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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

THE STREAM OF
PL£ASVRE being a month
ON ThE
THAMES

lOSEPHGEIEaBErHllOBlNS ^
PENNEU.

-' 4

The stream of PLEA-
SVRE. A NARRATIVE
OF A JOYRNEY ON THE
THAMES FROM OXFORD
TO LONDON. By JOSEPH
AND ELIZABETH ROBINS
PEN NELL together vpith a
Practical Chapter by ^. G. Legge
New York : MACMILLAN & CO.
1891.

COPYRIGHT BY JOSEPH PENNELL, 1S91.
All rights reserved.

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

I.
IT was pouring in torrents, on the morning of the ist
of August, when we drove from " The Mitre " down
to Salter's boat-house at the appointed hour. Our
boat, which was brand new and had not yet been launched,
was not ready, and Salter's men seemed surprised to see us.
This showed that the weather was even worse than we
thought it, and the outlook more hopeless. And yet, during
the couple of hours we waited on the rain-soaked raft, two
or three other pleasure parties started out in open boats.
The girls in the stern, wrapped in mackintoshes and
huddled under umbrellas, and the men at the sculls, their

6 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
soaked flannels clinging to them, looked so miserably wet
that we felt for the first time how very superior our boat was.
It was only a pair-oared skiff, shorter and broader than
those generally seen on the Thames — "a family boat,"
an old river man called it with contempt ; but then it had
a green waterproof canvas cover which stretched over
three iron hoops and converted it for all practical pur
poses into a small, a very small, house-boat. By a
complicated arrangement of strings the canvas could be
so rolled up and fastened on top as — theoretically — not to
interfere with our view of the river banks on bright days ;
or it could be let down to cover the entire boat from
stern to bow — an umbrella by day, a hotel by night.
Under it we could camp out without the bother of
pitching a tent. We had already talked a great deal
about the beautiful nights upon the river, when we should
go to bed with the swans and rise up with the larks, and
cook our breakfast under the willows, and wash our
dishes and ourselves in quiet clear pools. What if river
inns were as extortionate and crowded as they are said
to be ? we should have our own hotel with us wherever
we went. In the midst of a weak and damp hurrah
from one ancient boatman, and under a heavy baptism

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THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. g
not of champagne, but of rain, the Rover was at last
pushed off her trestles and with one vigorous shove sent
clean across the Thames to the raft where we stood
under umbrellas, while Salter's men at once began to load
her with kitchen and bedroom furniture. They provided
us with an ingenious stove with kettles and frying-pans
fitting into each other like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle,
a lantern, cups and saucers and plates, knives and forks
and spoons, a can of alcohol, and, for crowning comfort,
a mattress large enough for a double bedstead. It filled
the boat from stern to bow, covering the seats, burying
the sculls and boat hooks, bulging out through and over
the rowlocks. It was clear if it went we must stay, and
so we said, as if we rather liked the prospect of roughing
it, that we could manage just as well and be just as com
fortable if we slept on our rugs ; for we carried all the
Roman blankets and steamer rugs we possessed, together
with a lot of less decorative blankets borrowed from our
landlady in London, and the bundle they made took up
the place of two people in the boat, The locker was
stored with our supply of sardines, jam, chocolate, tea,
sugar, biscuits, towels, and tea-cloths. Our bags were
stowed away with the kitchen things. And then at last
we crawled into the long green tunnel.

IO THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
Some one gave us a push. If Salter was looking on
from his window, he probably regretted his bargain and
wished he had given us the shabbiest old up-river tub
in his collection. For in mid-stream the aggressively
new Rover came to a dead stop, and swung round with
the wind. I had never steered, J  had scarcely ever
rowed a boat, and between us we had not the least idea
how to manage it. We thought there was a laugh on
shore, but we could not see the men who were watching
us, as the canvas shut us in on all sides leaving but small
loop holes at bow and stern ; we were sure we heard
some one saying :
"If you're going down the Thames in that boat, you'd
better use the right sculls ! "
Luckily the river was almost deserted ; even the ferry
punt had stopped its journeys to and fro, and there was
only one small racing boat coming up against the current.
Tom Brown says there is space for three boats to pass
just here. But it seemed to me there was not too much
room for one, and to give the racing man a wide berth, I
sent our boat up the CherweU, where, through the small
loop-hole at the bow, I had one charming glimpse of
Magdalen tower over the meadows. I do not know ex-

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. it
actly how we got back to the other side of the river, but
when we found ourselves close to the shores in front of the
yellow Isis Inn, we made believe we had come there on
.purpose, and J  in a business-like way put back the
•canvas a little, and got out his sketch block. From here
we could again see- — I could just manage it by lying
down full length and peeping out of the opening at the
stern — the far-famed tower, beautiful even in the greyness.

