The Life of King Edward VII: with a sketch of the career of King George VHopkins, J. Castell (John Castell)
History
The Life of King Edward VII: with a sketch of the career of King George V
Hopkins, J. Castell (John Castell)
Edward VII, King of Great Britain, 1841-1910
From Kandy back to Colombo went the Royal visitors, and at the capital
they found "the white streets and blood-red earth were rivers of light
and colour," as one picturesque correspondent described the scene. The
British flag was there, and British merchants and the British Governor
in the person of Sir J. West Ridgeway were there; but all else was a
wild sea of Eastern colour; a myriad-voiced tribute of the torrid and
brilliant tropics to the power of Western civilization. After a night on
board the _Ophir_, with the war-ships in the harbour a blaze of colour
and festooned with fire, the visitors left for Singapore on April 16th
and arrived there five days later. Through the Straits of Malacca an
experience was had of the most intense heat and keen tropical
discomfort. The Duke and Duchess were received at Singapore in a
pavilion hung with flags and flowers, by the Governor, Sir Frank
Swettenham, and by the Sultans of Pahang, Perak and Selangor. This
interesting trading centre, with its four hundred and fifty million
dollars' worth of commerce and its population of mingled Chinese, Dutch
and Germans, was ablaze with decorations and filled with holiday-makers.
A Royal reception was held in the Town-Hall on April 22nd attended by
Chinese, Arabs, Malays, Tamils and representatives of all the medley of
blood which makes up the East. There were a dozen deputations bringing
addresses and adding to the steadily accumulating caskets of gold and
silver and ivory and precious stones which the Duke was destined to
possess in a measure only excelled by his Royal father's collection in
the past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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