THE BACKBLOCKS: AN UNOFFICIAL FIXTURE
HIS FAVOURITE MOUNT
The following morning the train reached Coonamble, terminus of the railway, a township of wooden houses, situated on a vast grassy plain, in the heart of sheep-raising country, two hundred and sixty miles from Sydney. Here Mr. Oliver, President of the Shire, accompanied by the local mayor and members of his council, received the Prince upon the platform, and conducted him in a motor-car procession to a grassy park in the middle of the town, where he found awaiting him a large assemblage of people, including the usual contingents of returned men and school-children, also nurses and other war-workers. An address was presented, and thereafter the procession was continued to the racecourse, where horses had been collected. The Prince and his staff mounted and set off across recently flooded country for Wingadee, thirty miles distant, where the week-end was to be spent at one of the stations of the Australian and New Zealand Land Company. Lunch was served in the open at one of the artesian bore-holes that furnish this country with water, even the severe drought which preceded the recent floods not having affected the supply. The Prince here visited a typical bush saloon and in bush fashion called for drinks for all the settlers he found there. Later in the afternoon he reached Wingadee, where he wasreceived by Mr. McEwan, General Manager of the Company. He spent the afternoon riding about this up-to-date station and going over the wool-sheds. The host of his visit was Mr. Fechan, the Superintendent.
In the next few days the Prince rode a number of horses, inspecting the wool-sheds and flocks, chasing kangaroos and emus, and had the opportunity of forgetting the formalities of public receptions. On the day of departure from Wingadee he rode thirty miles back to the little country racecourse at Coonamble, where he remained throughout the afternoon watching the racing in the casual mud-splashes of his own ride. The enclosure was crowded with squatters from all parts of Northern New South Wales, who gave him the most cordial reception, and followed him afterwards to the railway station to cheer the train by which he left for Myowera, another small station sixty miles distant in the same great plain.
Here the Prince stayed on the Canoubar run in the house of Mr. and Mrs. McLeod, Mr. Niall, managing director of the company, supervising the arrangements for his entertainment, which were on the most hospitable scale. At Canoubar he saw the working of a big sheep station in full operation, including shearing, sheep-drafting, wool-packing, and the driving of flocks by wonderfully trained dogs, also the handling and breaking-in of station horses. One of the merino rams shown to him had recently been bought for two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. As to the performances of the dogs, the confiding correspondents were told that they could drive a fowl into a jam tin, but I am not aware whether H.R.H. was asked to believe this. On the afternoon of his arrival herode nine miles, much of it along natural avenues of gum-trees, to the country town of Nyngan. His host accompanied him, mounted on his fine steeple-chaser Bullawarra, once sent to England to run in the Grand National.
At Nyngan the entire countryside was found assembled and the Prince met a large company of returned men, besides relatives of those who would not return, nurses and other war-workers. All the school-children of the neighbourhood were also there. The programme included the laying of a foundation-stone, after which he rode home escorted by a bodyguard of light-horsemen, who gave a display of bush-galloping a mile outside the station.
Next day H.R.H. was made acquainted with the Jackaroo. The Jackaroo is neither a crow nor a parrot nor any kind of quadruped. He is a young gentleman of Australia who desires to become a squatter, and who gives his services on a sheep-run for the opportunity of picking up the business. He was living, where the Prince encountered him, with, half a dozen of his fellows, in a comfortable building with roomy sleeping quarters and an old soldier in charge of the mess. His food is plain but substantial and appetizing, a leading feature of it, the slab of "brownie" bread, full of currants, which tells its own tale of his age and digestion. The Jackaroo spends most of his day in the saddle, riding long distances to outlying parts of the run, on the hunt for bogged sheep, or in supervising lambing or moving flocks from one paddock to another. Often he will not see a living soul from the time he starts out in the morning until he returns at night, and he may even lose hisway. He then makes a bee-line in the likeliest direction until he comes to the wire fence of the boundary, which he may follow for miles before he reaches a landmark he knows. The speedometer of one car which had been out on fence inspection the day before the Prince arrived, marked 120 miles, travelled in a single day, so it may be presumed that the Jackaroo's bump of locality develops early. The squatter is generally glad to take on likely boys, as he finds them, when the first fecklessness is worn off, on the whole more conscientious than paid labour, an important point for work that has to be so largely delegated. The life is healthy and interesting, and on up-to-date runs like the ones seen, looked exceedingly pleasant. The young fellows come as a rule from families of good class and generally have means of their own—a combination which should make the life history of the Jackaroo not unrewarding to the student of the fauna of these parts. His own point of view would have been worth obtaining, but being young he was modest and said little. He rode buck-jumpers for the Prince. He buck-jumped rather specially well, as might be expected of a Jackaroo. His name is a felicity that will outlive much topography. One wonders who invented it.
