To describe it in full would need far more space than we have at command, and we must confine ourselves to its salient features. It began at midnight of the 21st, at which hour, under a clear, star-lit sky, the streets were already thronged with people in patient waiting and the bells of all London in tumultuous peal announced the advent of the jubilee day, while from the vast throng ringing cheers and the singing of "God Save the Queen" hailed the happy occasion.
When the new day dawned and the auspicious sunlight brightened the scene, the streets devoted to the procession, more than six miles in length, appeared one vast blaze of color and display of decorations, the jubilee colors, red, white and blue, being everywhere seen, while the medley of wreaths, festoons, banners, colored globes and balloons, pennons, shields, fir and laurel evergreens, and other emblems of festivity, were innumerable and bewildering in their variety.
The march began at 9.45, and came as a welcome relief to the vast throng that for hours had been wearily waiting. Its first contingent was the colonial military procession, in which representatives of the whole world seemed present in distinctive attire. It was a moving picture of soldiers from every continent and many of the great isles of the sea, massed in a complex and extraordinary display.
Chief in command, following a squadron of the Royal Horse Guards, rode Lord Roberts, the famed and popular general, who was hailed with an uproar of shouts of "Hurrah for Bobs!" Close behind him came a troop of the Canadian Hussars and the Northwest mounted police, escorting Sir Wilfred Laurier, the premier of Canada. Premier Reid, of New South Wales, followed, escorted by the New South Wales Lancers and the Mounted Rifles, with their gray sombreros and black cocks' plumes.
In rapid succession, escorting the premiers of the several colonies, came other contingents of troops, each wearing some distinctive uniform, including those of Victoria, New Zealand, Queensland, Cape Colony, South Australia, Newfoundland, Tasmania, Natal and West Australia. Then came mounted troops from many other localities of the British empire, reaching from Hong Kong in the East to Jamaica in the West, and fairly girdling the globe in their wide variety.
Among the oddities of this complex multitude we may name the Zaptiehs from Cyprus, wearing the Turkish fez and bonnet; the olive-faced Borneo Dyaks; the Chinese police from Hong Kong, with saucepan-like hats shading their yellow faces; the Royal Niger Hausses, with their shaved heads and shining black skins; and other picturesquely attired examples of the men of varied climes.
Such was the colonial parade, a marvellous display from the "far-thrown" British realm. It was followed by the home military parade, which formed a carnival of gorgeous costume and color; scarlet and blue, gold, white and yellow; shining cuirasses and polished helmets, waving plumes and glittering tassels; splendid trappings for horses and more splendid ones for men; horse and foot and batteries of artillery; death-dealing weapons of every kind; all marching to the stirring music of richly accoutred bands and under treasured banners for which the men in the ranks were ready to die.
Led by Captain Ames, the tallest man in the British army, followed by four of the tallest troopers of the Life Guards,—a regiment of very tall men—the soldierly procession, as it wound onward under the propitious sun, seemed like nothing so much as some bright stream of burnished gold flowing between dark banks of human beings.
The colonial and military parade having passed, there followed that part of the display to which all this was preliminary, the royal procession, in which her Majesty the Queen was once more to show her venerable form to her assembled people. Preceding the gorgeous chariot of the queen, with its famous eight cream-colored Hanoverian horses, appeared its military escort, a glittering cavalcade of splendidly uniformed officers, its chief figures being Lord Wolseley, Commander-in-chief of the Army, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of Westminster, and the Lord Lieutenant of London.
In the escort were also included foreign military and naval dignitaries, in alphabetical order, beginning with Austria and ending with the United States, the latter represented by General Nelson A. Miles, in full uniform and riding a splendid horse. The whole was bewildering in its variety. From Germany came a deputation of the First Prussian Dragoon Guards, splendid looking soldiers, sent as a special compliment from the Kaiser. But most brilliant of all was a group of officers of the Imperial Service Troops of India, in the most gorgeous of uniforms. Behind these came in two-horse landaus the special envoys from the various American and European nations.