Part 6

I found subsequently that every afternoon, between luncheon and tea, the college was virtually deserted for field, track, and river; and it dawned upon me that unless I joined the general exodus I should temporarily become a hermit. Still, my earlier unhappy experience in rowing was full in mind, and I set out for the barge humble in spirit, and prepared to be cursed roundly for three days, and "kicked out," or, as they say in Oxford, "given the hoof," on the fourth.

Few memories could be so unhappy, however, as to resist the beauty of the banks of the Isis. At New Haven, the first impression an oarsman gets is said to be an odor so unwelcome that it is not to be endeared even by four years of the good-fellowship and companionship of a Yale crew. At Harvard, the Charles--"Our Charles," as Longfellow spoke of it in a poem to Lowell--too often presents aspects which it would be sacrilege to dwell on. What the "royal-towered Thame" and "Camus, reverend sire," may have been in the classic days of English poetry it is perhaps safest not to inquire; suffice it that to-day they are--and especially the Thames--all that the uninitiated imagine "our Charles." Nowhere does the sun stream more cheerfully through the moist gray English clouds; nowhere is the grass more green, the ivy more luxuriant, and the pollard willows and slender elms and poplars more dense in foliage. And every building, from the thatched farm-cottage in Christ Church meadow to the Norman church at Iffley, is, as it were, more native and more a part of creation than the grass and trees. The English oarsman, it is true, cannot be as conscious of all this as an American visitor. Yet the love of outdoors, which has been at work for centuries in beautifying the English landscape, is not the least part of the British sporting instinct. Where an American might loiter in contemplation of these woods, fields, and streams, an Englishman shoots, hunts, crickets, and rows in them.

When you enter the barge on the river, you feel keenly the contrast with the bare, chill boathouses of the American universities. On the centre tables are volumes of photographs of the crews and races of former years; the latest sporting papers are scattered on chairs and seats; and in one corner is a writing-table, with note-paper stamped "Balliol Barge, Oxford." There is a shelf or two of bound "Punches," and several shelves of books--"Innocents Abroad" and "Indian Summer," beside "Three Men in a Boat" and "The Dolly Dialogues." On the walls are strange and occult charts of the bumping races from the year one--which, if I remember rightly, is 1837. At the far end of the room is a sea-coal fire, above which shines the prow of a shell in which the college twice won the Ladies' Plate at Henley.

The dressing-room of the barge is sacred to the members of the eight, who at the present season are engaged in tubbing the freshmen in the hope of finding a new oar or two. At the appointed hour they appear, in eightsman blazers if it is fair, or in sou'westers if it is not--sad to relate, it usually is not--and each chooses a couple of men and leads them out to the float. Meanwhile, with the rest of the candidates--freshmen, and others who in past years have failed of a place in the torpids--you lounge on easy-chairs and seats, reading or chatting, until your own turn comes to be tubbed. It is all quiet like a club, except that the men are in full athletic dress.

The athletic costume is elaborate, and has been worn for a generation--since top-hats and trousers were abandoned, in fact--in more or less its present form. It consists of a cotton zephyr, flannel shorts flapping about the knees, and socks, or in winter Scotch hose gartered above the calves. The sweater, which, in cold weather, is worn on the river, has a deep V neck, supplemented when the oarsman is not in action by a soft woolen scarf or cloud. Over all are worn a flannel blazer and cap embroidered with the arms of the college. This uniform, with trifling variations, is used in all sports on field and river, and it is infinitely more necessary, in undergraduate opinion, than the academic cap and gown which the rules of the university require to be worn after dark. This seemingly elaborate dress is in effect the most sensible in the world, and is the best expression I know of the cheerful and familiar way in which an Englishman goes about his sports. Reduced to its lowest terms, it is no more than is required by comfort and decency. With the addition of sweater, scarf, blazer, and cap, it is presentable in social conversation--indeed, in the streets of the city. It is in consequence of this that an afternoon in the barge is--except for the two tubbings on the river--so much like one spent in a club.

In America an oarsman wears socks and trunks which are apt to be the briefest possible. If he wears a shirt at all, it is often a mere ribbon bounding the three enormous apertures through which he thrusts his neck and shoulders. Before going on the river he is likely to shiver, in spite of the collar of his sweater; and after he comes in, his first thought is necessarily of donning street clothes. There is, in consequence, practically no sociability in rowing until the crews are selected and sent to the training-table. A disciple of Sartor Resartus would be very likely to conclude that, until American rowing adapts itself to the English costume, it must continue to be--except for the fortunate few--the bare, unkindly sport it has always been.

