Touches!

"Mais! Qu'ils sont touches par le soleil!" Thus cried admiring Belgians to one another, last week, as they welcomed home to Brussels beloved King Albert and

Queen Elizabeth, who have just toured the Belgian Congo (TIME, Aug. 6).

Their Majesties were indeed touches (tanned) by the blazing Afric Sun.

They have soared in throbbing airplanes more than 1,500 miles over Congo swamps, diamond mines, cannibals, palm oil factories, pigmies, ivory hunters, and savage, slimy, man-eating crocodiles. Also Their Majesties sailed a thousand miles down the mighty River Congo (larger than any other except the Amazon). By way of climax, they skirted the edge of the Great Pigmy Forest, one of the gruesome wonders of the world. Appalling, it is a place from which dense, choking creepers and great trees shut out the sun. In the gloom spiteful brown pigmies plant poisoned stakes and shoot poisoned arrows, to keep out both white men and black.

Only one scandal disturbed the Royal homecoming. Crown Princess Astrid of the Belgians, Their Majesties' Swedish daughter-in-law, was flayed last week, by a fanatically Roman Catholic news organ, Le Vingtieme Siecle. Wrote its Priest-Editor: "A recent photograph of Her Royal Highness shows her seated, with the skirt somewhat above the knees. The radiant beauty of the Princess aroused sufficient admiration in itself without the addition of such a piece of trivial daring. The example coming from the throne, or even the steps of the throne, is the most substantial bar that can be opposed to shameless fashions."