w^

Safe under our shelter, we could enjoy all the beauty of
the grey day — the richness of the masses of wet foliage,
• the softness of the distant trees and fields under their
veil of rain, the swaying of the tall poplars in the wind ;
while the patter patter of the rain on our canvas roof
made an accompaniment to the low roar of the near
lasher and the rippling of the water against the boat.
I should have been willing to stay there for the rest of the

1 2 THE STREAM OF PLEAS URE.
day. I was nervous about our first lock. The river was
high after long-continued rains, and for two people who
knew nothing about boats and could not swim, the Thames
journey with such a stream running was not promising.
Already we could hear the noise of the water tumbling
over the dam. Then we could see the strong current of
the mill race sweeping in a swift-rushing funnel, ready to
carry us with it. It looked dangerous, and indeed it is,
if you get caught in it. Only the day before, a poor
little boy had been drowned here. Now, we were glad
to find the lock gates open, so that there was no occasion
to hang on to the muddy banks. J  put his sculls in
deep, giving strong but uncertain digs, and pulled them
out with a jerk, mindful of Mr. Bouncer's counsel :
I cannot call his frantic efforts of those first days
sculling. But the lock-keeper, as in the time of Tom
Brown, was equal to the occasion. He came out,
smoking his pipe with enviable indifference, seized our
bow with his long boat-hook, and pulled us into the
lock. The great upper gates were slowly closed, he
opened the lower sluices, and the water began to fall. At
this point, we had been warned, comes one of the dangers
of the river journey. For if you lose control of your boat,

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

13

it drifts across the lock, as happened to Tom Brown on his
memorable first row on the river. And even if you keep
it close to the side of the lock, if bow or stern catch on
the slippery beams or posts found in some locks, especially
in old ones, the water, rising or falling, turns you over at
once. In fact, it is remarkably easy to upset in a lock,
and as difficult to get out again.
But then there is absolutely no
necessity to upset, and that we
were not drowned shows that
with ordinary common sense and
a little bit of prudence all danger
can be avoided.
While the water ran out, the
lock-keeper came an4 gave us
that curious literary production, a
Thames Lock Ticket. It admits
you "through, by, or over the lock or weir" fof threepence.
That is, I suppose, you can go through the lock in Christian
fashion, drown under the weir, push and pull over the roller
if there is one, or drag your boat- round by the shore ; but
whether you come out dead or alive, for any of these privi
leges the Thames Conservancy will have its threepence. '

14 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
The minute you get through Iffley Lock, you see to its
left Iffley Mill. It is only a very old white-washed,
brown-roofed mill, with a few poplars, and water falling
white below the v;eir ; but the composition is the loveliest
you will find between O.xford and London. Every one
knows it ; it has been photographed, and drawn, and
word-painted, until it is as associated with the name of
Oxford as is Magdalen Tower or Folly Bridge, and there
is no show-place that comes so honestly by its repu
tation. We were glad we had walked the day before to
the little Norman church on the hillside, for now it was
too wet to take a step on land. But dry under our cover,
we spent two or three hours drawn up, first among the
reeds by the tow path, and then under the willows of the
island opposite, while J— — worked and I read "Thyrsis"
and "Taunt," and exhausted our entire library. On the
other side of the lock were three dripping tents, half a
dozen wretched men sitting just inside their doors, and at
this melancholy sight we vowed that, unless every inn on
the river was crowded, we would not sleep out that night.
In the late afternoon we paddled down the quiet stretch
between Iffley and Sandford. At Rose Island a dreary
boy waited disconsolately with his boat-hook. Further on,

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 15
a still drearier man in flannels and an eye-glass went
by in a canoe, skirting the shore safe out of our
reach. Nothing could be prettier than the Thames
about here, even in the rain, and it is as simple as
Daubigny's Oise. Trees in long straight lines cross the
flat meadowland, the river winds lazily between low
reedy banks, and large families of ducks come cut for
a swim where willows bend low into the stream. But
this I really discovered the next
morninp-. While we were working- jj|| ^,
our way down to Sandford, I was ,i4f^ HlPk # " ^^w""^-^^
P^Jgyiii^ ¦ IS'" -•¦li,?**- ' - -..V; •• 1
too much taken up with J — — 's '*^*^sa"T^:|T
entreaties not to send him over
the lasher, to think of anything
else. Remembering Tom Brown, I did my best to leave
all the river between it and our boat. We found that a
lasher, which we had never quite understood, is merely a
place above the lock where the overflow of water falls to
a lower level, but a place not to be trifled with, as the
monument at Sandford reminds all who need the reminder.
Sandford itself, from the river, consists of an old church,
a long, low, gabled inn, a big barn, a mill and a lock.
When the delightfully picturesque inn came out of the
2

1 6 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
rain, we determined to stay in it even before we knew
how bright and fresh it was inside.
Our first day out, we made just three miles !
Into the village we did not go. For one moment, as
we finished our tea, the sun showed itself as if in promise
of better things. But no sooner had J  started off with
his camp stool, than it went under the clouds again, and
the rain fell, and the only change was the gradual deepen
ing of the greyness into night.
The inn was as deserted as the river. Never did a
journey begin more uneventfully. The rain had spoiled
her season, the landlady told us ; no one had stayed with
her for a month ; and we wondered if we should have to
pay to make up for all who had kept away.

