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.