Down Under With the Prince Part 11

In his general farewell message His Royal Highness said:--

"I am very sorry that my first visit to Australia is at an end, and I wish on leaving to express my deep appreciation and grat.i.tude to the Government and people of the whole Commonwealth for the pleasure and happiness which they have given me during my all too short stay. I have been deeply touched by the open-hearted affection shown to me everywhere, and I hope that Australians have realized how much the warmth of their welcome has meant to me. It has made my first visit an experience which I can never forget and which will always bind me to Australia as a real southern home.

"Throughout the Commonwealth I have been impressed by the fact that the Australian people as a whole have just the same free and gallant British spirit at home which the Diggers showed so splendidly during the war. Australia has appealed to me intensely as a land where British men and women may make a new nation as great as any nation of the past, and I shall be heart and soul with them in their aims and efforts all my life."

[Ill.u.s.tration: EMU ON A SHEEP-RUN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOOD-BYE TO SYDNEY HARBOUR]

"I refuse to say good-bye. I have become so fond of Australia now that she can never be far from my thoughts, wherever I may be; and I look forward most keenly to the time when I shall be able to return."

"My affectionate best wishes to her people, one and all."

The last official function attended by the Prince in Australia was an invest.i.ture at Government House, Sydney, at which he conferred the following decorations on behalf of the King:--

On Major-General Sir C. B. White, Commonwealth Organizer of the visit, and Rear-Admiral Grant, Senior Officer of the Commonwealth Naval Board, the K.C.V.O.; on Brigadier-General F. H. W. Lloyd, Brigadier-General Dodds, Commonwealth a.s.sistant Organizer, and Commodore Dumaresque, commanding the Australian Fleet, the C.V.O.; on Captain the Hon. B. Clifford, Military Secretary to the Governor-General, the M.V.O.

The following officers, who were in attendance during the Royal tour, also received the M.V.O.: Colonel F. B. Heritage, Lieutenant-Colonel Lionel Robinson, Captain J. G. Duncan Hughes, and Captain R. James, and it was also conferred upon the following organizers of the Prince's visit in various States: Mr. Clifford Hay (New South Wales), Mr. Whitehead (Victoria), Mr. Blinman (South Australia), Mr. Steer (Queensland), Mr. Shapcott (West Australia), and Mr. Addison (Tasmania).

Royal Victorian medals were also conferred upon seven motor-drivers who had been in attendance throughout the tour.

Every newspaper throughout Australia meanwhile made the Prince's departure its leading theme, the ill.u.s.trated journals teeming with pictures connected with his going. The Sydney "Daily Telegraph," on the day of his leaving, said: "At high water the _Renown_ will carry the Prince through the Heads, on the first stage of his homeward journey.

The Prince himself goes away on another high tide--of popularity and goodwill."

"If ever there was danger," the Sydney "Morning Herald" said, "of Australian opinion being misinterpreted through the utterances of a few noisy and churlish malcontents, it has been dissipated once and for all by the Prince's experiences."

On the 19th August the _Renown_ weighed anchor in brilliant sunshine, to the sound of music, cheers, and salutes, every headland lined with people. Flotillas of crowded steamboats raced alongside her as she made her way to the Heads where the Prince's letters overtook him in a fast Australian destroyer, which had picked them up from aeroplanes dispatched especially from Adelaide. As a final courtesy it was a happy touch, and if the _Renown_ had been a sailing ship would have cheered her on with airs from home.

The Prince's visit was over. The unanimity and cordiality of his welcome everywhere had been a revelation even to the people of the land, who in the clash of local political creeds had hardly realized before how deep and universal was their feeling of citizenship in the Empire, or how warmly this feeling would manifest itself towards one who came to them standing for that Empire and asking only to learn the glory of Australia's part in it.