"'iViSlK"?^ '"^ V

1

II.
THE unexpected is always happening in English
weather. We woke in the morning to find the
sun shining in through the little leaded windows
of our low-ceilinged room, and with the sun came the
boats. They kept passing through the lock long before
we were off for the day.
And as for our bill, it was so moderate, we made up
our minds then and there that camping out was a mistake.
Many of the river-side inns are expensive, it is true ; you
could camp for one-third the price. But then the inns
are as comfortable as tents are uncomfortable, and you do

20 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
not have to do your own household work. It is very
pretty to talk about washing dishes in quiet pools, but
when you come to try it, it is another matter — a very
greasy, disagreeable matter ! Probably in a good season
inns are so crowded that it is an advantage to be inde
pendent of them. But during that very rainy August,
comparatively few people were on the upper reaches of the
Thames, and crowded hotels never forced us to sleep under
odious damp canvas.
Everything added to the cheerfulness of our second
morning on the river. Getting through Sandford Lock
seemed easy now our green cover was reefed up by its
many strings. And if afterwards it hung between the
hoops in tantalizing folds, and made an ugly blot in the
scenery, it served me as an excellent excuse for the
eccentricities of my steering. The shores that were so
grey yesterday were now full of colour. Once the' long
stretch of mud banks was passed, purple flowers fell
with the long grass, to the very river's edge ; the fields
were starred with white and yellow blossoms ; clumps of
forget-me-nots were half hidden in the reeds, and water
lilies floated by. Every tree had a sort of glory round
it, and seemed cut out of the landscape, and yet all was

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

21

suffused with that soft shrouding mist you see nowhere
but in England.
I hardly know how long it took us to get to Nune
ham. The whole morning we loafed by the bank while

'^^-^^^ -^

great barges, with gaudily painted sterns, were trailed by
slow horses against the current, and men for pleasure
towed their skiffs, lifting the rope high above our green
top; the sailing boats hurried before the wind, and camp
ing parties, with tents piled high in the stern, sculled

22 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
swiftly past. As we drifted on, the flat pastures gave
way to woods, and by and by we came to Nuneham,
the place of the Harcourts, better known the world
over as the picnicing ground for Oxford parties during
Commemoration Week. There is a very ugly house
which fortunately only shows for a minute, and a beautiful
wooded hill which grows on you as you wind with the
river towards it, and get nearer and nearer, until you
reach the pretty cottages at its foot. It happened to be
Thursday, visitors' day, and pink dresses and white
flannels filled the woods with colour. We moored our
boat to the banks opposite the little cottages where a
peacock was standing in one of the windows, his tail
spread out to best advantage against the thatch, and when
two swans floated up and grouped themselves at our
side for the benefit of a photographer setting up his
camera by our boat, we felt very much as if we were a
picture in " Taunt." A big steam-boat, out of all pro
portion to the river, with a barge in tow, landed a
crowd of picnicers on the bridge. The Oxford parties
object to these common trespassers upon their preserves ;
but when men and women on the Thames wear lig-ht
flannels and pretty dresses it makes little difference, so

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 25
far as we are concerned, whether they come from Oxford
or from the outer world of common men. They are just
as picturesque to look at. We even watched with un
disturbed equanimity the two or three steam launches that
puffed by, rocking us on their waves, while we did our
best to bury or sink the remains of our luncheon. I am
proud to say our bottles never floated, but were sent to
the bottom for the benefit of future archaeologists and
antiquaries. All the afternoon we again drifted with the stream, or
lay for hours among the reeds by the banks, watching the
boats. In the stillness we could hear the splashing of
oars, the grinding of rowlocks long before they came in
sight, far voices, and even the sharpening of a scythe on
shore. And then a shrill whistle and a train rushing
across the meadow-land would remind us that this great
quiet of the Thames is within easy reach of the roar of
London. The afternoon, however, ended in a way that was ex
citing enough. Not long after Abingdon spire showed
itself in the flat landscape, we pulled into Abingdon Lock,
where there is a fall of several feet. Beyond the lock,
the channel is narrow and, owing to the deep fall, the

