{"collection":"aus","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/aus/peck/peck03.htm","path":"aus/peck/peck03.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/aus/peck/peck03.htm","text":"My office was very small, and very stuffy, though under the floor covering whenever I lifted it up, it was damp and mildewed.\nThe day was hot and steamy, and before me on the desk was a loose-leaf ledger that simply bristled and screamed with figures.\nThe headings were such as this: \"30 x 5.77 Covers, 710 x 90 Covers, 30 x 31 B.E. Covers, many-figured Tubes,\" etc., etc., and the columns were serial numbers of tyres containing as many as nine figures.\nOne figure denoted the year in which the tyres were manufactured, another the month, and intervening figures accounted for wealth of fabric or cord, and other details of tyre-building.\nFor we were distributors of motor-tyres.\nThe little half-door between me and the shop gave me a view of the counter; and the shelves, packed with little red bags, were heavy with their goods.\nIn the little red bags were the inner tubes.\nMen came in and went out.\nSome took price-lists. Some asked questions only, and then retired.\nSome made a purchase and haggled about the discount, and some wanted to see the Chief.\nMy eyes ached and my head was not altogether free from a feeling like neuralgia.\nThe mildew, the heat, the figures-all were contributing factors.\nThen I heard a voice that made me drop my pen and peer out towards that end of the counter near the door, and just out of my view as I remained seated and at ease.\nAs near to the outside door as she could stand while yet within the shop-that is the position taken up by the owner of the voice.\nAnd such a voice! Smooth and soft and cushioned!\nAs velvet is soft to the touch, so this voice is soft to the ear. Perhaps not everyone's ear, but certainly to mine.\nMy twisting office-chair creaked as I stood up. Stood up to attention as rigidly-hatless and coatless as I was-just as I sprang to it with a click when the General addressed me away over in Palestine.\n\"Nungurra ilukka,\" I said.\nThe owner of the voice-a lady-shy, timid, reserved, refined-turned to me.\n\"That is the language of my people,\" she said.\n\"Come here, please, and speak to me,\" I said.\nNow 1 have heard some people snigger at the walk of those to whom this lady belonged.\nIt is certainly as different from that of most Sydney people, or any other white people, as the step of a peacock is from the tramp of a camel. It has the qualities of the peacock.\nIt is soft. It is noiseless. It is dainty.\nIt takes up its full share of the floor. Every toe finds its level, and the heel is planted as firmly as the supports of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.\nAs I said before, it is noiseless.\nWhen I had found the lady a seat, and had resumed mine, I asked, \"In what part of your country were you born?\"\nShe answered evasively.\nIt is as natural for her and her people to be evasive as it is for the most shrewd of us to refrain from telling the whole truth when we want to sell a secondhand car or a groggy horse.\n\"My father,\" she said, \"came from the South and my mother from the North. His language was not the same as my mother's. I speak between the two. My words are both his and hers. Yours are neither. You speak like the people of far, far away. I do not understand you. But I know your words are of my country.\"\nThen she leaned forward and put a hand as soft as her footfall and as soft as her voice, on my shoulder.\nShe peered into my face and searched me as if she expected to see something she would be afraid of.\nBut she was not afraid.\n\"Excuse me putting my hand on your shoulder,\" she said. \"Perhaps I have no right to do it. But I know now you do not mind, and you will understand.\"\nThen her lips quivered and her eyes filled.\nShe leaned forward.\n\"You know my people?\"\nShe questioned me.\nYet it was not really a question. It was a statement of fact.\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I know your people!\"\nThen she overflowed.\n\"And aren't they GOOD people?\"\nIt was an unburdening! It was a cry!\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"They ARE good people!\"\nThen she removed her hat.\nHer hair is white and old.\n\"My father was a King. I am a Princess. My blood is royal!\"\n\"And where was your father a King?\"\n\"He was a King of his people, and they lived around Wollongong. I am a native of the Wollongong district-born at Unanderra!\"\n\"Was your father ever crowned?\" I asked.\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"when I was a grown girl-a young woman-he was crowned by the white people at a Wollongong Show. They gave him the title of 'King Mickey!'\"\nThen I saw a picture of my tiny boyhood.\nIn the Show ring, just after the high-jumping contest was decided, a black man was taken by the hand by a Wollongong dignitary and led to a small dais.\nSome ceremony was enacted, but I was too small and too young to understand.\nI saw that black man invested with something, and the people cheered and the black man shouted and waved his hands, and he had a string round his neck, and a brass crescent hung over his broad hairy chest.\n\"I saw your father crowned,\" I said, \"and since then I have seen many of your people. They are GOOD people.\"\nI bowed my royal visitor out.\nShe carried an inscribed copy of a little book about her folk.\n\"My grandchildren will read it to me,\" she said, \"and I will come back one day, and I will tell you some more of our stories-stories we do not tell excepting to our own people. But I will tell them to you!\"\n\"This,\" I said, \"is a Royal visit.\"\nShe paused.\n\"Your people came here and took our country,\" she said very quietly, \"but just a few of you understand us. I go now to Wollongong.\" My Royal visitor has been back to my office.","title":"Australian Legends: A Royal Visit","type":"page"}