A few days later, in an amethyst sea, off the green slopes of Loma point, the _Renown_ cast anchor. The houses and towers of San Diego, seven miles off, across the Harbour of the Sun, glistened pearl-like in soft morning light, above the golden setting of the Coronada sand. Out at sea, at dawn that day, six grey, business-like American destroyers had met the _Renown_ and escorted her in, a score of United States flying-boats and aeroplanes hovering in well-kept formations overhead. At the mouth of the harbour was lying that fine battleship the _New Mexico_, flagship of the United States Pacific Squadron, which fired a welcoming salute. After the anchor was down, Admiral Williams, acting Naval Commander-in-Chief in the Pacific, who flew his flag on the _New Mexico_, visited the Prince. Mayor Wild, of San Diego, and other local residents also arrived from the shore to pay their respects.
The morning was taken up with the receiving and returning of these visits. In the afternoon the Prince landed at the municipal pier in the heart of the city. Here he found Governor Stephens, of California, at the head of a large deputation, waiting to welcome him. Every avenue to the wharf was blocked with motor-cars. Well-dressed crowds pressed upon the ropes that fenced in a central space reserved for British veterans, to whom had been given the place of particular honour in the town's reception of its visitor. The veterans were some hundred and fifty strong, and gave the Prince the heartiest of cheers. They proved to be residents of California, about half of them being from San Diego itself. They had all served in the forces of the British Empire in the Great War. At their head was General Carruthers, lately Chief-of-the-Staff with the Australian Expeditionary Force in France. It was a wonderful spectacle of colour and cheerfulness, as the Prince went down the line, shaking hands with his old comrades in the field, while mites in pinafores pushed to the front to present him with bouquets, and pretty girls in Highland costume sang "God save the King." The crowd broke through the barriers, before the motor-cars, provided to convey the party to the Stadium, had been reached, but everybody was in the friendliest of humours, and did their utmost individually to make space for the procession to start. The first three or four cars, containing the Prince, the Governor, the Mayor, and a few of the Staff, eventually got through. The rest extricated themselves gradually from the press of people and vehicles, and made their way by more or less devious routes, the road marked out for the procession having by this time become so crowded as to be almost impassable. The procession reformed at the Stadium, a mile or so distant. On the way, prosperous suburbs of extraordinary attractiveness were passed, the houses often of Spanish-colonial type, with deep verandas set in spacious gardens and well-kept lawns, with masses of roses, geraniums, hibiscus, and purple salt-grass in full bloom. The ground here was high, and one looked down upon the city, with palm-trees in the foreground, and the harbour and its shipping in the middle distance, while on the horizon were piled the rugged mountains of southern California, pink in the evening light.