A Vivid Monarch—Alfonso a Sportsman

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 110, 30 July 1927, Page 24

A Vivid Monarch — Alfonso a Sportsman

HING ALFONSO XIII. recently attained the 25th anniversary of his assumption of the rights and duties of the crown of Spain. He has been King ever since his birth, 41 years ago. Alfonso XII. had died of rapid consumption in his shooting lodge at El Pardo six months before, and only the hope of a male heir stood between Spain and civil war. Already the succession had cost the country three civil wars within a century. It was in this perilous situation that the royal standard with the lions of Aragon and the castle of Castile was unfurled on the palace in Madrid on May 17, ISS6, and the crowds waiting outside knew that a male heir had arrived. Within the great pale granite palace the Duchess de Medina de los Torres was issuing from the Queen Mother’s apartments carrying a puny infant wrapped in cotton wool and Senor Sagasta was presenting to the Councillors of State a King lying on a silver salver and covered with a cushion, whose hope of life seemed fragile, indeed. The Queen Mother, Dona Maria Christina, became Regent, and Sagasta and Canovas, leaders of the

Liberals and Conservatives under the Constitution of 1876, concluded their truce over the cradle of her son. Twenty-five Years Ago The Regency ended. On his 16tli birthday the young Alfonso took the oath in the House of Deputies before the assembled estates of his realm. There was no coronation, but none of the impressiveness of a coronation was lacking. Accompanied by the Queen Regent, he was met by a commission of 12 Senators and 12 Deputies, who conducted him to the great throne. The boy King was a boy of surprisingly good physique, tall and perhaps a little thin, but hardened by his mother’s Spartan training. Three attempts have been made since then to accomplish what his mother’s devotion prevented his once frail health from accomplishing in the days of his minority. A bomb was hurled at the carriage in which he was driving through Paris with President Loubet. Another bomb was thrown at himself and his English bride just after their marriage in Madrid. On a third occasion he wheeled his horse and himself rode down Sanchez Alegre, who was rushing at him in the street firing a revolver. There was a time when it seemed impossible that he could ever bring peace to a country so distracted with civil wars and pronunciamentos, but to-day those memories seem quite | as remote as in fact they are. No King has retained more than Alfonso that quality which in Spain endears a ruler to his subjects, that quality which the Spanish call “Ilaneza” sincerity and familiarity

combined; and this he has done despite a court which, if its King was determined to play tennis, would be quite capable of preferring to see him play it in field marshal’s uniform with his sword rattling about his legs. Surrounded by the stiffest court in Europe, a court which far more than anything in Rome is the very ghost of the old Roman Empire, Don Alfonso has contrived to remain easily the most vivid personality among all the Kings of Europe. His love of a joke was famous and recently he drenched the Prince of Wales at Seville by turning on the concealed jets called the burladores in the pathways of the Alcazar gardens. Thousands of tales were told of his love of sport, and perhaps one reason why he succeeded in gaining the affection of a nation of sport-loving people was that if lie was not the first, he was at least one of the first kings in Europe to drive his own car, and years ago the Hispano-Suiza Company is said to have told him that he could have a job as a racing driver any time he wanted it. There used to be an oftrepeated story of his having smashed his car against a tree outside Madrid one day. A Minister, following an another car, leaped out and ran forward to rebuke him for his reckless driving. “You mind your own business,” the young King is reported to have said. “If you attended to the affairs of the country as well as I attended to this car just now, Spain would have no need of a King.” Nowadays these wild stories are not told of him. His lighter side is principally of interest as indicating the abounding energy which has enabled him to survive the most exacting royal existence in Europe. x\s chief of his fighting forces, Alfonso is much in uniform. On his feet a tall, erect figure, quick of movement but never less than royal, he is first and foremost the Spanish gentleman. He is a fine horseman and a good shot. On his own preserves in the Credos Mountains he hunts some of the noblest wild game in Europe. As the Duke of Toledo his racing stable is well known. He and his heir, the Prince of Asturias, take a direct interest in farming on their El Pardo estate along the Manzanares outside Madrid, where at present extensive laboratories are being installed for the study of insect pests. Above all he is a family man ahd the illhealth of several of his boys is a silent sorrow of which the world hears nothing. Perhaps it is on his frequent visits to London that the world sees Alfonso as intimately as kings are ever seen. The country house pranks and the mock bullfights that used to be arranged for him at Eaton Hall have passed. Nowadays in London he looks much like an English squire up from the country for a few days, and there is a small restaurant off Bond Street where he is likely to be found sitting to a chop and a whisky and soda in perfect peace.

around Savai-i with her, the eel-man following. The father sent the girl and her mother ahead, while he built mountains and other obstacles to impede the creature with the face of a man and the body of an eel from following. Ultimately, the couple gave themselves to the eel-man, hoping that while he was eating them the daughter would escape. But the eel-man threw them aside and followed the girl, until her other relations mustered in a body and killed him. As he was dying, he crawled up to the girl and expressed his last farewell; Rina, let us part in love When I am killed Ask for my head as your portion Take it and plant it in a Tonaan (or stone ) wall. Its fruit yon will drink And use as water-carriers, single and double. With its leaves you will plait mats and roofing, Also a fan to fan yourself , When meditating on your love for me, In the nuts you will see my face. Which every time you drink will be kissed by you.

Sin?, did as she was bid. and the place where the head was buried by her is called Tanuga-le-ia to the present day. A coconut tree sprang- up there, and the natives connected this with the eel-man’s head and his last words.