Besides the melancholy and tragic death of Madame Musurus there was only one other disagreeable incident attached to the Sultan’s visit. A grand naval review at Portsmouth was arranged for his delectation and instruction on the 17th of July. It was known that the Queen intended to confer a mark of distinction on her Imperial visitor, but it was whispered that he was dissatisfied with what her Majesty proposed to do for him. The whole story has since been told by Lord Malmesbury, who says that at first the Queen, at Lord Derby’s suggestion, offered to confer on Abdul Aziz the Star of India. But Fuad Pasha, who was in attendance on Abdul Aziz, hearing of this went to the Lord Steward and warned him that the Sultan would consider himself slighted if he were offered anything but the Garter. Already he had the Bath, and he seemed to consider the Star of India as an inferior distinction to the Bath. Lord Derby was remonstrated with, and finally it was settled that when the Queen received the Sultan on her yacht at the Naval Review she should give him the Order of the Garter. This was done with great pomp and ceremony, as Lord Malmesbury says, “in the midst of the howling of the storm and the roaring of the cannon.” But here another hitch occurred. No ribbon was ready, so the Queen took the ribbon of Prince Louis of Hesse and presented it to the Sultan, intending that he should return it, when a new one could be got for him. “But,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “the Sultan refused to give it (the ribbon) up, saying [Illustration: THE QUEEN INVESTING ABDUL AZIZ WITH THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.] that the one he had was given to him by the Queen, and that he would wear no other.”[269] In July the Empress of the French spent a few days quietly with the Queen at Osborne, and on the 9th of August the Queen paid a long visit to the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, where she went through the wards, speaking after her homely fashion to the sick and wounded soldiers. She took a special interest in one case--that of a man who had been shot through the lungs at Lucknow, in 1858, but who had continued to do duty almost down to 1867.