CIGARETTE PAPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 21772, 29 July 1932, Page 6

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

DOM SEBASTIAN. Royal disappearances have provided the world with some of its greatest mysteries. The Archduke Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary who was reported to have committed suicide, and later was said to have been seen in various parts of the vzorld is the most recent, but back in 1578, Dom Sebastian, the young king of Portugal, suddenly disappeared, and no trace of him was ever found. Readers of Anna Maria Porter’s novels were familiar with the story, but to-day it is hardly known at all. Dom* Sebastian when he was only 22 years of age, led an expedition to Morocco to put down a rising there. He fought a desperate battle against the Moors at Alcazar and performed prodgies of valour, but was disastrously defeated, only fifty of his army being left alive at the end of the encounter. A body, said to be his, was given up by the Moors and was buried at Belem; but his countrymen did not believe that he was dead, and the idea took possession of them that he would reappear and resume his throne. This belief persisted even after the time that could have been allotted as a normal span of a man’s life and as late as 1825 this idea, grown into a religious belief, persisted among superstitious folk. It was this old belief which made Junot say, when during the Peninsular campaign he was asked what he would do with the Portuguese: “What can I do with a people who are l still waiting for the coming of the Messiah and King Sebastian?” This old story is revived in one s memory by the fact that the battle of Alcazar, near Tangiers, was fought on July 29, 1578. —CRITICUS.