Photograph of Georgian style mansion, two storeys (plus basement) and pediment; foliage up one side.

According to the written account of the voyage of HMS Bacchante, Government House was built on a knoll 300 feet high and boasted a cactus growing to 30ft high that could be seen from the drawing room window. From The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante 1879-82, London, p.92.  

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882.