Roving

“ Sea-riders, strong for a day of wind;
And oh, what a song shall the bright wind sing us
When clear of the shallows and clear of the sedge,
While the narrowing stream and the ebb-tide swing us
’Twixt sea and mountain to Wicklow Bridge! ”

“ By-and-by, I began to question if rowing on a river is as pleasant as rowing on a lake, where you can rest on your oars without losing ground, where no current opposes progress, and after the stroke the boat slips ahead some distance of its own impetus. On the river the boat only travels as far as you actually pull it at each stroke; there is no life in it after the scull is lifted, the impetus dies, and the craft first pauses and then drifts backward. ”

“ Once stout oars were in their hands, however, all was changed. To feel the rise and fall of the boat, to skim the crests of waves, to catch the rhythmic rowing that, like a song in the night, seemed to lift them and bear them down—this was life. ”

“ Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,
Adrift in my canoe?
To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming
Cleaving the waters through?
To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until
Your restless pulse grows still? ”

“ There is no other travel like river travel; it is the perfection of movement, and one might well desire never to arrive at one's destination. The abundance of room, the free, pure air, the constant delight of the eyes in the changing landscape, the soft tremor of the boat, so steady upon her keel, the variety of the little world on board,—all form a charm which no good heart in a sound body can resist. ”

“ The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river itself—the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us on—freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat; but, there were few better oars-men than my two friends, and they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day. ”

“ After dining, and allowing the boat to drift while rearranging my provisions, I took my place, and, getting the proper bearings astern, bent on the oars.
To those who have rowed only clumsy country-boats, with their awkward row-locks and wretched oars, slimy, dirty, and leaking, trailing behind tags and streamers of pond-weed, or who have only experimented with that most uncivilized style of digging up the water called paddling, the real pleasure of rowing is unknown. ”

“ And forward far the rapids roar,
Fretting their margin for evermore.
Dash, dash,
With a mighty crash,
They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.
Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.
Reel, reel,
On your trembling keel,
But never a fear my craft will feel.{34}
We’ve raced the rapid, we’re far ahead! ”

“ Six miles, when every bend, every mile, may be the last. Turning and twisting between piles of rocks, running down like precipices to the water’s side, from which one could feel the drops of water as they splashed over our little craft, or when a great wave struck it and threw a volume of water into our laps. We felt almost inclined to shriek at the speed with which we were flying those rapids. ”

“ As the hawk sails without flapping his pinions, so you drift with the tide when you will, in the most luxurious form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit. But if your blood wants rousing, turn round that stake in the river, which you see a mile from here ”

“ The river is bright as a mirror; hundreds of little vessels glide softly, like swimming sea-gulls, on the bosom of the water between the lofty hills. I wonder how they are able to move. The wind seems to sleep. ”

“ Another day as you troll along the channel an oar's length from the weedy borders, you see him afloat on his lily-pad raft, heeding you no more than does the golden-hearted blossom whose orange odor drifts about him, nor is he disturbed by splash of oar nor dip of paddle, nor even when his bark and her perfume-freighted consort are tossed on your undulating wake. ”

“ But you will observe, that, in riding on horseback, you always have a feeling, that, after all, it is not you that do the work, but the animal, and this prevents the satisfaction from being complete.
Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I won’t suppose you to be disgracing yourself in one of those miserable tubs, tugging in which is to rowing the true boat what riding a cow is to bestriding an Arab. ”

“ Then I walked about till I came to a great river of sweet water, running with a strong current; whereupon I called to mind the raft I had made aforetime and said to myself, “Needs must I make me another raft [and commit myself to the current;] haply I may win out of this strait. If I escape I have my desire and I vow to God the Most High to foreswear travel; and if I perish, I shall be at peace from toil and misery.” ”

“ After a journey of thirty miles our further course was stopped by a wide river, with low wooded hills and promontories, but there was no ferry-boat, so, putting up our horse in a settler's barn, we sat on the beach till a cranky, leaky boat, covered with fish-scales, was with some difficulty launched, and a man took us across the beautiful stream. ”

“ In river-rowing, when the tide or current is with the rower, a learner should in general take the middle of the stream. In rowing with the tide, however, watermen generally cut off the points, in order to keep a straight course. ”

“ Traversed in every direction by paths, some galleried along the face, others cut in the substance of the rock, you can pass hours in rambling among these wild and leafy solitudes, now lost in shade, now emerging again, to see the great river gliding along, the white sails dotting its calm surface. ”

“ Flying is simply swimming through the air and crawling, as a worm or snake, is gliding, like swimming. Space ships swim, too, after a fashion. Boats swim through the sea and sleds swim on ice. Therefore we have only three kinds of locomotion: Legs, wheels and sleds. Another might revolutionize everything. ”

“ The boat turned, and pulled slowly away through the mist that from all the open water rose like smoke, and drew slowly down with the tide. And through the smoke the heart in the boat and the heart on the shore were aching for each other across the growing distance. ”

“ The voyage up-stream is dangerous and tedious; the voyage down-stream has no parallel in perilousness, such a mad rush is it through flood and rapid, whirlpool and eddy, cataract and gorge,—an exciting game in which life is the stake. ”

