LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE GIBRALTAR FROM SPANISH SIDE OF THE NEUTRAL GROUND. . To face page "AFTER EVENING QUARTERS 30 34 GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MELBOURNE, FROM BOTANICAL GARDEN. To face page 523 525 To face page 558 CRUISE OF H.M.S. 1879 1882. BACCHANTE." AFTER having passed the two years 1877-1879 as naval cadets on board H.M.S. Britannia (Captain H. Fairfax, C.B.) at Dartmouth, we left that ship late in July, and on Tuesday, August 6th, 1879, joined H.M.S. Bacchante off Cowes, at which anchorage she had arrived the evening before from Spithead. A few hours afterwards the Prince and Princess of Wales, with our three sisters, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, came privately on board, went round and were shown. over the Bacchante, which was dressed at the time with masthead flags in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh's birthday. The ship remained in Cowes Roads during the regatta week till the 11th, when she started for an experimental cruise down the Channel, in the same manner as any other new ship when first commissioned, to test her steam and sailing power, under various conditions of wind and weather. On Saturday, August 16th, she anchored in Plymouth Sound. The next day the Prince of Wales arrived there also in the Osborne to be present at the laying of the foundation stone of the new Eddystone Lighthouse by the Duke of Edinburgh; who as Master of the Trinity House had come round in the Trinity yacht Galatea. The Bacchante put to sea again the same afternoon for further continuation of experimental cruise which lasted till the 26th, when she anchored at Spithead. The official report of her performances stated "she had been as far west as the Channel soundings, about 100 miles south of Cape Clear, and experienced both light and strong VOL. I. B |