26 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
Stream is swift. It carried us quickly on until, all at once,
as we watched the growth of the spire and the lovely
arrangement of the town on the quaint old bridge, we
were startled by the shouts of men on both banks. We
looked up to see what was the matter, when crash, we
went, broadside on, against a stone wall, just here jutting
out into the river and dividing it suddenly into two
rapid streams, which pass out of sight under the low
arches of the bridge. It was well our boat was a broad-
beamed family tub ; this was the only thing that saved us.
The men on the banks, who had been rushing about with
boat-hooks and life-preservers, looked immensely sur
prised when, instead of diving into the water after us, all
they had to do was to seize the boat and hold on hard,
so as to keep it from rebounding with the blow. It was
a ticklish business, and the worst of it was we had been
swept up to the wrong pier, and had to trust ourselves
again to the current, and come up with another bang at
the raft of the Nag's Head Hotel, where the proprietor
and a boy, armed with boat-hooks, anxiously waited our
violent arrival.
As there is absolutely nothing about this strong current
in the many guide books and maps and charts of the

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 29
Thames, we could not have been prepared for what is
unquestionably one of the few really dangerous places
on the river.
Even if we had wished, we could not have thought of
sleeping in our boat, when the proprietor of the " Nag's
Head" seemed certain he had saved us from a watery
grave, and literally dragged us into his inn. We had
nothing to regret. We left the boat for another very
old and rambling house, another good little dinner. In
stead of being alone, as at Sandford, men in flannels were
in the coffee room, at the bar, and in the garden. Every
time we looked out on the river from the inn windows
or from the bridge, we saw a passing pleasure boat.

f.'

J--V-:^*J(iV--

III.

IN a fault-finding mood, one might complain because
there is too much in Abingdon to be seen com
fortably during the course of a journey down the
river. It is the most picturesque little town on the
Thames, as lovely when you look at it from your boat,
with its beautiful spire rising above the houses, and its
old, rambling flower-grown bridge, the red-roofed " Nag's
Head " and garden in the middle ; as when you wander
through its gabled streets, coming out now upon the
market-place and its town hall by Inigo Jones, now upon
the ruins of the old abbey, survival of the day when

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 31
blood flowed in streams through the streets of Abing
don, and when, darkness covering the land, a red light
from a burning monastery, was seen from far up and
down the valley of the Thames.
St. Helen's Church is the centre of the town's beauty
as of its charity. On three sides the churchyard is

shut in by alms-houses, less famous but no less lovely
than those of Bray. I shall never forget this little peace
ful corner as we saw it early in the morning. We
heard a bell ring, and then down the old timbered
cloister of the oldest of the three almshouses, grey-haired,
gowned pensioners tottered to prayers in their tiny hall,
with the oak panelling on the walls, and the portraits of

32 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
patrons and benefactors above. And while we lingered, we
watched them come out again, gossiping as they came,
stopping to look at the flowers that bloomed around the
graves, and then passing into the little cloistered rooms,
or else up the stairs and along the balustraded loggia of
the newer brick building. The third is entirely distinct
from these, and of another date, with a gable we should
call colonial, were it at home, overlooking a little garden
J*.,. -i; which is as full of grave
st^- Vv. ^ t'
filf ^^s- stones as of flowers. There
W, ^^fe '^ ^ larger garden at the

'^|'^1fp%^^;3?:^.-^=2llj5'^ back of the cloistered rooms.

¦iiy!¥Sife

J'W'WWljiilWIs^^ where little windows open
IW out on a wilderness of cab
bages and peas and onions
and gooseberry bushes, with here and there a tall stalk of
lilies or cluster of roses, or else a low pear-tree laden with
fruit. One or two weedy paths lead through the wilder
ness, and we saw old men in battered silk hats hobbling
down between their crops. Above, from the high-pitched
roof, rose the row of tall chimneys, and over all was the
sweet smell of many flowers.
Narrow -Streams, canals with great deep locks opening

7HE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 33
into wide basins, and the river Ock wander all around
the outskirts of the town, and across them little foot
bridges join the streets to the country roads.
It was not till very late in the day after our arrival
that we were ready to leave Abingdon. Then our
first care was to stow away the three hoops and the
green cover at the bottom of our boat. Our next was
to find out something about the current from the land
lord. He told us there was no use of our attempting to
go down the back way, and we were nervous about again
passing, and this time rounding the stone wall. It was in
anything but a pleasant frame of mind that we started, the
landlord looking after us with evident uneasiness. J— — -
pulled slowly, apparently with tremendous effort, up above
the island, which we cleared so successfully that we ran
into the opposite mud bank. Here we made believe, as
we always did when we landed unexpectedly, that we
had stopped to look at the view" and J  to smoke a
pipe. As we pulled off again there came a moment of
breathless suspense, and then the boat began to gather
headway. The current here was so strong that earlier in
the day it had taken all the available loafers of the town
to pull a steam tug up-stream against it. Now it caught

34 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
US, and the first thing we knew we were on the other side
of the bridge. It was only here at Abingdon we met
with even the suggestion of an accident, so that in the
simple tale of our voyage no one need look for Haggardian
descriptions of shipwreck.
After the bridge it was easy going. By the time we

