Down Under With the Prince Part 10

Leaving Brisbane one day during his visit to that city, the Prince proceeded by train through a well-wooded country of rich black soil, just then a quagmire from heavy but welcome rain. He touched at a number of centres, including Ipswich, head-quarters of woollen mills and coal-mines, and Harrisville and Boonah, country towns where farming and pastoral communities predominate. Every stopping-place had been converted by unpaid local labour into a beflagged forest of greenery, in the midst of which the inhabitants of the entire neighbourhood, also many from far distant stations, had a.s.sembled. At Ipswich the streets were lined by operatives and miners, and the welcome of this important place included a car procession through decorated streets, a popular reception, a mayoral address, and a civic luncheon served to the strains of one of the largest and best trained choirs in the State. Vocal music as the accompaniment of food was an unaccustomed luxury to many of those present, but it did not appear to interfere with the general appet.i.te.

At Boonah the proceedings were simpler but not on that account less impressive, although they took place in a pelting rainstorm. The Prince waded through an ankle-deep stream of flood-water to an exposed platform, where, surrounded by a crowd of squatters, stockmen, farmers and their families, including large numbers of women and children, all standing in the downpour with streaming mackintoshes and umbrellas, he unveiled a fine marble war-memorial bearing three hundred names. He also shook hands with relatives of the fallen, and with numbers of returned men, nurses and other war-workers.

On the way back to Brisbane further centres were visited. Amongst them were Maryborough, a manufacturing and coal-mining city, where the steel skeletons of two twelve-thousand-ton steamers, under construction for the Commonwealth Government, towered amidst the decorations. One of the arches was surmounted by a group of blacks in native costume, armed with bows, arrows and spears, which they wielded realistically. Another carried a dozen diggers in uniform. Other places visited were Tiaro, where the a.s.semblage that greeted the Prince consisted chiefly of agriculturalists; Gympie, where the returned men, a.s.sembled in a war-memorial park, included gold-miners as well as farmers; Cooroy, where the Prince made the acquaintance of a large logging community; Landsborough, where sugar-cane planters, and banana and orange-growers preponderated, and Beerburrum, Queensland's biggest soldier settlement, where he shook hands with a large number of returned men engaged in growing pineapples.

The Prince finally left Brisbane amidst unforgettable scenes of national enthusiasm and emotion. The entire population of the city seemed to be in the streets. The neighbourhood of the railway station was blocked by ma.s.ses of cheering men, women and children. The railway station buildings were besieged, the more influential folk, including the members of the State Government, and their families, thronged the platform. The general public crowded windows, balconies, culverts, overbridges, and fences, wherever a glimpse of the train could be obtained. The start had to be three times postponed, so many were the Prince's personal farewells. After the train got into motion, motor-cars raced beside the track, school-children were found lined up at wayside crossings, stumps and telegraph poles were perching places for daring climbers. Everybody waved something, if it were not a handkerchief, a flag or a hat, it was the nearest thing to hand. I saw a vegetable hawker wildly flouris.h.i.+ng his biggest cabbage, a housewife excitedly using a tablecloth as a signal of affection, a company of railway carriage-cleaners throwing their dusters upon the wind. Workmen in overalls, carters with teams of horses, stockmen riding to their duties stopped and doffed hats as the train went by. "Old Lang Syne" was taken up, again and again, by thousands of voices, to be itself drowned in a chorus of shouted "Goodbyes." All the Members of the Cabinet travelled upon the Royal train as far as the border of the State. The acting Premier had to stay behind for urgent public reasons, but was so determined not to be left out of the proceedings that he attempted to follow the train in an aeroplane, and was only stopped by cras.h.i.+ng heavily. The demonstration was so remarkable that even the Queenslanders themselves were astonished at it. Enthusiasm had taken possession of this democratic people, and there seemed to be no length to which they were not prepared to go. Here was a country where the people are as sovereign as anywhere on earth. Yet wayside villages and towns on the southward journey, one after another, took up and repeated Brisbane's farewell demonstrations. The crowds at the railway stations, where addresses were presented, included in many instances definitely more people than the entire population of the immediate centre, this being due to farmers, squatters, and settlers bringing their families incredible distances by train, by motor, in buggies, or on horseback, so that they might not miss the occasion. In one case four well-mounted girls galloped astride nearly a mile, keeping abreast with the train, and arriving at the next station, where an address was to be read, just as the Prince alighted. Their spirited ride secured them a handshake and a compliment.