“ Presently we are invited to have a trip in a rowing boat, “Have a row, sir, nice day for a row.” Numbers at the time are indulging in that pleasant form of enjoyment. A party of eight are seated in a rowing boat waiting to be launched, when a little stripling about seven summers old, bare-legged and brave, seeing their readiness, tries with all his might to give the boat the impetus it needs. Some day, his indomitable will and energy will, we hope, be more amply rewarded. ”

“ You become a rover, careless and free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and over-arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. ”

“ The boat glides rapidly where the water is smooth, then, striking a wave, she leaps and bounds like a thing of life, and we have a wild, exhilarating ride for ten miles, which we make in less than an hour. ”

“ THE RAFT-BUILDERS All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.
When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. ”

“ Meaux on the Marne—Hammering—Popish forms—Wise dogs—Blocked in a tunnel—A dry voyage—Arbour and garret—Odd fellows—Dream on the Seine—Almost over—No admittance—Charing-cross.
There are three hemispheres of scenery visible to the traveller who voyages thus in a boat on the rivers. First, the great arch of sky, and land, and trees, and flowers down to the water's brink; then the whole of this reflected beautifully in the surface of the river; and then the wondrous depths in the water itself, with its animal life, its rocks and glades below, and its flowers and mosses. ”

“ There are many such boys and girls, full of high hopes, lovely possibilities, and earnest plans, pausing a moment before they push their little boats from the safe shore. Let those who launch them see to it that they have good health to man the oars, good education for ballast, and good principles as pilots to guide them as they voyage down an ever-widening river to the sea. ”

“ Under and through all other features of YACHTING is the call of the water—the bracing, irresistible appeal that has drawn men off shore since the first cockle-shell was set afloat. Once you have heard and answered it you will know why a sailor once is a sailor always—and you will know also why YACHTING should interest you. ”

“ To the watch, bending over the yard with nought between them and oblivion but a slender foot rope, this was no easy task even in a moderate wind. In a gale, with wet or frozen sails, the stowing of this huge expanse of thrashing canvas can be better imagined than described. ”

“ Sometimes she rose high above us, almost exposing her keel to view, and again descended as we in our turn rose to the top of the wave, threatening to bury her beneath us, whilst the crashing of the breaking upper works and boats increased the horror of the scene. ”

“ These Rapids are the most perilous in all the river’s extent, on account [56] of the devious nature of the channel, and the dangerous rocks which lie just enough below the surface to deceive any but the skillful navigator. The swarthy giant who takes the wheel at this point pays little attention to anything but the duty in hand, and that seems to demand all his energies. Casting alternate glances at him and at the rushing waters ahead of us, we involuntarily breathe the words of the hymn,
“Steady, O pilot, stand firm at the wheel.” ”

“ In his river studies he found the river rats of irreplacable value as advisers, for they showed him the niceties of river features, the white streak of a fisherman's new jump line on a snag, the oar pinheads of shanty boats, the service of a long handy line in throwing Young's big storeboat out of the main current into an eddy, the old-fashioned stern oar, the pretty work of a tripper who used an outboard motor to drive his shanty boat from the dead water of an eddy out into the running channel. ”

“ Flight is a purely mechanical problem. It is warped in and out with the other animal movements, and forms a link of a great chain of motion which drags its weary length over the land, through the water, and, notwithstanding its weight, through the air. To understand flight, it is necessary to understand walking and swimming, and it is with a view to simplifying our conceptions of this most delightful form of locomotion that the present work is mainly written. The chapters on walking and swimming naturally lead up to those on flying. ”

“ Afterwards, as the clear young moon begins to sparkle in the sky, the sail is set once more and the prow pointed for home. And if the wind fails, and some rowing has to be done, the exercise is good for keeping off the chill ”

“ Here are three strong men rowing until the boat trembles under their exertions: while the perspiration runs from them, the distance between boat and bear increases, and we believe for a moment that it will be able to get away by reaching an ice-floe on the other side of the vessel. ”

“ More men appear on the rocks, whom we take to be spectators of our passage. No; they lay hold of the rope. With the additional help we still tremble in the jaws of the pass. I walk aft, and the stern is almost upon the rocks; it grazes them; but in the nick of time the bow swings round, we turn short off into an eddy; the great wing of a sail is let go, and our cat-like sailors are aloft, crawling along the slender yard, which is a hundred feet in length, and furling the tugging canvas. We breathe more freely, for the first danger is over. ”

“ In passing a boat, the rower who passes must take the outside, unless there is ample room within, and must also keep clear of the other’s sculls or oars. If one boat is crossing the water, and another coming with the tide, the one coming with tide must keep astern of the other, and have a good look-out ahead. ”

“ To row a boat where the current is swift is fatiguing labor, and to walk in the water, when each step may find one in a sink-hole and where the rank grasses, growing from heavy tufts, hold one's feet as a cord, is all that the strongest man can endure for even a short period. ”

“ In this position we pass over the same route through which the provisions have been carried to the next landing, where the goods are again reshipped, and we proceed by water on lake or stream, with the alternate routine of paddling, poling, and lugging, until the place of destination is reached.
Persons wholly unacquainted with river navigation can have but an imperfect idea of the skill as well as nerve brought into requisition in taking a heavy-laden bateau, skiff, or canoe up over rapids. ”

“ If there be no wind at all, the men row, five oars on each side; but when the surface of the stream is ruffled by the slightest breath of wind, the men immediately stop rowing, and the boat drifts down with the current. ”