition of Punch, accompanied by a recent excerpt from The Times about a Rhodes plan to extend an electrical telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo.

The excerpt from The Times reads: Mr. Rhodes announced that it was his intention, either with the help of his friends or by himself, to continue the telegraph northwards, across the Zambesi, through Nyassaland, and along Lake Tanganyika to Uganda.

This colossal Monte Cristo means to cross the Soudan ... and to complete the overland telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo; that is, from England to the whole of her possessions or colonies, or 'spheres of influence' in Africa.

[3] In Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism, in Colonial Africa, Rhodes is introduced as the "future South African politician and diamond magnate" who claimed he "would annex the planets" if he could.

[8][9] In 2013, political cartoonist Martin Rowson referenced Sambourne's cartoon in a satirical illustration published on 1 February in The Guardian on British Prime Minister David Cameron's policies regarding Algeria and the French intervention in Mali.

Rhodes' legacy in modern-day South Africa has been described by scholar Patrick Bond as "one of the world's most lucrative, and destructive",[11] referencing the numerous fraudulent and misleading treaties he signed with various African peoples which ceded portions of their territory to him.