XXIII

EASTWARD HO

After leaving Sydney the _Renown_ made a record run, much of it at twenty knots an hour, to catch up time. The Prince thus arrived at Fiji punctually to his programme, in spite of having been delayed at Sydney waiting for the mail. He landed at Suva, where he was received as cordially and by as large and picturesque a gathering as had greeted his first arrival at this port. His visit was informal, but he attended a civic reception in the beautiful Botanical Gardens, followed by a ride across country which was not without excitement. The party at one point were on a narrow hill road, with a bank on one side and a steep drop on the other. The Prince was in front when they reached a tree-trunk which had fallen across the way, leaving no room to get past. H.R.H.

dismounted and scrambled over with his horse in lead. The Secretary to the Governor, who was immediately behind, endeavoured to get across without leaving the saddle, but his animal slipped in landing and went over the edge. Its rider, although crippled by the loss of one leg, managed to throw himself off upon the brink, where he clung precariously while his horse went crashing through the bushes thirty feet beneath him, rolling over and over as it fell. The Prince was the first to get hold of his companion and help to pull him back unhurt into safety.

Oddly enough, the horse was able to carry him home, when eventually it had scrambled back to the road.

The Prince rode for some hours after this incident, dismounting on the way back, and doing the last eight miles on foot at a swinging pace. A dinner and dance at Government House finished up the day.

The _Renown_ sailed from Fiji the following day. On reaching Samoa she lay in the open roadstead, facing misty hills, among which rose steep green cones of long-dead volcanoes. In the middle distance white-crested waves flicked their tails with a vicious curl in a leaden rain-flogged sea, which ended in a white line of breakers where the red roofs of the town of Apia met the beach. The Prince went off in a bounding launch, accompanied by Colonel R. W. Tate, the administrator. A mile of rough and tumble brought the friendly shelter of the reef. Here a number of long low Samoan canoes, with some forty semi-naked paddlers apiece, met the launch and escorted it with shouting and beating of wooden drums, as big as bath-tubs, past the rusty skeleton of the German _See Adler_, wrecked upon the bar in the hurricane of 1899, to a quiet wharf, where the Prince landed in a bower of greenery and bunting. He was received by the princ.i.p.al people of the island, including the Chief Judge and other officers of the New Zealand administration, also a number of missionaries. Addresses of welcome were presented and the Prince was conducted on foot over carpets of brown mulberry bark to the reception by the Islanders themselves. Lines of smiling Samoans, naked save for loin-cloths of mat and bark and necklaces of crimson panda.n.u.s pods the size of fingers, lined the route and brought deep cries of "Aue!"--"Welcome!"--from the bottom of their lungs. The procession was slow and imposing. It ended in a gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce beneath green coco-nut palms and white-flowering leva trees. The Prince took the seat of honour in a decorated booth, surrounded by thousands of Samoans, many of whom had travelled long distances from their homes by canoe. The ceremonies began with the presentation of a series of Samoan chiefs, including the "High Intercessor," Malietoa Tanumafili, brother of the late King Malietoa Laupepa, and the venerable Tuimale Fana, friend of Robert Louis Stevenson. He is a st.u.r.dy, upstanding figure in the photograph in "Vailima Letters," broad-faced and well covered and content. That was a quarter of a century ago. Now the years have bent and dulled him. The years, and perhaps the loss that dulls the world, for Tusitala tells no more tales to any of us in this South Sea Island where he lived and where he knew so well he would die. One thought, if he had been living now, how glad a hand and how rich a memory would have been added to this journey, and how br.i.m.m.i.n.g a cup of Imperial romance the _Renown_ would have lifted to Stevenson's lips. But Tusitala could not come to the Prince; so the Prince went to Tusitala, where he lies on the hill-top that meets the winds from the sea, and stood there for a while beside him.

This was later. The Samoan ceremony of welcome was long. The presentations extended to a bevy of island ladies garbed in frilled creations of bark, relieved with hibiscus blossoms, as scanty at both ends as a ball dress out of Bond Street. The High Chief Intercessor afterwards read an address of welcome in which he declared that G.o.d had been the Prince's helmsman in bringing him to Samoa. A move was afterwards made--there is no other way of describing the respectful suggestion, the start, the progress to an official fixture--a move was afterwards made to a thatched hut where the Prince tasted Samoan dainties spread out upon mats upon the floor. He also saw articles of Samoan manufacture, including delicately carved wooden Kava bowls, mats so fine that some of them were valued at a hundred pounds, and _tappas_, lengths of soft mulberry-bark cloth painted with many patterns, worn by the men, quite decorative in effect though not exactly pliable enough to suit a West End tailor.

Returning later on to the booth further ceremonies were successfully encountered, including the preparing and drinking of King's Kava.

