Sixty Years a Queen: The Story of Her Majesty's ReignMaxwell, Herbert, Sir
History
Sixty Years a Queen: The Story of Her Majesty's Reign
Maxwell, Herbert, Sir
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
Soon after nine o'clock the first part of the Procession left Buckingham
Palace. It consisted of the Colonial contingent, headed by Field-Marshal
Lord Roberts, V.C., supporting a Field-Marshal's bâton on his right
thigh, and mounted on a grey pony. All along the route the gallant
soldier was greeted with mighty cheers, and it was universally thought
that the choice of so popular a General to command the Colonial troops
while they were in this country was a singularly felicitous one.
Immediately behind the Field-Marshal rode the Canadian Hussars, 2nd
Canadian Dragoons, and the Mounted Police--a magnificent group of men,
who excited universal admiration--preceding the carriage of the Premier
of Canada, the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier. This gentleman was
received with thunders of applause by the spectators, as were the other
Colonial Premiers; and if anything were needed to convince our
illustrious visitors that the heart of the old country is warm for her
children, their welcome on this day of days amply fulfilled the need.
Then came the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, the New South Wales
Lancers, and the Victorian Mounted Rifles--superb horsemen these, and
singularly effective-looking in their slouch hats fastened up at the
side and khaki uniforms--and after them the carriage in which rode the
Premiers of New South Wales and Victoria. But it is impossible to give
an account of each group. The actual spectators of the beautiful
Colonial procession could but feast their eyes on each body of splendid
warriors as it passed, and cherish a vain wish that the pageant might be
repeated again and again until every individual horseman and
foot-soldier had received a due meed of admiration. Only too quickly
came into view and passed away New Zealand mounted troops--among them a
few giant Maoris--Queensland Mounted Rifles, riflemen from the Cape and
South Australian Lancers, Natal Carabiniers and Umvoti, Natal and Border
Mounted Rifles, and then troops from the Crown Colonies; Trinidad
Mounted Rifles, and Zaptiehs from Cyprus; "upstanding Sikhs, tiny little
Malays and Dyaks; Chinese with a white basin turned upside down on their
heads; grinning Hausas, so dead black that they shone like silver in the
sun--white men, yellow men, brown men, black men, every colour, every
continent, every race, every speech--and all in arms for the British
Empire and the British Queen." After the Cypriotes came a handful of the
Rhodesian Horse, headed by the Hon. Maurice Gifford, carrying one
pathetic empty sleeve across his breast--a group that evoked almost
frantic cheering. "Up they came, more and more," says Mr. G. W.
Steevens, in the _Daily Mail_ of June 23, "new types, new realms at
every couple of yards, an anthropological museum--a living gazetteer of
the British Empire. With them came their English officers, whom they
obey and follow like children. And you began to understand, as never
before, what the Empire amounts to. Not only that we possess all these
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