'¦[-- »l_^BmtMM

had passed Culham Lock we began to take heart again,
and actually braved the current of a mill-race in order to
explore a little back-water. For one of the great charms
of the Thames is the number of these " sedged tributaries,"
which wander far from the main stream through green
pastures and between lines of willows and sweet flower
hedges. Often their entrance is so overgrown with reeds

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 35
and lilies you can scarcely find it, and the boats that pass
beyond are few in number. Sometimes the back-water
flows to or from a mill, sometimes it is really the main
river which is left by the boats for the cut to the lock.
But the most beautiful are those which seem to tire of
running with the current, and turn from it to rest where
lilies blow round long islands, or where cattle graze in
quiet meadows.
As we worked slowly in and out of the willows, a man
on shore glanced at us so hard, we knew he must own
the water. And sure enough, as soon as we were within
hearing, " This is private water," he yelled.
" Oh, thank you ! " said J  , politely, " we shall know
another time ! " When you are master of the situation
you can afford to be polite.
Of course the man who is proprietor of a river bank,
and fancies the water also is his property, looks upon all
boating parties as trespassers. River travellers are apt
to look upon him as a nuisance, and to tell him so, follow
ing the advice of the well-known R. A. The wonder is
the entire Thames from London to Oxford is not placarded
Private !
We landed, while the enemy still glared, and walked

36

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

the short distance to Sutton Courtney, for of the beauty
and freedom from tourists of this little village one great

r ¦^

river authority has written much. We would not advise
any one to go out of their way to visit it ; its old cottages

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

37

are in good order for the visitor who is supposed never to
come. As the swift mill-stream carried us back to the river,
we did our best to bring down a picturesque old stone
bridge, dashing up against it in fine spirited style. But
our boat was staunch ; it seemed, these first days, to know
it must take care of itself and of us into the bargain.
It was near Clifton Lock, we first saw Wittenham
Clump, the hill with a group of trees on top, which is
after this, for many miles, for ever cropping up in the
most unexpected places, now before you, now behind,
giving a good idea of the many windings of the river.
We had come, too, into the region of tall clipped elms,
which from here to London are one of the most beautiful,
if familiar, features of the Thames.

iVi-J-^ATT

ix^&

IV.

THERE was no sleeping in the boat that night, for
we had appointed a friend or two — the Publisher
and the Parson — to meet us at the thatched
house, known as the " Barley Mow," which stands on
the high road on the other side of the river from Clif
ton Hampden. River men often make it their resting-
place and taste a cup of ale there, for which liquor, as
well as for substantial lunches and teas and dinners,
and queer little bedrooms hidden away under the thatch,
the house is very remarkable. For this there is the
testimony of many in the Visitors' Book, among others

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 41
of the Lazy Minstrel, and if he be not an authority on
the Thames, then no man is. The hostess is always,
with talk running fast as the river, waiting upon hungry
people, in the little parlour, where one window looks out
on the high road, and the other on the garden, in August
full of tall poppies run to seed, and the walls are panelled,
and the ceiling is so low every new-comer knocks his
head against its huge beam.
We got to Clifton Hampden on Friday evening ; all day
long on Saturday there was a constant going and coming.
We never went out on the road between the inn and the
river that we did not meet a stream of men in flannels
and bright blazers ; women in blue serges, gay blouses and
sailor hats, on their way to the " Barley Mow." We never
went to the landing-place that we did not see launches and
skiffs and punts (and once the Minnehaha and the Hiawatha,
two real canoes) either passing by or pulling to the shore
where the pretty girl was ready with her boat-hook. It
was strange how even the record-breakers, at other landing-
places in such a hurry to be off, found time to stop and help
her, or to watch her as she skilfully punted her way in and
out of the great mass of boats, put some under the bridge for
the night, brought out others for the crews about to start.

42

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

Here all was life and movement, while Clifton Hampden
itself, where the thatched cottages are scattered along the
elm-shaded road, and climb to the church high above the
river, seemed to sleep peacefully day and night. Only the
schoolhouse, with its large clock-face and loud bell, gave
signs of life. If you went into the Post Office, where sour
balls and ink-bottles were the chief stock-in-trade, you
started a little bell jingling as you opened the door ; but
it was five minutes or more
before the postmaster came
in from the near fields, bring
ing the smell of hay with
him. Fishermen slumbered
on the river banks, and there
was always one punt, stationed almost under the shadow of
the little church, in which on three chairs sat three solemn
men who never stirred, except when one, still holding fast
to his line with his left hand, with his right lifted up a great
brown jug, drank long and deep, and handed it to the next,
and so it passed to the third. The sun shone, the rain
fell, the shadows grew longer and longer and the jug lighter
and lighter, but whenever I passed, there they still sat.
By evening so many people had come to the " Barley

