The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-30 00:00:00

2H.E PRINCE'S VISIT TO CANADA.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
HER MAJESTY'S SHIP FLYING-FISH,
OFF QUEBEC, AUG. 18.
The real visit to America may be said to date
from this day, for, with all their hearty loyalty and
all their intensity of welcome and devotion, the

provinces throughtwhich the Prince has just passed

are but the outworks of the mighty colonial empire

he has yet to traverse. The real progress, there-
fore, may be said to, begin to-day, and, if the future
may be judged by-the past, the reception accorded
to her Majesty's eldest son, not alone in Canada
but in the United States, is likely to be such as has
never yet been offered spontaneously to the greatest
monarch of modern times. At Prince Edward

Island, poor and small in proportion as it is in com-
parison to the other provinces, far more was done
than could ever have been expected. Before the
ball, which took place there on the night of the
10th, his Royal Highness reviewed the Volunteers,
and in all relating to equipment and discipline their

appearance would have done credit to any colony
in her Majesty's dominions. After this military dis-
play every one made up their minds for the fete of
the evening, which, if all I hear is true, must have

been anxiously looked forward to since Christmas
last. The ball, at Charlottetown was, in its way,
therefore, a very gay affair. Of course it was very

crowded, and not many could get in, or, being in
get out; but people like being crowded at a ball,
especially when dancing is not their forte, and thus
even the most critical at Charlottetown could not
detect whether the bewildered individuals pushing
here and there were really involved in the mazes
of a quadrille or only trying to gain the door.
The Prince was there, too, laughing and dancing
as much as arty, and the Governor, Mr. Dundas,
second only to the Prince in popularity, was
equally gay, and equally complicated in the crowd.
So the whole thing was voted a decided suc-
cess, everybody enjoyed themselves, and " the
festivities were prolonged to an advanced
hour." Saturday, the 11th, was a quiet day—that
is, the Prince only received visitors and embarked
in state on board the Hero, which, with the Ariadne,
Cossack, and Flying-Fish, and the French 42-gun I
frigate Pomone, were all dressed in colours and had
yards manned. This made a good spectacle of the
departure, and the crowds of people lining the
shores finished the effect, and made the whole cere-
mony one of considerable state and eclat, in spite of
the rain, whifsh had been dropping all the morning,
and which the thunder of the guns brought down
at last with drenching vehemence. At 2 p.m. the
signal was made to weigh anchor, and in half an
hour afterwards the squadron was steaming quickly
down the river, with light winds, thick, rainy
weather, a little cross sea, and a decided prospect of
each and all getting worse as the night drew on. The
course was across some dangerous shoals between
Prince Edward Island and the mainland, where the
channel for large ships is narrow and intricate, and
where, on that night at least, there was but little
prospect of getting sight of any bearings by which
the squadron coald judge of its whereabouts. For-
tunately the rain kept down the wind, as, indeed,
it seemed capable of keeping down anything ; for
except on occasions of great public festivals and out-
door rejoicings in. England I never before saw any-
thing like its density. It was a wretched night, and
by 10 o'clock the vessels were slowly creeping in,
sounding their way with the lead lines, as they ad-
vanced, and hoisting groups of lights at the main-
yard whenever any was fortunate enough to find
some water deeper than the rest. Thus moving,
stopping, sounding and signalling, the vessels crept
slowly on past the Escumenar light and Mirimichi
Bay till daylight broke, when the open sea was
gained at last. Sunday was at first as bad as
Saturday in point of weather till the evening, when
the breeze fell and the rain ceased as the ships
steamed in towards Gaspe Point. To see the bold
magnificence of the coast to the best advantage, all
the squadron stood into the narrow channel be-
tween Bonaventure Island and Cape Gaspe, where
the huge cliffs of steep red sandstone, lit up by the
setting sun, seemed like mountains of fire, in which
the dark shadows caused by rents and chasms stood
