THE PRINCE OF WALES IN INDIA.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 543, 15 March 1876, Page 3

THE PRINCE OF WALES IN INDIA.

DANCING WITH ALL THE LADIES AT THE BALL. If perpetual motion is a source of gratification the Prince of Wales ought by this time to be the happiest man alive. I have seen his Royal Highness the special correspondent of the Telegraph) at almost every hour of the twenty-four. He was dancing on Wednesday night at ten, and he was dancing still at the Byculla Club when three o'clock had struck, and daylight was not very far off. On an average he has fulfilled about a dozen engagements each day. And if the Prince has seen the people, they also have seen him. They have perched on the housetops, they have covered the paths, they have climbed the trees and waited for him in their shop windows, as though the oftener they flaw him the merrier they felt,

At the reception of the Bajahs and chieftains the Prince met them at precisely the same distances from the throne, took them by the hand in the very same manner, chatted pleasantly to them, and dismissed them as soon as they would go. A great many uncomfortable prognostications had been hazarded about the ball of the Byculla Club. The Prince would not come, there would be only seventy ladies to seven hundred gentlemen, nobody of any importance would be there; it would be a failure, and nothing else. But, to the confusion of the croakers and the delight of the club, all this was reversed, The Prince not only came, but danced every time the band played ; the ladies were very nearly equal in number to the gentlemen, the night was one of the merriest on record, and the whole thing was a grand success. Did the Prince dance 1 Ask any lady in the room. Without favor of any kind, and determined only to give happiness to everybody present, his Royal Highness led first one and then another into the space reserved for himself and suite, till at las) he ordered that even this restriction should be done away with, and, to the amazement of Sir Philip Wodehouse, who looked on with undisguised astonishment, galloped round the room as though he had lived in Bombay all his life, and was not the observed of all observers. THE PRINCE AT THE SAILORS' FEAST. The people of Bombay had determined to feast the men of the fleet, and accordingly invited them —two thousand in number —to a great banquet. By each plate stood a bottle of Bass's ale and a bottle of Guinness' stout —not tiny pint bottles, containing only a draught, but the large vessels of delight known as quarts. Besides this there were pipes—clean white clays—and cakes of tobacco, lemonade, and setzer water for the teetotallers, and an illuminated card as a souvenir of the festival. No wonder that .as the bands played " Unita" the sailors and marines marched bravely in ; no marvel that, to the tuue of "The Roast Beef of OM England," they grasped their knives and forks with the air of determined men. I never saw food disappear with half the rapidity before. Sucking pigs divided into quarters, fowls into halves, great heaps of salad filled every plate, and very soon every mouth too ; and for the time there was silence, only broken by the clatter of kuives and forks. It was a moment for action, not talking, and the sailors knew it. Little need was there for their officers to walk up and down to encourage them to make themselves at home. They were quite at home, and for half an hour ate continually, unabashed by the crowd of ladies who looked on and envied their appetites. But even sailors cannot eat for ever, and at last the knives and forks were heard do more, although more pigs were on the table, and reinforcements of ducks were being brought up; the marines were obliged to fall back upon their pipes and beer. This they did, and it was just in the midst of all this hilarity that the band played " God save the Queen " and the Prince of Wales entered. Down went the pipes, up jumped the sailors, and out went such a cheer as was suiely never heard in Bombay before. And then they ran for a form on which the Prince might stand and look at them, whereupon his Royal Highness jumped up in the most good-natured fashion possible, and with a glass of lemonade in his hand, shouted out in a clear, strong voice, " My lads, I am very glad to see you. I hope you are enjoying yourselves. I drink to the health and prosperity of the Indian and Flying Squadrons." It is superfluous to say that the sailors were excited. They cheered again and again, and would by no means sit down till his Royal Highuess had gone the round of the tent and taken his departure in a carriage. A PLEASANT MEMENTO. A Bombay journal states :—" The English papers chronicled how the Princess of Wales accompanied her husband to France, but with all their vigilance they did not hear about a certain small box being placed on board the Ssrapis. Well, there was such a box, and all that Sir Bartle Frere, in whose charge it was placed, knew about it was that j he was to take particular care of it, and not j to let the Prince know auything of ita exist- j euce. When the Serapis arrived the box was sent to rarell, and on the next morning, the Prince's birthday, and his first morning on Indian soil, his eye rested upon a large portrait, beautifully adorned with Indian j flowers. The portrait was that of the Princess. It bad been secretly placed in the Prince's bedroom in order to surprise him, and it is unnecessary to say that this was the contents of the mysterious box which had been so jealously watched by Sir Bartle Frere, and about which Miss Frere was the only possessor of the secret."