The Prince on several occasions shared in the sport of kangaroo chasing, which leaves fox-hunting standing. On one occasion he rode all day guided by sons of his hosts through vast paddocks fenced with wire, over an even carpet of young green grass, which was then just springing up after floods following three years of drought, and took many a jump over fallen trunks of trees killed by systematic ringing to make way for fodder raising. On the way thirty or forty kangaroos were seen andfive of them were chased over formidable obstacles which the "old men"—the male kangaroos—cleared with extraordinary ease in their long hopping stride, at a pace that took greyhounds all they could do to overtake. These kangaroos eat sometimes by no means an inconsiderable amount of pasture needed for the sheep, and some years ago were being so extensively shot down that they were in danger of being exterminated. A close season was introduced and now they are increasing to the extent, in some localities, of again becoming troublesome. They are much the colour of the tree trunks, and until startled are easily overlooked in the bush. They are off with most wonderful grace and agility the moment they are disturbed and can even clear the high barbed wire fences by which the runs are bounded provided they approach at a right angle. When running parallel to the fence they cannot get the necessary foothold for a big enough spring. This is sometimes taken advantage of by the rider, who, being of course unable to put his horse over so formidable an obstacle, endeavours to head off the kangaroo in such manner that it may reach the fence at a slanting angle. In this case the chase continues alongside instead of being finished by the kangaroo's escape over the fence. When overtaken by dogs, which are often used in the chase, the kangaroo makes a gallant fight for life, and many a hound has been ripped open and killed by a well-directed kick from its powerful hind feet, before it can be shot.
The emu also lent itself to the excitement of the chase during the tour. The big brown wingless bird much the size and shape of the ostrich, is quite unable even to jump, but runs as fast as a horse can gallop, and when pursued will charge a barbed wire fence so hard as to break itsway through, its feathers protecting it from being seriously torn. It is on this account not beloved by the squatter, but it is seldom shot. The Prince brought away with him two newly hatched emu chickens, creatures the size of ducks and prettily marked in shades of black and fawn. Their quarters on theRenownwere in a roomy cage on the superstructure, where they soon established a reputation as quiet, sober and well-behaved members of the ship's company.
On several of his expeditions the Prince was given a meal in the bush camp fashion. One of these was on the shady banks of a stream twenty-five miles from a station, from which he had ridden out in the morning accompanied by sons of his hosts. Here quantities of dead gum-tree trunks were quietly burning, and were made use of for grilling chops and makingbillytea. The latter is quite unlike and, to the hungry rider, infinitely preferable to the teapot variety. A tin-can is filled at the nearest water-hole and is carried to a burning tree trunk, on which it is gingerly balanced, usually with the aid of a stick, the tree trunk being as a rule too hot to reach without one. The water boils with extraordinary rapidity and the pot is quickly hooked off the fire. A generous handful of tea is thrown into the water before it ceases to boil and the resultant brew is drunk from any utensil that happens to be handy. Nobody inquires what becomes of the tea leaves.
One of the sights on the Canoubar run was sixty thousand sheep recently returned from stations in well-watered districts, in one case five hundred miles distant by rail, whither they had been sent to stay over the years of drought. These sheep had all been carried by the staterailways of New South Wales, at extraordinarily low rates, and with surprisingly few casualties. They offered a concrete example of what had been done on a very large scale throughout the State, where the railways were able to save for the squatters hundreds of thousands of valuable sheep, which must otherwise have perished when the fodder supply gave out. The Prince was so interested in what he saw that there was no getting him away before dark. By the time he was back in the station he had ridden over sixty miles without leaving the run.
Within the memory of men who have not yet reached middle age, sheep-rearing in Australia was a gamble. At one time large fortunes might be made, at another the fruits of long years of thrift and labour might be swept away by causes which appeared to be outside human control. Now the industry has become a science. The settler may make more or he may make less, according as the world price for wool is high or low. He has his welfare in his own hands, however, and has only to go the right way to work to make certain of a living.
