To speak of canoes is to recall the name of John Macgregor, M.A., the author of those delightful books A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe; The Rob Roy on the Baltic; The Voyage Alone in the Yawl Rob Roy, and other interesting works. When the first of these was issued other people built canoes, the Canoe Club was formed with the then Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward the Seventh, as Commodore. Macgregor was enthusiastic about canoes. When he contemplated his voyage of a thousand miles he concluded that “no row-boat would serve on a land-water voyage of this sort, for in the wildest parts of the best rivers the channel is too narrow for oars, or, if wide enough, it is often too shallow; and the tortuous passages, the rocks and banks, the weeds and snags, the milldams, barriers, fallen trees, rapids, whirlpools, and waterfalls that constantly occur on a river winding among hills, make those very parts where the scenery is wildest and best to be quite unapproachable in such a boat, for it would be swamped by the sharp waves, or upset over the sunken rocks, which cannot be seen by a steersman.
“Now these very things which bother the ‘pair oar,’ become cheery excitements to the voyager in a canoe. For now, as he sits in his little bark, he looks forward, and not backward. He sees all his course, and the scenery besides. With one sweep of his paddle he can turn aside when only a foot from destruction. He can steer within an inch in a narrow place, and can easily pass through reeds and weeds or branches and grass; can work his sail without changing his seat; can shove with his paddle when aground, and can jump out in good time to prevent a bad smash. He can wade and haul his craft over shallows, or drag it on dry ground, through fields and hedges, over dykes, barriers, and walls; can carry it by hand up ladders and stairs, and can transport his canoe over high mountains and broad plains in a cart drawn by a man, a horse, or a cow.
“Besides all this, the covered canoe is far stronger than an open boat, and may be fearlessly dropped into a deep pool, a lock, or a millrace, and when the breakers are high in the open sea or in river rapids, they can only wash over the deck of a canoe, while it is always dry within.
“The canoe is also safer than a rowing-boat, because you sit so low in it, and never require to shift your place or lose hold of the paddle; while for comfort during long hours, for days and weeks of hard work, the canoe is evidently the best, because you lean all the time against a swinging backboard, and when the paddle rests on your lap you are at ease as in an arm-chair; so that, while drifting along with the current or the wind, you can gaze around, and eat or read, or sketch, or chat with the starers on the bank, and yet, in a moment of sudden alarm, the hands are at once on the faithful paddle ready for action.
“Finally, you can lie at full length in the canoe, with a sail as an awning for the sun, or a shelter for rain, and you can sleep at night under its cover, or inside it when made for that purpose, with at least as much room for turning in your bed as sufficed for the great Duke of Wellington; or, if you are tired of the water for a time, you can leave your boat at an inn—where it will not be ‘eating its head off,’ like a horse; or you can send it home, or sell it, and take to the road yourself, or sink back again into the lazy cushions of a first-class carriage, and dream you are seeing the world.
“But it may well be asked from one who thus praises the paddle, ‘Has he travelled in other ways, so as to know their several pleasures? Has he climbed glaciers and volcanoes, dived into caves and catacombs, trotted in the Norway carriole, ambled on an Arab, and galloped on the Russian steppes? Does he know the charms of a Nile boat, or a Trinity Eight, or a Yankee steamer, or a sail in the Ægean, or a mule in Spain? Has he swung upon a camel, or glided in a sleigh, or sailed a yacht, or trundled in a Rantoone?’
“Yes, he has thoroughly enjoyed these and other modes of locomotion, fast and slow. And now having used the canoe in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, he finds the pleasure of the paddle is the best of them all.
“The Rob Roy Canoe was built of oak, with a deck of cedar. She was made just short enough to go into the German railway waggons; that is to say, fifteen feet in length, twenty-eight inches broad, nine inches wide, and weighed eighty pounds. My baggage for three months was in a black bag one foot square and six inches deep. A paddle seven feet long, with a blade at each end, and a lug-sail and jib, were the means of propulsion; and a pretty blue silk Union Jack was the only ornament.”
After the cruise the author had a better canoe constructed, shorter, and narrower (but with the same name), and in her he voyaged through Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Holstein, and some German waters. The account of this voyage is given in The Rob Roy on the Baltic, 5th Edition (Low and Marston). The later improvements of the canoe are described in that book, with woodcuts. The full description of a third canoe for sleeping in during a six months’ voyage is given in The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red Sea, and Gennesareth, a canoe cruise in Palestine and Egypt and the waters of Damascus, 6th Edition, with eighty illustrations and maps (Murray). A fourth canoe was used in the Zuyder Zee and among the isles of Holland and the Friesland coast; and the latest Rob Roy (Number 7) ran through the Shetland Isles and the Orkneys, and Scotch lakes.
The Building Of the Rob Roy.—John Macgregor has told us that among the many who are building canoes, there may be some persons who have undue expectations as to what such boats can do. Now, the three kinds of canoes, for racing, for sailing, and for travelling, are quite distinct in their forms and capabilities.