The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Illustrated Edition). Robert Thomas Wilson

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      ON THE CORNISH COAST: PRADANACK POINT.

      smooth. “A little before two,” writes the Queen, “we landed in the beautiful Mount’s Bay, close below St. Michael’s Mount, which is very fine. When the bay first opened to our view the sun was lighting up this beautiful castle, so peculiarly built on a rock which forms an island at high water.” The sun shone out gloriously as the Queen passed Penzance, and the smooth sea spread itself like an azure plain under a cloudless sky. “Soon after our arrival,” she says, “we anchored, and the crowd of boats was beyond everything; numbers of Cornish pilchard fishermen, in their curious large boats, kept going round and round, and then anchored, besides many boats full of people.” “They are,” says her Majesty, “a very noisy, talkative race, and speak a kind of English hardly to be understood.” “During the voyage,” adds the Queen, with maternal satisfaction, “I was able to give Vicky (H.I.H. the Empress Frederick) her lessons;” indeed, all through these yachting cruises the Queen insisted, in true English fashion, on acting personally as her children’s teacher. In fact, it was only when the pressure of public and social duty became too severe for such labours that her Majesty would ever consent to delegate the tuition of her children to others; and even then, she and Prince Albert bestowed on it most vigilant personal superintendence. In the afternoon, the Royal party, “including the children,” rowed to the Fairy, and steamed round the bay. They visited St. Michael’s Mount and the smelting works at Penzance, which monopolised the attention of Prince Albert. “We remained here,” her Majesty writes, “a little while to sketch, and returned to the Victoria and Albert by half-past four, the boats crowding round us in all directions; and when ‘Bertie’ (the Prince of Wales) showed himself the people shouted, ‘Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall.’”

      Next day they visited the quaint little town of Marazion, or Market Jew, which lies behind the Mount where the Jews used to traffic in old times. They inspected the castle, and Prince Albert played on the organ in the chapel, to the great delight of the Queen and “the children;” after which he made what the Queen describes as “a beautiful little sketch” of St. Michael’s Mount itself. On the following day (the 7th) the municipal dignitaries of Penryn invaded the Royal yacht, and begged to be introduced to “the Duke of Cornwall.” “So,” writes the Queen, “I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie, and 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 to his country.’” The Fal, winding between wooded banks of dwarfed oaks, and the beautiful Ruan, with its shores clad with foliage to the water’s edge, were explored; and at the city of Truro, says the Queen, the whole population turned out on the banks to give her a welcome, “and were enchanted when Bertie was held up for them to see.” On the following day the Royal tourists visited Fowey, “driving,” writes the Queen, “through some of the narrowest streets I ever saw in England,” and proceeding to the ivy-clad ruins of Restormel, a castle which belonged to “Bertie” as Duke of Cornwall.

      Here her Majesty was bold enough to explore the iron mines. “You go in on a level,” she writes. “Albert and I got into one of the trucks and we were dragged in by the miners, Mr. Taylor” (mineral agent to the Duchy) “walking behind us. The miners wore a curious woollen dress with a cap, and they generally have a candlestick in front of the cap. This time candlesticks were stuck along the sides of the mine, and those who did not drag or push carried lights. The gentlemen wore miners’ hats. There was no room to pass between the trucks and the rock, and only just room enough to hold up one’s head, and not always that. It had a most curious effect, and there was something unearthly about this lit-up cavern-like place. We got out and scrambled a little way to see the veins of ore, and Albert knocked off some pieces.” On the way back they visited Lostwithiel; and then they returned to Osborne, vastly delighted and refreshed by their tour.

      The Queen’s new house at Osborne was now ready for occupation, and she and her husband held a “house-warming” ceremony on the 16th of September,