"Rejoicin' Day"

A swarm of tiny home-built sloops tugged at Prince George Wharf in Nassau one morning last week, bobbing lazily on the swells. For days the native grapevine had hummed through the outer islands of the Bahamas, carrying the news that "the King" was coming. Loyal island blackamoors streamed in to see him, unaware that the King was now only a Duke. In a tangle of livestock, cooking utensils and wriggling-black babies, they sat on their crowded decks, awaiting the "Rejoicin' Day."

By 9:15 that day had begun. The Duke & Duchess of Windsor walked slowly down the gangplank of the Canadian liner Lady Somers to meet a welcoming roar from thousands of Bahamians jampacked around the pier. From the casuarina trees around Rawston Square, barefooted natives shouted down greetings as the new Governor General and his lady moved up the street to the Legislative Council Chambers.

Within the hall nearly 300 formally-clad Nassau bigwigs perspired in the heavy tropical heat while scarlet-robed, bewigged Chief Justice Oscar Bedford Daly advanced to administer the oath of office. In the khaki of a British major general, the nervous, unsmiling Duke shifted uncomfortably under a red, crown-emblazoned canopy, repeated the oath of allegiance: "I, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, Duke of Windsor, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George, his heirs and successors according to law, so help me God." On a special dais, a step below the Duke but, in deference to her title, a step above the floor level, sat the Duchess, fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan to relieve the stifling heat.

After formalizing the oath with his signature, the Duke replied to the welcoming addresses of the Council's President and the Assembly's Speaker: "I do not doubt that, like all other British colonies, you here in the Bahamas are confronted with the same problem of reconciling your local interests with the changed conditions which hostilities have imposed. It will be my endeavor, however long or short the duration of my term of office, to lend you a helping hand in your efforts to solve it."

Three cheers for the new Governor rolled weakly up from the heat-stricken audience and the Duke & Duchess began their first official task, shaking black and white hands. Then the Governor and his lady waved to the people of their domain from a balcony and drove off to get a long cool drink at Government House. Already the Duke had lent Nassau a helping hand. In Manhattan. Eastern Steamship Lines reported a boom in tourist bookings of Americans who wanted to visit the islands.

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