INTRODUCTION TO ROWING.
My object in the following pages will be not merely to give such hints to the novice as may enable him, so far as book learning can effect the purpose, to master the rudiments of oarsmanship, but also to commend to him the sport of rowing from the point of view of those enthusiasts who regard it as a noble open-air exercise, fruitful in lessons of strength, courage, discipline, and endurance, and as an art which requires on the part of its votaries a sense of rhythm, a perfect balance and symmetry of bodily effort, and the ful control and repose which lend an ance of ease to the application of the highest muscular energy. Much has to be suffered and many difficulties have to be overcome before the raw tiro, whose fantastic contortions in a tub-pair excite the derision of the spectators, can approach to the power, effectiveness and grace of a Crum or a Gold ; but, given a healthy frame and sound organs inured to fatigue by the sports of English boyhood, given also an alert intelligence, there is no reason in the nature of things why oarsmanship should not eventually become both an exercise and a pleasure. And when I speak of oarsmanship, I mean the combined form of it in pairs, in fours, and in eight-oared racing boats.
Of sculling I do not presume to speak, but those who are curious on this point may be referred to the remarks of Mr. Guy Nickalls in a later chapter. But of rowing I can speak, if not with authority, at any rate with experience, for during twenty-three years of my life I have not only rowed in a con stant succession of boat-races, amounting now to about two hundred, but I have watched rowing wherever it was to be seen, and have, year after year, been privileged to utter words of instruction to innumerable crews on the Cam, the Isis, and the Thames. If, then, the novice will commit himself for a time to my guidance, I will endeavour to initiate him into the art and mystery of rowing. If he decides afterwards to join the fraternity of its votaries, I can promise him that his reward will not be small. He may not win fame, and he will certainly not increase his store of wealth, but when his time of action is past and he joins the great army of " have-beens," he will find, as he looks back upon his career, that his hours of leisure have been spent in an exercise which has enlarged his frame and strengthened his limbs, that he has drunk delight of battle with his peers in many a hard-fought race, that he has learnt what it means to be in perfect health and condition, with every sinew strung, and all his manly energies braced for contests of strength and endurance, and that he has bound to himself by the strongest possible ties a body of staunch and loyal friends whose worth has been proved under all sorts of conditions, through many days of united effort.
It has often been objected to rowing, either by those who have never rowed, or by those who having rowed have allowed themselves to sink prematurely into sloth and decay, that the sport in the case of most men can last only for a very few years, and that having warred, not without glory, up to the age of about twenty-five, they must then hang their oars upon the wall and pass the remainder of their lives in an envious contem plation of the exploits of old but unwearied cricketers. Judging merely by my own personal experience, I am entitled to pronounce these lamentations baseless and misleading, for I have been able to row with pleasure even in racing boats during the whole period of nineteen years that has elapsed since I took my degree at Cambridge. But I can refer to higher examples, for I have seen the Grand Challenge Cup and the Stewards' Cup at Henley Regatta either rowed for with credit, or won by men whose age cannot have been far, if at all, short of forty years, and of men who won big races when they were thirty years old the examples are innumerable. But putting actual racing aside, there is in skilled rowing a peculiar pleasure (even though the craft rowed in be merely a fixed seat gig) which, as it seems to me, puts it on a higher plane than most other exercises. The watermanship which enables a party of veterans to steer their boat deftly in and out of a lock, to swing her easily along the reaches, while unskilled youths are toiling and panting astern, is, after all, no mean accomplishment. And in recent years rowing has taken a leaf out of the book of cricket. Scattered up and down the banks of the Thames are many pleasant houses in which, during the summer, men who can row are favoured guests, either with a view to their forming crews to take part in local regattas, or merely for the purpose of pleasure-rowing in scenes remote from the dust and turmoil of the city. Let no one, therefore, be repelled from oarsmanship because he thinks that the sport will last him through only a few years of his life. If he marries and settles down and becomes a busy man, he will enjoy his holiday on the Thames fully as much as his cricketing brothers enjoy theirs on some country cricket field.