Later in the day, the Prince attended a formal state dinner, and evoked a storm of applause by contradicting emphatically a rumour, which had been causing a good deal of anxiety in the island, to the effect that there was a possibility of some of the West Indies being disposed of to America. "I need hardly say," said His Royal Highness, downrightly, "that the King's subjects are not for sale to other governments. Their destiny, as free men, is in their own hands. Your future is for you yourselves to shape, and I am sure Barbados will never waver in its loyalty, three centuries old, to the British Crown." It would thus appear that Cromwell's experiment is not likely to be developed by the present government. The assurance was noteworthy as the first of the pleasant and telling things the Prince had to say during his progress, opportunities which he never missed and which, in the aggregate, enhanced so greatly the success of his mission. III PANAMA At dawn, in hot, soft, hazy weather, the _Renown_, followed by the _Calcutta_, left the blue, transparent waters of the Caribbean Sea and entered the green, muddy channel, fringed with dense, verdant forest, which is the beginning of the Panama Canal. Three aeroplanes, each bearing the stripes of the American Air Service, droned overhead in noisy welcome. Resonant concussions and white, fleecy puffs of smoke amidst low wharves and jetties where Colon lay in the forest, spread a Royal salute upon the vibrating air. Music arose upon the _Renown_, while staff-officers arrayed themselves in gold-lace and helmets, ready to receive the Prince's guests. Launches arrived at the ship bringing the British Minister to Panama, Mr. Percy Bennett, accompanied by Captain Blake and Major-General Bethell, respectively naval and military attachés at the British Embassy at Washington. An hour's quiet steaming, thereafter, brought us to the giant Gatun locks, which stand in three black tiers of steel, the gates rising, one above another, in a massive setting of grey, rounded concrete, a severing gash in the high, green hill which is the Gatun dam. Here, Señor Lefevre, President of the Panama Republic, Admiral Johnston and Colonel Kennedy, commanding the American naval and military forces in the Panama Zone, also Engineer Colonel Harding, Governor of the Canal, and Monsieur Simonin, French Chargé d'Affairs, came on board.