Westward with the Prince of WalesNewton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
History
Westward with the Prince of Wales
Newton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
Canada -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
When the Prince made his appearance on Thursday, November 20th, in the
uniform of a Welsh Guardsman he came in for a startling ovation. Not
only were many people gathered about the Yacht Club landing-stage and
along the route of his drive, but at one point a number of ladies
pelted him with flowers. Startled though the Prince was, he kept his
smile and his sense of humour. He said dryly that he had never known
what it was to feel like a bride before, and he returned this volley
with his friendly salute.
He was then setting out to the Grand Central Station for his trip up
the Hudson to West Point, the Military Academy of the United States.
In the superb white station, under a curved arch of ceiling as blue as
the sky, he took the full force of an affection that had been growing
steadily through the visit. The immense floor of the building was
dense and tight with people, and the Prince, as he came to the balcony
that made the stair-head was literally halted by the great gust of
cheering that beat up to him, and was forced to stand at the salute for
a full minute.
The journey to West Point skirted the Hudson, where lovely view after
lovely view of the piled-up and rocky further shore tinted in the
russet and gold of the dying foliage came and went. There was a rime
of ice already in the lagoons, and the little falls that usually
tumbled down the rocks were masses of glittering icicles.
The castellated walls of West Point overhang the river above a sharp
cliff; the buildings have a dramatic grouping that adds to the extreme
beauty of the surroundings. Toward this castle on the cliff the Prince
went by a little steam ferry, was taken in escort by a smart body of
American cavalrymen, and in their midst went by automobile up the road
to the grey towers of West Point.
Immediately on his arrival at the saluting point on the great campus
the horizon-blue cadets, who will one day be the leaders of the
American army, began to march.
Paraded by the buildings, they fell into columns of companies with
mechanical precision. With precise discipline they moved out on to the
field, the companies as solid as rocks but for the metronomic beat of
legs and arms.
They were tall, smart youths, archaic and modern in one. With long
blue coats, wide trousers, shakos, broad white belts, as neat as
painted lines, over breast and back, and, holding back the flaps of
capes, they looked figures from the fifties. But the swing of the
marching companies, the piston-like certainty of their action, the cold
and splendid detachment of their marching gave them all the _flare_
[Transcriber's note: flair?] of a _corps d'elite_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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