Faces and Places

I made the acquaintance of Colonel Fred Burnaby in a balloon. In such

strange quarters, at an altitude of over a thousand feet, commenced a

friendship that for years was one of the pleasantest parts of my life,

and remains one of its most cherished memories.

It was on the 14th of September, 1874. A few weeks earlier two French

aeronauts, a Monsieur and Madame Duruof, making an ascent from Calais,

had been carried out to sea, and dropping into the Channel, had passed

through enough perils to make them a nine days' wonder. Arrangements had

been completed for them to make a fresh ascent from the grounds of the

Crystal Palace, and half London seemed to have gone down to Sydenham to

see them off. I was young and eager then, and having but lately joined

the staff of the Daily News as special correspondent, was burning for

an opportunity to distinguish myself. So I went off to the Crystal

Palace resolved to go up in the balloon.

"No," said Mr. Coxwell, when I asked him if there were a seat to spare

in the car. "No; I am sorry to say that you are too late. I have had at

least thirty applications for seats, and as the car will hold only six

persons, and as practically there are but two seats for outsiders, you

will see that it is impossible."

This was disappointing, the more so as I had brought with me a large

military cloak and a pair of seal-skin gloves, under a general but

well-defined impression that the thing to do up in a balloon was to keep

yourself warm. Mr. Coxwell's account of the position of affairs so

completely shut out the prospect of a passage in the car that I

reluctantly resigned the charge of the military cloak and gloves, and

strolled down to the enclosure where the process of inflating the

balloon was going on. Here was congregated a vast crowd, which increased

in density as four o'clock rang out, and the great mass of brown silk

into which the gas was being assiduously pumped began to assume a

pear-like shape, and sway to and fro in the light air of the autumn

afternoon.

About this time the heroes of the hour, Monsieur and Madame Duruof

walked into the enclosure, accompanied by Mr. Coxwell and Mr. Glaisher.

A little work was being extensively sold in the Palace bearing on the

title-page, over the name "M. Duruof," a murderous-looking face, the

letter-press purporting to be a record of the life and adventures of

the French aeronauts. Happily M. Duruof bore but the slightest

resemblance to this portrait, being a young man of pleasing appearance,

with a good, firm, frank-looking face.

By a quarter to five o'clock the monster balloon was almost fully

charged, and was swaying to and fro in a wild, fitful manner, that could

not have been beheld without trepidation by any of the thirty gentlemen

who had so judiciously booked seats in advance. The wickerwork car now

secured to the balloon was half filled with ballast and crowded with

men, whilst others hung on to the ropes and to each other in the effort

to steady it.

But they could not do much more than keep it from mounting into mid-air.

Hither and thither it swung, parting in swift haste the curious throng

that encompassed it, and dragging the men about as if they were ounce

weights. The wind seemed to be rising and the faces of the experienced

aeronauts grew graver and graver, answers to the constantly repeated

question, "Where is it likely to come down?" becoming increasingly

vague. At last Mr. Glaisher, looking up at the sky and round at the

neighbouring trees bending under the growing blast, put his veto upon

Madame Duruof's forming one of the party of voyagers.

"We are not in France," he said. "The people will not insist upon a

woman going up when there is any danger. The descent is sure to be

rough, will possibly be perilous, so Madame Duruof had better stay where

she is."

Madame Duruof was ready to go, but was at least equally willing to stay

behind, and so it was settled that she should not leave the palace

grounds by the balloon. I cast a lingering thought on the military cloak

and the seal-skin gloves, in safe keeping in a remote part of the

building. If Madame was not going there might be room for a substitute.

But again Mr. Coxwell would not listen to the proposal. There were at

least thirty prior applicants; some had even paid their money, and they

must have the preference.

At five o'clock all was ready for the start. M. Wilfrid de Fonvielle,

a French aeronaut and journalist, took off his hat, and in full gaze of

a sympathising and deeply interested crowd deliberately attired himself

in a Glengarry cap, a thick overcoat, and a muffler. M Duruof put on

his overcoat, and Mr. Barker, Mr. Coxwell's assistant, seated on the

ring above the car, began to take in light cargo in the shape of

aneroids, barometers, bottles of brandy and water, and other useful

articles. M. Duruof scrambled into the car, one of the men who had been

weighing it down getting out to make room for him. Then M. de Fonvielle,

amid murmurs of admiration from the crowd, nimbly boarded the little

ship, and immediately began taking observations. There was a pause, and

Mr. Coxwell, who stood by the car, prepared for the rush of the Thirty.

But nobody volunteered. Names were called aloud; only the wind, sighing

amongst the trees made answer.

"Il faut partir," said M. Duruof, somewhat impatiently. Then a

middle-aged gentleman, who, I afterwards learned, had come all the way

from Cambridge to make the journey, and who had only just arrived

breathless on the ground, was half-lifted, half-tumbled in, amid

agonised entreaties from Barker to "mind them bottles." The Thirty had

unquestionably had a fair chance, and Mr. Coxwell made no objection as I

passed him and got into the car, followed by one other gentleman, who

brought the number up to the stipulated half-dozen. We were all ready to

start, but it was thought desirable that Madame Duruof should show

herself in the car. So she was lifted in, and the balloon allowed to

mount some twenty feet, frantically held by ropes by the crowd below. It

descended again, Madame Duruof got out, and in her place came tumbling

in a splendid fellow, some six feet four high, broad-chested to boot,

who instantly made supererogatory the presence of half a dozen of the

bags of ballast that lay in the bottom of the car.

It was an anxious moment, with the excited multitude spread round far as

the eye could reach, the car leaping under the swaying balloon, and the

anxious, hurried men straining at the ropes. But I remember quite well

sitting at the bottom of the car and wondering when the new-comer would

finish getting in. I dare say he was nimble enough, but his full arrival

seemed like the paying out of a ship's cable.

This was Fred Burnaby, only Captain then, unknown to fame, with Khiva

unapproached, and the wilds of Asia Minor untrodden by his horse's

hoofs. His presence on the grounds was accidental, and his undertaking

of the journey characteristic. He had invited some friends to dine

with him that night at his rooms, then in St. James's Street. Hearing

of the proposed balloon ascent, he felt drawn to see the voyagers off,

purposing to be home in time to dress for dinner. The defection of the

Thirty appearing to leave an opening for an extra passenger, Burnaby

could not resist the temptation. So with a hasty Au revoir! to his

companion, the Turkish Minister, he pushed his way through the crowd

and dropped into the car.

I always forgot to ask him how his guests fared. As it turned out, he

had no chance of communicating with his servant before the dinner hour.

