The prince of Wales's collection of presents, received in his character of heir-apparent of the empress of India, fills thirty-two glass cases, besides six of textiles and robes. Any tolerably full account of them would require a separate article. The interest of them culminates in the arms. For variety, extent, gorgeousness and ethnological and artistic value such a collection of Indian arms has never before been brought together, not even in India; and it fairly defies description. No man was so poor but that he could present the prince with a bow and arrow or spear or sword or battle-axe, and in fact every one who was brought before the prince gave him a weapon of some sort. The collection thus represents the armorer's art in every province of India, from the rude spears of the Nicobar Islanders to the costly damascened, chased and jewelled daggers, swords, shields and matchlocks of Kashmir, Lahore, Gujerat, Cutch, Hyderabad, Singapore and Ceylon. The highest interest centres upon two swords, which are by no means the richest in their finish and settings. One is the great sword of the famous Polygar Katabomma Naik, who defeated the English early in the present century. It has a plain iron hilt, and the etched blade has three holes near the point. The other is a waved blade of splendid polish, its hilt heavily damascened with gold and its guard closely set with diamonds and rubies. It is the sword of Savaji, the founder of the Mahratta dominion in India. It has been sacredly guarded at Kolhapur by two men with drawn swords for a period of two hundred years, being a family and national heirloom, and an object of superstitious reverence as the emblem of sovereignty. The delivery of it to the prince of Wales was regarded as a transfer of political dominion, an admission that the latent hopes of the Bhonsla family were now merged in loyalty to the crown of England.
The blades of the best weapons have been made for many ages of the magnetic iron obtained twenty miles east of Nirmul, a few miles south of the Shisla Hills, in a hornblende or schist formation. The magnetic iron is melted with charcoal without any flux, and obtained at once in a perfectly tough and malleable state. It is superior to any English or Swedish iron. It is perhaps unnecessary to remind readers that the famous blades of Damascus were forged from Indian steel. Some of the blades are watered, others chased in half relief with hunting-scenes—some serrated, others flamboyant. A very striking object is a suit of armor of the horny scales of the Indian armadillo, ornamented with encrusted gold, turquoises and garnets. Another suit is of Kashmir chain-armor almost as fine as lace. Others have damascened breastplates, the gold wire being inserted in undercut lines engraved in the steel, and incorporated therewith by hammering. Five cases are filled with the matchlocks of various tribes and nations—one with its barrel superbly damascened in gold with a poppy-flower pattern, another with a stock carved in ivory, with hunting-scenes in cameo. Enamelled and jewelled mountings are seen, with all the fanciful profusion of ornament with which the semi-barbarian will deck his favorite weapon. The splendor of Indian arms is largely due to the lavish use of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones, mainly introduced for their effect in color, few of them being of great value as gems. Stones with flaws, and others which are mere chips or scales, are laid on like tinsel. Two cases are filled with gaudy trappings and caparisons—horse and camel saddles with velvet and leather work, gold embroidery and cut-cloth work (appliqué); an elephant howdah of silver; chowries of yak tails with handles of sandal-wood, chased gold or carved ivory; gold-embroidered holsters and elaborate whips which will hold no more ornamentation than has been crowded upon them. The yak's-tail chowries, or fly-brushes, and the fans of peacocks' feathers, are emblems of royalty throughout the East.
