Boating Part 1

Boating.

by W. B. Woodgate.

_DEDICATION_

_TO_

_H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES._

BADMINTON: _March, 1887_.

Having received permission to dedicate these volumes, the BADMINTON LIBRARY of SPORTS and PASTIMES, to HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES, I do so feeling that I am dedicating them to one of the best and keenest sportsmen of our time. I can say, from personal observation, that there is no man who can extricate himself from a bustling and pushing crowd of hors.e.m.e.n, when a fox breaks covert, more dexterously and quickly than His Royal Highness; and that when hounds run hard over a big country, no man can take a line of his own and live with them better. Also, when the wind has been blowing hard, often have I seen His Royal Highness knocking over driven grouse and partridges and high-rocketing pheasants in first-rate workmanlike style. He is held to be a good yachtsman, and as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron is looked up to by those who love that pleasant and exhilarating pastime.

His encouragement of racing is well known, and his attendance at the University, Public School, and other important Matches testifies to his being, like most English gentlemen, fond of all manly sports. I consider it a great privilege to be allowed to dedicate these volumes to so eminent a sportsman as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and I do so with sincere feelings of respect and esteem and loyal devotion.

BEAUFORT.

PREFACE.

A few lines only are necessary to explain the object with which these volumes are put forth. There is no modern encyclopaedia to which the inexperienced man, who seeks guidance in the practice of the various British Sports and Pastimes, can turn for information. Some books there are on Hunting, some on Racing, some on Lawn Tennis, some on Fishing, and so on; but one Library, or succession of volumes, which treats of the Sports and Pastimes indulged in by Englishmen--and women--is wanting. The Badminton Library is offered to supply the want. Of the imperfections which must be found in the execution of such a design we are conscious. Experts often differ. But this we may say, that those who are seeking for knowledge on any of the subjects dealt with will find the results of many years' experience written by men who are in every case adepts at the Sport or Pastime of which they write. It is to point the way to success to those who are ignorant of the sciences they aspire to master, and who have no friend to help or coach them, that these volumes are written.

To those who have worked hard to place simply and clearly before the reader that which he will find within, the best thanks of the Editor are due. That it has been no slight labour to supervise all that has been written he must acknowledge; but it has been a labour of love, and very much lightened by the courtesy of the Publisher, by the unflinching, indefatigable a.s.sistance of the Sub-Editor, and by the intelligent and able arrangement of each subject by the various writers, who are so thoroughly masters of the subjects of which they treat. The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may prove useful to this and future generations.

THE EDITOR.

The author desires to record his thanks and indebtedness to the following gentlemen, for much kind co-operation and a.s.sistance, and for leave to reproduce pa.s.sages from their valuable works upon aquatics:--Geo. G. T. TREHERNE, Esq., author of 'Record of the University Boat Race'; E. D. BRICKWOOD, Esq. ('Argonaut'), author of 'Boat Racing'; L. P. BRICKWOOD, Esq., Editor of the 'Racing Almanack'; the Proprietors of the 'Field'; the Proprietors of 'Land and Water,' and Mr. R. G. Gridley for kindly a.s.sisting with the Map of the Cambridge Course.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

As parts of human life and practice the out-of-door games and amus.e.m.e.nts with which Englishmen are familiar have had a long course of development, and each has its own history. To trace this development and history in any particular case is not always an easy task. Most of the writers who deal with these subjects treat the 'Origines' in a summary fashion. Not a few ignore them altogether. The Topsy theory, ''spects it growed,' is sufficient.

And yet if it be possible to deal more philosophically with a subject of the kind, the attempt ought not necessarily to be devoid of interest. It involves a retrospect of human life and human ingenuity. It will trace development in man's ways and means, marking points which in some regions and with some races have determined the limit of their progress, and in others have served as stepping-stones to further invention. It will present facts which will not only not be disdained by the true student of men and manners, but will serve to broider the fringes of serious history, and will give additional light and colour to the record of the character and the habits of men. For indeed the sports and pastimes of a people are no insignificant product of its national spirit, and react to no small degree upon national character. They have not unfrequently had their share in grave events, and the famous and oft-quoted saying of the Duke of Wellington respecting the playing fields at Eton (_se non e vero, e ben trovato_) contains a truth, applicable in a wider sense to national struggles and to victories other than Waterloo.

