o knew the real circumstances of the venture. It was the first
regatta of the kind, and doubtless it will be the last.

No particular description of the various races for eight-oars, four-oars,
pair-oars, and sculling, by watermen and amateurs, would be interesting
to general readers; but a few notable lessons were there to be learned,
which will probably not be disregarded.

An interesting feature was added to the occasion by the arrival of four
men, who came from New Brunswick, to row at this regatta. They had no
coxswain to steer them, as every other boat had, but the rudder was
worked by strings leading to one of the rowers' feet.

They contended first in a race where it was not allowed to use
"outrigged" boats (so called because they are so narrow that the oars
cannot work on the gunwale, but are rigged out on iron frames).
Moreover, they rowed in a broad, heavy, clumsy-looking craft, with common
oars like those used at sea, and they pulled a short jerky stroke, and
had to go round a winding French course--indeed with apparently every
disadvantage; yet they came in first, beating English and French, and
winning 40_l_.

The same crew went in next for another race, and in another boat, an
outrigger they had brought with them from the Dominion of Canada, and
again they were first, and won 40_l_. more. {128} At once "Les
Canadiens" became the favourites and heroes of the day. Englishmen
cheered them because they were the winners, and some Frenchmen cheered
them because they supposed the men were French, whereat the hardy
Canadians smiled with French politeness, but muttering the while round
protestations, intelligible only to English ears.

The river Seine was made unusually lively during the summer by the
movement upon it of a whole fleet of steamers of all shapes and sizes,
and with flags often exceedingly 'coquet.' Little screw yachts or steam
launches flitted up and down, sometimes so small as to admit only three
or four people on board, with a bit of awning to deflect the sun; others
were crowded with passengers. This style of locomotion is peculiarly
adapted to Parisians. It has all the heat, bustle, and noise that can be
desirable in nautical pleasures, and yet it almost avoids those highly
inconvenient undulations which open water has too often the bad taste to
assume. The completion of the Thames Embankment and of the purification
of our river has already made water travelling more fashionable in