The train halted for the night at Toowoomba, in the heart of a wonderful agricultural region, which was found smiling under splendid crops. Here the countryside had long been preparing for the Prince's coming, and the celebrations were of the liveliest, everything, including decorations, gathering of returned men, civic banquet, and ball, being planned to create a record.

The following morning the Prince recrossed the border, over a carpet woven of yellow wattle flowers. It was a pretty thought and offered him much.

XXI

THE JACKAROO AND OTHERS

When the Prince left Queensland he had practically completed his official tour of the Australian States. There remained for him the improvised series of visits to the back-blocks of New South Wales, which took the place of the abandoned journey to New Guinea. Here he stayed in the houses of squatters, some of them controlling sheep-runs hundreds of thousands of acres in extent, and mingled in the most informal manner in country life and country pastimes. In the wonderful air of this region he regained much of the spring and energy he had lost in the preceding months of strenuous official touring. The Government officers on the Royal train meanwhile returned to Sydney.

The route taken by the Prince after leaving Wallangarra for the interior lay through beautiful scenery across the famous Blue Mountains. One looked out, as the train climbed upwards, across vast stretches of green-forested gorges and grey crags of fluted limestone, with purple and aquamarine ridges on the far horizon--a land filled only with the colour and the form of wild nature. The Prince started on the foot-plate of the engine, which he drove himself up a one-in-thirty-three grade slope. Although his journey was now entirely unofficial, numbers of people a.s.sembled and cheered him at the princ.i.p.al stations. At Lawson he alighted and shook hands with returned men, including Private Duncan Allan, the oldest soldier in the Australian forces. Later on, crossing the open Bathurst sheep-downs, a halt was made at the wayside station of Kelso, where horses were in waiting and he took, in the rain, a brisk ride across country, rejoining the train that evening at Bathurst.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BACKBLOCKS: AN UNOFFICIAL FIXTURE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HIS FAVOURITE MOUNT]

The following morning the train reached c.o.o.namble, terminus of the railway, a towns.h.i.+p of wooden houses, situated on a vast gra.s.sy plain, in the heart of sheep-raising country, two hundred and sixty miles from Sydney. Here Mr. Oliver, President of the s.h.i.+re, accompanied by the local mayor and members of his council, received the Prince upon the platform, and conducted him in a motor-car procession to a gra.s.sy park in the middle of the town, where he found awaiting him a large a.s.semblage of people, including the usual contingents of returned men and school-children, also nurses and other war-workers. An address was presented, and thereafter the procession was continued to the racecourse, where horses had been collected. The Prince and his staff mounted and set off across recently flooded country for Wingadee, thirty miles distant, where the week-end was to be spent at one of the stations of the Australian and New Zealand Land Company. Lunch was served in the open at one of the artesian bore-holes that furnish this country with water, even the severe drought which preceded the recent floods not having affected the supply. The Prince here visited a typical bush saloon and in bush fas.h.i.+on called for drinks for all the settlers he found there. Later in the afternoon he reached Wingadee, where he was received by Mr. McEwan, General Manager of the Company. He spent the afternoon riding about this up-to-date station and going over the wool-sheds. The host of his visit was Mr. Fechan, the Superintendent.

In the next few days the Prince rode a number of horses, inspecting the wool-sheds and flocks, chasing kangaroos and emus, and had the opportunity of forgetting the formalities of public receptions. On the day of departure from Wingadee he rode thirty miles back to the little country racecourse at c.o.o.namble, where he remained throughout the afternoon watching the racing in the casual mud-splashes of his own ride. The enclosure was crowded with squatters from all parts of Northern New South Wales, who gave him the most cordial reception, and followed him afterwards to the railway station to cheer the train by which he left for Myowera, another small station sixty miles distant in the same great plain.

Here the Prince stayed on the Canoubar run in the house of Mr. and Mrs.