The arrival of Burnaby exceeded by one the stipulated number of

passengers, and Coxwell was anxious for us to start before any more got

in. For a minute or two we still cling to the earth, the centre of an

excited throng that shout, and tug at ropes, and run to and fro, and

laugh, and cry, and scream "Good-bye" in a manner that makes our

proposed journey seem dreadful in prospect. The circle of faces look

fixedly into ours; we hear the voices of the crowd, see the women

laughing and crying by turns, and then, with a motion that is absolutely

imperceptible, they all pass away, and we are in mid-air where the echo

of a cheer alone breaks the solemn calm.

I had an idea that we should go up with a rush, and be instantly in the

cold current of air in view of which the preparation of extra raiment,

the nature of which has been already indicated, had been made. But here

we were a thousand feet above the level of the Palace gardens, sailing

calmly along in bright warm sunlight, and no more motion perceptible

than if we were sitting on chairs in the gardens, and had been so

sitting whilst the balloon mounted. It was a quarter past five when we

left the earth, and in less than five minutes the Crystal Palace

grounds, with its sea of upturned faces, had faded from our sight.

Contrary to prognostication, there was only the slightest breeze, and

this setting north-east, carried us towards the river in the direction

of Greenwich. We seemed to skirt the eastern fringe of London, St.

Paul's standing out in bold relief through the light wreath of mist that

enveloped the city. The balloon slowly rose till the aneroid marked a

height of fifteen hundred feet. Here it found a current which drove it

slightly to the south, till it hovered for some moments directly over

Greenwich Hospital, the training ship beneath looking like a cockle boat

with walking sticks for masts and yards. Driving eastward for some

moments, we slowly turned by Woolwich and crossed the river thereafter

steadily pursuing a north-easterly direction.

Looking back from the Essex side of the river the sight presented to

view was a magnificent one. London had vanished, even to the dome of

St. Paul's, but we knew where the great city lay by the mist that

shrouded it and shone white in the rays of the sun. Save for this patch

of mist, that seemed to drift after us far away below the car, there was

nothing to obscure the range of vision. I am afraid to say how many

miles it was computed lay within the framework of the glowing panorama.

But I know that we could follow the windings of the river that curled

like a dragon among the green fields, its shining scales all aglow in

the sunlight, and could see where it finally broadened out and trended

northward. And there, as M. Duruof observed with a significant smile,

was "the open sea."

There was no feeling of dizziness in looking down from the immense

height at which we now floated--two thousand feet was the record as

we cleared the river. By an unfortunate oversight we had no map of

the country, and were, except in respect of such landmarks as

Greenwich, unable with certainty to distinguish the places over which

we passed.

"That," said Burnaby from his perch up in the netting over the car,

where he had clambered as being the most dangerous place immediately

accessible, "is one of the great drawbacks to the use of balloons in

warfare. Unless a man has natural aptitude, and is specially trained

for the work, his observations from a balloon are of no use, a

bird's-eye view of a country giving impressions so different from the

actual position of places."

This dictum was illustrated by the scene spread out beneath us. Seen

from a balloon the streets of a rambling town resolve themselves into

beautifully defined curves, straight lines, and various other highly

respectable geometrical shapes.

We could not at any time make out forms of people. The white highways

that ran like threads among the fields, and the tiny openings in the

towns and villages which we guessed were streets, seemed to belong to

a dead world, for nowhere was there trace of a living person. The

strange stillness that brooded over the earth was made more uncanny

still by cries that occasionally seemed to float in the air around us,

behind, before, to the right, to the left, but never exactly beneath

the car. We could hear people calling, and had a vague idea they were

running after us and cheering; but we could distinguish no moving

thing. Yes; once the gentleman from Cambridge exclaimed that there

were some pheasants running across a field below; but upon close

investigation they turned out to be a troop of horses capering about

in wild dismay. A flock of sheep in another field, huddled close

together, looked like a heap of limestone chippings. As for the

fields stretched out in wide expanse, far as the eye could reach,

they seemed to form a gigantic carpet, with patterns chiefly diamond

shape, in colour shaded from bright emerald to russet brown.

At six o'clock the sun began to drop behind a broad belt of black

cloud that had settled over London. The mist following us ever since

we crossed the river had overtaken us, even passed us, and was

strewed out over the earth, the sky above our heads being yet a

beautiful pale blue. We were passing with increased rapidity over the

rich level land that stretches from the river bank to Chelmsford, and

there was time to look round at each other. Burnaby had come down from

the netting and disposed his vast person amongst us and the bags of

ballast. He was driven down by the smell of gas, which threatened to

suffocate us all when we started. M. Wilfrid de Fonvielle, kneeling

down by the side of the car, was perpetually "taking observations,"

and persistently asking for "the readings," which the gentleman from

Cambridge occasionally protested his inability to supply, owing either

to Burnaby having his foot upon the aneroid, or to the Captain so

jamming him up against the side of the car that the accurate reading

of a scientific instrument was not only inconvenient but impossible.

When we began to chat and exchange confidences, the fascination which

balloon voyaging has for some people was testified to in a striking

manner. The gentleman from Cambridge had a mildness of manner about him

that made it difficult to conceive him engaged in any perilous

enterprise. Yet he had been in half a dozen balloon ascents, and had

posted up from his native town on hearing that a balloon was going up

from the Crystal Palace. As for Burnaby, it was borne in upon me, even

at this casual meeting, that it did not matter to him what enterprise

he embarked upon, so that it were spiced with danger and promised

adventure. He had some slight preference for ballooning, this being his

sixteenth ascent, including the time when the balloon burst, and the

occupants of the car came rattling down from a height of three thousand

feet, and were saved only by the fortuitous draping of the half emptied

balloon, which prevented all the gas from escaping.

At half-past six we were still passing over the Turkey carpet,

apparently of the same interminable pattern. Some miles ahead the level

stretch was broken by clumps of trees, which presently developed into

woods of considerable extent. It was growing dusk, and no town or

railway station was near. Burnaby, assured of being too late for his

dinner party, wanted to prolong the journey. But the farther the balloon

went the longer would be the distance over which it would have to be

brought back and Mr. Coxwell's assistant was commendably careful of his

employer's purse. On approaching Highwood the balloon passed over a

dense wood, in which there was some idea of descending. But finally the

open ground was preferred, and, the wood being left behind, a ploughed

field was selected as the place to drop, and the gas was allowed to

escape by wholesale. The balloon swooped downward at a somewhat

alarming pace, and if Barker had had all his wits about him he would

have thrown out half a bag of ballast and lightened the fall. But after

giving instructions for all to stoop down in the bottom of the car and

hold onto the ropes, he himself promptly illustrated the action, and

down we went like a hawk towards the ground.

As it will appear even to those who have never been in a balloon, no

advice could have been worse than that of stooping down in the bottom of

the car, which was presently to come with a great shock to the earth,

and would inevitably have seriously injured any who shared its contact.

