The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-10 00:00:00

TEE PRINCE'S VISIT TO CANADA.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
MONTREAL, AUG. 27.
The landing of the Prince of Wales at this, the
finest and handsomest of the Canadian cities, took
place with all due state and grandeur on the morning
of the 25th. According to the programme, he should
have landed on the afternoon of the 24th, and this
change, with his arrival two days sooner than was
anticipated at Newfoundland, are the only depar-
tures that have yet been permitted from the ar-
rangements
for the Royal tour. In justice to his
Royal Highness's punctuality, however, it must be
stated that the alteration of the date of landing
here was not due to him. He was ready and even
anxious to land at 'the appointed time, but kindly
refrained from doing so, in compliance with an uni-
versal wish to that effect from the civic authorities
of the town. The fact is that the municipal pre-
parations and decorations were a little behindhand,
and this, with the really dreadful state of the
weather, which made a procession quite impossible,
decided the authorities upon asking his Royal High-
ness to defer his landing till the following day.
On the whole, the delay was a prudent one, for the
weather did clear up partially, the landing took
place auspiciously, the procession was good, and
there was plenty of it, so that everybody was pleased,
which they most unquestionably could not have
been had it come off during the deluge of the
previous day. Advantage also was taken of the
delay to perfect the illuminations and decorations
to the utmost, and I am bound to say that in this
respect Montreal quite realised all that had been
expected of the reception here. At the same time,
credit must be given where the credit is due, and
I must state that as yet the Prince has seen no-
thing which has excelled, or even equalled, the
Street decorations of Halifax. There the streets were
almost looped in by arches, and every house was
transformed into a perfect bower. At Montreal the
decorations more resembled those usually seen on
the same occasions in England than any I have
yet met. The sweet spruce fir arches were not
to be found here, at least in any number, but in
their place were those decorated wooden arches,
the great object in the design of which is generally
to make them as granite looking as possible, and
deprive them, in fact, of all appearances which
could show what they really were—decorations
specially erected in honour of the occasion. Some
of these, however, meant only for inspection by
day, were very good, though the rain had by no
means improved them ; others, meant for illumina-
tion and filled in transparencies, showed very poorly
in the bright sun, and had a rough, half-finished,
scene-painted look, which was not agreeable. But
by night these same arches carried off all the
honour, for when lit from the inside, as they were
from base to summit, they had a wonderfully beau-
tiful effect, as they spanned the streets in long
undulating lines of coloured lights. For the rest,
all the streets were draped with flags, English
fashion, and as not a house in any of the chief
thoroughfares was without some large transparency
or illumination more or less appropriate, the city of
Montreal, even by the sombre light of a clouded
sky, was wonderfully gay and brilliant. A detach-
ment of the Boston Fusiliers, consisting of several
fine companies of well-dressed and well-drilled
volunteers, had come up from Boston especially to
do honour to the Prince's arrival. This was a marked
compliment, and I am told the Prince felt much
pleased and flattered by the attention. In addition
to these, the Montreal Volunteer Cavalry turned
out, and better troops it would be difficult to see,
either for discipline or soldierlike bearing. There
were also some Volunteer Artillery, wearing the
old Grenadier cap of the time of Marlborough.
His Royal Highness disembarked from the Kings-
ton steamer at 9 o'clock, the Valorous, Styx, and
Flying Fish firing Royal salutes, during which three
most unfortunate accidents occurred on board the Va-
lorous and Flying Fish. On the first-named frigate
one of the guns went off while being loaded,and blew
the man who was ramming home away piecemeal.
On the Flying Fish two such accidents occurred at
the same time while loading the long 68 pounders,
one gunner being blown away from the muzzle of
one, and, almost instantly afterwards, two men
from the muzzle of another gun of the same calibre.
The sailors who were serving the vents of these
three pieces had their thumbs blown off, and
others were badly hurt, a sufficient proof that they
were doing their duty properly when the accidents
occurred. They could only have arisen, therefore,
from careless and improper sponging, the fault of
the poor fellows themselves, who met their deaths
by their negligence. Of course these accidents were
not known till afterwards, so the ceremony of the
reception proceeded with undiminished grandeur
and rejoicing. His Royal Highness, attended by
his suite now considerably augmented by the Go
vernor-General of Canada, Sir Edmund Head ; the
Commander-in-Chief, Sir F. Williams ; and Admiral
Milne, all with their suites of aides-de-camp and
secretaries), landed at the pier of Bonsecours, where
a beautiful pavilion had been erected for his recep-
tion. Here the chief members of the Canadian Go-
vernment, Mr. Cartier, Mr. Macdonald, Mr. Rose,
&c., were in waiting in full uniform to welcome
his Royal Highness to Montreal. Here also was
the Mayor, Mr. Rodier, in robes of state, with the
members of the common council, the consuls in
uniform, the magistrates, bishops, chaplains, mode.
rators, judges, and heads of societies, all more or
less
emblazoned and adorned. The Prince accepted
the address presented to him with a kind smile,
and replied as follows :
" Gentlemen,--The address you have just pre-
sented to me, in which you proclaim your loyalty
to the Queen and attachment to the British Crown,
demands my warmest acknowledgments
"The impression made upon me by the kind and
cordial reception which has been accorded to me on
this first visit to Canada can never fade from my
mind ; and deeply will the Queen be gratified by
the proof which it affords that the interest which
she takes in the welfare of this portion of her em-
pire, and which she has been anxious to mark by
my presence among you, is met on their part by
feelings of affectionate devotion to herself and her
family.
For myself, I rejoice at the opportunity-which
has been afforded me of visiting this city—a great
emporium of the trade of Canada—and whose
growing prosperity offers so striking an example of
what may be effected by energy and enterprise
under the influence of free institutions.
" That this prosperity may be still further en-
larged is my earnest hope, and there can be little
doubt that by the completion of that stupendous
monument of engineering skill and labour which I
have come in the name of the Queen to inaugurate,
new sources of wealth will be opened to your citi•
zens and to the country, new elements of power de-
veloped, and new links forged to bind together in
peaceful co-operation the exertions of a wide-spread
and rapidly increasing population."
A few formal presentations were then made to his
Highness, and then everybody fell into the state of
gentle hurry and confusion peculiar to " making
way" for the procession. Heading it, though not in-
cluded in the programme, was a small party of the
Cawknawaga Indians, who live near Lachine, on
the rapids whence their rather inharmonious title is
immediately derived. They are really one of the
few remaining branches of the Iroquois—one of the
five great nations which once held all North Ame-
rica as their hunting ground. No travestie on
modern civilisation was attempted here, nor did
they wear trockcoats decked with a backwoods
millinery of beads and feathers. The Cawknawagas
were all attired in full dress after the fashion of
their nation—that is to say, with loose bead-em-
broidered woollen tunics, mocassins, headdresses of
beadwork and feathers, and their features disfigured
or adorned, as the spectator might choose to think,
of many-coloured paints.
under a profuse layer
Thus equipped, they were certainly not prepossess-
ing objects, and, though they looked characteristic
enough, I must own I prefer the Indian "pure and
simple" as I saw them at Lorette to those with such
Pigmentary eccentricities of colour on their features
as these Cawknawagians displayed. For the rest,
they Were persons of every size and age, though
when you saw any one you saw all—there was not
the least appearance of individuality or character
about any which would enable you, even after care-
ful scrutiny, to distinguish one from the rest. They
had all the same feat, broad Tartar features—thick-
lipped and wide mouthed, with sallow, tawny faces,
long, coarse, wi:73, hair; h,
w ite, sharp, irregular