Part 13 (1/2)
The Prince and his staff landed unostentatiously in white naval kit from a bra.s.s-funnelled steam picket-boat. The usual procession of carriages was formed, after the reception formalities, each drawn by a fine pair of horses, and the Prince was taken through decorated streets to the House of a.s.sembly, where he inspected a guard-of-honour composed of seamen from H.M.S. _Calcutta_. Within were a.s.sembled members of the Executive and Legislative Councils and other leading residents and their families, in the garb with which civilized ceremony defies temperatures the world over.
The Governor read an address of welcome, in the course of which he reminded the Prince of their having met in France, where he, Sir James, was in command of the Indian Army Corps. The Prince, in the course of his reply, referred to the celebration of the tercentenary of the establishment of representative inst.i.tutions in Bermuda, then taking place in the island, having been postponed for a month to coincide with his own visit. He also acknowledged the courtesy of the United States Government in sending the U.S.S. _Kansas_ to meet him. In conclusion he touched upon the impressions left upon himself by his tour and its lesson of the unity, strength and devotion which bind all parts of His Majesty's dominions to British ideals.
Later on in the garden of the public buildings the Prince laid the foundation-stone of a war-memorial, the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps and Militia artillery furnis.h.i.+ng guards-of-honour, and relatives of fallen men being presented.
On the following day the Prince inspected the Royal Navy dockyard, and placed a wreath upon the grave of the late Admiral Napier, until recently in command of the Royal West Indian squadron, who was one of the victims of an outbreak of typhoid in these islands. He also paid a farewell visit to H.M.S. _Calcutta_, Flags.h.i.+p of the Royal West Indian Squadron, which had been his escort throughout the tour in these waters, and said good-bye to its officers and men, at the same time conferring the Knight Commanders.h.i.+p of the Victorian Order upon Admiral Everett, and the Companions.h.i.+p on Captain n.o.ble, R.N.
The final day of the Prince's visit to Bermuda found him at St. George, the quaint coral-built old capital, to which he drove himself from Government House, Hamilton, in a high-seated mail phaeton, with two horses, Sir James Willc.o.c.ks beside him. The drive was twelve miles along the coast, through most beautiful country, a fresh sea-breeze mitigating the heat, which had previously been trying. Much of the way the road was shaded by feathery Lignum-vitae trees, here known as cedars, which have deliciously scented wood and were once a rich a.s.set for s.h.i.+pbuilding.
Flowering groves of pink oleander, dense thickets of scarlet, pink and yellow hibiscus, purple ma.s.ses of bougainvilleas bordered the way, which was past garden after garden of the wonderful rich red loam which has won for Bermuda potatoes, Bermuda onions and Bermuda bananas a reputation almost world-wide.
_En route_ the Prince alighted to look into the shadowy depths of the Devil's Grotto, a deep rock-bound pool of clearest water connected with the sea, in which big fish of brilliant colours swim lazily. He also wandered hundreds of yards underground, through an extraordinary rift in the coral formation known as the Crystal cave, from hundreds of thousands of semi-transparent stalact.i.tes, many of them reaching from floor to ceiling, in some cases overhanging still pools of clear salt water, or forming grotesque figures, with which the electric lamps, that light the place, played the most fantastic tricks. The cave is one of a number in different parts of the islands, and claims to be of extraordinary antiquity, the stalact.i.tes growing at so slow a rate that a hundred thousand years are believed to be represented by a mere fraction of their length.
The entire route from Hamilton to St. George had been decorated, the arches representing an immense amount of willing labour. One of them had been solidly constructed of square blocks of sawn coral rock by coloured volunteers, who had built it at night after their ordinary working hours were over. Another, which had been put up by members of the garrison, was a wonderfully worked-out reproduction of the sailing s.h.i.+p _Patience_ built near by, over three hundred years ago, by which the s.h.i.+pwrecked crew of Sir George Somer's s.h.i.+p _Sea Venture_ made their way to Virginia. This arch was entirely constructed of the local cedar, which was the wood used in building the _Patience_.
At St. George the Prince was entertained by Mayor Boyle and members of the local town council, the Mayor's tiny but very self-possessed grand-daughter presenting a bouquet, the last local attention of the tour. He was given a great send-off when he finally embarked by launch to rejoin the _Renown_ waiting for him beyond the reefs with the end of her mission in sight and her blunt grey nose pointing toward home.
Eight days later, on the 11th October, early in the morning, the heart of England turned for a moment to her old harbour of Portsmouth, where, through one of her own October fogs, her great battle-cruiser was drawing majestically into port, bringing home from his second journey to kinsfolk the eldest son of her Royal House. Perhaps the heart of England felt a certain pride....
XXVI
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOUR
This Chapter is, by kind permission, largely reproduced from an article by the writer published in the ”Nineteenth Century” of December, 1920.
”The tumult and the shouting dies,” and what, now that it is over, remains to Britain of the enterprise? What treasure came back in the _Renown_ to make this Royal adventure worth while?
The word may be disputed. The nation's heir, it may be said, does not adventure in travelling to the hearths of kinsfolk. There is no adventure in a voyage surrounded by every means of safety and comfort that modern science can devise, a voyage backed by the blessing and sped by the hope and pride of this sound old Mother Country. Yet in the fluid state of social and political emotion to-day it was an adventure, a challenge in the very teeth of those unbridled forces that are so blatant and busy in the disservice of the British Empire, and a challenge before which not one of them raised its head.
The constantly recurring scene of the Prince making acquaintance with overseas audiences is long since familiar. It has been depicted in the columns of hundreds of newspapers and actually thrown before the eyes of thousands in cinemas. It is far more than a twice-told tale that His Royal Highness was everywhere received with enthusiasm which was altogether phenomenal, that he was everywhere able to draw the whole of the inhabitants of the places he visited away from their business, their occupation or their pleasure, to concentrate during the time he was amongst them, the whole of their attention and interest upon himself, and the idea of race, Empire and loyalty for which he stands. In so far as the hackneyed words of newspaper reports can produce that effect, their reiteration must by now have turned the remarkable scenes of his progress into a kind of Royal commonplace, and retired them into the back of the popular imagination as matters to be taken for granted. It is difficult to put into terms of flags and decorations, patriotic songs and calculated mult.i.tudes, however gay and hoa.r.s.e and unexampled, anything of the fine essence discharged from men's hearts and minds that made the soul of these occasions. Only perhaps to those who actually saw them will they survive conventional description, as experiences of the rare sort that baffle it. It did not seem to matter who his audiences were. Keen, sharp American business men with square jaws and shrewd eyes, to whom a Prince would necessarily hover somewhere between a figure of mediaeval romance and a comic anachronism, proved no less susceptible to the something he has to offer than the crowds of our own family in New Zealand, Tasmania or New South Wales. Queensland, with its advanced Labour Government, its public owners.h.i.+p of utilities and enterprises, its schedules of progress in which at least no conspicuous place is allotted to Royal personages, proved just as enthusiastic as did conservative New Zealand. Centres of culture, learning and wealth like Sydney and Melbourne, showed exactly the same spirit as did rough mining and logging camps, and lonely sheep stations in the far interior.