McLeod, Mr. Niall, managing director of the company, supervising the arrangements for his entertainment, which were on the most hospitable scale. At Canoubar he saw the working of a big sheep station in full operation, including shearing, sheep-drafting, wool-packing, and the driving of flocks by wonderfully trained dogs, also the handling and breaking-in of station horses. One of the merino rams shown to him had recently been bought for two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. As to the performances of the dogs, the confiding correspondents were told that they could drive a fowl into a jam tin, but I am not aware whether H.R.H. was asked to believe this. On the afternoon of his arrival he rode nine miles, much of it along natural avenues of gum-trees, to the country town of Nyngan. His host accompanied him, mounted on his fine steeple-chaser Bullawarra, once sent to England to run in the Grand National.

At Nyngan the entire countryside was found a.s.sembled and the Prince met a large company of returned men, besides relatives of those who would not return, nurses and other war-workers. All the school-children of the neighbourhood were also there. The programme included the laying of a foundation-stone, after which he rode home escorted by a bodyguard of light-hors.e.m.e.n, who gave a display of bush-galloping a mile outside the station.

Next day H.R.H. was made acquainted with the Jackaroo. The Jackaroo is neither a crow nor a parrot nor any kind of quadruped. He is a young gentleman of Australia who desires to become a squatter, and who gives his services on a sheep-run for the opportunity of picking up the business. He was living, where the Prince encountered him, with, half a dozen of his fellows, in a comfortable building with roomy sleeping quarters and an old soldier in charge of the mess. His food is plain but substantial and appetizing, a leading feature of it, the slab of "brownie" bread, full of currants, which tells its own tale of his age and digestion. The Jackaroo spends most of his day in the saddle, riding long distances to outlying parts of the run, on the hunt for bogged sheep, or in supervising lambing or moving flocks from one paddock to another. Often he will not see a living soul from the time he starts out in the morning until he returns at night, and he may even lose his way.

He then makes a bee-line in the likeliest direction until he comes to the wire fence of the boundary, which he may follow for miles before he reaches a landmark he knows. The speedometer of one car which had been out on fence inspection the day before the Prince arrived, marked 120 miles, travelled in a single day, so it may be presumed that the Jackaroo's b.u.mp of locality develops early. The squatter is generally glad to take on likely boys, as he finds them, when the first f.e.c.klessness is worn off, on the whole more conscientious than paid labour, an important point for work that has to be so largely delegated.

The life is healthy and interesting, and on up-to-date runs like the ones seen, looked exceedingly pleasant. The young fellows come as a rule from families of good cla.s.s and generally have means of their own--a combination which should make the life history of the Jackaroo not unrewarding to the student of the fauna of these parts. His own point of view would have been worth obtaining, but being young he was modest and said little. He rode buck-jumpers for the Prince. He buck-jumped rather specially well, as might be expected of a Jackaroo. His name is a felicity that will outlive much topography. One wonders who invented it.

The Prince on several occasions shared in the sport of kangaroo chasing, which leaves fox-hunting standing. On one occasion he rode all day guided by sons of his hosts through vast paddocks fenced with wire, over an even carpet of young green gra.s.s, which was then just springing up after floods following three years of drought, and took many a jump over fallen trunks of trees killed by systematic ringing to make way for fodder raising. On the way thirty or forty kangaroos were seen and five of them were chased over formidable obstacles which the "old men"--the male kangaroos--cleared with extraordinary ease in their long hopping stride, at a pace that took greyhounds all they could do to overtake.

These kangaroos eat sometimes by no means an inconsiderable amount of pasture needed for the sheep, and some years ago were being so extensively shot down that they were in danger of being exterminated. A close season was introduced and now they are increasing to the extent, in some localities, of again becoming troublesome. They are much the colour of the tree trunks, and until startled are easily overlooked in the bush. They are off with most wonderful grace and agility the moment they are disturbed and can even clear the high barbed wire fences by which the runs are bounded provided they approach at a right angle. When running parallel to the fence they cannot get the necessary foothold for a big enough spring. This is sometimes taken advantage of by the rider, who, being of course unable to put his horse over so formidable an obstacle, endeavours to head off the kangaroo in such manner that it may reach the fence at a slanting angle. In this case the chase continues alongside instead of being finished by the kangaroo's escape over the fence. When overtaken by dogs, which are often used in the chase, the kangaroo makes a gallant fight for life, and many a hound has been ripped open and killed by a well-directed kick from its powerful hind feet, before it can be shot.

The emu also lent itself to the excitement of the chase during the tour.

