They said they were ready, and the boy on the landing stage took a boat-
hook and shoved him off.
What then followed George is unable to describe in detail. He has a
confused recollection of having, immediately on starting, received a
violent blow in the small of the back from the butt-end of number five's
scull, at the same time that his own seat seemed to disappear from under
him by magic, and leave him sitting on the boards. He also noticed, as a
curious circumstance, that number two was at the same instant lying on
his back at the bottom of the boat, with his legs in the air, apparently
in a fit.
They passed under Kew Bridge, broadside, at the rate of eight miles an
hour. Joskins being the only one who was rowing. George, on recovering
his seat, tried to help him, but, on dipping his oar into the water, it
immediately, to his intense surprise, disappeared under the boat, and
nearly took him with it.
And then "cox" threw both rudder lines over-board, and burst into tears.
How they got back George never knew, but it took them just forty minutes.
A dense crowd watched the entertainment from Kew Bridge with much
interest, and everybody shouted out to them different directions. Three
times they managed to get the boat back through the arch, and three times
they were carried under it again, and every time "cox" looked up and saw
the bridge above him he broke out into renewed sobs.
George said he little thought that afternoon that he should ever come to
really like boating.
Harris is more accustomed to sea rowing than to river work, and says
that, as an exercise, he prefers it. I don't. I remember taking a small
boat out at Eastbourne last summer: I used to do a good deal of sea
rowing years ago, and I thought I should be all right; but I found I had
forgotten the art entirely. When one scull was deep down underneath the
water, the other would be flourishing wildly about in the air. To get a
grip of the water with both at the same time I had to stand up. The
parade was crowded with nobility and gentry, and I had to pull past them
in this ridiculous fashion. I landed half-way down the beach, and
secured the services of an old boatman to take me back.
I like to watch an old boatman rowing, especially one who has been hired
by the hour. There is something so beautifully calm and restful about
his method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehement
striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of
nineteenth-century life. He is not for ever straining himself to pass
all the other boats. If another boat overtakes him and passes him it
does not annoy him; as a matter of fact, they all do overtake him and
pass him - all those that are going his way.