The removal of the rabbit-pest has been particularly complete. The Prince saw wire fencing, extending in some cases in unbroken stretches for thousands of miles, which is at once so high and so deeply embedded in the ground that rabbits can neither burrow beneath nor climb over it. Once a paddock, fenced in this way, has been cleared it remains permanently free. The principal measures for clearing are the systematic ploughing of every warren, which effectually stops the burrows, and thereafter the driving by dogs and horsemen of such rabbits as are above ground to the fences, where covered pits, led up to by long converging lines of wire netting, have been prepared in advance. The rabbitsfollow one another through drop entrances into these pits, thousands being sometimes captured in one night on a single run. The operation has only to be repeated, in one paddock after another, to free an estate completely. The value of the rabbits and their fur covers most of the cost involved. One may meet gigantic crates on wheels, each drawn by a dozen horses and sometimes containing twenty thousand rabbits,en routeto factories where the skins are cured and the flesh prepared for export. By these means many runs have been completely cleared, while others are in course of being similarly dealt with.
As regards methods of fighting drought, in addition to the help given by the railways in moving sheep from drought-infected areas, to regions where the grass has not dried up, the storage of fodder in good years to make up for deficiency in bad ones, is a further measure adopted. Artesian borings, even where they are inadequate for irrigation purposes, will water millions of sheep where the surface supply is defective.
It was at one time feared that the tapping of the subsoil water over tens of thousands of square miles in New South Wales, where the geological formations are such as to render this class of enterprise remunerative, would gradually exhaust the supply. Experience over a number of years, including prolonged periods of drought, however, has not confirmed this apprehension. The Prince was shown wells which had been running for twenty years without intermission. In some cases, it is true, fresh borings have had to be made, but it has been discovered that the failure of the old ones is almost always due, not to anydeficiency in water-pressure below ground, but to the silting up or the corroding of the pipe itself. Fresh bores yield full supplies, close alongside those that have given out. Restrictions are rightly imposed by Government upon the sinking of more than what is considered a reasonable number of wells in any one area, and up to the present, in the entire sheep region visited by the Prince, this arrangement has allowed sufficient supplies to be forthcoming for the watering of all stock, even in such periods of prolonged drought as that from which this part of Australia had very recently emerged.
Minor enemies of the squatter are the black carrion crows, creatures justly execrated by every back-block man. They are not unlike English rooks, but have the diabolical habit of attacking sick sheep and newly-born lambs, not infrequently pecking out their eyes. They are also charged with poisoning the wounds they make, so that a sheep may die which appears to have been only very slightly pecked. The harmless lookinggalahs, white parrots with pink breasts, make themselves only one degree less objectionable by eating the grain. Both of these pests, however, are being got under, with the growth in the number of sportsmen with scatter guns in each district. The Prince shot several galahs, and if his bag did not include any carrion crows this was chiefly because the good work of shooting them had already been so efficiently done.
Another trouble of the squatter, the silting up of his fences with leaves and dust in the hot weather, until they disappear and sheep and cattle stray over them unimpeded, is also being successfully overcome. On one estate enormous machines like snow-ploughs were shown, whichwere periodically pulled by horses along the windward side of fences subject to this mishap. Floods come only occasionally, but the squatter has declined to allow himself to be defeated by them. The Prince saw the bones of many a stray sheep that had been drowned in the last visitation of this kind. It is indeed extraordinary that such a thing should occur upon a table-land two thousand feet above sea level, where rain is ordinarily so scanty that drought is continually feared. The very rarity of heavy rain, however, makes the conditions such that the water-courses may be inadequate to carry off any sudden downpour, with the result that the flooding, when it does occur, may easily be very extensive, as the country for hundreds of miles on end is almost absolutely level. Motor-cars have been used successfully to convey thousands of sheep, three or four at a time, from flooded areas to banks where they could exist until the water subsided. In other cases boats have been brought from incredibly distant rivers to carry stock to safety. Much has also been done upon men's backs, for the squatter does not allow his sheep to perish if anything within human strength can help them.
In this part of Australia the grass is so thin that from two to five acres are required to support each sheep. This accounts for the immense size of the runs, which extend in some cases to hundreds of thousands of acres. One of the results of so much grazing space is that epidemics are almost unknown. On one of the runs the Prince took a hand, with power-driven clippers in sheds, where one man shears, on the average, more than a hundred sheep in a single day, the wool fetching up totwenty-two pence a pound. Fleeces so ticketed indicate the neighbourhood of the wool millionaire, and he was to be met in all stages of opulence. A run carrying fifty thousand sheep, each yielding a profit of ten shillings in the year for wool alone, is by no means uncommon in this part of Australia, men who had established themselves in pre-war days, in quite a modest way, upon land leased from the State, not infrequently finding their incomes multiplied a number of times over as the rates for wool increased. The greater part of these profits has remained in the country, and much of it has been put into the development of the runs, and the improvement of the breeds of sheep, horses and cattle on them. In one of the stations a five-thousand-pound bull had recently been bought, and cows were valued at a thousand pounds apiece. On another, three rams were shown to the Prince which were considered to be worth six thousand pounds, being an average of two thousand each.
