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Africa: Mama Queen II

3 minute read
TIME

Welcomed home by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Poet Laureate John Masefield’s twelve-line ode, “On the Return of Our Gracious Sovereign from Africa,”* Queen Elizabeth II returned to England last week from her four-week, 7,000-mile visit to four West African countries. With her the Queen brought some six tons of luggage and gifts, including a baby crocodile, reportedly with divine powers, for Prince Andrew. Behind her she had left a residue of good feeling toward the Crown and Commonwealth—as well as her huband, Prince Philip, who was attending the Tanganyikan independence ceremonies. (Perhaps reluctant to “preside over the liquidation of the British Empire,” the Queen never attends independence celebrations, always delegates a relative to represent her.)

On the last leg of her tour the Queen attended state receptions, inspected hospitals, reviewed troops in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gambia. At a ceremonial durbar in the Sierra Leone provincial town of Bo, some of the paramount chiefs got so high on palm wine that they had to be carried to greet “Mama Queen II” (Queen Victoria was Mama Queen I).

In northern Sierra Leone, half-naked Susu girls swayed and jiggled before the royal visitors in a pulsating fertility dance. So interested did Prince Philip become that the Queen shot him an amused and reproachful glance. In Freetown, the Queen appeared mildly shocked by the officially laundered translation of a ditty sung by a group of twelve-year-old schoolgirls: “Behind the bushes, near the stream, go lots of girls like us, because we know that’s where the boys are.”

Tiny Gambia, Britain’s oldest African possession, was so spruced up that a local government official commented: “Stand still for five minutes and someone is bound to whitewash you.” Here the Queen’s schedule was purposely kept light so that she could return to Britain looking as fresh as when she had left.

Despite the bone-wearying sameness of all the picturesque festivities laid out for them, both the Queen and Prince Philip maintained their poise and ready sense of humor, provided more than a million West Africans with a new view of the erstwhile “imperialist oppressors.” Said Prime Minister Macmillan in the House of Commons, moving a “loyal address to the throne”: “I venture to say that of the many journeys which she and His Royal Highness have so tirelessly undertaken, none has been crowned with greater success than this.”

*Sample:
There, in the blinding sun under the Line,
Once called The White Man’s Grave, the sailors’ Hell . . .

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