personal expression of his feelings. In the evening electric and coloured lights of every kind and in countless number combined with flashing searchlights to illuminate the great fleet and to cast a glamour of fairy land over the splendid scene. Meanwhile, in the morning, His Majesty had received on board his yacht the celebrated Boer Generals, Botha, De Wet and De la Rey. Afterwards, in company with Lord Kitchener and Earl Roberts they had returned to London greatly pleased with the cordiality of their reception and especially gratified at the kind manner of Queen Alexandra. Following the official Naval Review, the King on the next day visited the fleet in a stormy sea and watched it go through certain manoeuvres of a practical kind before being dispersed to its different local stations. On his return to London he found the Shah of Persia a guest of the nation and awaiting formal reception at the hands of its Monarch. And thus King Edward took up again his unceasing round of duty and ceremonial and high responsibility. In the past year or two he had gone through every variety of emotional experience and official work and brilliant ceremony--his mother's death and the consequent mourning of a nation and empire; his own assumption of new and heavy duties; the special labours of an expectant period; the time of serious illness and the anxieties of complex responsibility to a world-wide public; the realization of his Coronation hopes; the change from an old to a new period stamped by the change in his national advisers and the presence of his Colonial Premiers. He now entered upon his further lifework, with chastened feelings in a personal sense but, it is safe to say, with high and brilliant hopes for the future of his own home country and its far-flung Empire. CHAPTER XXIV. The Reign of King Edward The history of this reign--not long in years--is yet crowded with events, rich in national and Imperial developments, conspicuous in the importance of its discussions and international controversies. The first brief months, which have been already reviewed, saw the completion of the memorable Empire tour of the new Prince of Wales and the settling down of Australia to a life of national unity and progress; the conclusion of the South African War and the beginning of an extraordinary process of unification which was in a few years to evolve the Union of South Africa; the almost spectacular incidents of the Coronation and the important proceedings of the Colonial Conference of 1902. In July of this latter year the Marquess of Salisbury retired and was succeeded in the Premiership by his nephew, Arthur J. Balfour. To the King this meant the removal of a strong arm and powerful intellect and respected personality from his side and increased the importance of his own experience and _prestige_ as a statesman.