The Express.
London, England, 1864-10-11 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 11, 1884.

THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES.
THEIR DEPARTURE FROM STOCKHOLM AND
ARRIVAL AT HELSINGOR.

(non ora BP AL

COPENHAGEN, THLIMAT. OCT. 8.
- -

Their Royal Highnesses are back agaia in the
quiet chateau of Fredenaborg. The remainder of
Sunday last was spent in driving about Stockholm
in a mail phaeton with the King, an occupation
equivalent to perfect rest as compared with the
work of the previous few days. On Monday, how- I
ever, there was a second hunting party. The
Prince of Wales had postponed his departure until'',
Tuesday, for the purpose of making one more
attempt to find an elk, and the King had
neglected no precaution which could promote the
end in view. Some hundred beaters—rumour said
• thousand, but I think this was an exaggeration—
were sent into the forest where the hunt was to
take pleee. This forest is much nearer to Stock-
holm than the Keglau forest, which was hunted on
Friday, and it was unneee•ssry to start for it over
night. It is situated on the shores of the
Malay lake, and is accenelble by enamel: At
7 o'clock, therefore, on Monday morning the
royal party embarked from the Ridderholm,
one of the city quays, and proceeded by
water to their destination. The hunters
were rather less numerous than on the first day,
but it is not worth while to repeat the name'. This
time a new plan of action had been arranged, and
the result of the day's sport justified the skill with
which it had been drawn up. The forest was
situated on a peninsula, and the army of beaters was
landed on one aide, with directions to work across
towards the other, at three different points to that
at which the royal party was put ashore. The four
persons of principal importance—the King, the
Prince of Wales, Mr. Oscar Dixon, and the dog--
were landed at 9 o'clock at a place called Hogtorp ;
I then the steamer came back a short distance, and
put Prince Oscar, Prince John of Gluaksburg, and
some others, ashore at Wikaberg ; and then the rest
were lauded still further back, at Kaggeboda. Mr.
Strombom, a landed proprietorresirling at Hogtorp,
had the honour of supplying the King and Prince
with a breakfast before they started, and as
each party got in turn to Hogtorp—for they all
worked in that direction—they were hospitably
received as well ; in fact, the handsome entertain-
ment provided by Mr. Strombom took everybody
by surprise, as they had merely been invited to
take a " amorgos" at his house in passing, and
" smorgos" is Swedish for a luncheon of bread and
butter, little bits of raw fish, slices of sausage, and
so forth. Hunters, however, have proverbially good
appetites, and although everybody had breakfasted
already, 1 am told that abundant justice was done
to Mr. Strombom's liberal dijedner. The weather
was all that could be wished. At about five o'clock
in the afternoon the great event of the day came
off. An elk was found and shot by
Baron Wrade, a gentleman in the house-
hold of Prince Oscar. The Prince of Wales
was not far cleat the time, and was soon on the
spot, admiring the noble proportions of the gigantic
beast, who was a large and very fine specimen of his
species. A flue elk is considerably larger than ►n
est and such an animal is indeed • magnificent
capture to any one accustomed to the small game
of England. At llogtorp, the whole party reas-
sembled, and drove across the peninsula in " chars-
-band" to Welleege, where there was another
dijedner. The state dinner of the day came off at
the pain*, but the steamer bringing home the
hunters did not reach the town before ten, and the
royal party could hardly have been ready for dinner
much before eleven.

