The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 29, 1901, Page 10

10 By Morrison Pixley. EN THOUSAND men stand lined a the American continent from the Atlant tide lmit at Qv to the shore of the Pacific at Van oouver. Thelr duty ix to keep their eyes upon every foot of the Canadian P'a cific Rallway, over which is flying the wheeled palace of thelr Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, on their empire tour of the Hritish dominions Bince the 16th of March last the royal #on of Baward Vi1 hax bepn golng as fust a8 steamer and train oould earry him from one to another of the great colonial oities of his mpire His 1oyal ye he Ophir, steamed into the Bt. Lawrence (fLer the shooting of the President, and in the sorrow and terror of that time the royal pageant on the other side of the Canadian border passed almost unnoticed by the papers and people of the United States It is & tour of the British empire that the son of the King is making, and he is therefore confined to his own territories and will in all probability not once foot on American soll, although to-mor- row he will be in plain sight of it as he steams across from Vancouver to Vie- torla It takes something of a brave man to be & King in these times, notwiths Ing Carlyle's statement that with Frederick the Great died the trade of King. The Duke of York did not fear to shake hands with three thousand men in one day, while MeKinley lay in mortal agony as the re- sult of a simllar experience, But even If the Duke was brave the Do. minion Government aid not care to imperil the life of their great guest, and so planned the greatest trackwalking feat that has been ween on carth, Iy switch from Quebec to Vancouver Waw spiked In its place hours before the royal train was expected, and the guapds upon the line of track are so placed that each one of them oan see the man on either side of him with his flag by day and his lantern by night, and every rail of the track is constantly under their eyes, while bundreds of superintendents are over ‘ them,,to see that they do not fail on thelr watches, Tosday und| all to-night the rain will e rushing, through the wild passes of the Rocky Mountaing and the even more pregipitous Selkirk Range, with storm-swollen floods far below it and the wrack of ah equinostial storm sl brooding over the glogmy gorgos, To-morrow, when the helr apparent to Bngland's throne sets foot on the Amer feun whores of the Paeffic, will mark the limit of a journey that has lasted for mix months without intermission, and Il there 1x many a lonely fle and vast wide dand of Bngland's reslm which he haw not seen A tour of Ahe Britlsh empire means a trip around the world with many sig« sage and doublings, As most of the dominions of Bdward VII are seawashed the entire trlp was made on the specially fitted royal yacht Ophir, excepting the run from Quebee to Victoria and back, which was ae 'umnlu'(l in a specially bullt royal pala® train, The trlp was first planned while Vies torfa wax yet alive and in her usual health, it being her wish that her fa- vorite grandson should with his_ own ears hear the British drumbeats roll around the world as they sound reveille to the rising sun, Traveling is hard work, but where one ¥t for six months impersonate royalty y after day, ) looking Iike & king all the time and fill the public eye with the personal grandeur It demands it s a hard strain on even a rggal eonstitution and figure, The Duke wemt ferth as the Iiving symbol of imperial Snity; the bond that unites all the KEnglishsapeaking peo- ple of the earth, excepting, of course, our mighty rebellious welves, A No comfort was too much, no splendor too great to be lavished on the floating imperial palace that wan to be his home for more than half & year,' When the Ophir welghed anchor at Portsmouth she wan finlshed and furnished as no other ship has ever been before. Everything on board of her was British from bottom of keel to top of mast. It is the intene tion of Englikh designers to mark the era of the new rulor with its own pe- cullar style of interior architecturs, !