The King thoroughly realised the benefit he had himself derived from the travels which he had undertaken as a youth, and therefore he arranged that his sons should spend three years in making a tour round the world, that their minds might be equipped by experience of men and cities, and that they might acquire an abiding impression of the extent and resources of the British Empire. Accordingly, the young Princes started in the _Bacchante_ cruiser, Captain Lord Charles Scott, being again entrusted to the care of Mr. Dalton, who was afterwards made a Canon of Windsor. Canon Dalton, it is interesting to note, attended Prince George when, as Duke of Cornwall and York, and accompanied by the Duchess of Cornwall and York, he visited Australia to inaugurate the Federal Parliament, coming home by New Zealand and Canada. The Princes kept careful diaries, and on their return they published a detailed account of their experiences. In the _Bacchante_, just as in the _Britannia_, they were treated exactly like other officers of their age and standing, except that they had a private cabin under the poop. They joined the gun-room mess, the members of which were granted a special allowance--an arrangement which had before been made when the Duke of Edinburgh began his naval career. The _Bacchante_ cruised to Gibraltar, Messina, Gibraltar again, Madeira, the West Indies, and home to Spithead on 3rd May. Then, on 19th July, the Princes rejoined the _Bacchante_ for another cruise, first with the combined Channel and Reserve Squadrons to Bantry Bay and Vigo, and afterwards to Monte Video. The ship arrived off the Falkland Islands, but the Princes never landed, as had been arranged, for the troubles in South Africa had come to a head and the squadron was suddenly ordered to the Cape. The _Bacchante_ reached Simons Bay on 16th February, and not many days later came the news of Majuba Hill and Laing’s Nek. Early in April the Princes left for Australia, a voyage which was destined to be not without danger, for the _Bacchante_ broke a portion of her steering-gear in a heavy gale. Temporary repairs were effected, and the vessel’s course was altered for Albany, in Western Australia. While the _Bacchante_ was refitting, their Royal Highnesses visited the chief Australian ports in a passenger steamer called the _Cathay_, being everywhere received with enthusiastic loyalty. At last, rejoining the _Bacchante_, they said good-bye with regret to Australia, and on the voyage home they visited Fiji, Japan (where they were received with great ceremony by the Mikado), Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Singapore, and Colombo. Thence they proceeded to Suez, where they had the pleasure of meeting the great de Lesseps, and went in the Khedive’s yacht on a trip up to the First Cataract, as their parents had done in 1869.