On Tuesday morning, at half-past nine, the
Prince and Princess of Wales, with their suite,
and accompanied by Prince Oscar and the members
of the British legation, left Stockholm in a special
train for Gottenburg. The King and Queen of
Sweden saw them to the railway station, and parted
from them with the most cordial demonstrations of
friendship. Wishing to see them return to Den-
mark, I bad gone on myself by an early train to
Gottenburg. There I found the town in a condi-
tion of eager expectancy, though there were no
official preparations for the reception of the Prince
and Princess, as they had expressed a wish to go
at once on board the Osborne with as little
ceremony as possible. The royal train was due at
half-past six in the evening, and at this time of
year it is all but dark in Gotteuburg by then. The
great open square, however, in which the railway
station is situated, the Drottninpborg by name, I
was filled with people. The station itself is a
handsome building in the modern gothic style, with
façade, twenty-one windows in width ; and all these
windows were lighted up. On the opposite side of
the square lives Mr. Robert Dixon, brother of the
Mr. Oscar Dixon, the famous bunter. The long
row of windows in the upper floor of his house
was illuminated also with six wax candles in each
window. A little accident occurred at one of these,
by the way. The curtains caught fire, and being
madeof some light material, blazed up with alarm-
ing violence. They burnt so rapidly, however, that
they set nothing else on fire.
Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after the
time, the gnus of Gotteuburg Castle announced the
arrival of the royal train. Under the station the
PrinceandPrincess were received by about a score of
young ladies, daughters of English residents, dressed
in white muslin, and decorated with crimson silk
scarfs. This little demonstration was entirely spon-
taneous, and all the more graceful on that account.
As soon as the Prince and Princess appeared at the
door of the station, they were greeted by the crowd
with hearty cheering, and the cheers of those who
were in the front sere caught up by those behind
until the whole assemblage welcomed them with one
voice. Then the guard of honour, composed of
about four-and-twenty hussars,wbeeleil intocolumn;
the carriages, the best of which were provided by
Mr. Oscar Dixon, drove up ; the travellers entered
theta, and, escorted by the crowd, set off at a
gentle trot for the place of embarcation. Gotten-
burg is the second town in Sweden, and is to a
great extent the creation of the last ten or twenty
years. Mr. Oscar Dixon and his brothers are the
great people of Gottenburg, and I believe that to
them in a great degree its present be►uty is owing.
Whoever deserves the credit of having improved it,
it is at the present time a splendid monument to
Swedish enterprise. The houses and public works
of the town, so far as the chief streets are concerned,
would be worthy of Liverpool. The most important
street leads from the harbour to the Drottnings-
borg, and is of immense width; as a broad canal
crossed by several bridges runs down the middle.
On each side of the canal is a broad-paved road and
• flagged footway, or highway, which is very rare in

Scandinavia. The houses and shops are lofty and
regular, and many of the turninp which lead to the
right and left are nearly as handsome. Of course
in a town like Gottenburg, land is of little value as
compared with the ground in the crowded cities of
central Europe, and a broad street can be built for
very much less than a narrow street would cost
elsewhere. At the same time, however, the resources

