"I crave your pardon, Madame, for speaking to you of politics at a time like this, but I am glad that I can say for myself that I have always been sincere with you. Begging you to present my respectful regards to the King, I am, Madame, your Majesty's most devoted friend,
"VICTORIA."
The last yachting excursion of the season was to Cornwall. The usual party accompanied the Queen and the Prince, the elder children, and the ladies and gentlemen in waiting, her Majesty managing, as before, to hear her little daughter repeat her lessons. Lizard Point and Land's End were reached. At Penzance Prince Albert landed to inspect the copper and serpentine-stone works, while the Queen sketched from the deck of the Fairy. As the Cornish boats clustered round the yacht, and the Prince of Wales looked down with surprise on the half- outlandish boatmen, a loyal shout arose, "Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall."
The romantic: region of St. Michael's Mount, dear to the lovers of Arthurian legends, was visited, the Queen climbing the circuitous path up the hill to enter the castle, the Prince mounting to the tower where "St Michael's chair," the rocky seat for betrothed couples, still tests their courage and endurance. Each man and woman races up the difficult path, and the winner of the race who first sits down in the chair claims the right to rule the future home.
The illustration from a painting by Stanfield represents the imposing pile of the "old religious house" crowning the noble rock, the royal yacht lying off the shore commanding St. Michael's Mount, the numerous spectators on shore and in boats haunting the royal footsteps—in short, the whole scene in the freshness and stir which broke in upon its sombre romance.
On Sunday service was held under the awning with its curtains of flags, Lord Spencer—a captain in the navy—reading prayers "extremely well." On Monday there was an excursion to the serpentine rocks, where caves and creeks, cormorants and gulls, lent their attractions to the spot. At Penryn the corporation came on board, "very anxious to see the Duke of Cornwall." The Queen makes a picture in writing of the quaint interview. "I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie. Lord Palmerston told them that that was the Duke of Cornwall, and the old mayor of Penryn said he hoped 'he would grow up a blessing to his parents and his country.'"
The party were rowed up the beautiful rivers Truro and Tregony, between banks covered with stunted oaks or woods of a more varied kind down to the water's edge, past charming pools, creeks, and ferries, with long strings of boats on the water and carts on the shore, and a great gathering of people cheering the visitors, especially when the little Duke of Cornwall was held up for them to see. The Queen took delight in the rustic demonstration, so much in keeping with the place, and the simple loyalty of the people.
Her Majesty went to Fowey, and had the opportunity of driving through some of the narrowest, steepest streets in England, till she reached the hilly ground of Cornwall, "covered with fields, and intersected with hedges," and at last arrived at her little son's possession, the ivy-covered ruin of the old castle of Restormel, an appanage of the Duchy of Cornwall, in which the last Earl of Cornwall had resided five hundred years before.
The Queen also visited the Restormel iron-mines. She was one of the comparatively few ladies who have ventured into the nether darkness of a pit. She saw her underground subjects as well as those above ground, and to the former no less than to the latter she bore the kindly testimony that she found them "intelligent good people." We can vouch for this that these hewers and drawers of ore, in their dark-blue woollen suits, the arms bare, and caps with the candles or lamps stuck in the front, lighting up the pallid grimy faces, would be fully conscious of the honour done them, and would yield to no ruddy, fustian-clad ploughman or picturesque shepherd, with his maud and crook in loyalty to their Queen.
The Queen and the Prince got into a truck and were drawn by the miners, the mineral agent for Cornwall bringing up the rear, into the narrow workings, where none could pass between the truck and the rock, and "there was just room to hold up one's head, and not always that." As it is with other strangers in Pluto's domains, her Majesty felt there was something unearthly about this lit-up cavern-like place, where many a man spent the greater part of his life. But she was not deterred from getting out of the truck with me Prince, and scrambling along to see the veins of ore, from which Prince Albert was able to knock off some specimens. Daylight was dazzling to the couple when they returned to its cheerful presence.