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 43
Mow " that a dozen or more had to be quartered in the
village. The Publisher and Parson were put in a delightful
little cottage, with roses clustering at its door. But we,
having come first, were given the best, chamber— the
Honeymoon Room, the landlady called it ; and all that
afternoon she had kept showing it to the boating parties
who had lunched or taken tea with her. " The lady won't
mind," I would hear her say as she opened the door. But
evidently the visitors did, for if I looked up it was only to
see tall figures in white flannel beating a hasty retreat
among the poppies.
When candles were lighted and pipes brought out in the
little panelled parlour, the profane Parson gave us the legend
of the place, and thereat the Publisher and a wicked
Barrister made unseemly sport. For he said that once
Ruskin, as he stood here by the river with the light of
sunset falling upon it, and watched the flaming and fading
of the pools among the rushes, and the water hurrying
from under the brick arches, saw a little boy run from one
side of the bridge to the other, and lean far over the parapet
with eyes fixed upon the current beneath. Of what was he
thinking, this little boy ? Was it of the hurry of the water,
of the beauty of the evening, or had this speed and loveli-

44 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
ness already awakened him to higher and holier thoughts ?
And as Ruskin wondered, a boat drifted from under the
arches into the light, and the little boy, leaning still lower,
spat upon the oarsmen, and dodged quickly and ran away,
and Ruskin went home a sadder, if a wiser, man.
All the elm-lined roads and willowed backwaters near
the " Barley Mow " lead to pretty villages ; to Long
Wittenham, which deserves its adjective, with its one street
straggling far on either side its old cross ; to Little Witten
ham, as worthy of its name, but a group of tiny houses with
a no less tiny church and lime-scented churchyard just at
the foot of Wittenham Clump ; and to Dorchester, with its
huge abbey church, perhaps best worth a visit. But the
great beauty of Clifton Hampden and the neighbouring
villages will not let itself be told ; and he will never know
it who does not feel the charm of peaceful country when the
sunset burns into the water and the elms are black against
the glory of the west, ancl little thatched cottages disappear
into the darkness of the foliage — the charm of long walks
through hedged-in lanes as the red fades into the gray
twilight, and a lone nightingale sings from the hedge, and
far church bells ring softly across the sleeping meadows.
We devoted Sunday to the visit to Dorchester, so as to

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 47
explore the little river Tharne, which runs into the Thames
so modestly and quietly, you might, were you not on the
look-out, pass it by unnoticed, though, according to the
poets, it is the bridegroom who here meets and weds the
fair Isis on her way from the Cotswolds, and thus joining,
they form the Thamesis, and together flow on, through
London town, into the sea. In the quiet little village to
which the Thame leads was once the cathedral church of
the great kingdom of the West, already established in
the days of the Venerable Bede. The church, rebuilt
and altered and restored, still stands, bare but beautiful,
and in Dorchester to-day are not enough people to fill
it, even were it without rivals. But close by is the little
chapel with cross on top, the rector of which, rumour
has it, — and this is the strangest fact of modern Dor
chester — is the author of the New Antigone; and while
we were in the town a large detachment of the Salvation
Army beat their drums through the quiet streets. Long
after the boatman, a genuine Cap'en Cuttle, had pushed
us away with his hook, and we were winding with the Thame
between the pollards, their rude music came to us over the
wide pasture land.
We turned homeward towards Clifton Hampden just at the

48 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
hour when kettles were boiling in every boat. On the river
every one makes afternoon tea, just as every one wears
flannels ; and so, of course, we felt we must make it with the
rest. We pulled up a little backwater and landed with our
stove amono; the willows. The Publisher went to the near
lock for water, the Parson filled the spirit lamp. The
trouble was great ancl the tea was bad, and I mention the
incident solely because this was the only time during our
month on the river that the stove was disturbed. From
that time forward it rested from its labours in the box in
which Salter had packed it, and for the privilege of carrying
it with us we afterwards paid in our bill.

'*1?V/';3'T* ' " '¦,! ,';',-) ,f ,.>¦•--¦--¦¦¦¦•-- k'-i .;¦''¦., ^-. ,l'''v,-'

"' M'Jiv^"^^'!^-- ' :^J^m'^^^^"'""'r--^ '

V.
WE left the " Barley Mow " on Monday morning
under a grey, threatening sky. But it was
Bank Holiday, and not even the occasional
showers could keep the boats at home. Many went by
decked with water lilies ; tents on shore were gay with
flags. Those river fiends, the steam launches, were out in
full force, puffing past ancl tossing us on their waves, and
washing the banks on either side. We began to think that
after all it is rather aggravating to see the angler aroused
from contemplation, the camper interrupted in his dish
washing, the idler disturbed in his drifting, and sometimes