of a small town are of course much less abundant than
those of great commercial cities, and the exertions
whisk must have been necessary to produce Gotten-
burg should be fairly acknowledged.
The Prince and Princess of Wales drove right up
to the gangway of the Osborne, for she was lying
beside one of the quays which surround the harbour.
The scene as they embarked was picturesque in the
highest degree. Beside the ship was drawn up a
strong detachment from an artillery regiment sta-
tioned in the town, but the people were permitted
to go where they pleased, so that the quay wee com-
pletely flooded with the crowd, a narrow passage
only being left for the carriages to pass. Along the
edge of the quay stands, holding some resinous com-
position, had been fixed, and these were now blazing
away 4ktoely, casting a lurid glare upon
the smobth water of the harbour, the ship-
ping, and the people. Their flames, however,
were completely outshone by two blue lights, which
' were being burned one on each side of the Osborne's
gangway. The steady and intense brilliancy of
these little suns made the deck of the Osborne near
the gangway as bright as if it bad been daylight
just there, and the clouds of smoke which they gave
out hung above, for the air was perfectly still, like
a luminous canopy. Alongside the quay and next
to the Osborne was a large brigantine, and the rig-
ging of her foremast was completely covered with
men and boys, whose faces, all turned iu one direc-
tion, shoes in the light which poured over them
with an unearthly whiteness. The Prince stood on
the gangway for a considerable time, showing him-
self goodnaturedly to the people, and talking with
the members of his suite. At last, however, he
was obliged to go below, as he gave a dinner party
on board that evening. The lights burned out, and
the crowd slowly dispersed.
The day was exquisitely beautiful, the sea
smooth, and the air perfectly calm. It would be
difficult to imagine a scene more charming in its
way than that presented by the entrance of the
Sound when the steamer which brought me from
Gottenburg, and which rejoiced in the name of the
Ezoellenzen Toll, came in sight of Kronborg. As
to the old castle I forbear from saying a word on
the subject of its quaintly shaped turrets, or of its
Shakespearian associations, but although Helsin-
gor, under its English name of Elsinore, may have
been done to death by guide-books and travellers in
Denmark, to any one who sees it under favourable
auspices its beauty can never be commonplace.
On a bright day you can see across the narrow strait
which separates the Sound from the Kattegat, and
almost count the windows in the Swedish town of
Heisinghorg. On both sides of the passage lie
hundreds of merchant vessels, large and small,
waiting for a wind, and one would think that Hel-
singor ships become particularly fastidious in the
matter of wind, for they are always waiting there
is crowds from whatever point of the compass the
breezes may be coming. Yesterday morning the
English frigate Aurora was amongst the vessels
waiting on the Kattegat side of the strait, but in
her case she was waiting for a Prince, and not for
a wind, having her steam up, and being altogether
indifferent to the calm which prevailed. As we
passed her on board that respectable screw, the
Excellenzen Toll, a Swedish corvette came up
under steam from the Sound, and the two vessels
saluted. This was a very pretty sight, but a painful
humiliation was in store for us. Early in the
morning we had noticed the smoke of a steamer on
the horizon astern, and as the hours bad gone on
the vessel from which it issued came near enough
to enable us to see through a glass that she was
the Salamis. This was a clear proof that the Salamis
steamed faster than our screw, but this fact alone
might have been guessed beforehand. We had so
much the start that of course we showed yet in
front. As we neared Helsingor however, a painful
apprehension began to take root in our minds. The
Salamis was overtaking us "band over band." To
be passed at 2 o'clock by a vessel which bad only
made her appearance over the horizon that morning
between ten and eleven would be distressing,
but the Salamis was evidently coming on at
a disgustingly rapid rate After a while
she came so near that we could actually see
the paddles and observe the indecent haste with
which they were revolving ; and finally, when we
were not more than four or five hundred yards
from Kronborg Castle, she came up abeam of us
and passed us. We were inside, however, and we
nourished a hope that we could double the castle
sharply and peas the harbour mouth, so that the
Salamis would have to go in astern of us. I grieve
to say, however, that the Salamis trampled upon,
or more properly steamed over our feelings re-
morselessly. She shot ahead of us, circled round,
and steamed into the little harbour across our nose.

The royal yacht was half an hour behind the
Salamis, but it was an hour after her arrival
that the Osborne entered the harbour of
Helsingor, as she Stet went across to
Helsingborg to land Prince Oscar. Mean-
while, the Salamis had come alongside the quay
with extraordinary promptitude, b►d landed her
baggage, and had steamed out of the harbour to
make room for the yacht. The crowd on the little
triangular space opposite the harbour was not quite
so dense as on the first arrival of the Prince in
Denmark, but there was a very respectable attend-
ance nevertheless ; a band of music clustered round
• tree which stands in the centre on a little mound,
and a number of royal carriages were waitingto con-
vey the Prince and suite to Fredensborg. At about
half-past 3 the King of Denmark and the Crown
Prince, both dressed alike, in grey trousers and
morning coats, came down to the landing-
place, and walked about among the crowd
in an unaffected, unpretending way, while
waiting for the arrival of the Prince of
Wales. They were attended by a few officers, but
by no other evidences of royal rank. When the
Osborne, attended by the frigate, was seen to be
coming over from Helsingborg, the King and
Crown Prince walked round the harbour and along
the pier to the entrance, but they formed such an
unconspicuous group, that as the Osborne came up
and entered the harbour they were not at first
noticed by the. Prince and Princess of Wales, who
stood on the bridge with the chief persons of the
suite, looking at the crowd on the landing place.
An officer of the Osborne, however, recoguised the
King, and nu up to the Prince of Wales, who,
with the Prince's, then came to the side of the