In spite of the rainy weather, the review of the
Indian troops on Wednesday was a magnificent and impressive pageant. The troops, who entrained at Hampton Court, and marched from Victoria headed by the massed bands of the
Coldstream and Irish Guards, were received with great en- thusiasm as they passed up Grosvenor Place and down Constitution Hill to Buckingham Palace. Before the review a loyal address was presented on behalf of the 11th Bengal Lancers, a regiment of which the King is honorary Colonel, by two native non-commissioned officers. The troops then filed past to receive their medals, and after the whole parade had then advanced to give the Royal salute, the King came forward and addressed them in a short but cordial address of welcome. Finally the troops marched past in column of fours. Though the total of all ranks only numbered eleven hundred, it was comprised of nearly fifty units, including— besides cavalry, artillery, sappers, and miners from Madras, Bengal, and Bombay—Gurkhas, Dogma, Sikhs, Rajputs, Baluchis, Panjabis, Garhwalis, and Pathans, many of them decorated for their services in the Frontier wars, in China, or as bearers in South Africa. The 2nd Gurkhas, it should be noted, carried two sets of tattered colours,—those which went through the campaign of the Sutlej and those which had been borne through the Mutiny and planted on the ridge at Delhi. Splendid as was the review from a purely spectacular aspect, that splendour was entirely overshadowed by its profound historical significance.
