Endearing Dragon

Not many Britons know that they have a tattooed King. Last week the days when George V was an earnest sailor prince and expected the Throne to be taken by his elder brother Albert Victor, were glowingly recalled by Captain R. G. Griffith R. N., in the highly authoritative British Nautical Magazine.

"As a naval officer," wrote Captain Griffith of his King, "he has always shown the keenest interest in the welfare of the men and historians of the future will probably discover how many improvements and reforms have been directly inspired by him.

"The King's boyhood voyages on the Bacchante took him to the West Indies, South America, South Africa and Australia and Japan. From Japan he brought back a very nautical souvenir and he has it still, a dragon tattooed on his arm, and this, perhaps more than anything else, endears him to seamen as one of themselves.

"The Bacchante's guns were muzzle loading and her speed six knots. She had an engine and a screw, but as with all naval vessels of the time the instructions were to use sail on all possible occasions. The King thus learned the old sail drill which carried Nelson to victory at Trafalgar, and served in the navy during the most eventful period of its life, when it changed from oak to iron, from muzzle loading to hydraulic loading, and from sail to steam and even oil."

When his brother Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, died in 1892, Sailor Prince George had worked his way up to the post of Commander of H. M. S. Melampus. Reluctantly he left her to take up his duties as eventual heir to the throne, which included his marriage to the present Queen Mary (of Teck), his dead brother's fiancee.

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