Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/278

 1.30 p.m.—"The parade’s better than the show. The show’s right enough, you know; but the parade’s A," Lieutenant George had declared.

The band, in red coats and firemen's helmets, led the way, packed in a car all gilt and glittering glass, drawn by ten plumed piebald horses. Next, on prancing, plum-coloured steeds, eighteen ladies, sumptuously attired in plush and satin and heavy brocade. Then the thoroughbreds, and the ten trick ponies, tight-reined, arching their necks and tossing their silky manes, led by foot-grooms in scarlet livery. Behind these, the four monumental gilded cars—allegorical representations of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales—each drawn by eight white horses, and carrying on its pinnacle a golden-haired girl reclining in appropriate attitudes. Behind them followed the team of elephants (with the coons dressed in tiger-skins sitting in scarlet howdahs on their backs), dragging the lions’ cage with Lieutenant George in full uniform, inside amongst the beasts, smoking and twirling his freshly waxed moustache. Next, escorted by a Cavalcade of tent-men, dressed as Turkish grandees, the six tableaux—monster paintings relating the appearance of the show before Her Gracious Majesty the Queen in the midst of a tropical forest. And lastly the tigers, the camels, the dromedary, and the three painted pay-waggons.

Every window was packed with faces: the streets were swarming with people. I rode through the town, perched on the box of the gilded band-car (I had been ordered there in case of difficulties with the local police), bowing to the crowd from side to side, and feeling like an Eastern potentate at the head of his triumphal progress.

8.30 p.m.—The afternoon show had done fair business; but in the