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
As the Prince of Wales landed the scene was one of the most splendid
conceivable. Long lines of seats draped in scarlet cloth stood out under
the sides of the gigantic archway and upon them stood a multitude of
native notabilities--Chiefs, Sirdars and gentlemen, Parsees, Hindoos,
Mahrattas and Mohammedans--a crowd glittering in gems and bright in all
the brilliant hues of Oriental garb. Amongst them also were the officers
of the Government and Municipality, leading citizens and dignitaries,
and all the ladies who could be found within a radius of a hundred
miles. Flowers and shrubs and banners and flags were everywhere. An
address expressive of loyalty and pride in the British Throne was
presented from the Municipality and duly answered, and then the Prince,
with Lord Northbrook at his side, walked along a carpeted avenue,
speaking to various Princes and Chiefs as they were presented--the
first being Sir Salar Jung, the Prime Minister and representative and
famous statesman of Hyderabad. At the end of the avenue, where carriages
were taken for the procession of seven miles through the teeming streets
of the city, a band of Parsee girls in white were waiting to strew
garlands and flowers in the Prince's carriage and on the roadway.
There was no music in this wonderful night procession and its
surroundings are difficult to describe. Mr. W. H. Russell, the diarist
of the Royal tour, speaks of the spectacle as being absolutely baffling
to the eye. "There was something almost supernatural in these long
vistas winding down banks of variegated light, crowded with gigantic
creatures waving their arms aloft and indulging in extravagant gesture,
which the eye--baffled by rivers of fire, blinded with the glare of
lamps and blazing magnesium wire and pots of burning matter--sought in
vain to penetrate." The piled-up masses of human beings along these
miles of streets; the Parsee women in brilliant costumes, which vied
with the colours of the surrounding fires and lights; crowds of
Mohammedans; Hindoo temples with roofs covered by Brahmins and their
votaries; a Jew bazaar, an American store, a European warehouse, or a
Japan temple in close proximity to each other and all bearing a burden
of people in varied dress; flashed a picturesque and never-ending
variety of sight and colour and character to the gaze of the quiet,
dignified man who drove through it all as the central figure of a
spectacle whose like may never be seen again. A banquet followed in the
great hall of Government House, and a state reception closed the varied
proceedings of this first busy day in historic Hindostan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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