Fortunately Burnaby, who was as cool as if he were riding in his

brougham, shouted out to all to lift their feet from contact with the

bottom of the car, and to hang on to the ropes. This was done, and when

the car struck the earth it merely shook us, and no one had even a

bruise.

Before we began to descend at full speed the grappling iron had been

pitched over, and, fortunately, got a firm hold in a ridge of the

ploughed land. Thus, when the balloon, after striking the ground, leapt

up again into the air and showed a disposition to wander off and tear

itself to pieces against the hedges and trees, it was checked by the

anchor rope and came down again with another bump on the ground. This

time the shock was not serious, and after a few more flutterings it

finally stood at ease.

The highest altitude reached by the balloon was three thousand feet, and

this was registered about a couple of miles before we struck Highwood.

For some distance before completing this descent we had been skimming

along at about a thousand feet above the level of the fields, and the

intention to drop being evident, a great crowd of rustics gallantly kept

pace with the balloon for the last half-mile. By the time we were fairly

settled down, half a hundred men, women, and children had converged upon

the field from all directions, and were swarming in through the hedge.

Actually the first in at the death was an old lady attired chiefly in a

brilliant orange-coloured shawl, who came along over the ridges with a

splendid stride. But she did not fully enjoy the privilege she had so

gallantly earned. She was making straight for the balloon, when Burnaby

mischievously warned her to look out, for it might "go off." Thereupon

the old lady, without uttering a word in reply, turned round and, with

strides slightly increased in length, made for the hedge, through which

she disappeared, and the orange-coloured shawl was seen no more.

All the rustics appeared to be in a state more or less dazed. What with

having been running some distance, and what with surprise at discovering

seven gentlemen dropped out of the sky into the middle of a ploughed

field, they could find relief only in standing at a safe distance with

their mouths wide open. In vain Barker talked to them in good broad

English, and begged them to come and hold the car whilst we got out.

No one answered a word, and none stirred a step, except when the balloon

gave a lurch, and then they got ready for a start towards the protecting

hedges. At last Burnaby volunteered to drop out. This he did, deftly

holding on to the car, and by degrees the intelligent bystanders

approached and cautiously lent a hand. Finding that the balloon neither

bit nor burned them, they swung on with hearty goodwill, and so we all

got out, and Barker commenced the operation of packing up, in which

task the natives, incited by the promise of a "good drink," lent

hearty assistance.

We had not the remotest idea where we were, and night was fast closing

in. Where was the nearest railway station? Perhaps if we had arrived in

the neighbourhood in a brake or an omnibus, we might have succeeded in

getting an answer to this question. As it was, we could get none. One

intelligent party said, after profound cogitation, that it was "over

theere," but as "over theere" presented nothing but a vista of

fields--some ploughed and all divided by high hedges--this was scarcely

satisfactory. In despair we asked where the high-road was, and this

being indicated, but still vaguely and after a considerable amount of

thought, Burnaby and I made for it, and presently succeeded in striking

it.

The next thing was to get to a railway station, wherever it might be,

and as the last train for town might leave early, the quicker we arrived

the better. Looking down the road, Burnaby espied a tumble-down cart

standing close into the hedge, and strode down to requisition it. The

cart was full of hampers and boxes, and sitting upon the shaft was an

elderly gentleman in corduroys intently gazing over the hedge at the

rapidly collapsing balloon, which still fitfully swayed about like a

drunken man awaking out of sleep.

"Will you drive us to the nearest railway station, old gentleman?" said

Burnaby cheerily.

The old gentleman withdrew his gaze from the balloon and surveyed us,

a feeble, indecisive smile playing about his wooden features; but he

made no other answer.

"Will you drive us to the nearest railway station?" repeated Burnaby.

"We'll pay you well."

Still no answer came from the old gentleman, who smiled more feebly than

ever, now including me in his intelligent purview. After other and

diverse attempts to draw him into conversation, including the pulling of

the horse and cart into the middle of the road, and the making of a

feint to start it off at full gallop, it became painfully clear that the

old gentleman had, at sight of the balloon, gone clean out of such

senses as he had ever possessed, and as there was a prospect of losing

the train if we waited till he came round again, nothing remained but to

help ourselves to the conveyance. So Burnaby got up and disposed of as

much of himself as was possible in a hamper on the top of the cart. I

sat on the shaft, and taking the reins out of the old gentleman's

resistless hand, drove off down the road at quite a respectable pace.

After we had gone about a mile the old gentleman, who had been employing

his unwonted leisure in staring at us all over, broke into a chuckle.

We gently encouraged him by laughing in chorus, and after a brief space

he said,--

"I seed ye coming."

As I had a good deal to do to keep the pony up and going, Burnaby

undertook to follow up this glimmering of returning sense on the part of

the old gentleman, and with much patience and tact he succeeded in

getting him so far round that we ascertained we were driving in the

direction of "Blackmore." Further than this we could not get, any

pressure in the direction of learning whether there was a railway

station at the town or village, or whatever it might be, being followed

by alarming symptoms of relapse on the part of the old gentleman.

However, to get to Blackmore was something, and after half an hour's

dexterous driving we arrived at the village, of which the inn standing

back under the shade of three immemorial oak trees appeared to be a fair

moiety.

We paid the old gentleman and parted company with him, though not

without a saddening fear that the shock of the balloon coming down

under his horse's nose, as it were, had permanently affected his brain.

At Blackmore we found a well-horsed trap, and through woods and long

country lanes drove to Ingatestone, and as fast as the train could

travel got back to civilisation.

This was the beginning of a close and intimate friendship, that ended

only with Burnaby's departure for the Soudan. He often talked to me

of himself and of his still young life. Educated at Harrow, he thence

proceeded to Germany, where, under private tuition, he acquired an

unusually perfect acquaintance with the French, Italian, and German

languages, and incidentally imbibed a taste for gymnastics. At

sixteen he, the youngest of one hundred and fifty candidates, passed

his examination for admission to the army, and at the mature age of

seventeen found himself a cornet in the Royal Horse Guards. At this

time his breast seems to have been fired by the noble ambition to

become the strongest man in the world. How far he succeeded is told

in well-authenticated traditions that linger round various spots in

Windsor and London. He threw himself into the pursuit of muscle with

all the ardour since shown in other directions, and the cup of his

joy must have been full when a precise examination led to the

demonstration of the fact that his arm measured round the biceps

exactly seventeen inches. He could put 'Nathalie' (then starring it

at the Alhambra) to shame with her puny 56-lb. weight in each hand,

and could 'turn the arm' of her athletic father as if it had been

nothing more than a hinge-rusted nut-cracker. His plaything at

Aldershot was a dumb-bell weighing 170 lbs., which he lifted straight

out with one hand, and there was a standing bet of ￡10 that no

other man in the Camp could perform the same feat. At the rooms of

the London Fencing Club there is to this day a dumb-bell weighing 120

lbs., with record of how Fred Burnaby was the only member who could

lift it above his head.

