An American at Oxford

by John Corbin

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 FULL COSTUME OF AN EIGHTSMAN

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.