The methods of development adopted varied according to the financial position of the owners. A squatter with a long-established run who had paid off his mortgages, and had money in hand, would ordinarily keep more sheep upon a given area than his less prosperous neighbour, for the reason that he could afford to move them by rail in years of drought. The man more recently established, with whom money was not so plentiful, would keep his land more sparsely stocked. In one case only six thousand sheep were being raised, though the run would have supported twice that number in an ordinary season. Here the owner did the whole of theroutine work of the place, with the assistance only of his two eldest sons, lads in their 'teens, and occasional hired hands for shearing and fencing.
The run possessing the five-thousand-pound bull was worked upon more expensive principles. It employed highly paid managers, overseers and stockmen all the year round, and was regarded as so up to date in its methods as to be quoted as a state model of efficiency and a sort of competitive Elysium for jackaroos. Both methods of working seemed to be successful, and both estates were making money.
The heavy drop in wool prices that is now taking place will no doubt reduce the amount of the profits presently to be made. There is no reason to apprehend, however, that the industry will not adjust itself successfully to the new state of things. Fortunes in the future may be harder to make than in the past, but the necessaries of life are assured to all engaged in an industry so self-supplying as is that of sheep-farming. The area suitable for it is still practically unlimited, and the open-air life it offers will continue to attract young fellows anxious to get away from the confinement of the town and the office.
As regards the climate, all that I can say is that as far north as the Prince's travels extended, the winter conditions then prevailing were delightful. The nights were sharp, and the days full of sunshine, and of a temperature that induced to outdoor work of every kind. Never have I seen healthier looking people than those who make this part of the world their permanent home. The children that the Prince found assembled in surprising numbers at every stopping-place, were sturdy and well developed. That the summers on these breezy uplands are sometimes hotwas testified to by occasional underground chambers constructed so as to afford shelter in the middle of the day. Every one agreed, however, that the nights were cool, and the health and longevity of the community phenomenal. The interesting claim was also made that the very warmth of the sun in summer was itself an important factor in keeping down disease alike in men and sheep.
The lowlands along the coast of Northern Queensland, where such tropical staples as sugar-cane, plantains and coco-nuts are grown in quantity, were hardly reached, though Brisbane, the most northerly seaport visited by the Prince, was upon the outer fringe of this important region. In Brisbane the climate was distinctly hot, though the inhabitants looked strong and full of health. Further north, where the temperatures grow higher, we were told that numbers of Italians are settling in and doing well. They have found conditions not altogether dissimilar from those of their own country, and are developing labour able to deal to some extent with the difficult problem of sugar-growing.
On leaving Myowera the Prince proceeded by train to Sydney. On the way civic receptions were held in his honour at a number of centres. He stopped off atDubbo, where white-dressed V.A.D.'s, each with a wand of yellow-flowering wattle, made a bower over his head as he passed from the railway station on the usual inspection of returned men. At Wellington he found a crowd waiting to cheer him beneath flowering orchards shivering in wintry rain. Blayney, although situated upon the chill slopes of theCanobolasmountains and said to be the coldest place in New South Wales, produced amongst its guard-of-honour a cavalryofficer from India in the turbaned uniform of the Fifteenth Lancers, who had returned to his home in Australia when peace was declared. Another place visited was Bathurst, where a procession through the town took place, and where the decorations and receptions were on a very extensive scale. In the course of his reply to a civic address, presented in this city, the Prince said his visit in the interior had given him a glimpse of real Australia. He had seen the richness of the country and had learnt the desolation that drought and floods could produce. "Many," he added, "have suffered losses, and while sympathizing with their hard fortune, I trust the next few years may be years of plenty and bring them all they desire."
On arrival at Sydney the Prince went at once to theRenown. Later in the day, his official tour having ended, he drove unescorted to the races, which he enjoyed like any private individual. The courtesy of the large gathering of race-goers was such that, although everybody wanted to see him, and much cheering took place, the stewards had no difficulty in preventing any inconvenience.