There is a story told of early barrack days which he assured me was

quite true. A horsedealer arrived at Windsor with a pair of beautiful

little ponies he had been commanded to show the Queen. Before

exhibiting them to her Majesty he took them to the Cavalry Barracks

for display to the officers of the Guards. Some of these, by way of

a pleasant surprise, led the ponies upstairs into Burnaby's room,

where they were much admired. But when the time came to take leave an

alarming difficulty presented itself. The ponies, though they had

walked upstairs, could by no means be induced to walk down again. The

officers were in a fix; the horsedealer was in despair; when young

Burnaby settled the matter by taking up the ponies, one under each

arm and, walking downstairs, deposited them in the barrack-yard. The

Queen heard the story when she saw the ponies, and doubtless felt an

increased sense of security at Windsor, having this astounding

testimony to the prowess of her Household Troops.

Cornet Burnaby was as skilful as he was strong. He was one of the best

amateur boxers of the day, as Tom Paddock, Nat Langham, and Bob Travers

could testify of their well-earned personal experience. Moreover, he

fenced as well as he boxed, and the turn of his wrist, which never

failed to disarm a swordsman, was known in more than one of the capitals

of Europe. Ten years before he started for Khiva, there was much talk at

the Rag of the wonderful feat of the young Guardsman, who undertook

for a small wager to hop a quarter of a mile, run a quarter of a mile,

ride a quarter of a mile, row a quarter of a mile, and walk a quarter of

a mile in a quarter of an hour, and who covered the mile and a quarter

of distance in ten minutes and twenty seconds.

Fred Burnaby had, whilst barely out of his teens, realised his boyish

dream, and become the strongest man in the world. But he had also begun

to pay the penalty of success in the coin of wasted tissues and failing

health. When a man finds, after anxious and varied experiments, that a

water-ice is the only form of nourishment his stomach will retain, he is

driven to the conviction that there is something wrong, and that he had

better see the doctor. The result of the young athlete's visit to the

doctor was that he mournfully laid down the dumb-bells and the foil,

eschewed gymnastics, and took to travel.

An average man advised to travel for his health's sake would probably

have gone to Switzerland or the South of France, according to the sort

of climate held to be desirable. Burnaby went to Spain, that being at

the time the most troubled country in Europe, not without promise of an

outbreak of war. Here he added Spanish to his already respectable stock

of languages, and found the benefit of the acquisition in his next

journey, which was to South America, where he spent four months

shooting unaccustomed game and recovering from the effects of his

devotion to gymnastics. Returning to do duty with his regiment, he began

to learn Russian and Arabic, going at them steadily and vigorously, as

if they were long stretches of ploughed land to be ridden over. A second

visit to Spain provided him with the rare gratification of being shut up

in Barcelona during the siege, and sharing all the privations and

dangers of the garrison. Whilst in Seville during a subsequent journey

he received a telegram saying that his father was seriously ill. France

was at the time in the throes of civil war, with the Communists holding

Paris against the army of Versailles. To reach England any other way

than via Paris involved a delay of many days, and Burnaby determined to

dare all that was to be done by the Communists. So, carrying a Queen's

Messenger's bag full of cigars in packets that looked more or less like

Government despatches, he passed through Paris and safely reached

Calais.

A year later he set forth intending to journey to Khiva, but on reaching

Naples was striken with fever, spent four months of his leave in bed,

and was obliged to postpone the trip. In 1874 he once more went to

Spain, this time acting as the special correspondent of the Times with

the Carlists, and his letters form not the least interesting chapter in

the long story of the miserable war. In the early spring of 1875 he made

a dash at Central Africa, hoping to find "Chinese Gordon" and his

expedition. He met that gallant officer on the Sobat river, a stream

which not ten Englishmen have seen, and having stayed in the camp for a

few days, set out homeward, riding on a camel through the Berber desert

to Korosko, a distance of five hundred miles. After an absence of

exactly four months he turned up for duty at the Cavalry Barracks,

Windsor, with as much nonchalance as if he had been for a trip to the

United States in a Cunard steamer.

It was whilst on this flight through Central Africa that the notion of

the journey to Khiva came back with irresistible force. It had been done

by MacGahan, but that plucky journalist had judiciously started in the

spring. Burnaby resolved to accomplish the enterprise in winter; and

accordingly, on November 30th, 1875, he started by way of St.

Petersburg, treating himself, as a foretaste of the joys that awaited

him on the steppes, to the long lonely ride through Russia in midwinter.

At Sizeran he left civilisation and railways behind him, and rode on a

sleigh to Orenburg, a distance of four hundred and eighty miles. At

Orenburg he engaged a Tartar servant, and another stretch of eight

hundred miles on a sleigh brought him to Fort No. 1, the outpost of the

Russian army facing the desert of Central Asia. After this even the

luxury of sleigh-riding was perforce foregone, and Burnaby set out on

horseback, with one servant, one guide, and a thermometer that

registered between 70° and 80° below freezing point, to find Khiva

across five hundred miles of pathless, trackless, silent snow.

Two Cossacks riding along this route with despatches had just before

been frozen to death. The Russians, inured to the climate, had never

been able to take Khiva in the winter months. They had tried once, and

had lost six hundred camels and two-thirds of their men before they saw

the enemy. But Fred Burnaby gaily went forth, clothed-on with

sheepskins. After several days' hard riding and some nights' sleep on

the snow, he arrived in Khiva, chatted with the Khan, fraternised with

the Russian officers, kept his eyes wide open, and finally was invited

to return by a telegram from the Commander-in-Chief, who had been

brought to understand how this strange visitor from the Cavalry Barracks

at Windsor had fluttered the military authorities at St. Petersburg.

This adventure might have sufficed an ordinary man for a lifetime. But

in the very next year, whilst his Ride to Khiva remained the most

popular book in the libraries, he paid a second visit to the Turcomans,

seeking them now, not on the bleak steppes round Khiva, but in the more

fertile, though by Europeans untrodden, plains of Asia Minor. He had one

other cherished project of which he often spoke to me. It was to visit

Timbuctoo. But whilst brooding over this new journey he fell in love,

married, settled down to domestic life in Cromwell Gardens, and took to

politics. It was characteristic of him that, looking about for a seat to

fight, he fixed upon John Bright's at Birmingham, that being at the time

the Gibraltar of political fortresses.

