This was an exceptionally interesting incident in the tour, for, since the days of King John, no English sovereign had till then set foot in the old Norman fief of the Crown. Little wonder that Guernsey was all excitement when they landed. Loyal cheers and addresses greeted the Queen and her family wherever they went; and the young Prince of Wales, by reason of his dress, which was that of a miniature seaman, attracted universal attention. Bands played and guns fired salutes, and pretty girls in white strewed the path of their young Queen with flowers. A brief visit to Jersey threw St. Helier into a frenzy of loyalty; after which the Royal yacht steamed for Falmouth, carrying the little Prince of Wales to see his Duchy of Cornwall for the first time. “A beautiful day again,” writes the Queen in her Diary, on the 4th of September--a Diary which is full of charming descriptions, in her own vivid but artless style, of this excursion--“a beautiful day again, with the same brilliantly blue sea. At a quarter to eight o’clock we got under weigh. There was a great deal of motion at first, and for the greater part of the day the ship pitched, but getting up the sails steadied her. From
[Illustration: THE QUEEN VISITING A CORNISH IRON MINE. (_See p. 266._)]
five o’clock it became quite smooth; at half-past five we saw land; and at seven we entered Falmouth Harbour, where we were immediately surrounded by boats. The calmest night possible, with a beautiful moon, when we went on deck; every now and then the splashing of oars and the hum of voices were heard, but they were the only sounds, unlike the constant dashing of the sea against the vessel which we heard all the time we were at Jersey.” At eight o’clock next morning (September 5th) the Royal party left Falmouth, rounded the Lizard, and skirted the bold and rugged coast that leads to Land’s End. Here, much to the delight of Prince Albert, the sea was
[Illustration: ON THE CORNISH COAST: PRADANACK POINT.]
smooth. “A little before two,” writes the Queen, “we landed in the beautiful Mount’s Bay, close below St. Michael’s Mount, which is very fine. When the bay first opened to our view the sun was lighting up this beautiful castle, so peculiarly built on a rock which forms an island at high water.” The sun shone out gloriously as the Queen passed Penzance, and the smooth sea spread itself like an azure plain under a cloudless sky. “Soon after our arrival,” she says, “we anchored, and the crowd of boats was beyond everything; numbers of Cornish pilchard fishermen, in their curious large boats, kept going round and round, and then anchored, besides many boats full of people.” “They are,” says her Majesty, “a very noisy, talkative race, and speak a kind of English hardly to be understood.” “During the voyage,” adds the Queen, with maternal satisfaction, “I was able to give Vicky (H.I.H. the Empress Frederick) her lessons;” indeed, all through these yachting cruises the Queen insisted, in true English fashion, on acting personally as her children’s teacher. In fact, it was only when the pressure of public and social duty became too severe for such labours that her Majesty would ever consent to delegate the tuition of her children to others; and even then, she and Prince Albert bestowed on it most vigilant personal superintendence. In the afternoon, the Royal party, “including the children,” rowed to the _Fairy_, and steamed round the bay. They visited St. Michael’s Mount and the smelting works at Penzance, which monopolised the attention of Prince Albert. “We remained here,” her Majesty writes, “a little while to sketch, and returned to the _Victoria and Albert_ by half-past four, the boats crowding round us in all directions; and when ‘Bertie’ (the Prince of Wales) showed himself the people shouted, ‘Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall.’”