PREFACE.

THIS account of the three years' cruise of H.M.S. Bacchante makes no pretension to literary form. Such as it is, it has been put together at the desire of their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, who have intrusted the private journals, letters, and other papers of their sons to me for this purpose. Though three years have gone by since the ship was paid off, it is only within the last few months that I have been free or had leisure to arrange the material for publication.

Both Princes kept very regular diaries all the time they were away from home: these, written up every evening before turning in, both at sea and ashore, wherever they happened to be staying-whether it was beneath the roof of different Government Houses, or out in the bush, on the Pampas, in Japanese temples, or Chinese house-boats; whether up the Nile, or beneath their tents in Syria, form naturally the groundwork of the whole. As might naturally be expected, their pages become much fuller towards the end of the three years than they are at the beginning. Those portions especially which cover the time the Princes were in Egypt and Palestine were written out afterwards from rough jottings and notes made on horseback, or during the mid-day siesta, from what Brugsch Bey or Captain Conder had been telling them when face to face with the objects visited. I have also drawn largely upon the contents of letters. These were often written against time and in haste to catch the mail. But such passages as I have extracted from them I have thought

it best to leave as they were first penned, however rough they might appear, rather than smooth them down in cold blood: for thus they convey a truer representation of the immediate impression produced by the place or circumstance described.

With the private journals and letters that record the passing sensation of the day or hour, I have embodied a good deal from certain note-books in which the Princes entered at their leisure the substance of much which they read concerning the countries visited, or learnt in conversation from those with whom they were specially privileged to be brought into contact from time to time. Where such entries refer to figures and statistics I have endeavoured to correct them up to date. It would be absurd to imagine that two young men of their respective ages should take in fully all the information given respecting the various places and people they saw, as older persons might have done. But as these pages will testify, several clear impressions were produced on their minds at each port, which will remain till their dying day; and foremost among these is the vivid remembrance of what they saw in Australia, where the interest they evinced in different matters connected with the political and commercial development of that portion of a United and Greater Britain was most keen.

My own additions are marked off in square brackets. They can readily be skipped by those who prefer to read continuously the more descriptive narrative portion of the text.

In an account that covers so wide an extent of ground, and deals with so many topics, it would be vain to expect that no mistakes or errors should be discovered by specialists. But I venture to hope that there are not many of a gross character. The proof-sheets of the portions relating to Japan have been read by Mr. Ernest Satow, C.M.G.; the Straits Settlements by Sir Frederic Weld, G.C.M.G., and the Hon. Clementi Smith; Egypt by Emil Brugsch Bey; Palestine by Captain Conder, R.E.; Fiji by Sir William des Voeux, K.C.M.G.; the Cape and Australia by two gentlemen lately resident in and thoroughly conversant with both those countries. All these friends were good enough

to make valuable suggestions and additions to the Princes' memoranda, which served to supplement the result of the Princes' own observations, and which have greatly conduced to make the following account accurate and trustworthy, as far as actual facts are concerned but with the opinions expressed or conclusions drawn from such facts it would be unfair in any way to identify them. Wherever, as in the case of the West Indies or South Africa, it was impossible to avoid touching on subjects that still form matter of rather a lively controversy, a strenuous endeavour has been made to give both sides of the question, as far as possible in the very words used by their several advocates, and these have been drawn exclusively from Blue Books and other official sources. With two exceptions no names have been introduced.

The charts tracing the Bacchante's course from port to port are such as every midshipman in the service is bound to draw in his log-book, and show to the captain from week to week. They are all drawn on Mercator's projection. Each degree measured vertically off the side of the chart represents for practical purposes sixty miles. These charts, as well as the extracts from the Princes' logs appended to them, have been kindly looked over by Lieutenants F. B. Henderson and Evelyn Le Marchant, R.N. The track of the Bacchante on the large chart was laid down by Lieutenant H. Roxby, R.N., who has also been good enough to revise the account of the ship's mishap off Cape Leuwin (vol. i. pp. 439-450). The larger illustrations are taken from photographs; most of the smaller ones from sketches made by Lieutenant Percy Scott, R.N.; one in vol. i. p. 204, by Mr. Triggs, assistant engineer; two others by Lieutenant Basset, R.N., one in vol. i. p. 453, and the other vol. ii. p. 764. The sketch map of the Syrian tour, the plan of Jerusalem, and the mosque at Hebron were drawn by Captain Conder.

Although probably the portion of this book which will be read by the general public with most interest is that which refers to the Princes' visits to the British Colonies, and to foreign countries, yet if anything like a true notion of the cruise, its

objects and its results, is to be obtained, it must be borne in mind that the time really spent at sea was of no less importance to the Princes themselves. At sea during the longer cruises day follows day and week week with a regularity which, read of, is suggestive of monotony; but it seems monotonous only to those who have few resources in their own minds or who have never been to sea in a man-of-war. There each day has its own routine; and each hour of each day should find every one ready and prepared for the particular duty appropriate to that branch of the service to which he may belong. This regularity and freedom from all outside interruption was just what was required in the case of the two Princes for purposes of school and study, as well as for instruction in a sailor's duties. The period spent at sea was to the Princes the equivalent of a schoolboy's ordinary life ; the holiday time was represented by the occasions on which they were away from the ship on leave, or when they went up country. When H.R.H. the Prince of Wales determined to send his sons to sea, it was chiefly with a view to the mental and moral training that they would receive as midshipmen in Her Majesty's navy. In every one of the Queen's ships each officer, man, and boy has his special and individual duties to perform every hour of the day and night, with a routine that should be as precise and unvarying as clockwork. The sense of responsibility on the part of a junior or petty officer for the men, however few they may be, intrusted to his charge, and the habit of implicit and instant obedience to seniors that is brought out and inculcated by the naval service soon become to all in the ship a second nature; and every soul on board, cut off for a considerable time from all connection with the outer world, is welded together into an attached community, each grade of which is dependent in well-ordered method on the others.

As long as they were on board ship the Princes were treated exactly like the other midshipmen, and performed all the duties which usually fall to their lot: they took their turn in all weathers by day or night at watch-keeping and going aloft, at sail drill, or boat duty. There was no difference, not even the slightest, of any

sort or kind made between them and their gunroom messmates. Thus they were taught seamanship by the first lieutenant, the Hon. H. G. Curzon-Howe, and gunnery by the gunnery lieutenant, Mr. C. H. Adair. Their mathematical studies were entirely in the hands of Mr. John W. Lawless, their naval instructor, and they read French with Mr. G. Sceales. To the captain, Lord Charles Scott, belonged of course the supervision and management of all these, as well as of everything that appertained to their life on board ship. My duties as governor in charge of the Princes began when they went on shore, and always ended when they came on board again as midshipmen, except that I was responsible to their parents for their general education.

The Admiralty kindly permitted my name to be borne on the ship's books as acting chaplain for temporary service during the whole period of the Bacchante's commission: and for the honour thus done me I shall ever feel deeply grateful to their lordships. The performance of the duties of that office and the opportunities thus afforded for establishing intimate relations between myself and each man and boy in the ship gave me the most real instruction, and the three years thus spent afloat as chaplain in Her Majesty's naval service I shall always regard as among the happiest in my life.

JOHN NEALE DALTON.