The last time I saw Fred Burnaby was in September 1884. He was standing

on his doorstep at Somerby Hall, Leicestershire, speeding his parting

guests. By his side, holding on with all the might of a chubby hand

to an extended forefinger, was his little son, a child some five years

old, whose chief delight it was thus to hang on to his gigantic father

and toddle about the grounds. We had been staying a week with Burnaby

in his father's old home, and it had been settled, on the invitation

of his old friend Henry Doetsch, that we should meet again later in

the year, and set out for Spain to spend a month at Huelva. A few

weeks later the trumpet sounded from the Soudan, and like an old

war-horse that joyously scents the battle from afar, Burnaby gave up

all his engagements, and fared forth for the Nile.

At first he was engaged in superintending the moving of the troops

between Tanjour and Magrakeh. This was hard work admirably done. But

Burnaby was always pining to get to the front. In a private letter

dated Christmas Eve, 1884, he writes: "I do not expect the last boat

will pass this cataract before the middle of next month, and then I

hope to be sent for to the front. It is a responsible post Lord

Wolseley has given me here, with forty miles of the most difficult

part of the river, and I am very grateful to him for letting me have

it. But I must say I shall be better pleased if he sends for me when

the troops advance upon Khartoum."

The order came in due course, and Burnaby was riding on to the relief

of Gordon when his journey was stopped at Abu-Klea. He was attached to

the staff of General Stewart, whose little force of six-thousand-odd

men was suddenly surrounded by a body of fanatical Arabs, nine

thousand strong. The British troops formed square, inside which the

mounted officers sat directing the desperate defence, that again and

again beat back the angry torrent. After some hours' fighting, a

soldier in the excitement of the moment got outside the line of the

square, and was engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with a cluster of

Arabs. Burnaby, seeing his peril, dashed out to the rescue--"with a

smile on his face," as one who saw him tells me,--and was making

irresistible way against the odds when an Arab thrust a spear in his

throat, and he fell off his horse dead. He sleeps now, as he always

yearned to rest, in a soldier's grave, dug for him by chance on the

continent whose innermost recesses he had planned some day to explore.

The date of his death was January 17th, 1885. His grave is nameless,

and its place in the lonely Desert no man knoweth.

"Brave Burnaby down! Wheresoever 'tis spoken

The news leaves the lips with a wistful regret

We picture that square in the desert, shocked, broken,

Yet packed with stout hearts, and impregnable yet

And there fell, at last, in close mêlée, the fighter

Who Death had so often affronted before;

One deemed he'd no dart for his valorous slighter

Who such a gay heart to the battle-front bore.

But alas! for the spear thrust that ended a story

Romantic as Roland's, as Lion-Heart's brief

Yet crowded with incident, gilded with glory

And crowned by a laurel that's verdant of leaf.

A latter-day Paladin, prone to adventure,

With little enough of the spirit that sways

The man of the market, the shop, the indenture!

Yet grief-drops will glitter on Burnaby's bays.

Fast friend as keen fighter, the strife glow preferring,

Yet cheery all round with his friends and his foes;

Content through a life-story short, yet soul-stirring

And happy, as doubtless he'd deem, in its close."

Thus Punch, as it often does, voiced the sentiments of the nation

on learning the death of its hero.

There are not many English abroad this morning on the top of

the hill. In fact, unless they had passed the night here it

would not be easy for them to present themselves, seeing that

San Salvatore, though a very modest mound, standing as it does

in the neighbourhood of the Alps, is high enough to lift its

crest out of the curtain of mist that lies over the lower world.

Lugano, its lake, and its many small towns--as like each other

when seen from a distance as if they had been turned out of a

mould--are understood to lie at some uncertain depth beneath

the mist. In truth, unless they have wholly disappeared in the

night, we know that they are there, for we walked up in the

late afternoon with intent to sleep here.

The people of Lugano, more especially the hotel-keepers, were much

exercised at this undertaking. Nobody in recent recollection had been

known to spend the night on San Salvatore, and if the eccentricity

were permitted and proved enjoyable, no one could say that it might

not spread, leaving empty beds at Lugano. There was, accordingly,

much stress laid on possible dangers and certain discomforts.

Peradventure there was no bed; assuredly it would be hard and damp

and dirty. There would be nothing to eat, nor even to drink; and

in short, if ever there was madness characteristic of the English

abroad, here was the mid March of its season.

But the undertaking was not nearly so mad as it looked. I had been

up Salvatore on the previous day and surveyed the land. It is a

place that still holds high rank in the Romish calendar of Church

celebrations. Many years ago a chapel was built on its summit, and

pilgrimages instituted. These take place at Ascension and Pentecost,

when the hillside swarms with devout sons and daughters of Italy, and

the music of high mass breaks the silence of the mountains. Even

pilgrims must eat and drink and sleep, and shortly after the chapel

was built there rose up at its feet, in a sheltered nook, a little

house, a chapel-of-ease in the sense that here was sold wine of the

country, cheese of the district, and jambon reputed to come across

the seas from distant "Yorck." A spare bedroom was also established

for the accommodation of the officiating priests, and it was on the

temporary reversion of this apartment that I had counted in making

those arrangements that Lugano held to be hopelessly heretical.

When, on my first visit to the top of San Salvatore, I reached

the pilgrimage chapel, I found an old gentleman standing at the

door of the hostelry by which the pilgrim must needs pass on

his way to the chapel--a probably undesigned but profitable

arrangement, since it brings directly under his notice the

possibility of purchasing "vins du pays, pain, fromage,

saucissons, and jambon d'Yorck."

When I broached the subject of the night's entertainment the

landlord was a little taken aback, and evidently inclined

to dwell upon those inconveniences of which Lugano had made

so much. But the more he thought of it, the more he liked the

idea. As I subsequently learned, the hope of his youth, the

sustenance of his manhood, and the dream of his old age was

to see his little hut develop into a grand hotel, with a porter

in the hall, an army of waiters bustling about, and himself in

the receipt of custom. It was a very small beginning that two

English people should propose to lodge with him for a night.

Still, it was something, and everything must have a beginning.

Monte Generoso, among the clouds on the other side of the lake,

began in that way; and look at it now with its chambres at

eight francs a day, its table d'h?te at five francs, and its

bougies dispensed at their weight in silver!

"Si, signor"; he thought it might be done. He was sure--nay,

he was positive.

As the picture of the hotel of the future glowed in his mind he

became enthusiastic, and proposed that we should view the

apartments. The bedroom we found sufficiently roomy, with both

fireplace and one of the two windows bricked up to avoid

draughts. The mattress of the bed, it is true, was stuffed with

chopped straw, and was not free from suspicion of harbouring

rats. But there was a gorgeous counterpane, whose many colours

would have excited the envy of Joseph's brethren had their

pilgrimage chanced to lead them in this direction. The floor

was of cement, and great patches of damp displayed themselves

on the walls. Over the bed hung a peaceful picture of a chubby

boy clasping a crook to his breast, and exchanging glances of

maudlin sentimentality with a sheep that skipped at his side.