The big brown wingless bird much the size and shape of the ostrich, is quite unable even to jump, but runs as fast as a horse can gallop, and when pursued will charge a barbed wire fence so hard as to break its way through, its feathers protecting it from being seriously torn. It is on this account not beloved by the squatter, but it is seldom shot. The Prince brought away with him two newly hatched emu chickens, creatures the size of ducks and prettily marked in shades of black and fawn. Their quarters on the _Renown_ were in a roomy cage on the superstructure, where they soon established a reputation as quiet, sober and well-behaved members of the s.h.i.+p's company.

On several of his expeditions the Prince was given a meal in the bush camp fas.h.i.+on. One of these was on the shady banks of a stream twenty-five miles from a station, from which he had ridden out in the morning accompanied by sons of his hosts. Here quant.i.ties of dead gum-tree trunks were quietly burning, and were made use of for grilling chops and making billy tea. The latter is quite unlike and, to the hungry rider, infinitely preferable to the teapot variety. A tin-can is filled at the nearest water-hole and is carried to a burning tree trunk, on which it is gingerly balanced, usually with the aid of a stick, the tree trunk being as a rule too hot to reach without one. The water boils with extraordinary rapidity and the pot is quickly hooked off the fire.

A generous handful of tea is thrown into the water before it ceases to boil and the resultant brew is drunk from any utensil that happens to be handy. n.o.body inquires what becomes of the tea leaves.

One of the sights on the Canoubar run was sixty thousand sheep recently returned from stations in well-watered districts, in one case five hundred miles distant by rail, whither they had been sent to stay over the years of drought. These sheep had all been carried by the state railways of New South Wales, at extraordinarily low rates, and with surprisingly few casualties. They offered a concrete example of what had been done on a very large scale throughout the State, where the railways were able to save for the squatters hundreds of thousands of valuable sheep, which must otherwise have perished when the fodder supply gave out. The Prince was so interested in what he saw that there was no getting him away before dark. By the time he was back in the station he had ridden over sixty miles without leaving the run.

XXII

AMONGST THE SHEEP

Within the memory of men who have not yet reached middle age, sheep-rearing in Australia was a gamble. At one time large fortunes might be made, at another the fruits of long years of thrift and labour might be swept away by causes which appeared to be outside human control. Now the industry has become a science. The settler may make more or he may make less, according as the world price for wool is high or low. He has his welfare in his own hands, however, and has only to go the right way to work to make certain of a living.

The removal of the rabbit-pest has been particularly complete. The Prince saw wire fencing, extending in some cases in unbroken stretches for thousands of miles, which is at once so high and so deeply embedded in the ground that rabbits can neither burrow beneath nor climb over it.

Once a paddock, fenced in this way, has been cleared it remains permanently free. The princ.i.p.al measures for clearing are the systematic ploughing of every warren, which effectually stops the burrows, and thereafter the driving by dogs and hors.e.m.e.n of such rabbits as are above ground to the fences, where covered pits, led up to by long converging lines of wire netting, have been prepared in advance. The rabbits follow one another through drop entrances into these pits, thousands being sometimes captured in one night on a single run. The operation has only to be repeated, in one paddock after another, to free an estate completely. The value of the rabbits and their fur covers most of the cost involved. One may meet gigantic crates on wheels, each drawn by a dozen horses and sometimes containing twenty thousand rabbits, _en route_ to factories where the skins are cured and the flesh prepared for export. By these means many runs have been completely cleared, while others are in course of being similarly dealt with.

As regards methods of fighting drought, in addition to the help given by the railways in moving sheep from drought-infected areas, to regions where the gra.s.s has not dried up, the storage of fodder in good years to make up for deficiency in bad ones, is a further measure adopted.

Artesian borings, even where they are inadequate for irrigation purposes, will water millions of sheep where the surface supply is defective.

It was at one time feared that the tapping of the subsoil water over tens of thousands of square miles in New South Wales, where the geological formations are such as to render this cla.s.s of enterprise remunerative, would gradually exhaust the supply. Experience over a number of years, including prolonged periods of drought, however, has not confirmed this apprehension. The Prince was shown wells which had been running for twenty years without intermission. In some cases, it is true, fresh borings have had to be made, but it has been discovered that the failure of the old ones is almost always due, not to any deficiency in water-pressure below ground, but to the silting up or the corroding of the pipe itself. Fresh bores yield full supplies, close alongside those that have given out. Restrictions are rightly imposed by Government upon the sinking of more than what is considered a reasonable number of wells in any one area, and up to the present, in the entire sheep region visited by the Prince, this arrangement has allowed sufficient supplies to be forthcoming for the watering of all stock, even in such periods of prolonged drought as that from which this part of Australia had very recently emerged.