Pastimes and amus.e.m.e.nts generally may be divided into two main cla.s.ses: (1) those that have been invented simply as a means of recreation, such as cricket, tennis, racquets, etc.; and (2) those that have their origin in the primary needs of mankind. The latter have in many cases, as civilisation has advanced, and the particular needs have been supplied in other ways, survived as pastimes by reason of the natural pleasure and the excitement and the emulation which accompanied them. Of this latter cla.s.s, those that have appropriated the name of 'sport' _par excellence_, such as hunting, shooting, fishing, etc., hold the field, so to speak, in antiquity, as compared with other pastimes, having their origin in the initial necessities and natural instincts of man, which compelled him to fight with and to destroy some wild beasts, that he might not himself be eaten, and to catch or kill others that he might have them to eat.

The spirit of emulation and the pride of skill, and the desire of obtaining healthy exercise for its own sake, have been among the princ.i.p.al causes which have converted into sports and pastimes man's means and methods of locomotion. Almost every cla.s.s of movement which can be pressed into that form of compet.i.tion which is called a race, or in which a definite comparison of skill is possible, has been enlisted in the host of amus.e.m.e.nts with which civilisation consoles its children for the loss of the wild delights of the untutored savage.

Among these perhaps the most important and the most conspicuous is Rowing, which as a serious business has played no inconsiderable part in great events of human history, and as a pastime is inferior to none of the cla.s.s to which it belongs. Its votaries will not hesitate to claim for it even the chief place, by reason of the pleasure and emulation to which it so readily ministers, as a healthful exercise, and as a means of compet.i.tive effort requiring both skill and endurance.

But the oar, before it ministered to recreation, had a long history of labour in the service of man, which is not yet ended, and itself was not shaped but by evolution from earlier types, of which the paddle and ultimately the human hand and arm are the original beginnings.

Will it be wearisome to speculate on these beginnings, and to try to cast back in thought and research for the first origins of the n.o.ble pastime which forms the subject of the present volume? Fortunately, in savage life still extant on the habitable globe we have the survival of many, if not of all, the earliest types of locomotion. Man in his natural condition has to follow nature, and by following to subdue her in his struggle for existence. Climate and race differentiate his action in this respect, and results, under parallel circ.u.mstances, similar, though different in detail, attend his efforts in different parts of the world.

A land animal, he is from the first brought face to face with water, deep water of lakes, and of rivers, and of the sea, and in all these he finds bounds to his desires, as well as things to be desired; opposite sh.o.r.es to which he wishes to cross, fish and vegetable growth which he wants for food. Horace tells us that 'oak and triple bra.s.s he had around his breast who first to the fierce sea committed his frail raft,' but the first man who committed _himself_ to deep water, and essayed the oarage of his arms and legs, must have been free from such inc.u.mbrances, and yet have had a stout heart within him. And simultaneously with, or even prior to such adventure, must have been others of a similar character aided by a piece of wood, or a bundle of rushes, or an inflated skin, the elementary boat, the very embryo of navigation. Such beginnings are still in evidence on the western coast of Australia, where savages may be seen sitting astride on a piece of light wood and so venturing forth upon the waters of the sea. Homer, who in the Odyssey delights in making the man of many counsels and many devices, with all his wealth of what was then modern experience, find himself reduced to the shifts and expedients of a man thrown, like the savage, upon his own solitary resources, pictures to us Ulysses seated astride upon the mast of his shipwrecked vessel and paddling with both hands, thus reverting in his distress, as no doubt others have done since, to the very earliest method of navigation, now only practised for choice by savages, whose progress in navigation, as in other things, has been checked at this early stage, and who remain the nearest visible types of primitive man.

But some savages, other than they, did make progress in the matter of locomotion by water, and the next step was the raft, of which the earliest type known is the sanpan, three pieces of buoyant wood tied together. On this construction, which supplied the earliest generic names both in the east and in the west (sanpan, [schedie], _ratis_), a man would stand and paddle and move along upon the water, and a.s.sert his power of hand and eye with the weapons with which native ingenuity had already supplied him.

In warm climates, where swimming had become a necessity, and the very children from their earliest years had been habituated to the water, the familiarity that breeds contempt of the very danger which at a previous stage acted as a deterrent, would soon encourage attempts to improve, and enlarge, and increase the speed of the rude vessel in common use.

These attempts would naturally follow the line of providing the means for conveying in safety other things besides the living freight of the human person. There would also arise the very natural desire to keep things dry, which would spoil if wetted. Hence the enlargement of the raft, and then the protection afforded by platforms raised upon its central surface, or by planks laid edgewise so as to make a defence, a breastwork against the wave.

