THE BURIAL OF A SOLDIERPRINCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1680, 11 May 1904, Page 15

THE BURIAL OF A SOLDIERPRINCE.

SCF-ram Our Own'Correspondent.) LONDON, March 25. The funeral of the .Duke of Cambridge was .o wonderful spectacle. Nothing quite dike it, say the .newspapers, has l>oen seen in Loudon since the obsequies of ■ the great Duke of Wellington, when “the mourning of a mighty nation” fou .d expression in a military pageant of rare .solemnity and spiendou'r. The 'great cortege ;of Tuesday, if .it lacked tlie .towering car, -the “sable -steeds” of tiie Iron last rites, tneieby lost nothing of its liiipressivenote and beauty. One came away with stirring 'memories of an ever-roiling stream oi vivid 'colour —-scarlet and blue and goia; oa auidignt gleaming on silver helmets and ouirasSes; of the glint of sword and polished gundbairirel, .and over ali a solemn r silence broken only by the steady tramp of armed men. Literally “not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,” throughout the greater part of the march to the cemetery; but the very silence amongst such multitudes was of itself impressive. Many thousands of people watched the pi'occSSiU'.j anucist tne pi.CL-ur>e.>q ue surroundings of Hyde Park, where the noble expanse of turf showed fresh and vivid in the, sunshine of a bright March morning. From where I stood on the slope that overlooks the Serpentine, die eye caught wonderful glimpses through the trees of pennons fluttering and helmets flashing far away in the distance, while close at hand troop after troop streamed by, a gorgeoub blaze of colour. There seemed to be no end of them. First the massed bands of the Household Cavalry, their uniforms giearning with gold; then companies of gieen-ooated volunteers, and after them the grand regiments of the Guardis— Irish* Soots, Ooldstreams and Grenadiers. Splendid fellows these, tall, stalwart .and erect-, and the effect as they strode by, a ma’ss of flaming scarlet beneath a waving forest of bearskin headgear, was indescribably magnificent. After these came engineers, artillery, and a squadron of lancers marching on foot, and then the mounted squadrons —‘the 21st Lancers, each with a pennon of scarlet and white fluttering from his steel-tipped spear; and the Ist and 2nd Life Guards, . great men resplendent in gleaming breastplates and helmets topped with nodding plumes. 'lt was almost a startling contrast topjass from this feast of colour and movement to the little gun-carriage which f ollowed with its sad burden — its only decoration the folds of a Union Jack. Every head was baaed as the remains of the gallant old warrior, and in their wake the riderlessb charger, with the dead man’s boots m the stirrups, passed slowly by. Behind came the Jong line of carriages which bore his Majesty the King, the members of the Royal family, and an illustrious artray of mourners. The long cortege took a full half-hour to wind its slow length past the bystander, and those who know London can judge bettor what its dimensions were when I state that the head of the procession had passed up 'Constitution Hill and was entering Hyde Park as the other end was moving off from the startingpoint at Westminster Abbey. It was a • funeral. worthy of the Prince who for wall-nigli fortjjr years filled .the highest military office in the Empire-