Minor enemies of the squatter are the black carrion crows, creatures justly execrated by every back-block man. They are not unlike English rooks, but have the diabolical habit of attacking sick sheep and newly-born lambs, not infrequently pecking out their eyes. They are also charged with poisoning the wounds they make, so that a sheep may die which appears to have been only very slightly pecked. The harmless looking galahs, white parrots with pink b.r.e.a.s.t.s, make themselves only one degree less objectionable by eating the grain. Both of these pests, however, are being got under, with the growth in the number of sportsmen with scatter guns in each district. The Prince shot several galahs, and if his bag did not include any carrion crows this was chiefly because the good work of shooting them had already been so efficiently done.

Another trouble of the squatter, the silting up of his fences with leaves and dust in the hot weather, until they disappear and sheep and cattle stray over them unimpeded, is also being successfully overcome.

On one estate enormous machines like snow-ploughs were shown, which were periodically pulled by horses along the windward side of fences subject to this mishap. Floods come only occasionally, but the squatter has declined to allow himself to be defeated by them. The Prince saw the bones of many a stray sheep that had been drowned in the last visitation of this kind. It is indeed extraordinary that such a thing should occur upon a table-land two thousand feet above sea level, where rain is ordinarily so scanty that drought is continually feared. The very rarity of heavy rain, however, makes the conditions such that the water-courses may be inadequate to carry off any sudden downpour, with the result that the flooding, when it does occur, may easily be very extensive, as the country for hundreds of miles on end is almost absolutely level.

Motor-cars have been used successfully to convey thousands of sheep, three or four at a time, from flooded areas to banks where they could exist until the water subsided. In other cases boats have been brought from incredibly distant rivers to carry stock to safety. Much has also been done upon men's backs, for the squatter does not allow his sheep to perish if anything within human strength can help them.

In this part of Australia the gra.s.s is so thin that from two to five acres are required to support each sheep. This accounts for the immense size of the runs, which extend in some cases to hundreds of thousands of acres. One of the results of so much grazing s.p.a.ce is that epidemics are almost unknown. On one of the runs the Prince took a hand, with power-driven clippers in sheds, where one man shears, on the average, more than a hundred sheep in a single day, the wool fetching up to twenty-two pence a pound. Fleeces so ticketed indicate the neighbourhood of the wool millionaire, and he was to be met in all stages of opulence.

A run carrying fifty thousand sheep, each yielding a profit of ten s.h.i.+llings in the year for wool alone, is by no means uncommon in this part of Australia, men who had established themselves in pre-war days, in quite a modest way, upon land leased from the State, not infrequently finding their incomes multiplied a number of times over as the rates for wool increased. The greater part of these profits has remained in the country, and much of it has been put into the development of the runs, and the improvement of the breeds of sheep, horses and cattle on them.

In one of the stations a five-thousand-pound bull had recently been bought, and cows were valued at a thousand pounds apiece. On another, three rams were shown to the Prince which were considered to be worth six thousand pounds, being an average of two thousand each.

The methods of development adopted varied according to the financial position of the owners. A squatter with a long-established run who had paid off his mortgages, and had money in hand, would ordinarily keep more sheep upon a given area than his less prosperous neighbour, for the reason that he could afford to move them by rail in years of drought.

The man more recently established, with whom money was not so plentiful, would keep his land more spa.r.s.ely stocked. In one case only six thousand sheep were being raised, though the run would have supported twice that number in an ordinary season. Here the owner did the whole of the routine work of the place, with the a.s.sistance only of his two eldest sons, lads in their 'teens, and occasional hired hands for shearing and fencing.

The run possessing the five-thousand-pound bull was worked upon more expensive principles. It employed highly paid managers, overseers and stockmen all the year round, and was regarded as so up to date in its methods as to be quoted as a state model of efficiency and a sort of compet.i.tive Elysium for jackaroos. Both methods of working seemed to be successful, and both estates were making money.