And no doubt by this time the use of the sail for propulsion had become familiar, and man had already prayed his G.o.d for 'the breeze that cometh aft, sail-filler, good companion.' But interesting as it would be to trace the effect of the sail upon the construction of vessels and their development, we must leave that pleasant task to those who, in the present series, will treat of the yacht and its prototypes ([hakatoi]).

The earliest method of propulsion was with the human hands. In the picture of Ulysses seated on the mast and keel of his shipwrecked vessel, which he had lashed together with the broken backstay made of bullhide, paddling with his hands on either side, Homer, as we have seen, has presented us with the hero of the highest civilisation known to him reduced to the straits of the merest savage; and he has again enforced this idea in his picture of the same hero of many wiles and many counsels devising for himself the means of escape from the island of Calypso, and, not without divine suggestions, constructing for himself, like an ancient Robinson Crusoe, a primitive raft, with certain improvements and additions; a broad raft be it remembered, and not a boat. A boat would mar the conception which presents to us the civilised man driven back to the straits of barbarism by the unique circ.u.mstances in which he is placed.

This is the point which ingenious commentators, who have given elaborate designs and figures of Ulysses' _boat_ and written pages upon its construction, seem to have missed. The poet has added colour to his picture by bringing the new and the old together. And of a truth new and old exist together and continue throughout the ages of man in marvellous juxtaposition. The fast screw liner off the Australian coast may pa.s.s the naked savage oaring himself with swarthy palms upon his buoyant log, and almost every stage of modern invention in ship-building and ship propulsion has had alongside it the three-timbered sanpan, and the original types of raft that float in the Malay Archipelago.

But we must follow the development of our special pastime through its embryonic stage to a moment when, all unknown and unseen in the womb of time, like the sudden changes which differentiate the gradual ascents from a lower to a higher being, unseen, unknown, and unwritten in history, that great event occurred, the birth of the first 'dug-out'

canoe. Unnoticed perhaps at the time, the importance of the event was recognised by the poet in after ages as a real forward step in the onward progress of the arts.[1] 'Rivers then first the hollowed alders felt.'

[1] Virg. _Georg._ i. 136: 'Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensere cavatas.'

To some primitive man or men in advance of their fellow men, the idea of flotation, as apart from the mere buoyancy of the material, had occurred, and suggested the hollowing out of the log. Wherever and whenever this was first effected, it was a great event in the world's progress. A simple thought had wedded fact destined to be fruitful to all future ages. O prototype of the longboat--of the frail eights which freighted with contending crews speed yearly over Father Thames amidst the cheers and applause of thousands! Where wast thou launched? What dusky arms propelled thee? What wild songs of exultation heralded thy first successful venture? Once achieved, what present benefits, what future triumphs didst thou not ensure to man? In the power of carrying something, or anything beside the living freight, dry and secure, and in the increased facility of movement and of turning, must have been manifest from the first the advantage of the canoe over the raft, where the lapping of the water and the wash of the wave, in spite of all contrivances, could scarce be kept out. How soon must efforts have been made to increase this advantage to obtain greater carrying power and greater speed! The application of the sail was made possible by the ingenious adaptation of the outrigger, a trunk of light wood laid parallel to the side of the dug-out at some feet distance, and attached to it by transverse bars. The oldest type and the type with this improvement still survive, and the ingenious models of such craft which were exhibited at the Fisheries Exhibition in London a few years ago will have been noticed by many of our readers. Twin vessels like the 'Castalia,' and, if we are to believe the learned Graser, the great Tesseraconteres of Ptolemy, had their primitive germ, so to speak, in this early stroke of genius. It may appear strange to some boating men who are accustomed to hear a good deal about outriggers, that this outrigger of which we have been speaking has nothing to do with the outrigger with which they are familiar. It never apparently pa.s.sed into the Western Seas. The Mediterranean knows it not. The Andaman Islands and the Seych.e.l.les are its westernmost limits.