The damp had eaten up one of the legs of mutton, and the sheep

went on three legs. But nothing could exceed the more than

human tenderness with which it regarded the chubby boy with the

crook.

We soon settled about the bed, and there remained only

the question of food. On this point also our host displayed

even an increase of airy confidence. What would signor? There

were sausage, ham of York, and eggs, the latter capable of

presentation in divers shapes.

This, it must be admitted, engendered a feeling of discouragement.

We had two days earlier tasted the sausage of the country when

served up in a first-class hotel as garnish to a dish of spinach.

It is apparently made of pieces of gristle, and when liberated from

the leather case that enshrines it, crumbles like a piece of old

wall. Sausage was clearly out of the question, and the ham of York

does not thrive out of its own country, acquiring a foreign flavour

of salted sawdust. Eggs are very well in their way, but man cannot

live on eggs alone.

Our host was a man full of resources. Why should we not bring the

materials for dinner from Lugano? He would undertake to cook them,

whatever they might be. This was a happy thought that clenched the

bargain. We undertook to arrive on the following day, bringing our

sheaves with us, in the shape of a supply of veal cutlets.

The ostensible object of spending a night on San Salvatore is to see

the sun set and rise. The mountain is not high, just touching three

thousand feet, an easy ascent of two hours. But it is a place

glorious in the early morning and solemn in the quiet evening.

Below lies the lake of Lugano, its full length visible. Straight

before you, looking east, is the long arm that stretches to Porlezza,

with its gentle curves where the mountains stand and cool their feet

in the blue water. To the west, beyond a cluster of small and

nameless lakes that lie on the plain, we see the other arm of the

lake, with Ponte Tresa nestling upon it, and still farther west the

sun gleams on the waters of Lago Maggiore. Above Porlezza is Monte

Legnone, and far away on the left glint the snow peaks of the Bernina.

High in the north, above the red tiles and white walls of the town of

Lugano are the two peaks of Monte Camoghe, flanked by something that

seems a dark cloud in the blue sky, but which our host says is the

ridge of St. Gothard. The sun sets behind the Alps of the Valais

among which towers the Matterhorn and gleam the everlasting snows of

Monte Rosa.

These form the framework of a picture which contains all the softness

and richness of the beauty of a land where the grape and the fig

grow, and where in these October days roses are in full bloom, and

heliotropes sweeten every breath of air. Yesterday had opened

splendidly, the morning sun rising over the fair scene and bringing

out every point. But as we toiled up the hill this afternoon,

carrying the cutlets, the sun had capriciously disappeared. The

mountains were hid in clouds, and the lake, having no blue sky to

reflect, had turned green with chagrin. There was little hope of

visible sunset; but there was a prospect of sunrise, and certainty

of a snug dinner in circumstances to which the novelty of the

surroundings would lend a strange charm.

It was rather disappointing on arriving to find that our acquaintance

of yesterday had disappeared. I have reason to believe the excitement

of our proposed visit had been too much for him, and that he had

found it desirable to retire to rest in the more prosaic habitation

of the family down in the town. He had selected as substitute the

most stalwart and capable of his sons, a man of the mature age of

thirty-five. This person had the family attribute of readiness of

resource and perfect confidence. The enthusiasm which had been too

dangerously excited in the breast of his aged parent had been

communicated to him. He was ready to go anywhere and cook anything,

and having as a preliminary arranged a napkin under his arm, went

bustling about the table disturbing imaginary flies and flicking off

supposititious crumbs, as he had seen the waiter do in the restaurant

at the hotel down in the town.

"Signor had brought the cutlets? Si, and beautiful they were! How

would signor like to have them done? Thus, or thus, or thus?" in a

variety of ways which, whilst their recital far exceeded my limited

knowledge of the language, filled me with fullest confidence in

Giacommetti.

That was his name, he told me in one of his bursts of confidence;

and a very pretty name it is, though for brevity's sake it may be

convenient hereafter to particularise him by the initial letter.

As I was scarcely in a position to decide among the various

appetising ways of cooking suggested by G., I said I would leave it

to him.

But, then, the signor could not make a dinner of cutlets. What else

would he be so good as to like? Sausage, ham of York, and eggs--eggs

à la coque or presented as omelettes. No? Then signor would commence

with soup? Finally potage au riz was selected out of the

embarrassment of riches poured at our feet by the enthusiastic G.

There being yet an hour to dinner, we ascended the few steps that

led to the summit of the hill on which the chapel is perched, a

marvel to all new-comers by the highway of the Lake. The door was

open, and we walked in. There was no light burning on the altar,

nor any water in the stone basin by the door. But there was all

the apparatus of worship--the gaudy toyshop above the grand altar,

the tiny side chapels, with their pictures of the dying Saviour,

and the confessional box, now thick with dust, and echoless of

sob of penitent or counsel of confessor. It was evidently a poorly

endowed chapel, the tinsel adornments being of the cheapest and

the candles of the thinnest. But in some past generation a good

Catholic had bestowed upon it an altarcloth of richest silk,

daintily embroidered. The colours had faded out of the flowers,

and the golden hue of the cloth had been grievously dimmed. Still

it remained the one rich genuine piece of workmanship in a chapel

disfigured by an overbearing hankering after paper flowers and

tinsel.

Early the next morning, whilst reposing under the magnificent

counterpane on the bed of chopped straw, I was awakened by hearing

the chapel bell ring for mass. I thought it must be the ghost of

some disembodied priest, who had come up through the darkness of

the night and the scarcely more luminous mist of the morning to

say a mass for his own disturbed soul. But, as I presently learned,

they were human hands that pulled the bell-rope, and a living

priest said mass all by himself in this lonely chapel whilst dawn

was breaking over a sleeping world.

I saw him some hours later sitting on the kitchen dresser, in the

sanctum where G. worked the mysteries of his art. He was resting

his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, and had in his mouth

a large pipe, from which he vigorously puffed. I found him a very

cheerful old gentleman, by no means unduly oppressed with the

solemnity of this early mass in the lonely chapel. He lived down

at Barbeng, at the back of the hill, and had come up this morning

purely as a matter of business, and in partial fulfilment of a

contract entered into with one of his parishioners, whose husband

had been lost at sea whilst yet they were only twelve months

married. The widow had scraped together sufficient money to have

a due number of masses said on San Salvatore for the repose of the

soul of her young husband. So once a week, whilst the contract ran,

the old priest made his way up through the morning mist, tolled the

bell, said the mass, and thereafter comforted himself with a

voluminous pipe seated on the dresser in G.'s kitchen.

This is a digression, and I confess I have rather lingered over it,

as it kept the soup waiting.

