MILITARY TYPES
THE NIGER COMPANY CONSTABULARY
With united voices Dean Gregory, the Canons, and Minor Canons of St. Paul’s offer the prayer “O Lord, save our Queen,” to which the great choral force makes answer, “And mercifully hear us when we call upon Thee.” The Lord’s Prayer is recited by the Dean, and then the Bishop of London, standing immediately in front of the Sovereign, invokes the Divine favour—“O Lord, our heavenly Father, we give Thee hearty thanks for the many blessings which Thou hast bestowed upon us during the sixty years of the happy reign of our gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria. We thank Thee for progress made in knowledge of Thy marvellous works, for increase of comfort given to human life, for kindlier feeling between rich and poor, for wonderful preaching of the Gospel to many nations; and we pray that these and all other Thy gifts may be long continued to us, and our Queen, to the glory of Thy Holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
THE NAVAL REVIEW—THE ROYAL SALUTE
Exactly at two o’clock the Victoria and Albert slipped her moorings, and, with the Royal Standard flying, left the harbour, preceded, as an advance guard, by the Trinity yacht Irene. When passing the Victory the band on board the latter played the National Anthem, while the boys on the old three-decker St. Vincent manned the yards and cheered. The Prince of Wales’s yacht was followed by the Carthage, with the foreign Princes and Court functionaries; the Enchantress, with the Lords of the Admiralty; the Wildfire, with the Colonial Premiers and Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain; the El Dorado, with the Ambassadors; the Danube, with the Members of the House of Lords; and the Campania, with the Members of the Commons. At ten minutes past two the Royal Squadron reached Spithead, and there came out of the lace of gray mist a symphony of explosions. The salute of the fleet to His Royal Highness had begun. It seemed as if there were a roll of Titanic drums, and then a sharp crack, which pierced the ear. Smoke curled up in wreaths from the ships’ sides and drifted away to leeward in curious streaks. Anon it belched from the snake-heads of the smaller guns in circles which floated high in the silver sky. It was the finest thing in the way of a tattoo human ear has probably ever heard, except perhaps the awful salvos of heaven’s artillery. Only the thin refrain of the cheering of the tars, who lined the bulwarks of the battleships, could be heard as the Royal Squadron passed along the waterway between the international fleet and the big British battleships and cruisers. A quarter of an hour later the Royal Squadron turned into the waterway between the battleships, torpedo gunboats, and again came the diapason, weird in its strangely regular irregularity. Folds of white smoke curled and slid up from the sides of the great ships, and the even gray sky overhead began to warp into folds, with just here and there a little glimpse of blue out of the fleecy smoke, bearing with it a gleam of sunshine from a broken cloud overhead.
An awe-inspiring silence falls over that vast throng as the Archbishop of Canterbury, with hand uplifted and head uncovered, pronounces the Benediction, while the Sovereign, to whom all hearts go out in love and sympathy, bows her venerable head.
Few have remained unmoved spectators of that solemn and impressive scene; but every man turns pale with emotion, and the eyes of the women fill with tears when Dr. Martin, having turned to the mighty numbers which occupy the surrounding buildings, has raised his baton, the signal has been understood, and the populace has risen in one great body to join with the crowned heads, the princes, the statesmen, the bishops, and all the noble and brilliant assembly fronting the Cathedral, in voicing the music of the Old Hundredth.
Little wonder that the beloved Sovereign, seated there in her half-mourning attire in the midst of all that throng of dazzling colour, is overcome with the might and the power of that final outburst of praise and thanksgiving. The tears fall fast down that kindly face, and the hands are seen to tremble.