50 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
the artist and his easel upset, all for people who turn their
backs on the beauty of the river and play " nap " and drink
beer or champagne, as they might in the nearest public-
house or club at home.
The great business of the day with everybody, however,
was eating and drinking. The thin blue smoke of camp
fires rose above the reeds. In small boats kettles sang and
hampers were unpacked. In the launches the cloth was
never removed. And in these narrow upper reaches, we
could look across the river into camps and boats and see
what every man was eating for his dinner.
After Shillingford, where the arches of the bridge
framed in the river beyond, and its low island, and the far
blue hills, and where, near " The Swan," 'Arry and 'Arriet
were romping, Benson, a few red roofs straggling landward
from a grey, pinnacled church tower, came in sight, and to
Benson we walked for lunch. The village is at its best seen
from a distance ; its church is restored into stupidity ; its .
inns, survivals of coaching days, are less picturesque than
their associations.
Our resting-place for the night was Wallingford, a town
with much history and little to show for it. When we
pulled ashore it was raining hard, and we went at once to

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

SI

the old gabled " George," where we found a German street
band and a great crowd, and horses trotting through the
courtyard, and occasionally trying to make their way into
the Coffee Room. It was the day of the Galloway Races,
whatever they may be, and local excitement ran high.

The band kept on playing while we ate our tea in com
pany with a party of flannelled record-breakers who were
in fine spirits. They blew their own trumpets almost as
loud as the cornets outside because they had sculled
twenty miles since morning. " Not bad for a first day
out, by Jove, you know ! "

52

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

" Twenty miles," said J  , not in the least impressed ;
" why, we may have come only eight by the map, but it was
full twenty and a half by the Parson's steering."
Later, when the landlady came in for orders, they called
for beer for breakfast, but we asked for jam. "Jam by all
means," said J  ; " we're training to make our four miles
a day," which was our average. After this they would have
nothing to do with us, but drank whisky and wrote letters
at one end of the table, while at the other we studied the
visitors' book, and learned how many distinguished people,
including our polite critic Mr. W^illiam Black, had been at
the "George" before us.

f

VI.

NEXT morning the Parson and the Publisher took
an early train for London, and we were again a
crew of two. It is impossible to be the first
boat out in the morning ; early as we thought we were,
other travellers had started before us. Already, while
we loaded our boat, campers were sculling swiftly past
and under the bridge, and punts were leisurely hugging
the opposite shore.
The punt is to the Thames what the gondola is to the
canals of Venice. But a few years ago Mr. Leslie regretted
it was not more popular on the upper river. Now, wherever

56 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
you go, you see the long straight boat with its passengers
luxuriously outstretched on the cushions in the stern, the
punter walking from the bow and pushing on his long pole.
To enjoy his work he must know not only the eddies and
currents of the stream, but something of the river bed as
well. For this reason it is not easy to punt in unknown
waters. Countless as were the punts we saw, I do not
remember one laden as if for a trip. The heaviest freight
was a dog, a baby, or a lunch-basket. As often as not a
girl was poling, and I never ceased wondering how work,
that looked so easy, could be as difficult to learn as punters
declare it. But these are the three situations, I am told,
which the beginner at the pole must brave and conquer
before he can hope for ease and grace : first, that in which
he abandons the pole and remains helpless in the punt ;
secondly, that in which, for reasons he will afterwards
explain, he leaves the punt and clings to the inextricable
pole ; and thirdly, that of fearful suspense when he has not
yet decided whether to cling to the pole or the punt.
By the shores beyond Wallingford, here and there house
boats were moored. The typical Thames house-boat is so
big and clumsy, with such a retinue of smaller boats, some
times even with a kitchen attached, that it is not so easily

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 57
moved as the big hotels we used to see wandering on wheels
through the streets of Adantic City. Indeed, because of
the trouble of moving, it often remains stationary summer
after summer. One we caught in the very act of being
poled down stream ; another we saw just after it had
finished an enterprising journey ; the rest looked as if
nothing would tempt them from their moorings. They do
not add much picturesqueness to the river. A square
wooden box set on a scow is not and can not be made a
thing of beauty. At Henley Regatta when the flat top
becomes gay with flowers and Japanese umbrellas and
prettily dressed women, colour makes up in a measure for
ugliness of form. But on many house-boats we passed that
day from Wallingford, buckets and brooms and life-pre
servers were the only visible ornaments.
As if defiant in their bareness, they were drawn up in the
least lovely corners of a river on which you must go out of
your way to escape loveliness. One was just by a railway
bridge in full view of every passing train ; others were close
to shadeless shores where the afternoon sun poured hot and
scorching on their thin wooden walls.
The inns, by the way, were a pleasant contrast. Nothing
could be prettier than the little Beetle and Wedge, red and
4

58

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

gabled, with a big landing-place almost at the front door ; or
the Swan at Streatley, with its tiny lawn where the afternoon
tea-table was set, as in every other riverside garden we had
passed above and below Cleve Lock.
It would have been foolish indeed to put up for the night
under our canvas when in Streatley a whole cottage was at
our disposal, once we could find it. We rang up the post
mistress, whose door was shut while she drank tea like the
rest of the world. She
directed us to a little brick
cottage with jasmine over
the door where lived a Mrs.
Tidbury; and Mrs. Tidbury,
armed with a key big enough
to open all Streatley, led
the way almost to the top of the hilly road, to a cot
tage with deep thatched roof and a gable where an
angel, his golden wings outstretched, his hands folded,
kept watch. Nisi Domijius Frustra was the legend, in
brass-headed nails, on the door which opened from the front
garden into a low room with great rafters across the ceiling,
and a huge fireplace, where every morning of our stay we
saw our bacon broiled and our bread toasted. There were

te-ff"tv'

THE STREAM OF P TREASURE.

