An Australian King.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XI, 12 September 1903, Page 718

An Australian King.

King Barak, otherwise “Billy,” the last of a long line of sable monarchs who ruled the destinies of the meandering Yarra in the prehistoric days, has gone to gambol on that happy hunting ground where, he had come to believe, there is no colour line, and no distinction amongst the races (says an Australian paper anent the death of a somewhat noted “black fellow”). Simon was king —and no doubt a very good king, too — before Captain Cook disturbed the peaceful sylvan glades of Australia with gunpowder and alcohol, and Barak succeeded Simon, and wandered through the wilds of Gippsland, and knew Buckley, “the wild white man,” about whom the daily papers have been telling taradiddles for half a century and more. Barak and his warriors raided Gippsland in the early days, and distributed the prizes which resulted from their forays when they returned to the banks of the peaceful Yarra, where they made their primitive homes and buried their dead beneath the shade of some sturdy trees, upon which was engraven, in rude simplicity, their earthly history. Civilisation brought evil days to the aborigine, and in time the dusky potentate descended from his high estate to become a bush tracker, and afterwards a common policeman—a sort of native policeman, without portfolio; and, last scene of all, a State pensioner at Coranderrk. For many years, “when the wattle bloomed,” King Billy visited the grave of hia father, in the neighbourhood of Kew, and placed native game and weapons upon the mound, but for a long time past the same old civilisation has trampled down the sacred spot, and made homes and built habitations upon the natives’ graveyard. Barak was a reverent, white-

headed old man at the time of his death —upwards of 90 years old—and was in no sense a common blaekfellow. He was intelligent in no common way, religious, and tactful, and was respected for his honesty and straightforwardness in the Healesville district, where he was best known. V O O O o Royal Only by Position. Princess Zorka of Montenegro, the late wife of Peter Karageorgevitch. the new King of Servia, was a handsome woman, whose portraits show her to have resembled her mother, Princess Milena, and her sister Elena, Queen of Italy. There is not a drop of really Royal blood in the veins of the reigning Prince of Montenegro, his consort, or his children; but the great favour shown his family by the Czar Alexander 111., and the idea that one of his daughters might become Empress of Russia, gave the worthy Nikola a rise, and drew the attention of illustrious match-makers to his house. His eldest son, Danilo, obtained the Duchess Jutta of Mecklen-burg-Strelitz as bride, a Princess descended from King George 111. of England. One of his many daughters married a Russian Grand Duke, and ranks as an Imperial Highness. The great match of the Montenegrin First Family, however, was made when Princess Elena married the Prince of Naples, now King of Italy, who comes of a truly Royal race, and whose Government might almost class among the Great Powers of Europe were it not for a regrettable shortness of national funds. The new King of Servia, like the last ill-fated holder of the title, is only Royal by position, not by blood; and the same may be observed of his sons, of whom one will probably take the title of Crown Prince- The sons will be able to boast, though, that they have right Royal cousins, the children of Montenegrin aunts who have married into old reigning families; and when young George, now an Heir Apparent, is old enough to marry, an attempt will probably be made to secure a Princess for him who will at least be a Serene Highness by birth. o o o o c A Friendless Boyhood. At Mr. Westcott’s was a boy who was also destined to play a conspicuous, yet very different, part in the religious world, though at that time his future sphere was probably not suspected even by himself. This was the late Marquis of Bute, who was probably the most solitary creature in the whole school —not from any exclusiveness arising from his rank, but owing to an excessive shyness, which he retained more or less in after life. His on frailty was a weakness for jam, and his absorbing passion books. At that time he wrote rather promising English verse, by dint of which he gained the school prize for a poem on Edward the Black Prince; but he apparently abandoned verse-writing in his maturer days; none, at least, was ever given to the public. In spite of his high rank a.id splendid prospects he seemed as friendlesc i'J the outer world as at school, for no one, I believe, ever came to visit him, except once an old nurse whom he brought into the Fourth Form Room at Bill, and showed the various classic names cut on the panels. Yet not half a dozen years after this lonely, almost neglected youth was selected by an ex-Prime Minister as his model for the principal figure in one of the most renowned novels of the century! The excellent qualities that marked his subsequent career were to some extent due to the influence of one of the undermasters, good old John Smith, a man of sterling character, if of few attainments, to whom many a boy has incurred a lifelong debt of gratitude. Honest, God-fearing, single-minded, he was in the school a power for good, the value of which was at the time never properly estimated, and to him might well be applied the beautiful words of Thackeray, that “when he went to heaven the angels must have turned out and presented arms.” —From “Personalia,” by “Sigma,” in “Blackwood’s Magazine.”