\lr-) n THE SUNDAY CALL. D> niture and desgns of oarpetry, poroelaln and wllver, In consonance with this the furnishings of the Ophir are of a- style of their own and models for what & to come, No less attentlon was given to the de- tails which conduced to the enjoyments of the table, and the oatering swent on from weok to wpek when far at sea, uns hampered by the faot that fresh vege- tables, feolte and oream, poultry, eggs and perighable dainties were thousands of miler aercar the brine. Cold storage of unurual capneity was provided for the keeping of all, and ®o even on the long teip nerors the Indian Ocean the table was as bountifully supplied as though in the midst of an Fngljsh estate, Portemouth was left by the Ophir on the 16th of March, Bhe had beon preceded by “P. and O vessels, which carrled correspondents and artists who were de- posited ut the different ports where the royal yacht would call, Her first stop was made at Gibraltar, where the Duke inspected the new works for mounting the long-range gups which have been set up to oppose, and In time of war nee, the new guns which! the Spanish had mounted in such a way as to serlously threaten the impregnable fortress of Gib- raltar, At Malta the Ophir made her next stop, and here, too, her convoy of gunboats which had escorted her from England was changed for the other war v which were to make the lon tour, There are many men-of. make Malta their headquarters, when on the Mediterranean station, and on the evening of the Ophir'a arrival they gave u grand water carnival which wah a nov- elty In its conception, The steam pin= naces of the different war vessels had each built upon them colossal struoctures of framework covered with muslin and to represent grotosque birds and T flluminated from within and sent in & long, pufiing and snorting column In review past the Ophir, much to the delight of the royal guests and the mystification of the uninitiated. Buex was reached March 30, and a short trip taken into Kgypt to point the fact of 7 ;\ THE, D! W) ANP DUCHESS England's dominion in Pharaoh land, A Wtop was made at Aden, and on the 18th of April Colombo was reached The mont spectacular foatures of the trip were the celebrations of Ceylon, espe= clally those at Kandy, where revival of the old festivals of the Kings of Kandy was glven hy Cingalese nctors, who had a #tuffed white elephant and ffty live ele- phants in a procession, which took place on o Baturday evening, On the following Bunday the Duke visited the Botanieal Qardens and the merchants of Kandy pres sented the great man with a sliver hoe fitted with an ebony handle with which he planted a eannon-bull tree, Tt Ix uncer- taln what manner of tree that may be, but {t was certalnly w striking allegory. Bingapore, that strange market of the Wast, which I8 no mun's home, and s al- most @ clty without a country, was the next stop. Here the Duke had a striking fllustration of the effect of unrestrained trade as a stimulus of urban growth, The #ite of Singapore was bought from the Bultan of Johore In 1824 by Bir Btamford Raffles for twelve' thousand pounds and an annual rental of five thousand pounds. It f8 but a camp of the army of trade, There the English, Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese, Indlans, French, Germans and Americans meet in free market, buy and sell with each other and go thelr ways, None live there for pleasure; none call it thelr country or home, yet it is to-day one of the great trading citles of the Fant, with only Manila for its rival, From Singapore the Ophir steamed away to the great Australasian empire that walls the South Pacific, reaching Meolbourne on the 6th of May, and thence the royal party visited in turn Brisbane, Bydney, Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Hobart, Tasmunia, and Adelaide, arriving at the latter place on the 6th of July, From Australia the Ophir steamed di- rectly aoross the Indlan Ocean, reaching Mauritius on the 4th of August. Thence to Natal and to Capetown, arriving at the latter place on the 16th of Auguat. From Houth Africa the Ophir went by way of Bt, Helena to Canada. BShe was first sighted from 8t. Vincent on the 4th of Beptember and ten days later arrived 7 /L/ 7/! — / ’/ 1t Quebec, accompanied by H. M. 8. Dia- dem, Niobe, Tribune, Indefatigable and Quail, The reception of the Duke in ths very heart of French Canada was enthusiastic. At one place 750 school children were so costumed and placed on a parade ground as to form the design of an immense union jack, making & beautiful and lm- preasive pletuxe, In Montreal his Highness mads an ad- dress In French to the audience, who went wild with enthusiasm at the compli- ment thus pald to the language which they hgve so jealansly preserved in its aaelent purity, ) e WL been provided by the bullding o Indlan canoe manned with voyag Indians, and in this his Highne and party shot the rapids without a tremer of fear, The rolling palace in which the long trip across the continent and back|is being made I8 & marvel of rallway actomplish- ment, It was planned hy the p ident of thed¢Canadian Pacific Rallway, Thomas Shaugnessy, who learned his rallroading in the United States as an official of the St. Paul line, For his great achievement in planning the successful tour he was xnighted and is now Sir Thomas Shauge n he royal train as it came from shops was 730 feet In length, and weighed 505 tons, It consists of the day comch Cornwall and the night coach York for Continved on Pawe Twalve