Meghan Markle, Prince Harry debut Archie on Day 3 of their Africa tour

Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry’s royal tour of southern Africa on Wednesday featured a special – and rarely seen – guest: Their royal baby, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

Baby Archie came along for his first royal engagement as Harry and Meghan began their day in Cape Town with a visit to retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife, Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, at their legacy foundation.

Wearing striped blue dungarees from H&M, Archie appeared to be in good spirits during the visit, laughing to his dad in a video posted to Harry and Meghan's Instagram Story, in which Harry carries Archie and says about Archbishop Tutu, "You get to meet Arch!"

Speaking to Tutu about Archie, per Yahoo and People, Meghan called her son "an old soul" and Harry commented on his comfort around strangers, saying, “I think he is used to it already."

Meghan was wearing a Club Monaco dress with a blue brush-stroke pattern on white silk and a flouncy hem. 

The baby's resemblance to Harry at about the same age was striking, prompting British media to run multiple side-by-side pictures of baby Archie in his mum's lap and baby Harry in the arms of his late mother, Princess Diana.  

British media also commented on Archie's baby outfit, noting that it is similar to what his cousins, Prince George and Prince Louis of Cambridge, wore when they were babies, and to what Harry and his brother, Prince William, wore when they were babies in the 1980s.

Despite all the tabloid carping about Meghan's alleged indifference to all-important royal customs, even the Daily Mail noted in its headline that "Meghan Markle follows royal tradition by dressing Archie in stripy dungarees," only they cost less than $25 from H&M.

It was Meghan's first time meeting with Tutu, the Anglican cleric world famous for his anti-apartheid and human-rights activism and the recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.

Since his retirement, Tutu is rarely seen in public these days, just as Archie has been mostly out of the spotlight since his birth on May 6. His visit with the archbishop is the first of what may be a lifetime of public appearances as a royal and the seventh in line to the throne.

Harry last met Tutu in 2015, when he presented him with an honor in recognition of his services to U.K. communities and international peace and reconciliation.

After the visit, the duke and duchess parted ways: Harry will travel on to Botswana, northeast of Cape Town, while Meghan and Archie remain in South Africa, in Cape Town and later in Johannesburg.

On Wednesday afternoon, she visited the Woodstock Exchange to meet female entrepreneurs and investors working in technology and to highlight the benefits of networking between aspiring female entrepreneurs and successful female role models.

Later, in a visit to mothers2mothers, a non-profit organization working for a healthy, HIV-free Africa, she was pictured sitting on the floor playing with moms and kids before presenting the group with two large bags of outgrown baby clothes she had gathered from her own nursery and that of her friends.

“It’s so important we’re able to share what’s worked for our family and know that we’re all in this together with each other," she said, according to her Instagram post. "So we wanted to share something from our home to each of yours.

For her afternoon engagements, Meghan had changed into a black, sleeveless Everlane jumpsuit, plus Manolo Blahnik suede heels and gold filigree statement earrings.

On Thursday, she will take part in a private “Women in Public Service” breakfast at the High Commission in Cape Town, to mark the important role played by women in South Africa’s socio-economic and political development.

Meanwhile, Harry will begin his working visit to Botswana on Thursday, travelling first to Chobe Forest Tree Reserve to join schoolchildren in planting trees to raise awareness of the fragility of these ecosystems.

Next, he will pay a visit to a local project run by his children's charity, Sentebale, which focuses on improving the mental health of young people affected by HIV. 

From there, he will travel to Chobe National Park, where he will dedicate an area of forest to the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, helping to link cross-border areas of forests to widen the range of wildlife habitats.

He then will depart for Angola where he will spend Thursday night at a new de-mining camp run by HALO Trust, for which he is royal patron following in the footsteps of his mother, the late Princess Diana. 

Source: USA Today

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