The Life of King Henry the Eight • Paragraph 336
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On the following day the Prince enjoyed a spectacle of Indian jugglery and saw feats performed which in a western land would be deemed miraculous. December the 17th saw His Royal Highness lunching at the Madras Club where he tested Indian curries in their highest state of development and in the afternoon he was welcomed at the Park by thousands of children. A little later he reviewed a body of troops accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Paul Haines. With the latter he dined in the evening and at ten o'clock drove to the Pier to see the great event of the visit. This was an illumination of the sea. Mr. W. H. Russell in his _Diary_ says: "Man will never see any spectacle more strange--nay awful. Neither pen nor pencil can give any idea of it. It was exciting, grand, wierd and beautiful." Fireworks from the ships looked like volcanoes bursting from the deep, while multiplied fireboats had an effect upon the stony ink-blackness of the surf, like rolling flames pouring in upon the shores. At midnight the Prince passed from this scene to a special Native entertainment in his honour. The great railway station had been converted into a decorated theatre crowded with many thousand natives. Upon the elevated platform the Prince received an address and an exquisite gold casket and then watched a programme of eastern dancing. At six in the morning the Prince was up and away to attend a meet of the Madras pack and enjoy a few hours' sport--and in the afternoon the _Serapis_ was again his home and Madras was left behind.