In the course of his reply the Prince said the strength and spirit of the British Commonwealth could not be fully grasped by anyone without first-hand knowledge of the British Dominions and Colonies. "The more I see of the King's world-wide possessions," he added, "the more deeply I am impressed by the strength of the sentiment which binds them to the Empire and the throne"--the truth of which was testified to by every street he had passed through.
The Prince was afterwards taken by motor into the interior, through some of the most luxuriant vegetation in the world, past cocoa and nutmeg plantations, up two thousand feet into the mountains, about the forest-shaded depths of the circular lake of Grand Etang, the crater of an extinct volcano. An official lunch and a garden-party at Government House filled up the day, which ended with a reception given by the Prince on the _Renown_ to the principal residents of the island.
Leaving Grenada at daylight the _Renown_ threaded her way through the clustering Grenadine Islands and past the steep twin green cones of the inaccessible Piton peaks, and anchored near the Pigeon Rock--Admiral Rodney's eighteenth-century naval base.
The Prince, accompanied by Sir George Haddon-Smith, who had come on with him from Grenada, landed at Castries at noon, where he was received by Colonel Davidson-Houston, Administrator of St. Lucia, supported by Mr. Anthony de Freitas, Chief Justice, and other members of the Executive Council. St. Lucia's special arch was of coal, token of the colony's importance as a West Indian coaling-station. From under it His Royal Highness proceeded through decorated streets, the entire population of which had assembled to welcome him. The first stopping-place was in Columbus Square. Here, in the warm shade of big coco-nut palms and mango trees, a thousand children were drawn up, each school flanked by teachers, many of whom wore the black cassock of the Catholic Church.
The Prince afterwards climbed a hill overlooking the town, and wandered through the deserted barracks of historic fort Charlotte, where his great-great-grandfather, the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, hoisted the British flag in 1797, after the capture of the island by forces under Sir Charles Grey and Sir John Jervis. Here, standing amidst luxuriant tropical vegetation, he looked northward to the rocky Vigie promontory, on which he could descry lines occupied by Sir William Medow's thirteen hundred British, who in 1778 hurled back invading enemies twelve thousand strong. Westward he looked over the muddy Cul-de-sac Bay, where Sir Samuel Barrington, in the same year, fought a desperate engagement with the French fleet under Count Destaing. Eastward also the scene was full of historic interest, for here, beyond the red roofs of Castries city, was visible a distant palm-shaded beach, where Moore and Abercromby effected their landing in 1796.