The preparation was brought in in a neat white bowl gracefully

carried aloft by G., who still insisted upon going about with a

napkin under his arm. Everything was in order except the soup. I

like to think that the failure may have been entirely due to myself.

G. had proposed quite a dozen soups, and I had ignorantly chosen

the only one he could not make. The liquid was brown and greasy,

smelling horribly of a something which in recognition of G.'s good

intention I will call butter. The rice, which formed a principal

component part, presented itself in conglomerate masses, as if G.,

before placing it in the tureen, had squeezed portions of it in his

hand.

Perhaps he had, for he was not in the humour to spare himself trouble

in his effort to make the banquet a success.

We helped ourselves plentifully to the contents of the tureen, which

was much easier to do than to settle the disposition of the soup. G.

was in an ecstasy of delight at things having gone on so well thus

far. He positively pervaded the place, nervously changing the napkin

from arm to arm, and frantically flicking off imaginary crumbs. At

length it happily occurred to him that it would be well to go and

see after the cutlets. Whereupon we emptied the soup back into the

tureen, and when G. returned were discovered wiping our lips with

the air of people who had already dined.

After all, there were the cutlets, and G. had not indulged in

exaggerated approval of their excellence when in a state of nature.

They were those dainty cuts into which veal naturally seems to

resolve itself in butcher's shops on the Continent. We observed

with concern that they looked a little burned in places when they

came to the table, and the same attraction of variety was maintained

in the disposition of salt. There were large districts in the area

of the cutlet absolutely free from savouring. But then you came upon

a small portion where the salt lay in drifts, and thus the average

was preserved. We were very hungry and ate the cutlets, which, with

an allowance of bread, made up the dinner. There were some potatoes,

fried with great skill, amid much of the compound we had agreed to

call butter. But, as I explained to G. in reply to a deprecatory

gesture when he took away the floating mass untouched, I have not

for more than three years been able to eat a potato. One of my

relations was, about that date, choked by a piece of potato, and

since then I have never touched them, especially when fried in a

great deal of butter.

We had some cheese, for which Earl Granville's family motto would

serve as literal description. You might bend it, but could not

break it. I never was partial to bent cheese, but we made a fair

appearance with this part of the feast, owing to the arrival of

G.'s dog, a miserable-looking cur, attracted to the banquet-hall

by unwonted savours. He seemed to like the cheese; and G., when he

came in with the coffee, was more than ever pleased with our

appreciation of the good things provided for us.

"Rosbif and chiss--ha!" he said, breaking forth into English, and

smiling knowingly upon us.

He felt he had probed the profoundest depths of the Englishman's

gastronomical weakness.

With the appearance of the coffee the real pleasure of the evening

commenced. Along nearly the whole of one side of the banquet-hall

ran a fireplace, a recess of the proportions of a spare bedroom in

an ordinary English house. There were no "dogs" or other contrivance

for minimising the spontaneity of a fire. There are granite quarries

near, and these had contributed an enormous block which formed a

hearth raised about six inches above the level of the floor. On this

an armful of brushwood was placed; and the match applied, it began

to burn with cheerful crackling laughter and pleasant flame,

filling the room with a fragrant perfume. For all other light a

feeble oil lamp twinkled high up on the wall, and a candle burned

on the table where we had so luxuriantly dined.

The fitful light shone on the oil paintings which partly hid the

damp on the walls. There was a picture (not a bad one) of St.

Sebastian pierced with arrows, and in his death-agony turning

heavenward a beautiful face. There was the portrait of another

monk holding on to a ladder, each rung of which was labelled with

a cardinal virtue. There was a crucifixion or two, and what

elsewhere might well pass for a family portrait--an elderly lady,

with a cap of the period, nursing a spaniel. The damp had spared

the spaniel whilst it made grave ravages upon the lady, eating

a portion of her cheek and the whole of her left ear.

G. having the dinner off his mind, and having, as was gathered

from a fearsome clattering in the back premises, washed up the

dishes, wandered about the shadows in the background and showed

a disposition for conversation. It was now he unfolded that dream

of the hotel some day to be built up here, with the porter in the

hall, the waiters buzzing round, the old man, his father, in the

receipt of custom, and he (G.) exercising his great natural talents

in supervising the making of soup, the frying of potatoes, and

the selection of elastic cheeses. He showed, with pardonable pride,

a visitors' book in which was written "Leopold, Prince of Great

Britain and Ireland." His Royal Highness came here one rainy day

in 1876, riding on a mule, and escorted by a bedraggled suite.

Did they partake of any refreshments?

No; the father, G. frankly admits, lost his head in the excitement

of the moment--a confession which confirms the impression that, on

a much less auspicious occasion, it has been thought desirable that

a younger and stronger man should assume the direction of affairs.

To proffer Royalty potage au riz on such brief notice was of course

out of the question. But the fatuous old gentleman had permitted a

Prince of Great Britain and Ireland to descend the mountain without

having tasted any other of the comestibles which were doubtless on

hand at the time, and portions of which most probably remain to

this day.

About eight o'clock there were indications from the shadowy

portions of the banqueting chamber that G. was getting sleepy, and

that the hour had arrived when it was usual for residents to retire

for the night. Even on the top of a mountain one cannot go to bed

at eight o'clock, and we affected to disregard these signals.

Beginning gently, the yawns increased in intensity till they became

phenomenal. At nine o'clock G. pointedly compared the hour of the

day as between his watch and mine.

It was hard to leave a bright wood fire and go to bed at nine

o'clock; but G. was irresistible. He literally yawned us out of

the room, up the staircase, and into the bed-chamber. There was a

key hanging by the outside of the door the size of a small club,

and weighing several pounds. On the inside the keyhole, contrary to

habitude, was in the centre of the door. From this point of approach

it was, however, useful rather for ventilation than for any other

purpose, since the key would not enter. Looking about for some means

of securing the door against possible intrusions on the part of G.

with a new soup, I discovered the trunk of a young tree standing

against the wall. The next discovery was recesses in the wall on

either side of the door, which suggested the evident purpose of the

colossal bar. With this across the door one might sleep in peace,

and I did till eight o'clock in the morning.

G. had been instructed to call us at sunrise if the morning were

fair. As it happened, our ill luck of the evening was repeated in

the morning. A thick mist obscured all around us, though as we

passed down to civilisation and Lugano the sun, growing stronger,

lifted wreaths of white mist, and showed valley, and lake, and

town bathed in glorious light.