All this time I have had you seated in an armchair beside the sea-coal fire. Now an eightsman comes into the barge with two deep-breathing freshmen, and nods us to follow him to the boat the three have just quitted. On a chair by the door as we go out are several pads, consisting of a rubber cloth faced with wool. These are _spongeo pilenes_, or so I was told, which in English are known as Pontius Pilates--or Pontiuses for short. The eightsman will advise you to take a Pontius to protect your white flannel shorts from the water on the seat; for there is always a shower threatening, unless indeed it is raining. Every one knows, however, including the eightsman, that the wool is a no less important part of the Pontius than the rubber: it will save you many painful impressions of the dinner form in hall.

We are already on the river, and pair-oars, fours, and eights are swarming about us. "Come forward," cries our coach, "ready--paddle!" and we take our place in the procession of craft that move in one another's wake down the narrow river. The coach talks pleasantly to us from time to time, and in the course of an afternoon we get a pretty good idea of what the English stroke consists in.

The sun bursts through the pearl-gray clouds, and glows in golden ponds on the dense verdure of grass and trees. "Eyes in the boat," shouts the stern voice of conscience; but the coach says, "See, fellows. Here's a 'varsity trial eight. Watch them row, and you will see what the stroke looks like. Those fellows in red caps belong to the Leander."

Their backs are certainly not all flat, and to an American eye the crew presents a ragged appearance as a whole; but a second glance shows that every back swings in one piece from the hips, and that the apparent raggedness is due to the fact that the men on the bow side swing in one line, while those on the stroke side swing in another parallel line. They sway together with absolute rhythm and ease, and the boat is set on a rigidly even keel. Our coach looks them over critically, especially his three college-mates, one of whom at least he hopes will be chosen for the 'varsity eight. No doubt he aimed at a blue himself two years ago, when he came up; but blues are not for every man, even of those who row well and strongly. He watches them until they are indistinguishable amid the myriad craft in the distance. "It's jolly fine weather," he concludes pleasantly, with a familiar glance at the sky, which you are at liberty to follow. "Come forward. Ready--paddle!" We are presently in the barge again with the other fellows. A repetition of this experience after half an hour ends the day's work.

When I tried for the freshman crew in America, I was put with seven other unfortunates into a huge clinker barge, in charge of the sophomore coxswain. On the first day I was told to mind the angle on my oar. On the second day I was told to keep my eyes in the boat, damn me! On the third day, the sophomore coxswain wrought himself into a fury, and swore at me for not keeping the proper angle. When I glanced out at my blade he yelled, "Damn you, eyes in the boat!" This upset me so that I forgot thereafter to keep a flat back at the finish of the stroke. When we touched the float he jumped out, looked at my back, brought his boot against it sharply, and told me that there was no use in trying to row unless I could hold a flat back and swing my body between my knees. That night I sat on a dictionary with my feet against the footboard and tried to follow these injunctions, until my back seemed torn into fillets, but it would not come flat. I never went down to the river again, and it was two years before I summoned courage to try another sport. The bullyragging sophomore coxswain I came to know very well in later years, and found him as courteous and good-hearted as any man. To this day, if I mention our first meeting, he looks shy, and says he doesn't remember it. He says that the flat back is a discarded fetish in Harvard boating circles, that even before the advent of Mr. Lehmann cursing and kicking were largely abandoned; and moreover (_fortissimo_) that the freshman crew he helped to curse and kick into shape was the only one in ten years that won.

After a fortnight's tubbing in pair-oars, the better candidates are tubbed daily in fours, and the autumn races are on the horizon. At the end of another week the boats are finally made up, and the crews settle down to the task of "getting together." Each of the fours has at least one seasoned oarsman to steady it, and is coached from the coxswain's seat by a member of the college eight. Sometimes, if the November floods are not too high, the coach runs or bicycles along the towing-path, where he can see the stroke in profile. If a coach swears at his men, there is sure to have been provocation. His favorite figure of speech is sarcasm. At the end of a heart-breaking burst he will say, "Now, men, get ready to _row_," or, "I say, fellows, wake up; _can't you make a difference?_" The remark of one coach is now a tradition--"All but four of you men are rowing badly, and they're rowing damned badly!" This convention of sarcasm is by no means old. One of the notable personages in Eights' Week is a little man who is pointed out to you as the Last of the Swearing Coaches. _Tempora mutantur._ Perhaps my friend the ex-coxswain is in line for a similar distinction.

When the fours are once settled in their tubs, the stroke begins to go much better, and the daily paddle is extended so as to be a real test of strength and endurance for the new men, and for the man from the torpid a brisk practice spin. Even at this stage very few of the new men are "given the hoof;" the patience of the coachers is monumental.