The heavy drop in wool prices that is now taking place will no doubt reduce the amount of the profits presently to be made. There is no reason to apprehend, however, that the industry will not adjust itself successfully to the new state of things. Fortunes in the future may be harder to make than in the past, but the necessaries of life are a.s.sured to all engaged in an industry so self-supplying as is that of sheep-farming. The area suitable for it is still practically unlimited, and the open-air life it offers will continue to attract young fellows anxious to get away from the confinement of the town and the office.

As regards the climate, all that I can say is that as far north as the Prince's travels extended, the winter conditions then prevailing were delightful. The nights were sharp, and the days full of suns.h.i.+ne, and of a temperature that induced to outdoor work of every kind. Never have I seen healthier looking people than those who make this part of the world their permanent home. The children that the Prince found a.s.sembled in surprising numbers at every stopping-place, were st.u.r.dy and well developed. That the summers on these breezy uplands are sometimes hot was testified to by occasional underground chambers constructed so as to afford shelter in the middle of the day. Every one agreed, however, that the nights were cool, and the health and longevity of the community phenomenal. The interesting claim was also made that the very warmth of the sun in summer was itself an important factor in keeping down disease alike in men and sheep.

The lowlands along the coast of Northern Queensland, where such tropical staples as sugar-cane, plantains and coco-nuts are grown in quant.i.ty, were hardly reached, though Brisbane, the most northerly seaport visited by the Prince, was upon the outer fringe of this important region. In Brisbane the climate was distinctly hot, though the inhabitants looked strong and full of health. Further north, where the temperatures grow higher, we were told that numbers of Italians are settling in and doing well. They have found conditions not altogether dissimilar from those of their own country, and are developing labour able to deal to some extent with the difficult problem of sugar-growing.

On leaving Myowera the Prince proceeded by train to Sydney. On the way civic receptions were held in his honour at a number of centres. He stopped off at Dubbo, where white-dressed V.A.D.'s, each with a wand of yellow-flowering wattle, made a bower over his head as he pa.s.sed from the railway station on the usual inspection of returned men. At Wellington he found a crowd waiting to cheer him beneath flowering orchards s.h.i.+vering in wintry rain. Blayney, although situated upon the chill slopes of the Can.o.bolas mountains and said to be the coldest place in New South Wales, produced amongst its guard-of-honour a cavalry officer from India in the turbaned uniform of the Fifteenth Lancers, who had returned to his home in Australia when peace was declared. Another place visited was Bathurst, where a procession through the town took place, and where the decorations and receptions were on a very extensive scale. In the course of his reply to a civic address, presented in this city, the Prince said his visit in the interior had given him a glimpse of real Australia. He had seen the richness of the country and had learnt the desolation that drought and floods could produce. "Many," he added, "have suffered losses, and while sympathizing with their hard fortune, I trust the next few years may be years of plenty and bring them all they desire."

On arrival at Sydney the Prince went at once to the _Renown_. Later in the day, his official tour having ended, he drove unescorted to the races, which he enjoyed like any private individual. The courtesy of the large gathering of race-goers was such that, although everybody wanted to see him, and much cheering took place, the stewards had no difficulty in preventing any inconvenience.

Before finally sailing, the Prince spent four days in Sydney, saying good-bye to his friends, and receiving them in the _Renown_, which he made his home. Amongst those he entertained were the Commonwealth Governor, the Prime Minister, the New South Wales Governor, the State Premier, and the princ.i.p.al Commonwealth and State Officials. His staff, meanwhile, was kept busy receiving and dispatching his replies to a mountain of warm-hearted farewell messages, of which the following, from M. Fih.e.l.ly, acting Premier of Queensland, and head of the most advanced Labour Government in Australia, may be taken as a sample:--

"Your Royal Highness's visit will always be gratefully and affectionately remembered by the Government and people here, who found the greatest delight in your presence amongst them, and who will henceforward regard you as a new link uniting the British peoples. We hope your Royal Highness will have a safe and pleasant homeward voyage, and that long life and uninterrupted happiness and good health will be yours. You came to our land as His Majesty's most effective amba.s.sador to us and we ask you to be our envoy to him, bearing renewed a.s.surances that the lofty ideals which inspire our race are a living active force in Australia to-day."

Amongst the individual replies dispatched by the Prince perhaps one of the happiest went to the Royal Australian Navy, which, after expressing thanks for escorts and other services, and wis.h.i.+ng good luck to all, ended with the characteristic request that the main-brace might be spliced.