XXV The Bermudas
The picturesque islands of Bermuda, in the North Atlantic, the last halting-place upon the Prince’s tour, put up a brave show in honour of the Royal visitor. The Renown anchored at daylight on 1st October in the open sea off what is known as “Five Fathom Hole,” where the cobalt of the deeper sea shaded into greenish patches above treacherous coral reefs. Through tortuous channels the Calcutta, to which the Prince had transhipped, felt her way, skirting on her left a prominent rock celebrated as the “Ducking Stool,” testing-spot of seventeenth-century witches and place of punishment of scolds, where a battery of artillery fired a salute. A little inland of the Ducking Stool a green hummock rose, topped by Government House. Admiralty House also stood out pre-eminent amongst smaller villas. On the right, as the Calcutta passed on, curved a long sickle-shaped arm of rock forming the other side of the harbour, and terminating in the white sheds and fortifications of the naval dockyard. In the middle were tiny rocky islets between which the Calcutta steered with margin only of a few feet on either side. Upon the way the U.S.A. battleship Kansas, under Rear-Admiral Hughes, a vessel sent to Bermuda by the United States Government in honour of the Prince’s visit, fired a welcoming salute.
Coral-rock houses are a characteristic feature of Bermuda. They are built of squared blocks sawn out of the hillside, and have sloping roofs of similar stone rendered watertight with cement. One finds them everywhere. In the country their grey walls and roofs are surrounded by wildernesses of brilliant flowers, including purple bougainvilleas, the aptly named “flamboyants,” and pink oleanders, with smooth lawns, terraced vineyards, and overgrown vegetable gardens sheltered by sombre conifers. In the city one finds sky-scraper hotels and substantial offices, workshops of Bermuda’s principal industry, which is that of catering for the American tourist, who flies to this sunny spot to escape the New York winter, and dine where he may still drink.
The Prince’s visit took place in the off-season of hot weather when the principal hotels are closed. The entire city had nevertheless been decorated, and a large proportion of the twenty thousand inhabitants the islands boast, assembled along the Club Wharf in Hamilton City, where the landing took place. They consisted, for the most part, of cheerful negroes and coloured folk, with a considerable proportion of well-dressed whites, including many Americans. A guard-of-honour of the Royal Sussex Regiment, in familiar khaki, stood to attention on the landing-stage, rifle-barrels gleaming in the fierce sun. Here also waited Sir James Willcocks in white uniform ablaze with war medals, also Admirals Hughes and Everett and their staffs, and the principal civilian officials in the perspiring black morning dress of more temperate zones.
The Prince and his staff landed unostentatiously in white naval kit from a brass-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 Assembly, where he inspected a guard-of-honour composed of seamen from H.M.S. Calcutta. Within were assembled 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 institutions 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 furnishing 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, Flagship 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 Commandership of the Victorian Order upon Admiral Everett, and the Companionship on Captain Noble, 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 Willcocks 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-vitæ trees, here known as cedars, which have deliciously scented wood and were once a rich asset for shipbuilding. Flowering groves of pink oleander, dense thickets of scarlet, pink and yellow hibiscus, purple masses 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 stalactites, 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 stalactites 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 ship Patience built near by, over three hundred years ago, by which the shipwrecked crew of Sir George Somer’s ship 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....