Before finally sailing, the Prince spent four days in Sydney, saying good-bye to his friends, and receiving them in theRenown, which he made his home. Amongst those he entertained were the Commonwealth Governor, the Prime Minister, the New South Wales Governor, the State Premier, and the principal Commonwealth and State Officials. His staff, meanwhile, was kept busy receiving and dispatching his replies to a mountain of warm-hearted farewell messages, of which the following, from M. Fihelly, acting Premier of Queensland, and head of the most advanced Labour Government in Australia, may be taken as a sample:—
"Your Royal Highness's visit will always be gratefully and affectionately remembered by the Government and people here, who found the greatest delight in your presence amongst them, and who will henceforward regard you as a new link uniting the British peoples. We hope your Royal Highness will have a safe and pleasant homeward voyage, and that long life and uninterrupted happiness and good health will be yours. You came to our land as His Majesty's most effective ambassador to us and we ask you to be our envoy to him, bearing renewed assurances that the lofty ideals which inspire our race are a living active force in Australia to-day."
"Your Royal Highness's visit will always be gratefully and affectionately remembered by the Government and people here, who found the greatest delight in your presence amongst them, and who will henceforward regard you as a new link uniting the British peoples. We hope your Royal Highness will have a safe and pleasant homeward voyage, and that long life and uninterrupted happiness and good health will be yours. You came to our land as His Majesty's most effective ambassador to us and we ask you to be our envoy to him, bearing renewed assurances that the lofty ideals which inspire our race are a living active force in Australia to-day."
Amongst the individual replies dispatched by the Prince perhaps one of the happiest went to the Royal Australian Navy, which, after expressing thanks for escorts and other services, and wishing good luck to all, ended with the characteristic request that the main-brace might be spliced.
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 gratitude 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."
"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 gratitude 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."
EMU ON A SHEEP-RUN
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."
"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 investiture 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 Assistant 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.
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 Assistant 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 illustrated journals teeming with pictures connected with his going. The Sydney "Daily Telegraph," on the day of his leaving, said: "At high water theRenownwill carrythe 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 theRenownweighed 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 theRenownhad 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.
After leaving Sydney theRenownmade 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 toget 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.
TheRenownsailed 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 GermanSee 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 principal 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 savefor loin-cloths of mat and bark and necklaces of crimson pandanus 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 grassy space 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 sturdy, 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 brimming a cup of Imperial romance theRenownwould 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 bothends as a ball dress out of Bond Street. The High Chief Intercessor afterwards read an address of welcome in which he declared that God 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 woodenKavabowls, mats so fine that some of them were valued at a hundred pounds, andtappas, 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-glass 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, participated 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, masses of barktappasand mats.
The sea had gone down when the Prince re-embarked, and except that the war-canoes accompanied the launch right out to theRenown, 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 theRenowncalled at Honolulu, where the Prince spent three days quietly, surf-riding and golfing, his experiences being largely a repetition 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 theRenownby Governor McCarthy and other Hawaiian residents, who, while scrupulously respecting the Prince's desire that the visit should be withoutfunctions, 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 theRenown.
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 assembled on the wharf when theRenowncast 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 shore, 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 theRenowntouched 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, theGerriro, when it was shelling 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 theRenownput in to that port. Nobody 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 Catholicchurch 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 ashore, while theRenowntook in oil-fuel. Bumboats 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 theRenown. 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 andmotor-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.
TheRenownput 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 passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, on the return journey, was quickly accomplished. TheRenownarrived at Panama at daylight, after an uneventful voyage from Acapulco. She was received by the American authorities, who fired a salute of welcome. The Canal 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 theRenownon 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 spacious pool, where to the casual glance sixRenownscould 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 canal has space to accommodate considerablesubsidence 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 Canal, 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 theRenown, which was then moored alongside the Christobal wharf at Colon, taking in oil. H.M.S.Calcuttawas also there, and the two vessels put out to sea the following morning.
An epidemic in Jamaica abridged the West Indian part of the tour, but theRenownvisited several of the other islands, beginning with Trinidad, where the flotilla anchored 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.
