se of Commons used to leave the chair to
let the M.P.'s run out and see the start--but we digress). Then, by
degrees, it attained to its present position of a great festive
gathering of the many-headed, where only about one in every ten cares to
glance at the race as it goes by. But, above all things, the race is,
and has been, a purely sporting event. The British lion may put on his
holiday suit and gamble to his heart's content on the bank, but the sole
concern of the Captain of either crew is to bring his men well up to the
scratch, and have a thoroughly good, honest race. He has nothing to do
with letting the spectators know the real state of the odds, or helping
them to win their money.

It must be confessed that, in spite of the many pleasures indicated as
belonging to this training, one gets very tired of it, just as one might
tire of living in Arcadia, if, as is probable, there were no Club or
Italian Opera there. It is with considerable joy, therefore, that one
hails the approach of the race when it is still a week off; but this
feeling is apt to be modified as the days draw on after that. "Funk," of
course, attacks everybody more or less; but its violence differs very
widely in different men. Many of the most unlikely people are most
liable to it; and it would probably astonish a good many people were I
to say who is the "funkiest" oarsman before a race that I know. I mean
by "funk," not the under-estimating of one's chances--for some of the
most nervous men have a very shrewd idea of them--but the irrational
excitement which keeps the brain constantly thinking of the impending
race, and prevents the sufferer from sitting still or having any
comfort, or, in the most serious cases, any sleep, for two or three days
before it. It is a real malady, which is most distressing to those who
are subject to it, but which, luckily, does not do any harm when once
the race is begun.

Of the race itself there is very little to say, except one thing, that
could not be said equally well of a hard game of football or a foot race
across country. The exertion is, no doubt, considerably greater than is
involved in either of these, but the physical sensations are very much
the same, and anyone who has entered for any race at all knows the sort
of feeling of desperate resolve which is the pleasure that racing gives.
Except one thing, I said, and it is that thing which puts boat racing,
in many people's minds, far above any other f