Semi-naked warriors, in head-dresses like hay-trusses ornamented with variegated Berlin wool and pieces of looking-gla.s.s held in place by skewers, chopped and pounded white Kava root, macerated the resultant pulp in a beautifully carved hard-wood bowl the size of a foot-bath, with water brought up in solemn procession in a galvanized iron housemaid's bucket, strained the concoction in a Samoan mat, and carried it to the Prince in a carved cup of coco-nut. National dances, partic.i.p.ated in by both men and women, followed and a one-legged chief from one of the neighbouring islands read a further address of welcome.

Offerings were here presented, green coco-nuts, pigs roasted whole, ma.s.ses of bark _tappas_ and mats.

The sea had gone down when the Prince re-embarked, and except that the war-canoes accompanied the launch right out to the _Renown_, the ceremonies of departure were much like those of arrival.

The visit occurred opportunely at a time when these rich islands of coco-nut and banana plantations were slowly settling down under New Zealand administration after a long period of uncertainty during the war, followed by a much-dreaded influenza epidemic, which had swept away a terribly large proportion of their attractive and easy-going inhabitants. European residents said the Prince's coming was having an excellent effect. It was already looked upon as fulfilling the Samoan prayer that Great Britain should "remember this small branch of the great tree of Empire." It was treated as an omen. "Healthy are the travellers," declared one of the addresses, "We now meet with success"--and in islands so swayed by emotion, picturesque expressions of this kind no doubt indicate some corresponding reality in feeling.

After leaving Samoa the _Renown_ called at Honolulu, where the Prince spent three days quietly, surf-riding and golfing, his experiences being largely a repet.i.tion of those of his visit to the island on his outward voyage, except that there were no official ceremonies. He stayed at the Moana Hotel as an ordinary visitor, dividing his time between the beautiful Waikiki beach and the country club. Nothing could exceed the kindness, hospitality, and consideration extended not only to the Prince, but also to the entire ship's company of the _Renown_ by Governor McCarthy and other Hawaiian residents, who, while scrupulously respecting the Prince's desire that the visit should be without functions, did everything imaginable to render it as enjoyable as possible. The arrangements included drives around the island and other entertainments for every officer and man of the _Renown_.

On leaving, the Prince issued a press note expressing his appreciation.

"I was delighted with Honolulu on my outward voyage," he said, "and most grateful for the kind welcome and generous hospitality given me by the Governor, Mr. McCarthy, and every one. I always feel happy amongst Americans and in American territory, because American life appeals to me greatly, and I have many American friends--especially since my short visit to the United States last year, when I was deeply touched by the most friendly reception accorded me."

The whole white population of Honolulu a.s.sembled on the wharf when the _Renown_ cast off. Before leaving the Prince had been presented with the usual farewell offering of ropes of flowers, which he duly flung overboard, in accordance with immemorial Hawaiian custom, as the ship left the sh.o.r.e, in token that his friendship remained with this pleasant island though he himself was compelled to depart. As the ship cleared the harbour searchlights were played upon the Waikiki beach where so many enjoyable hours had been spent.

Crossing the northern Pacific the _Renown_ touched Mexico, where Acapulco harbour, a deep, sheltered pool amongst hills of ferruginous rock and verdant jungle, held the ship for a day. On one side were the square, flat-topped bastions of the fort, with ancient muzzle-loaders pointing black mouths out of stone embrasures, muzzle-loaders which were fired quite recently at the late President Carranza's gunboat, the _Gerriro_, when it was sh.e.l.ling revolutionaries ensconced in the red-tiled city that climbs up the steep slope behind the wharf.

The fighting was described to us in broken English by Mexican traders doing business in dark verandahed houses opening out of the narrow streets. It had surged up and down the town in the form of desultory rifle-fire between the followers of Carranza, who were in occupation, and those of the insurgent rebel leader, Avaro Obregon, who eventually drove them into the interior. Carranza's gunboat simultaneously disappeared to sea. No great damage was done in the town. All that we heard of was the looting of shops, which did not appear to have been on any very considerable scale. After the firing had ceased, the civilians, who had mostly hidden themselves in the hills, returned and reopened their places of business.

At the time of the Prince's visit the walls of Acapulco were plastered with rough zincograph prints of Avaro Obregon, a soldierly looking Mexican, whose election for President was voted upon the Sunday before the _Renown_ put in to that port. n.o.body doubted that he would be declared elected (as has since been the case) for the excellent reason that no other candidate had been even heard of at Acapulco. In the disorder so long in the ascendant the entire port has fallen into decay.

