It was fearfully tight under the arms and round the neck, and the new patent-leather boots pinched horribly, so that the radiant glow of satisfaction in the glory and honour of wearing it was tinctured with some pain and discomfort, for the day was unusually warm, almost oppressive, and the heavy cloth loaded with astrachan, the hot fur cap with its skull and cross-bones (the emblem which gives the regiment its name, the _Toten-Kopf_ or Death’s-Head Hussars) combined with the cumbersome habit-skirt, weighted the Princess almost beyond endurance. All the officers of the regiment had travelled from distant Danzig, a twelve hours’ journey, to be presented to their new colonel; and the Empress’s birthday table, with the usual dozen of new hats, received hardly any attention at all, every one being absorbed in the “new recruit” to His Majesty’s forces. “She will ride at the head of the first regiment that invades England,” said the Emperor gaily to me. “Yes, I hope so. Then we shall be delighted to see it,” was the only possible answer I could find. “Oh yes! You will receive her with open arms, no doubt,” he laughed, but looked as though he were not quite sure of the matter. But when his daughter the following year accompanied her parents to England for the unveiling of the Queen Victoria Memorial, although she did not arrive at the head of her regiment, she nevertheless managed to subjugate and be subjugated by that portion of England which came within her sphere of influence. Her impressions of her week in London, a city she had expected to find wrapt in impenetrable fog, but which remained, with the exception of a few showers, bathed in sunshine all the time of her visit, were joyous in the extreme. The soldiers, especially the Highlanders walking with that peculiarly characteristic, proud, delightful swagger, the rhythmic swing of their kilts, the skirl of their bagpipes, thrilled her with delight. “Your soldiers are wonderful,” she said; “I never thought they were like that. Every private walks like an officer.” She thought the “Military Tournament” the most delightful entertainment she had ever seen, and was intensely amused at “Arthur’s Arabs,” the soldiers of the regiment of Prince Arthur of Connaught, who, disguised in burnous and appropriate head-gear and jabbering a jargon of their own invention, interspersed with weird shrieks and gestures, imposed themselves on a portion of the unsuspecting British public as “the real article” from somewhere in the neighbourhood of Algiers, and accomplished their tent-pegging to the accompaniment of blood-curdling and ear-piercing yells.