The Prince was absent from the camp, having gone off a day or two before to pay a visit to the Maharajah of Gwalior, but an hour later, while we were making a first visit to the Taj, we heard the guns which announced his return. A day or two after we saw him starting for Jeypore, when, although he drove off in a carriage very quietly, the camels and elephants that went rolling along the different roads, as we drove out once more to the camp, told of the brilliant pageant that was ended.
This visit of the Prince of Wales is a great event. It has excited a prodigious interest in official and military circles. His progress through the country has been in a blaze of processions and illuminations. To himself it must have been very gratifying. As he said, "It had been the dream of his life to visit India." It was a matter of political wisdom that he should know it, not only through others but by personal observation. Mr. Disraeli, in proposing it in Parliament, said justly that "travel was the best education for princes." It was well that the future King of England, should make himself acquainted with the great Empire that he was one day to rule. But whether this royal visit will result in any real benefit to India to correspond with the enormous expense it has involved, is a question which I hear a good deal discussed among Englishmen. In some ways it cannot fail to do good. It has presented to the people of India an impersonation of sovereignty, a visible representative of that mighty power, the British Empire. It has conciliated the native princes, who have been greatly pleased by the frank and manly courtesy of their future sovereign. In the art of courtesy he is a master. History will give him this rank among princes, that he was not great, but gracious. This is a kingly virtue which it was well to have exhibited in the person of one of such exalted rank, the more as English officials in India are charged with showing, often in the most offensive way, the insolence of power. Perhaps it was on this very account that he took such pains to show a generous and even chivalrous courtesy to natives of rank, even while he did not hesitate, so I was told by Englishmen, to "snub" his own countrymen. Such a bearing has certainly commanded respect, and given him a personal popularity. But it has not converted the people to loyalty any more than to Christianity. They run to see the parades, the Rajahs, and the elephants. But as to its exciting any deeper feeling in them, no Englishman who has lived long in the country will trust to that for a moment. Even though English rule be for their own safety and protection, yet their prejudices of race and religion are stronger than even considerations of interest. It is a curious illustration of the power of caste that the very Rajahs who entertain the Prince of Wales with such lavish hospitality, who build palaces to receive him, and spread before him sumptuous banquets, still do not themselves sit down at the table; they will not even eat with their Royal guest; and count his touch of food, and even his shadow falling upon it, a pollution! Such a people are not to be trusted very far beyond the range of English guns. The security of English rule in India is not to be found in any fancied sentiment of loyalty, which does not exist, but in the overwhelming proof of English power. British possession is secured by the well-armed fortresses which overlook every great city, and which could lay it in ruins in twenty-four hours. The rule that was obtained by the sword, must be held by the sword.