r
across the water to the Prince. One is surprised, so much is the
romantic spell upon one, that the people on these islets of loneliness
should know that the Prince was coming, that is, one is surprised until
one realizes that this is Canada, and that telegraphs and telephones
and up-to-date means of communication are commonplaces here as
everywhere.

Romance certainly invades one on entering Victoria. It seems a city
out of a kingdom of Anthony Hope's, taken in hand by a modern Canadian
administration. Steaming up James Bay to the harbour landing one feels
that it is a sparkling city where the brightest things in thrilling
fiction might easily happen.

The bay goes squarely up to a promenade. Behind the stone balustrade
is a great lawn, and beyond that, amid trees, is a finely decorative
building, a fitted back-ground to any romance, though it is actually an
_hotel de luxe_. To the left of the square head of the water is a
distinguished pile; it is the Customs House, but it might be a temple
of dark machinations. To the right is a rambling building, ornate and
attractive, with low, decorated domes and outflung and rococo wings.
That could easily be the palace of at least a sub-rosa royalty, though
it is the House of Parliament. The whole of this square grouping of
green grass and white buildings, in the particularly gracious air of
Victoria gives a glamorous quality to the scene.

Victoria's welcome to the Prince was modern enough. Boat sirens and
factory hooters loosed a loud welcome as the steamer came in. A huge
derrick arm that stretched a giant legend of _Welcome_ out into the
harbour, swung that sign to face the _Princess Alice_ all the time she
was passing, and then kept pace on its rail track so that _Welcome_
should always be abreast of the Prince.

The welcome, too, of the crowds on that day when he landed, and on the
next when he attended functions at the Parliament buildings, was as
Canadian and up-to-date as anywhere else in the Dominion. The crowds
were immense, and, at one time, when little girls stood on the edge of
a path to strew roses in front of him as he walked, there was some
danger of the eager throngs submerging both the little girls and the
charming ceremony in anxiety to get close to him.

The crowd in Parliament Square during the ceremonies of Wednesday,
September 24th, was prodigious. From the hotel windows the whole of
the great green space before the Parliament buildings