KING OF ZULU DIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 211, 19 June 1933, Page 8

KING OF ZULU DIES.

PASSION FOR MOTOR-CARS. Solomon, the King of the Zulus, is dead. He was only 31. He leaves 15 widows. He was the most envied black man in Africa, and he had modern ideas. The .Government allowed this monarch £SOOO a year, and this enabled him to indulge in his ruling passion—-motor-cars. He was the first native to buy a motor-car, and after the joy of possessing one nothing could hold him back. He bought car after ear— Polis-Poyces and others. He insisted on a white chauffeur, and he loved speed. He bought so many cars at one time that he fell into debt. That rather curbed his passion and he had only six cars at the time of his death. King Solomon always held his court dressed in an omnibus conductor's cap, a blue suit with gold braid trimmed with leopard skin and a leopard skin girdle. He carried a large sword and had hundreds of them. If he could not carry a sword he carried an umbrella.

Litigation was another great love. At the slightest excuse the king would send for his favourite lawyer—a white man—and open a lawsuit. He lost many, and once, when he won a libel action he declared a national holiday among his people. A favourite recreation was shopping in Durban. The king had such a bad reputation among the white traders, however,, that they always refused to give him credit. When lie had enough cash he would first buy a car, then a gaudy uniform, and then a sword—or an umbrella.

On one of these shopping expeditions he saw a porcelain hath. He had never seen a bath before and its use had to be explained to him. Ho bought it and had it convoyed with great ceremony to one of his eight kralls. There it was installed in the royal hut, and every night and morning Solomon seriously took a bath. < Wherever this modern .Solomon went the natives flocked round him, cheering nnWly—he was their king. Whenever he visited a town the natives would leave their work and run to his car. The police at first diverted his procession to the back streets, but the congestion became so great that no one was able to moye. After that the royal car was allowed to take the main streets and the king's adoring subjects help up the traffic. Solomon was the most powerful native in Africa. He despised the ways of his great ancestor Cetawayo, avlio fought the British, yet, because of his blood, he could have raised a great army in a week. He was converted by a missionary. The death of the king, who hated the loincloth of his fathers, and dressed himself in European musical comedy clothes, signifies the passing of the last influential native ruler in that territory.