Later popular perception in Britain suggested the Rose-Coloured Map was a direct challenge to Cecil Rhodes's vision of a "Cape to Cairo Red Line". The Cape to Cairo idea was first put forward by Henry "Harry" Hamilton Johnston in an August 1888 newspaper article three years after the Pink Map's publication and only later adopted by Rhodes. His British South Africa Company was founded in October 1888 and only received its royal charter enabling it to trade with local rulers; to buy, sell, and own land; and to operate a police force in Matabeleland and adjacent areas south of the Zambezi River in October 1889. From the incorporation of the British South Africa Company, Rhodes and the company opposed Portuguese claims south of the Zambezi, and Rhodes made no secret of his intention to seize part of Mozambique to gain an outlet to the Indian Ocean. North of the Zambezi, Portuguese claims to the Shire Highlands were opposed by the African Lakes Company and the missionaries, the latter supported by public opinion, especially in Scotland. As late as 1888 the British Foreign Office declined protection to the tiny British settlements in the Shire Highlands. It did not accept expansion of Portuguese influence there, and in 1889 it appointed Harry Johnston as British consul to Mozambique and the Interior, instructing him to report on the extent of Portuguese presence in the Zambezi and Shire valleys. He was also to make conditional treaties with local rulers outside Portuguese control. These conditional treaties did not establish a British protectorate, but prevented the rulers from accepting protection from another state.