"MIGHTY ELEPHANT"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 31, 6 August 1934, Page 7

"MIGHTY ELEPHANT"

NATIVES AND PRINCE

"Every class of,.;thc, ; communjty,,,was channel, with" his; personality, 'his/untiring activity, his tact'.'and consideration for others under circumstances which often must have been very trying to him," writes General Smuts of Prince George's recent African tour. The Prince himself would appear to have enjoyed his experiences thoroughly, to judge by the account of "Prince George's African Tour." He was seldom fatigued. Thus: — "The Prince was in such splendid physical condition that he could stand much inore sun and infinitely more exercise than most of the people whose duty it.was to accompany him on his travels. He sun-bathed as of ten, as possible, and at the slightest excuse changed into shorts and. a blue shirt. On onp occasion, in Southern Bhodesia, at the Victoria Tails,' after standing' in the Kain Forest in part of the Main Cataract until he was soaked to 'the skin, the Prince peeled off his shirtand; carried it." ~.■;,,.., His constant..refusal to wear a hat, we are told, "gave the medical officers cause for a, good deal of anxiety.". The enthusiasm .over his visit was tremendous', and little groups of farm*' ers gathered at all the wayside stations to' greet him. ,'.'...,' , . .- "At some watering-places there were no platforms and the people could not look into, the train. One wily farmer, however, 'was prepared, for such an eventuality; He made himself a pair of stilts and, perched.on these and with a storm-lantern dangling from his belt, he awaited the arrival, of the White Train." '. • > CABMAN ANP KING. "When he visited the naval base of Siinonstown, about twenty-five miles from Cape Town,..the Prince met and shook hands with" a man who remembered King George in his youth. This was Mr. D. Frieslaar, a; cabman., "who fifty years ago drove King George and his elder'brother, the Duke of Clarence, to Wynberg, when they ' were midshipmen serving in the Bacchante. .. . Old Frieslaar told the Prince that he used to charge Ms father 10s to take him to Wynberg and bring'him back." Among the native chiefs it was Queen Victoria, the Prince found, whose memory was honoured above all others. "Modern legislation is measured by the natives in terms of Queen Victoria's actions,' and: an oxtremely supicious eye is cast on any suggestions which seem to infringe the principles of freedom and protection as the Queen conceived them. At all his meetings with the natives the Prince heard them mention the name of his great-grand-mother. To them he was the" Queen's great-grandson, not the King's son." In the Transvaal the natives chanted a long song of praise, addressed to the Prinee as "The liord of the White Cliffs." To the natives of the Cape Province the Prince is now known as "A Ngangendlovu," or "Hail, Mighty Elephant," a name which will bo handed down from generation to generation.