out with a black distinctness that was almost ter.
rible. Just beyond Cape Gaspe is an insulated mass
of fiery sandstone, known by the name of the Perce
Mock. It is caverned into a heap of rents and holes,
some of which penetrate its entire mass, and allow a
:faint daylight to peer through it, showing like spots
of dirty chalk upon its straight blood-coloured sides.
'The Hero ran close to this to enable his Royal High-
ness to see its rough magnificence at the best, and
passing across Mud Bay stood straight for Gaspe
harbour. It was night again, however, before this
was gained, and as the last rays of the sun were
overpowered by darkness the Auroraßorealis seemed
suddenly to spring into light and life in the sky, and
kept playing across every part of the heavens, as if
the active principle of the light which had just de-
parted was rejoicing over its release from work.
Sometimes it would entirely vanish with a sudden
blink, as if the illumination was blown out, and
then come faintly streaking down the sky in thin,
lambent, pencilled veins, which spread out in sudden
shoots, now brightening, now fading, till the whole
lit up in one vivid blaze, and died out to reappear
again in another direction. The squadron reached
Gaspe Bay soon after dark and anchored for the night
alongside the Victoria and the Lady Head steamers,
which had come down with the Governor of Canada
and the chief members of the Colonial Government
to meet his Royal Highness. Early in the morn-
ing of the 13th, after a visit had been duly paid to
the Hero by the chief Government officials, the
squadron was signaled to get under way and fol-
low the Hero into the inner harbour of Gaspe. The
whole coast line of the North American provinces
abounds with natural and almost landlocked har-
bours, many of which are superior in size and
security and depth of water to the most vaunted
harbours of Great Britain. Milford Haven,
Queenstown, Bantry Bay, or Plymouth are below
any standard of comparison with those magnificent
refuges ; and Gaspe, though far from one of the
'hest, is still immeasurably better than the best of
ours. A long chain of richly-wooded undulating
hills encloses it on three sides, and its broad capa-
cious mouth, some five miles wide, has a natural
breakwater across half its extent in the shape of a
sandbank, which, stretching out in a sharp curve,
stops the angry water from passing into the inner
harbour. The Hero, followed by the Ariadne,
Flying-Fish, Victoria, and Lady Head, steamed up
this basin till the little town of Gaspe with its
stiff-looking white-washed houses, its cleared fields,
and regular sharp outlines of small trees, for all the
world like the villages children build with a box
of Dutch toys, came close in view. There was still
the inner harbour of all to enter, and to this the
Hero was, of course, to lead. On a high, command-
ing spit of land a heavy battery commenced firing
a Reyal salute as the vessel approached, and the
echoes went reverberating among the hills in a
deep, sustained roar, as if the very mountains were
shouting to each other in tones of thunder. All
this time the Hero, with the Royal standard
flying, seemed unaccountably still. The last gun
was fired, and the uproar which it called into
being waxed fainter and fainter, till it ceased
gently in a hoarse murmur, the shadow of its for-
mer self, and still the Hero continued quiet and
motionless as a rock. At last a cloud of little sig-
nals were hoisted with the Ariadne's pennants,
and went down again before a landsman could well
count their number. But, quick as they went up
and down, they _
had been read by the squadron,
and it was "Hands up—stream cables !" for the
Hero was ashore. in trying to enter the inner
harbour she had taken the ground on a low spit of
shoal, and there she remained hard and fast. In a
few minutes the Ariadne went ahead, and, skimming
round the bay with a speed which no ocean-going
frigate has ever yet surpassed, turned in her own
length and backed in, stern foremost, to assist the
flag-ship. The manoeuvre was beautifully executed,
though quite in vain, for where the Hero gets
aground there is not much water for the Ariadne.
She, too, touched the shoal as ith her stern, 'but of
course went off again, and got out her boats at once
with all hawsers to tow. The Commodore then sig-
nalled the Flying-fish to close, and in a minute or
so afterwards that pretty little sloop was brought
under the stern of the Hero with such skill and ease