THE PRINCE OF WALES AT MADRAS.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 548, 21 March 1876, Page 3

THE PRINCE OF WALES AT MADRAS.

The correspondent of the Times gives the following account of the illumination or the surf in honour of the Prince’s visit 44 The preparations for the illuminations are very extensive. The people are not so demonstrative as at Bombay, nor do they clap hands as in the south, but they are not less enthusiastic. The Prince will never see in India or elsewhere any spectacle so strange and awful as what was called the 4 illumination of the surf.’ Neither pen nor ■pencil can give any idea of it. It was weirdly beautiful, exciting, grand. As if to render homage to'the occasion, the wind bad risen and the surf was high. The sight was fine on the pier, through the base of which ran curling breakers, Beats were placed for the Prince, the Governor, his family, and suite,

out of the reach of the spray. The buildings along the beach, transparencies, and triumphal arches, all brilliantly illuminated, formed a background, above which rose steeples, columns, and lamps. Southwards, where the rollers swept up to the roadway, there were rows of natives with blazing torches and blue lights. There was occasionally a wash of larger billows behind the multitude, and facing seawards an ocean of white turbans. The Serapis, Osborne, and Raleigh were illuminated outside. Between the outer darkness and the beach, the moonlight now and then revealed dark objects rising and falling on the billows. “ The Prince having arrived from dinner with the Commander-in-Chief, after a grand discharge from the ship Raleigh, there was one flight of 190 colored rockets. The Osborne and Serapis vied with each other in the display. It seemed as if volcanoes were emitting volumes of colored flames. Presently appeared fires here and there seawards, amid waves drifting landwards, like fire ships from afar. These multiplied, dipping, rising, now and then, through the waves, while occasionally came a light from the other side. It had an immense effect. Suddenly from the beach dashed the black forms of Masouwah boats and catamamarans, which, amid the wildest yells, charged into the serried ranks of the foamed crested breakers, and dark objects seawards were revealed, as the boats tossed violently on the outer ridge of the breakers. There never was such an awful regatta. And a sea now black as ink, now like fire glistening jet, in a creaming surf, the catamaran men were swept off and regained their craft, or disappeared beneath the billows. There was an awful suspense till they were landed safe on the beach, The Masouwah boats, swept stem to stern by the breakers, forced their way into the smoother sea, to return still more animated. Their skill is beyond praise. These hardy fellows, watching an opportunity, keep the top of the wave by tremendous efforts, and are borne past with wonderful velocity, yet emerge safely from each succeeding breaker. This extraordinary spectacle was renewed repeatedly. One might fancy it a combat of water gods. The people, amid the blue lights, the rockets, and the boiling surf, remained almost quiet. “ It was midnight before the Prince drove off to the native festival. The crowd broke in, followed, and surrounded the Prince’s open carriage, “ The railway station was converted into a reception hall. The sides, pillars, and roofs were decorated with wonderful richness, It was filled with many thousands of Europeans, Asiatics, Hindoos, and Mussulmans, who had waited two hours. The Prince was seated in a silver chair on a raised dais.”