The whole affair lasted not much longer than might be required to write its history; but the strain was severe upon pluck and muscle, and called forth several qualities very useful in life at sea, but which mere rowing in a straight race does not require and cannot therefore exhibit. Instantly after this exciting contest, a Frenchman challenged the winner to another chase over the same course. But as the challenger had not thought fit to enter the lists and test his powers in the chase, which was open to him like the rest, it would, of course, have been quite unfair to allow him, quite fresh, to have a special race with the hard-worked winner, though the Englishman was at once ready to accept the gage.
Among the visitors to the regatta was M. Forcat, whose peculiar system of propelling boats I have mentioned in the account of a former voyage; and he brought up for exhibition, and for the practical trial by the winner of the canoe chase, a very narrow and crank boat, rowed by oars jointed to a short mast in front of the sitter, and thus obtaining one of the advantages possessed by canoeists, that their faces are turned to the bow, and so they see where they are going.
It is no doubt an enormous disadvantage that in ordinary rowing your back is turned upon the course, with all its dangers and beauties; and this inconvenience is only put up with because you can go faster as you row with your back foremost, and the scenery is of no account if a river serves only to float the skiff but not to please the eye. As for travelling on new and lovely waters in this style, with face to the stern, it is just as if you were to walk backwards along a road, and to think you could appreciate the picturesque either by a stare at the retreating beauties you are leaving, or by a glance now and then over your shoulder at what is coming. But though M. Forcat’s boat had the rower’s face to the bow, the form and size of the nondescript novelty were not to be understood in a moment, and we tried to dissuade our young canoeist from entering hastily a new sort of boat, very easily capsized. He had his own will, however, and his own way, because he was a Scot, and only “English” in the sense we use that word for “British,”—too frequently thereby giving dire offence to the blue lion of the North, whose armorial tail is so punctiliously correct as to the precise curl and make up of its “back hair.”
“He’s upset,” they cried in a minute or so. But we might well let so good a swimmer take his chance; he merely pushed the boat ashore, and then took a pleasant swim, until he was finally captured and put into the Rob Roy’s cabin, to change his wet clothes as well as a modest man might do behind a plaid screen and before the curious world.
Therefore in boats, as well as in business and politics, we may learn lessons from one another, both on the water and on the land: from Canada, as to the steering and the stroke; from France, as to the fast, quick turning canoe in still water; and from England, as to the man.
It was to see this regatta and to help in it that the Rob Roy had pushed her way to Paris; and for this six hundred miles of river navigation in a sea-going boat were justifiable, yet often did I feel much the sea-trim lifeboat yawl was out of place upon a calm inland water like the Seine.
Before the arrival of my little yacht, a challenge had been sent to her to sail on the Seine against a French yacht there. To this I replied that it would be scarcely a fair match for the Rob Roy, a sea craft, to race on a river known only to one of the competitors; but that the yawl would gladly sail a match with any French yacht having only one man on board,—the course to be at sea either one hundred miles for speed, or one week for distance, and communication not allowed with any other boat or shore. No answer came.
CHAPTER X.
Dawn music—Cleared for action—Statistics—Blue Peter—Passing bridges—A gale—A shave—Provisions—Toilette—An upset—Last bridge—A peep below—Cooking inside—Preserved provisions—Soups.
The Rob Roy was very pleasant lodgings when moved down to the lovely bend at St. Cloud. Sometimes she was made fast to a tree, and the birds sung in my rigging, and gossamers spun webs on the masts, and leaves fell on the deck. At other times we struck the anchor into soft green grass, and left the boat for the day, until at night, returning from where the merry rowers dined so well in training, and after a pleasant and cool walk “home” by the river side, there was the little yawl all safe on a glassy pool, and her deck shining spangled with dewdrops under the moon, and the cabin snug within,—airy but no draughts, cool without chill, and brightly lighted up in a moment, yet all so undisturbed, without dust or din, and without any bill to pay.