s that hangs over
the startling blue waters of the Ottawa river. From the river the mass
of buildings poised dramatically on that individual bluff is a sharp
note of beauty. On the quadrangle, that is the city side, this note is
lost, and the rough stone buildings, though dignified, have a tough,
square-bodied look. Yet the massiveness of the whole grouping about
the great space of grass and gravel terraces certainly gives a large
air. They form the adequate wings and backcloth for pageants.

And what happened that morning in the quadrangle was certainly a
pageant of democracy.

There was a formal program, but on the whole the crowd eliminated that
for one of its own liking. It listened to addresses; it heard Sir
Robert Borden, and General Currie, only just returned to Canada,
express the Dominion's sense of welcome. Then it expressed it itself
by sweeping the police completely away, and surrounding the Prince in
an excited throng.

In the midst of that crowd the Prince stood laughing and cheerful,
endeavouring to accommodate all the hands that were thrust towards him.
A review of Boy Scouts was timed to take place, but the crowd
"scratched" it. The neat wooden barricades and the neat ropes that
linked them up about a neat parade ground on the green were reduced by
the scientific process of bringing an irresistible force against a
movable body. Boy Scouts ceased to figure in the program and became
mere atoms in a mass that surrounded the Prince once more, and
expressed itself in the usual way now it had him to itself.

As usual the Prince himself showed not the slightest disinclination for
fitting in with such an impromptu ceremony. He was as happy and in his
element as he always was when meeting everyday people in the closest
intimacy. It was a carnival of democracy, but one in which he played
as democratic a part as any among that throng.

Yet though the Prince himself was the direct incentive to the
democratic exchanges that happened throughout the tour, there was no
doubt that the strain of them was exhausting.

He possesses an extraordinary vitality. He is so full of life and
energy that it was difficult to give him enough to do, and this and the
fact that Canada's wonderful welcome had called into play a powerful
sympathetic response, led him to throw himself into everything with a
tireless zest. Nevertheless, the strenuous days at Toronto, followed
by this strenuous welcome at Ottawa, had made