a Swiss jödel); but, oh! my goodness!--talk about _billows_--the
Channel passage is a fool to what we found at Henley! Waves mountain
high!--(This of course is an exaggeration, but I've read it so often
in sea-novels, that I've almost come to believe it possible--it would
be nearer the truth, as dear Mrs. RAMSBOTHAM would pronounce it, I
fancy--waves "mounting high.") I had to sit all day on the roof of the
_Bobolink_, with a lifebelt or _something_ round my waist!--and having
made me acquaintance of a sweet youth who could swim, I implored him
not to leave me!--and he didn't--the whole day long. Ah! he was _very_
nice!--I need not tell you I didn't notice the racing _much_, but I
did take an interest in _two_ of the contests; viz.--(I don't know
what "viz." means--but I _do_ know I am using it correctly)--The
Diamond Sculls, and The Ladies' Challenge. The Diamonds were
walked off, or rowed off to Holland--(great place, I'm told, for
diamonds)--by Mr. K. OOMS (who evidently "kooms" of an athletic
stock), amid the generous cheers of our defeated Englishmen! The
other--and naturally, from its title, the most important event--was
competed for by two boat-loads from Cambridge University--_Crews_,
I believe, they call them, but I always thought it was a sign of
contempt to allude to any party of people as "a crew." However
that may be, I was informed that "First Trinity had carried off the
Ladies!" (just as if they were a pack of Sabine women), and I suppose
it was true; though, in counting up the Ladies in sight, I only missed
_one_--and she, I found, had fallen into the river, and been gallantly
rescued by a spectator, who, I presume, was determined to have _his_
share, in spite of the First Trinity Men!

Back to town, after all was over on Thursday, to find everybody
wild with "election fever." A large group surrounding the "tape" at
the Club (I belong to the "Amazon," of course), and ordering lemon