The metal ware of India, shown in eight of the glass cases—some of them the prince's and others Lord Northbrook's—affords connoisseurs great delight, and also arrests the attention of those who have simply a delight in beautiful forms and colors, without technical knowledge. It might not, perhaps, occur to the casual visitor that a Jeypore plate of champlevé enamel represents the work of four years. In this process the pattern is dug out of the metal and the recess filled with enamel, while in the cheaper cloisonné the pattern is raised on the surface of the metal by welding on strips or wire and filling in with enamel which is fused on to the metal. A betel-leaf and perfume-service in the silver-gilt of Mysore is accompanied by elaborately-chased goblets and rose-water sprinklers in ruddy gold and parcel-gilt, the work of Kashmir and Lucknow. The ruddy color is the taste of Kashmir and of Burmah, while a singular olive-brown tint is peculiar to Scinde. Other cases have the repoussé-work of Madras, Cutch, Lucknow, Dacca and Burmah. From Hyderabad in the Deccan is a parcel-gilt vase, an example of pierced-work, the opus interassile of the Romans. The chased parcel-gilt ware of Kashmir occupies three cases: it is graven through the gold to the dead-white silver below, softening the lustre of the gold to a pearly radiance. Somewhat similar in method is the Mordarabad ware, in which tin soldered upon brass is cut through to the lower metal, which gives a glow to the white surface. Sometimes the engraving is filled with lac, after the manner of niello-work. Specimens are also shown in Bidiri ware, in which a vessel made of an alloy of copper, lead and tin, blackened by dipping in an acidulous solution, is covered with designs in beaten silver. A writing-case of Jeypore enamel is perhaps the most dainty device of the kind ever seen. It is shaped like an Indian gondola, the stern of which is a peacock whose tail sweeps under half the length of the boat, irradiating it with blue and green enamel. The canopy of the ink-cup is colored with green and blue and ruby and coral-red enamels laid on pure gold.
To attempt to describe the jewelry for the person would extend to too great a length the notice of this most remarkable and interesting exhibit, which includes tiaras, aigrettes and pendent jewels for the forehead; ear-rings, ear-chains and studs; nose-rings and studs; necklaces of chains, pearls and gems; stomachers and tablets of gold studded with gems or strung by chains of pearls and turquoises with solitaire or enamelled pendants; armlets, bracelets, rings; bangles, anklets and toe-rings of gold and all the jewels of the East. A Jeypore hair-comb shown in one of the cases has a setting of emerald and ruby enamel on gold, surmounted by a curved row of large pearls, all on a level and each tipped with a green bead. Below is a row of small diamonds set among the green and red enamelled gold leaves which support the pearls. Below these again is a row of small pearls with an enamelled scroll-work set with diamonds between it and a third row of pearls; below which is a continuous row of small diamonds, forming the lower edge of the comb just above the gold teeth.
England's colonies make a great show at the Exposition. The Canadian pagoda, which occupies one of the domed apartments at the corners of the Palais, rises from a base of forty feet square, and consists of a series of stories of gradually-decreasing area, surrounded by balconies from which extended views of the Salle d'Iéna and the foreign machinery gallery are obtained. The pagoda itself is occupied by Canadian exhibits, but around it are grouped specimens of the mineral and vegetable wealth and manufacturing enterprise of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Australia, which is a continent in itself, has become of so much importance that it is no longer content with a single or with a collective exhibit, and the various colonies make separate displays in another part of the building. That around the Canadian trophy is but a contribution to a general colonial collection near the focus of the British group, where the union jack waves above the united family.
In the Australian exhibits it is only fair to begin with New South Wales, which is the oldest British colony on the island, and may be said to be the mother of the others, as Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland have been subdivided from time to time. It had a precarious political existence and slow progress up to 1851, and the obloquy attaching to it as the penal settlement of Botany Bay was not encouraging to a good class of settlers. In 1851 the whole island of 3,000,000 square miles had but 300,000 inhabitants, but the discovery of gold and the utilization of the land, for sheep and wheat especially, have so far changed the aspect of affairs that the aggregate of land under cultivation equals 3,500,000 acres, with 52,000,000 sheep, 6,700,000 cattle, 850,000 horses, 500,000 hogs, 2092 miles of railway and 21,000 miles of telegraph.
The collection from New South Wales contains a large exhibit of the mineral, animal and vegetable productions of the land—auriferous quartz and gold nuggets, tin ores and ingots, copper, coal, antimony and fossils. New South Wales prides herself especially on the surpassing quality of her wools and on the extent of her pastoral husbandry, the number of sheep being 25,269,755 in 1876, of cattle over 3,000,000, and of horses 366,000. The exportation of wool in 1876 was alone equal to $28,000,000. Then, again, she shows gums, furs, stuffed marsupials, wools, textiles, wheat and tobacco, also many books, photographs, maps and other evidences of the intellectual life of the people.