But if the invention of the dug-out canoe was a step onward in the general progress of the arts, being the appreciation and application of a principle in nature, a still greater triumph was achieved, and the particular art still more decidedly advanced, by him who first constructed the canoe properly so called. Herein was the real prototype of the _species_ boat. A skin of bark, duly cut and shaped so as to taper towards the ends and be wide amidships, was attached to a longitudinal framework or gunwale all along its upper edges, and this itself was kept apart and in shape by three or more transverse pieces stretching from side to side, while a series of curved laths of soft wood, the extreme ends of which also fastened to the gunwale, served to keep the vessel itself in shape and to protect the bark skin from the tread of men and from the immediate incidence of any weight to be carried. 'Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute.' The idea once conceived, whether in one place or in many, and at whatever time or times, could not be lost and must soon have been fruitful in development. Of this cla.s.s by far the most common is the birch-bark canoe, which, though found also in Australia, is properly regarded as having its home upon the American continent. If not the original of the type, yet it deserves particular attention owing to the peculiarity of the material of the skin, which combines lightness and toughness and pliability. A truly ingenious and original idea to flay a birch tree and make a boat of its skin! In the framework of the canoe we have the embryo _ribs_ and _inwale_ of the future boat, and the three cross-ties may be regarded as the ancestors of _thwarts_ to be born in time to come. As yet no keel. But that was soon to be. Go north, and trees become scarcer and dwindle in size. The birch is no longer of sufficient girth to serve the ingenious savage in the construction of a canoe. But the inventive genius of man was not to be denied. Skins of beasts, or woven material made waterproof, stretched upon a frame would serve for the same purpose as bark. But a stronger framework was necessary for a material thinner and more pliable than bark. And accordingly in all this cla.s.s (except the coracle) we find stronger and more numerous timbers, including a longitudinal piece from stem to stern, and uprights at each end acting as stempost and sternpost respectively. The rude canvas-covered vessels of Tory Island, off the west coast of Ireland, still preserve one development of this type, close at home to us; while the cayaks of the Esquimaux and the larger fishing canoes of the Alaskans and the Greenlanders exhibit the skin-clad variety in many forms. In one of the models exhibited at the Fisheries Exhibition the framework showed in great perfection the ingenuity of the savage, to whom wood was a very scarce and precious article, short pieces being made to serve fitted together and fastened with thongs of hide, the whole being covered with a stout walrus skin. Even outriggers (as understood by the English oarsman) made of double loops of hide just long enough to cross each other and enclose the loom of the oar, were attached to the inner side of the gunwale.

Not only bark and skin and canvas-covered canoes exist and seem to have existed from an unknown antiquity, but a similar cause to that of which we were just speaking, viz. a scarcity of wood or of suitable wood, led to the construction of canoes of wood made of short pieces st.i.tched together, and approaching more nearly to the type of vessel which may be called a boat. To these belong the canoes of Easter Island made of drift wood, and of many other islands in the Pacific, which are truly canoes and propelled by paddles, and the same peculiarity of build extends to the Madras surf boats, which are more truly boats. Many of these are tied together through holes drilled or burnt through a ledge left on the inner side of the plank or log, a peculiarity noticeable as appearing even in the early vessels of the Northern Seas. The st.i.tched boat has not a nail Or a peg in her whole composition, but the structure, though liable to leak, is admirably suited for heavy seas and surf-beaten coasts, and owing to its pliability will stand shocks which would shatter a stiffer and tighter build. This being so, it is not surprising that vessels larger than canoes or boats were constructed (some authorities say even as large as 200 tons burden) upon this principle, which is certainly one of very great antiquity.

There is also a curious a.n.a.logy in the progress of construction of these sea-going craft with the natural order in the construction of fishes, that is to say, if the ganoids are to be considered antecedent to the vertebrates among the latter. For in the case of the st.i.tched vessels the hull is the first thing in time and construction, the ribs and framework being, so to speak, an afterthought, and attached to the interior when the hull has been completed, whereas the later and modern practice is to set up the ribs and framework of the vessel first and to attach the exterior planking afterwards. But the invention of trenails and dowels must have preceded the later practice, and have led the way to the building of such boats as those described by Herodotus (ii. 96), the ancestors of the Nile 'nuggur' of modern times. Ulysses, as a shipwright well skilled in his craft, uses axe and adze and auger, and with the latter makes holes in the timbers he has squared and planed, and with trenails and dowels ties them together. The wooden fastenings, be it remarked, are in size and diameter severally adapted, the first to resist the horizontal, the second to resist the vertical strain to which the raft would be exposed upon the waves. All this, we may observe, points to a stage anterior to that in which the use of metal nails and ties in ship- and boat-building had been introduced. Trenails and dowels are however still in use, and have a natural advantage over iron in the construction of wooden vessels, owing to the absence of corrosion, which in early times must have caused difficulties as to its employment for boat-building. Copper, on the other hand, though free from this objection, would be less available by reason of expense and the great demand for it for other purposes.