The tubbing season is brought to an end with a race between the fours. Where there are half a dozen fours in training, two heats of three boats each are rowed the first day, and the finals between the best two crews on the following day. The method of conducting these races is characteristic of boating on the Isis and the Cam. As the river is too narrow to row abreast, the crews start a definite distance apart, and row to three flags a mile or so up the river, which are exactly as far apart as the boats were at starting. At each of these flags an eightsman is stationed. In the races I saw they flourished huge dueling pistols, and when the appropriate crew passed the flag, the appropriate man let off his pistol. The crew that is first welcomed with a pistol-shot wins. These races are less exciting than the bumping races; yet they have a picturesque quality of their own, and they settle the question of superiority with much less rowing. The members of the winning four get each a pretty enough prize to remember the race by, and the torpidsman at stroke holds the "Junior fours cup" for the year.

The crowning event of the season of tubbing is a wine, to which are invited all boating-men in college, and the representative athletes in other sports. In Balliol it is called the "Morrison wine," as the races are called "Morrison fours," in honor of an old Balliol man, a 'varsity oar and coach, who established the fund for the prizes. The most curious thing about this affair is that it is not given, as it would be in America, at the expense of the college, or even of the men who have been tubbed, but at the expense of those who are finally chosen to row in the races.

To my untutored mind the hospitality of English boating seemed a pure generosity. It made me uncomfortable at first, with the sense that I could never repay it; but I soon got over this, and basked in it as in the sun. The eightsmen devote their afternoons to coaching you because there are seats to be filled in the torpid and in the eight; they speak decently because they find that in the long run decency is more effective; and they hold the wine because they wish to honor the sport in which they have chosen to stake their reputations as athletes. In a word, where in America we row by all that is self-sacrificing and loyal, in England the welfare of boating is made to depend upon its attractiveness as a recreation and a sport; if it were not enjoyable to the normal man, nothing could force fellows into it.

The relationship of the autumn tubbing and its incidental sociability to the welfare of the sport in the college and in the university seems remote enough to the American mind, for out of the score of fellows who are tubbed only three or four, on an average, go farther in the sport. Yet it is typical of the whole; and it will help us in following the English boating season. Throughout the year there are two converging currents of activity in boating. On the one hand, the tubs in the autumn term develop men for the torpids, which come on during the winter term; and the torpids develop men for the summer eights. On the other hand, the 'varsity trials in the autumn term develop men for the 'varsity eight, which trains and races in the winter term; and the 'varsity oarsmen, like the men who have prospered in tubs and torpids, end the season in the eights of their respective colleges. The goal of both the novice and the veteran is thus the college eight.

The torpid is, so to speak, the understudy to the college eight. In order to give full swing to the new men, no member of the eight of the year before is allowed to row in it; and the leading colleges man two torpids--sometimes even three. The training here is much more serious than in the tubs; wine, spirits, and tobacco are out of order. The races, which are conducted like the celebrated May Eights, are rowed in midwinter--in the second of the three Oxford terms--under leaden skies, and sometimes with snow piled up along the towing-path. On the barges, instead of the crowds of ladies, gayly dressed and bent on a week of social enjoyment, one finds knots of loyal partisans who are keen on the afternoon's sport. The towing-path, too, is not so crowded as in May Week; but nothing could surpass the din of pistols and rattles and shouting that accompanies the races. If the men in the torpid do not learn how to row the stroke to the finish under the excitement of a race, it is not for the lack of coaching and experience. When the torpids break training, there are many ceremonies to signalize the return to the flesh-pots: one hardly realizes that the weeks of sport and comradeship have all gone to the filling of a place or two in the college eight.

All this time, while the tubs and torpids have been training up new men, the 'Varsity Boat Club, whose home is on the shore of the Isis opposite the row of college barges, has also, so to speak, been doing its tubbing. The new men for the 'varsity are chiefly those who have come to the front in the May Eights of the previous year--oars of two or three seasons' standing; though occasionally men are taken directly from the Eton eight, which enters yearly for the Ladies' Plate at Henley. The new men will number ten or a dozen; and early in the autumn they are taken out in tubs. They are soon joined by as many of last year's blues as are left in Oxford. The lot is divided into two eights, as evenly matched as possible, which are coached separately. These are called the Trial Eights, or 'Varsity Trials. To "get one's trials" is no mean honor. It is the _sine qua non_ of membership to the Leander--admittedly the foremost boating club of the world. Toward the end of the first term there is a race of two and a half miles between the two trial eights at Moulsford, where the Thames is wide enough to permit the two boats to race abreast. Of the men who row in the trials the best ten or a dozen are selected to train for the 'varsity during the winter term.

