Читать книгу Down Under with the Prince - Everard Cotes - Страница 6

EXCITEMENT GROWS IN AUCKLAND HARBOUR

NEW ZEALAND: THE PRIME MINISTER TAKES CHARGE

At Panama the Prince had the most friendly and hospitable reception, banquets and balls succeeding one another on shore, while on the Renown several ceremonies took place, including the receiving and replying to addresses from British, West Indian and East Indian residents. Some of the local cordiality was quaintly worded.

"In frantic supplication we fling ourselves at the feet of Almighty God to shower His blessings upon Your Highness." More, it may be imagined, could not be done. "If we be allowed another paragraph may we then be permitted, in this final gasp, to express our desire that Your Royal Highness will greatly enjoy your short visit to this port." It is understood that the desire of the permitted paragraph and the final gasp was not denied.

Another picturesque ceremony was when the Prince drove in procession to pay a formal visit to the President of Panama. The motor-cars first traversed the wide American zone of the Canal region, speeding over smooth, asphalt roads, past well-built verandahed houses, with white walls and dark-coloured jutting roofs, the windows and doors meshed with fine wire-gauze, an arrangement which gives them the appearance of prosperous meat-safes. These houses are part of the wonderful sanitary arrangements which have turned Panama, from being a yellow-fever camp, into one of the most healthy regions in the world. They are inhabited by the engineering, traffic and administrative staffs, and the police and military establishments of the Canal zone. They stand in spacious gardens with beautifully-kept lawns and flower-borders, and are supplied with up-to-date electric-light and fans, good drinking-water, and perfect installations of sewers. There are also carefully thought out clubs and institutes, which supply the Canal employees with entertainment for their spare hours, alcoholic liquor alone excepted, for the zone is strictly "dry."

Smart American sentries saluted at the barbed wire boundary, whence the route wound past conical hills which may well have been the range that gave to Drake the first white man's view of the Pacific Ocean. Thereafter the procession plunged into the narrow streets of Panama city, which were lined with cheering, laughing crowds of gaily dressed negroes, Mexicans and Spaniards. Bunting fluttered from every window in the high tiered houses. An escort of picturesque mounted police, with rough peaked saddles and undocked horses, closed in on either side. Immense, decorated barouches, drawn by fine pairs of Mexican horses, were substituted for the Canal zone motor-cars, and the procession moved on in state, the Prince alighting, en route, to inspect a fine body of about a hundred returned soldiers of the West Indian Regiment who had assembled in his honour.

The President and his entire council, in black frock-coats and shining top-hats, welcomed the party upon the steps of the Presidential House, a pleasant residence, with garden quadrangle, overlooking the sunny harbour. The Prince was conducted upstairs to a large reception-room, hung with yellowing paintings of previous Presidents, where compliments were exchanged and refreshments offered. Later in the day an official dinner was given, at which the President proposed the Royal health in flowing Spanish, mentioning the large number of residents, in the chief cities of Panama, who are British subjects from the West Indian islands, and emphasizing the gratitude felt by all Panamanians towards Great Britain for having taken up the cause of the smaller nations in the World War. The reference filled several eyes in the company with conscious rectitude, and they were not all British.