And now we have reached a point where we enter upon the borders of history. No doubt, if we knew more about the venerable antiquity of China, we might be able to add interesting facts, showing the development from the earliest sanpan to the great river boats, and the growth of that curious art which produced the Chinese junk, a vessel undoubtedly of a very antique type. But this knowledge is not ours at present, and so we must turn to the equally venerable civilisation of Egypt for information upon the subject. In Egypt fortunately the tomb paintings have preserved to us a wealth of ill.u.s.tration of boats and ships, some of which, if we may trust the learned, take us back to dates as early as 3000 B.C. In turning over the interesting plates of such works as Lepsius's 'Denkmaler,' or Duemichen's 'Fleet of an Egyptian Queen,' we are struck by the reflection that, if at that early date boats, and ships, and oars, and steering paddles, and masts, and sailing gear had all been brought to such a stage of perfection, we must allow many centuries antecedent for the elaboration of such designs, and for the evolution of the savage man's primary conception of canoe and paddle.

However this may be, the lovers of our pastime, if they will consult the pages of the works above mentioned, will find rowing already well established as an employment, if not as an amus.e.m.e.nt, in the h.o.a.r antiquity of Egypt. Not only the Nile water, whether the sacred stream was within his banks or spread by inundation over the plain within his reach, was alive with boats, busy with the transport of produce of all sorts, or serving the purposes of the fowler and the fisherman, but the Red Sea and the Mediterranean coasts were witnesses of the might and power of Pharaoh, as shown by his fleets of great vessels fully manned, ready with oar and sail to perform his behests, ready to visit the land of Orient, and bring back thence the spices and perfumes that the Egyptians loved, together with apes and sandal wood, or else to do battle with the fierce Pelesta and Teucrians and Daunians who swarmed in their piratical craft upon the midland sea, entering the Nile mouths, and raiding upon the fat and peaceable plains of the Delta.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLEET OF EGYPTIAN QUEEN.]

The Egyptian boats present several noticeable features. Built evidently with considerable camber, they rise high from the water both at stem and stern, the ends finished off into a point or else curved upwards and ornamented with mystic figure-heads representing one or other of the numerous G.o.ds. The steering is conducted by two or more paddles fastened to the sides of the boat in the larger cla.s.s, and sometimes having the loom of the paddle lengthened and attached to an upright post to which it is loosely bound. A tiller is inserted in the handle, and to this a steering cord fastened, by which the helmsman can turn the blade of the paddle at will. The paddles vary but little in shape. They are mostly pointed, and have but a moderate breadth of blade. In some of the paintings they are being used as paddles proper, in others as oars against a curved projection from the vessel's side serving as a thowl.

But whether this is solid or whether it is a thong, like the Greek [tropother], against which the oarsman is rowing, it is not easy to say.

The larger vessels depicted with oars have in some cases as many as twenty-five shown on one side. In others the number is less. But it is quite possible that the artist did not care to portray more than would be sufficient to indicate conventionally the size of the vessel. In some of the vessels there are apertures like oar-ports, though no oars are shown in them, which raise a presumption that the invention of the bireme, the origin of which is uncertain, may with some probability be attributed to the Egyptians. The larger vessels are all fitted with sailing gear, and the rowing is evidently subsidiary to the sail as a means of locomotion. The wall paintings of Egypt give us ample details of Egyptian ships and boats extending over a period, as we are told, of twenty centuries and more. In them we have a glimpse of the maritime enterprise, in which the oar must have taken a princ.i.p.al part, of the races which inhabited the seaboard of the Mediterranean in which piracy had its home from very early times. Teucrians, Dardanians, Pelesta (?

Pelasgians), Daunians, Tyrrhenians, Oscans, all seem to have been sea-going peoples, and at intervals to have provoked by their marauding the wrath of Pharaoh and to have felt his avenging hand.

But of all the seafaring races that made their homes and highways upon the waters of the great inland sea, the most famous of early times were the Ph[oe]nicians. According to some accounts connected with Capthor (Copts), and according to others emigrants from the coast of the Persian Gulf, their genius for maritime enterprise a.s.serted itself very early, so that already before Homer's time they were masters of the commerce of the Mediterranean, and had rowed their dark keels beyond the mystic pillars that guarded the opening of the ocean stream.

And yet, though the facts are certain, we know but little of these famous mariners, of their vessels and their gear. The only representation of their vessels is from the walls of the palaces of their a.s.syrian conquerors, an inland people, not likely to detect or appreciate any technical want of fidelity in the likeness presented.