ROWING AT ETON COLLEGE.
In most books that have been published on rowing matters, a chapter has been devoted to rowing at Eton. But these accounts have been mainly of a historical nature, and have not, I think, dealt sufficiently with the career of an Eton boy, from the time when he passes through the ordeal of the swimming examination up to the proud moment when he wears the light blue at Henley, representing his school in the Ladies' Plate.
Before any boy is allowed to go on the river at all, he is obliged to satisfy the authorities of his ability to reach the banks of the river safely if he should upset while boating. This swimming examination is held about once a week after bathing has commenced in the summer half at the two bathing-places, Cuckoo Weir and Athens, which are reserved for the use of the boys alone.
On the Acropolis, a mound raised some ten feet above the water for diving purposes, sit the two or three masters whose duty it is to conduct the "passing." On one side a punt is moored, from which the boys enter the water head first as best they can. They have to swim a distance of about twenty yards, round a pole, and return, showing that they can swim in good style, and can keep themselves afloat by " treading water." When a boy has successfully passed this examination, he is at liberty to go on the river. As it is probably well on in the summer half before he has passed, and it is more than likely that he has never before handled an oar, we will suppose that he does not enter for the Lower Boy races that year, but has to learn by himself, with no coaches to help him, the rudiments of rowing and sculling on fixed seats. Always on the river, whenever he has an hour to spare from his school duties, the Lower Boy soon acquires that know ledge of " watermanship " for which Etonian oarsmen are famous.
By the end of the summer half, he can sit his sculling-boat in comparative safety, and has learnt, perhaps, at the cost of several fines, the rules of the river, which are considered sacred by all Eton boys.
The ensuing winter terms are devoted to foot ball and fives, rowing not being allowed ; and we may pass on to the next summer, when our Lower Boy will probably enter for both Lower Boy sculling and pulling (i.e. pairs). These two races are rowed
in boats almost peculiar to Eton. That used for the Lower Boy pulling is called a "perfection," of which the design is due to the Rev. S. A. Donaldson ; it is an open, clinker-built, outrigged boat, which recalls the lines of the old Thames wherry. That used for the Lower Boy sculling is known as a "whiff," an open clinker boat with outriggers. On an average about a dozen com petitors enter for these events, five or six boats being started together, the first and second in each heat rowing in the final. The course, which is about two miles long, begins opposite the Brocas, extending for a mile upstream, where the competitors turn round a ryepeck, and then down stream to the finish, just above Windsor Bridge.
If fairly successful in his school examinations, the boy whose career we are considering will, after his second summer, have reached the fifth form, a position which entitles him to be tried for the boats. He probably does not succeed in obtain ing the coveted colour at the first attempt ; and it is, say, in his third summer, that he first comes under the eye of a coach.
For the last month of the summer half, as many as ten or a dozen eights are taken out by members of the Upper Boats every evening, and four crews are selected from these, put into training, and carefully coached, and after about a fortnight's practice race against each other from Sandbank down to the bridge, a distance of about three quarters of a mile ; the race is called " Novice Eights," and each crew is stroked by a member of the Lower Boats. Every boy who rows in this race may be sure that he will get into the boats on the following ist of March ; and having reached this important point in an Eton wetbob's career, I must endeavour to explain the meaning of the term "The Boats," which I have already frequently used.