We in this country have grown accustomed to the existence of the

Prince of Wales, and his personality, real and fabulous, is not

unfamiliar on the other side of the Atlantic. But if we come to

think of it, it is a very strange phenomenon. The only way to

realise its immensity is to conceive its creation today, supposing

that heretofore through the history of England there had been

no such institution. A child is born in accidental circumstances

and with chance connections that might just as reasonably have

fallen to the lot of some other entity. He grows from childhood

through youth into manhood, and all the stages, with increasing

devotion and deference, he is made the object of reverential

solicitude. All his wants are provided for, even anticipated. He

is the first person to be considered wherever he goes. Men who

have won renown in Parliament, in the camp, in literature, doff

their hats at his coming, and high-born ladies curtsey.

It is all very strange; but so is the rising of the sun and the

sequence of the moon. We grow accustomed to everything and take

the Prince of Wales like the solar system as a matter of course.

Reflection on the singularity of his position leads to sincere

admiration of the manner in which the Prince fills it. Take it for

all in all, there is no post in English public life so difficult

to fill, not only without reproach, but with success. Day and night

the Prince lives under the bull's-eye light of the lantern of a

prying public. He is more talked about, written about, and pulled

about than any Englishman, except, perhaps, Mr. Gladstone. But Mr.

Gladstone stands on level ground with his countrymen. If he is

attacked or misrepresented, he can hit back again. The position of

the Prince of Wales imposes upon him the impassivity of the target

used in ordinary rifle practice. Whatever is said or written about

him, he can make no reply, and the happy result which in the main

follows upon this necessary attitude suggests that it might with

advantage be more widely adopted.

Probably in the dead, unhappy night when the rain was on the roof

and the Tranby Croft scandal was on everybody's tongue, the Prince

of Wales had some bad quarters of an hour. But whatever he felt or

suffered, he made no sign. To see him sitting in the chair on the

bench in court whilst that famous trial was proceeding, no one, not

having prior knowledge of the fact, would have guessed that he had

the slightest personal interest in the affair. There was danger of

his even over-doing the attitude of indifference. But he escaped it,

and was exactly as smiling, debonair and courtly as if he were in

his box at the theatre watching the development of some quite other

dramatic performance. He has all the courage of his race, and his

long training has steeled his nerves.

It would be so easy for the Prince of Wales to make mistakes that

would alienate from him the affection which is now his in unstinted

measure. There are plenty of precedents, and a fatal fulness of

exemplars. Take, for example, his relations with political life. It

would not be possible for him now, as a Prince of Wales did at the

beginning of the century, to form a Parliamentary party, and

control votes in the House of Commons by cabals hatched at

Marlborough House. But he might, if he were so disposed, in less

occult ways meddle in politics. As a matter of fact, noteworthy and

of highest honour to the Prince, the outside public have not the

slightest idea to which side of politics his mind is biassed. They

know all about his private life, what he eats, and how much; how he

dresses, whom he talks to, what he does from the comparatively

early hour at which he rises to the decidedly late one at which he

goes to bed. But in all the gossip daily poured forth about him

there is never a hint as to whether he prefers the politics of Tory

or Liberal, the company of Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone.

In a country where every man in whatever station of life is a keen

politician, this is a great thing to say for one in the position of

the Prince of Wales.

This absolute impartiality of attitude does not arise from

indifference to politics or to the current of political warfare.

The Prince is a Peer of Parliament, sits as Duke of Cornwall, and

under that name figures in the division lists on the rare occasions

when he votes. When any important debate is taking place in the

House, he is sure to be found in his corner seat on the front Cross

Bench, an attentive listener. Nor does he confine his attention to

proceedings in the House of Lords. In the Commons there is no more

familiar figure than his seated in the Peers' Gallery over the

clock, with folded hands irreproachably gloved, resting on the

rail before him as he leans forward and watches with keen interest

the sometimes tumultuous scene.

Thus he sat one afternoon in the spring of the session of 1875. He

had come down to hear a speech with which his friend, Mr. Chaplin,

was known to be primed. The House was crowded in every part, a

number of Peers forming the Prince's suite in the gallery, while

the lofty figure of Count Munster, German Ambassador, towered at

his right hand, divided by the partition between the Peers'

Gallery and that set apart for distinguished strangers. It was a

great occasion for Mr. Chaplin, who sat below the gangway visibly

pluming himself and almost audibly purring in anticipation of

coming triumph. But a few days earlier the eminent orator had the

misfortune to incur the resentment of Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar.

All unknown to him, Joseph Gillis was now lying in wait, and just

as the Speaker was about to call on the orator of the evening,

the Member for Cavan rose and observed,--

"Mr. Speaker, Sir, I believe there are strangers in the house."

The House of Commons, tied and bound by its own archaic

regulations, had no appeal against the whim of the indomitable

Joey B. He had spied strangers in due form, and out they must go.

So they filed forth, the Prince of Wales at the head of them, the

proud English Peers following, and by another exit the Envoy of the

most potent sovereign of the Continent, representative of a nation

still flushed with the overthrow of France--all publicly and

peremptorily expelled at the raising of the finger of an uneducated,

obscure Irishman, who, when not concerned with the affairs of the

Imperial Parliament, was curing bacon at Belfast and selling it at

enhanced prices to the Saxon in the Liverpool market.

The Prince of Wales bore this unparalleled indignity with the good

humour which is one of his richest endowments. He possesses in rare

degree the faculty of being amused and interested. The British

workman, who insists on his day's labour being limited by eight

hours, would go into armed revolt if he were called upon to toil

through so long a day as the Prince habitually faces. Some of its

engagements are terribly boring, but the Prince smiles his way

through what would kill an ordinary man. His manner is charmingly

unaffected, and through all the varying duties and circumstances of

the day he manages to say and do the right thing. It is not a heroic

life, but it is in its way a useful one, and must be exceedingly hard

to live.

Watching the Prince of Wales moving through an assemblage, whether

it be as he enters a public meeting or as he strolls about the

greensward at Marlborough House on the occasion of a garden party,

the observer may get some faint idea of the strain ever upon him. You

can see his eyes glancing rapidly along the line of the crowd in

search of some one whom he can make happy for the day by a smile or a

nod of recognition. If there were one there who might expect the

honour, and who was passed over, the Prince knows full well how sore

would be the heart-burning.

There is nothing prettier at the garden party than to see him walking

through the crowd of brave men and fair women with the Queen on his

arm. Her Majesty used in days gone by to be habile enough at the

performance of this imperative duty laid upon Royalty of singling

out persons for recognition. Now, when he is in her company, the

Prince of Wales does it for her. Escorting her, bare-headed,

through the throng; he glances swiftly to right or left, and when he

sees some one whom he thinks the Queen should smile upon he whispers

the name. The Queen thereupon does her share in contributing to the

sum of human happiness.

It is, as I began by saying, all very strange if we look calmly at it.

But, in the present order of things, it has to be done. It is the

Prince of Wales's daily work, and it is impossible to conceive it

accomplished with fuller appearance of real pleasure on the part of

the active agent.