Dark-skinned loungers, in white cotton shirts and trousers, bare feet, and gigantic straw sombrero hats, smoked cigarettes upon benches beneath plantain trees in the central square. In the market-place were tethered mules with high-peaked saddles, also doing nothing and enjoying it. A couple of small bells rang out intermittently from a big Catholic church with corrugated iron roof, but the only worshipper inside this draughty place of worship was a guide, who seemed to be returning thanks for unaccustomed profits brought to him by the royal visit. The planks of the empty wharf were so rotten that one had to walk warily to avoid mischance.

On the beach were a few light fishing boats, one of which was engaged in taking out three of the Governor's A.D.C.'s through the fine but deserted harbour to pay his respects to the Prince. The Governor, these gentlemen explained, was ill or would have been with them. The British and United States consuls came to the ship, where they were entertained to lunch.

The Prince afterwards landed and went for a walk ash.o.r.e, while the _Renown_ took in oil-fuel. b.u.mboats with scarlet sails, presided over by dusky ladies in black robes and tumbled hair, hawked bananas, melons, earthen pots, sombrero hats, Mexican swords, coloured blankets, and other locally manufactured articles, to the blue-jackets.

An old missionary in the faded uniform of a captain of the Royal Navy, a rank he once had held, also visited the _Renown_. He had recently arrived by mule from Mexico City, some six hundred miles distant. The road is steep and rocky, but by no means unsafe. The railway, which is ultimately to connect Acapulco with Mexico City, though partly torn up, is still in working order for nearly half the way. It may some day shorten the mail route materially between Europe and Australia. The bags would be carried overland from some American port on the Atlantic and re-shipped at Acapulco for the trans-Pacific voyage. Business had not been altogether suspended in Mexico City, banks remaining open and motor-cars plying in the streets.

Little was known in Acapulco of the personality of Avaro Obregon, except that he had been a successful revolutionary leader. It was hoped he would prove strong enough to hold his own and put down disorder, thereby enabling prosperity to return to this much-vexed country, but fighting in Mexico, as in Ireland, is a temperamental gift and hard to lose.

The _Renown_ put out to sea in a sharp electric storm. Warm tropical rain came down with insistent hammer, and lightning from all sides at once threw up the coast in brilliant outline, and illuminated an enormous crucifix upon one of the headlands, by which Drake may have steered in his pursuit of Spanish galleons three hundred years ago.

The pa.s.sage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, on the return journey, was quickly accomplished. The _Renown_ arrived at Panama at daylight, after an uneventful voyage from Acapulco. She was received by the American authorities, who fired a salute of welcome. The Ca.n.a.l was entered without a stop, and was traversed smoothly and in record time for so big a vessel. Every lock was clear and every possible facility was afforded.

Dredgers were still at work at the slip which had delayed the _Renown_ on her outward voyage, but an almost magical change had been effected in the interval by the removal of a million cubic yards of rock and earth.

What had been a narrow, tortuous channel in June, had been converted by September into a s.p.a.cious pool, where to the casual glance six _Renowns_ could lie side by side. The hillside above looked as unstable as ever, but no fresh land-slips were visible, and even if they occur hereafter, as is to be expected, the ca.n.a.l has s.p.a.ce to accommodate considerable subsidence without interfering with vessels getting through.

At the Gatun locks the Prince went off by launch, in company with Mr.

Markham, the pisciculturist of the Ca.n.a.l, who succeeded in showing him some Tarpon fishing. He got back at a late hour, muddy but radiant, with quite a catch, and re-embarked upon the _Renown_, which was then moored alongside the Christobal wharf at Colon, taking in oil. H.M.S.

_Calcutta_ was also there, and the two vessels put out to sea the following morning.

XXIV

THE WEST INDIES

An epidemic in Jamaica abridged the West Indian part of the tour, but the _Renown_ visited several of the other islands, beginning with Trinidad, where the flotilla anch.o.r.ed three days after leaving Colon in the quiet roadstead off Port of Spain. Here Sir John Chancellor, Governor of the Island, came on board to pay his respects to the Prince, who shortly afterwards landed.