Of the training of the 'varsity eight it is not necessary to speak here at length. The signal fact is that the men are so well schooled in the stroke, and so accustomed to racing, that a season of eight weeks at Oxford and at Putney is enough to fit them to go over the four miles and a quarter between Putney and Mortlake with the best possible results. The race takes place in March, just after the close of the winter term.

The series of races I have mentioned gives some idea of the scheme and scope of English boating, but it is by no means exhaustive. The strength of the boating spirit gives rise to no end of casual and incidental races. Chief among these are the coxswainless fours, which take place about the middle of the autumn term, while the trials are on the river. The crews are from the four or five chief boating colleges, and are made up largely from the men in the 'varsity trials. The races have no relation that I could discover to the 'varsity race; the only point is to find which college has the best four, and it is characteristic that merely for the sport of it the training of the 'varsity trials is interrupted.

After the 'varsity race the members of the crew rest during what remains of the Easter vacation, and then take their places in the boats of their respective colleges. Here they are joined by the other trials men, the remaining members of last year's college eight, and the two or three men who have come up from the torpids. Now begins the liveliest season in boating. Every afternoon the river is clogged with eights rowing to Iffley or to Sandford, and the towing-path swarms with enthusiasts. The course in the May bumping races is a mile and a quarter long--the same as the course of the torpids--and the crews race over it every day for a week, with the exception of an intervening Sunday, each going up a place or down a place in the procession daily according as it bumps or is bumped. These races, from the point of view of the expert oarsman, are far less important than the 'varsity race; yet socially they are far more prominent, and the enthusiasm they arouse among the undergraduates is incomparable. The vitality of Oxford is in the colleges: the university organizations are the flowers of a very sturdy root and branch.

The difference between American and English boating is that we lack the root and branches of the college system. In a university of from three to four thousand men there are, in addition to the 'varsity crew, four class crews and perhaps a few scratch crews. In England, each of the score of colleges, numbering on an average something like one hundred and fifty men apiece, mans innumerable fours, one or more eight-oared torpids, and the college eight. A simple calculation will show that with us one man in fifty to seventy goes in for the sport, while in England the proportion is one man in five to seven.

The difference in spirit is as great as the difference in numbers. In America, the sole idea in athletics, as is proclaimed again and again, is to beat the rival team. No concession is made to the comfort or wholesomeness of the sport; men are induced to train by the excellent if somewhat grandiose sentiment that they owe it to the university to make every possible sacrifice of personal pleasure. Our class crews, which have long ceased to represent any real class rivalry, are maintained mainly in the hope of producing 'varsity material. The result of these two systems is curiously at variance with the intention. At Oxford, where rowing is very pleasant indeed, and where for the greater part of the year the main interest centres in college crews, the 'varsity reaches a high degree of perfection, and the oarsmen, without quite being aware of the fact, represent their university very creditably; while at Yale, and until recently at Harvard, the subsidiary crews have been comparative failures in producing material, and the 'varsity is in consequence somewhat in the position of an exotic, being kept alive merely by the stimulus of inter-varsity rivalry.

The recent improvement at Harvard is due to Mr. Rudolph C. Lehmann, the celebrated Cambridge and Leander oar who coached the Harvard crews of 1897 and 1898, in the sportsmanlike endeavor to stimulate a broader and more expert interest in boating. His failure to bring either of the crews to victory, which to so many of us signified the utter failure of his mission, has had more than a sufficient compensation in the fact that he established at Harvard something like the English boating system. Anything strictly similar to the torpids and eights is of course out of the question, because we have no social basis such as the colleges afford for rivalry in boating; but the lack of colleges has in a measure been remedied by creating a factitious rivalry between improvised boating clubs, and the system of torpids and eights has been crudely imitated in the so-called graded crews. A season of preliminary racing has thus been established, on the basis of which the candidates for the 'varsity crew are now selected, so that instead of the nine months of slogging in the tank and on the river, in which the more nervous and highly organized candidates were likely to succumb and the stolid men to find a place in the boat, the eight is made up as at Oxford of those who have shown to best advantage in a series of spirited races. Crude as the new Harvard system is as compared with the English system, it has already created a true boating spirit, and has trained a large body of men in the established stroke, placing the sport at Harvard on a sounder basis than at any other American university. It has thus been of infinitely more advantage, by the potentiality of an example, than any number of victories at New London. To realize the full benefit of the system of graded crews and preliminary races, it is only necessary to supersede the arbitrary and meaningless division into clubs by organizations after the manner of English colleges which shall represent something definite in the general life of the university.

III

A LITTLE SCRIMMAGE WITH ENGLISH RUGBY