The entire city of Port of Spain had been effectively decorated. Sugar-cane-stalks, cocoa-pods, and coco-nuts, were worked in cleverly upon arches, spanning its substantial streets, to represent the agriculture of the Colony. The other main Trinidad industries, asphalt and oil, were well in evidence in the smooth surface found upon the roads along which the Royal procession passed. The crowds lining the route were made up in fairly equal proportions of negroes, East Indians, and persons of mixed or "coloured" race. Few Europeans were seen until the Legislative Council building and the Town Hall were reached, where they were in considerable numbers. Those presented to the Prince included Messrs. De B. Best, Colonial Secretary, H. B. Walcott, Controller General, A. G. Bell, Director of Public Works, L. Elphinstone, Solicitor-General, Colonel Mui, Commandant of the LocalForces, Major Rust, acting President of the Civic Council, Rev. Dowling, Catholic Archbishop, Dr. Ansley, Anglican Bishop, Sir Alfred Smith, Chief Justice, also Justices Russell and Deane, and Father de Caignai, Head of the Tunapuna Monastery.
The official address, read by the Governor, made special mention of how much the island owes to the British Navy, and the Prince in the course of his reply also dwelt upon this matter: "You have well referred," he said, "to the security enjoyed by Trinidad during the Great War, in which the people of this colony contributed in worthy measure to the victory of British arms. I am particularly glad to have this opportunity of congratulating the colony upon its fine services, and of meeting some of the gallant men whom it sent overseas. I am also much pleased to hear the colony appreciates how much it owes to the Royal Navy for its tranquil prosperity during those terrible years." Touching upon more local matters, the Prince said the colony had given a high measure of prosperity to those whose forbears had made it their home. It had also provided new opportunities for progress and well-being for a large immigrant population from His Majesty's Indian Empire. "I feel sure," he added, "that all its people, not only long established but recently arrived, will do all in their power to maintain its good traditions of law-abiding progress and loyalty to British ideals."
The Prince spent several days in Trinidad, driving through its thickly wooded hills, past shady cocoa plantations, well-ordered coco-nut groves, and fields of sugar-cane. He also visited the old-time Spanish capital of St. Joseph, where an address was presented to him. Heattended in Port of Spain a state dinner and various other official functions, besides inspecting a big gathering of children. In the course of his remarks, replying to the toast of his health at the state dinner, he said, "I saw a suggestion, before I left England, that the British Empire might be willing to part with one or more of the British West Indian Islands to a foreign power, and I should like to say here again what I said in Barbados in March, that British subjects are not for sale. I can assure you that the King and all of us in the old country have very much at heart the welfare of Trinidad and all the British West Indies, also of all other British possessions," a statement which cannot be too often repeated in sentiment or exemplified in fact.
Visits were paid to some of the oil-wells, which are already a source of much wealth to Trinidad, and promise to become still more important in the future. The famous pitch lake was a sight along the coast, forty-five miles out. It is a semi-solidified deposit, lying in a shallow hollow, a quarter of a mile in diameter, close to the sea, where men have been digging out black slabs of asphalt for years without making a perceptible hole. The lake is so near the coast that ships sail practically up to it to carry away a product which is ultimately spread over the streets of the world. Fifty thousand tons have been taken out of it every year for a generation, and the level is estimated to have sunk only about nine inches. Oil underlies the pitch in the vicinity and a forest of derricks rises a quarter of a mile away.
From Trinidad the Prince made a side trip to Demerara, British Guiana, in theCalcutta, theRenownbeing too big to cross the bar into Georgetown harbour. All the sunny richness of this steamy sugar andrice-growing corner of South America was in evidence when he landed at Georgetown, immediately after the ceremonial visit of the Governor, Sir William Collet. A fine West Indian guard-of-honour saluted him upon the pier, and mixed crowds of Anglo-Saxons, negroes, East Indians and Portuguese cheered in the decorated streets as he proceeded to the Government buildings. Here more guards-of-honour were inspected, including armed constabulary and militia. The Prince also shook hands with a long line of returned men. Entering the building he found the leaders of the local community assembled, including the principal officials and their families. An address of welcome was read by Mr. Brown, a coloured West Indian, senior elected member of the Court of Policy. Archbishop Parry and General Rice were amongst those presented.
In the course of his reply the Prince referred to the great potential wealth of British Guiana and to the determination of its inhabitants to develop their inheritance to the full. It was essential, he added, that all parts and sections of the community should pull together loyally, in order that their future might be assured, and particularly that the great inland wealth of the colony might be laid open for the benefit of all. He hoped their ex-service men would prove themselves as public-spirited and useful citizens in time of peace as they had on active service in the field.
Two days passed in Demerara in the enjoyment of the hospitality of the Governor and other leading residents. Visits were paid to a largely-attended race meeting, to sugar and rice estates in the swampy flats around the city, and to some very beautiful botanical gardens, where the schools of the colony were assembled, and the Prince passed down dense lines of negro, East Indian, and European children.