6i

jugs and jars on the carved mantelshelf; volumes of Balzac
and Tourgueneff, Walt Whitman and George Eliot, Carlyle
and Thackeray, on the book-shelves ; photographs from
Florentine pictures on the walls ; brass pots hanging from
the rafters. A narrow flight of wooden steps led up to a

-^fe^v^

Mr~r ,

,j n

• "-5

•^-^.-r^ V

'T;

^;

iw'^ ^"J

bedroom with walls sloping under the thatch. Mrs. Tid
bury gave the big key into our keeping ; in the morning I
bought meat from the butcher in Goring, and coaxed a
cross old man into selling me green pease and berries from
his own garden. We were at home, as we were bidden to

62

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

be, by the friend whose pleasure it is to share with others
those good things which are his worldly portion.
" And Streatley and Goring are worthy of rhyme," sings
the Lazy Minstrel, whose lays are the Gospel of the River;
and of paint too, according to Mr. Leslie. The pretty

> »u

W '-

•It ^

"^ T't^-'

village streets and the old bridge which joins them have
been done to death ; of Streatley Mill we have had our fill ;
Goring Church, with the deep red roof and gray Norman
tower, so beautiful from the river, is almost as familiar in
modern English art as the solitary cavalier once was in

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

65

English fiction. The campers, who pitch their tents on the
reeded islands, are armed with cameras, and on the decks
of house-boats easels are set up. But
"AVhen you're here, I'm told that you
Should mount the Hill and see the view ;
And gaze and wonder, if you'd do
Its merits most completely,"
It was the hour of sunset when we mounted and looked
down on the valley, spread out like a map below, the river
winding through it, a path of light between the open fields,
a cold, dark shadow under the wooded banks. May the
Lazy Minstrel another time wait to smoke and weave his
lazy lay until he has climbed the hill, and then he will
sing of something besides "The Swan" at Streatley!

VII.

THE day we left Streadey, the hot August sun had
come at last. It was warm and close in the
village, warm and fresh on the water. The
Golden Grasshopper, the famous yellow and white house
boat of the last Henley Regatta, had just anchored
near "The Swan," and its proprietor was tacking up
awnings and renewing his flower frieze, which sadly
needed the attention, but he monopolized the energy of
the river. Boats lay at rest under the railway bridge
below Streatley and under the trees of Hart's Woods.
In riverside gardens children practised what Mr. Ashby-

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 67
Sterry calls " hammockuity." Anglers dozed in the sun.
The only living creature who seemed awake was a vulgar
little boy who, when we passed a sheepwash in a pretty
backwater and asked him when the sheep were washed, told
us, " Why when it's toime, of coorse."
"0, Pangbourn is pleasant in sweet summer time,"
with its old wooden bridge to Whitchurch over the river,
and the lock with delicate birches
on its island, and the mill and the t. '¦' ¦
weir and the gables and red roofs ;. '"^ <M^^''"'^ 'f°fe'
and tall elms. In all Thames vii- I- .^^ilk^' ,J^'-^•i¦^^^'
lages the elements of picturesque- ^^\
ness are the same ; in each they
come together with new beauty.
We had scarce left Pangbourn before we passed Hard
wick House, red, gabled, and Elizabethan, and the more
impressive because, as a rule, the big private houses on
the Thames are ugly. And not far beyond was Maple
durham Mill, a fair rival to Iffley, and Mapledurham Lock,
which many people, beside Dick in Mr. Morris' Utopia,
" think a very pretty place " ; and on the other side of
the lock Mapledurham House, of whose beauty every one

68

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

tells you. But you cannot see it from the river, and its
owner will not let you land. His shores are barricaded by

the sign " Private " ; there is no inn in the village ; he has
but lately asked the courts to forbid fishermen to throw their

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 69
lines in the Thames, as it flows past his estate ; and the
only wonder is that he has not hung up a curtain in front of
the beautiful trees that line his river bank.
There is an inn, "The Roebuck," just a little below — a
new red house, tiled and gabled, standing on a hill that
overlooks the river. But, convenient though it was to the
beauties of Mapledurham, we did not care to stop in it ; it
suggested certain hotels we know on the Wissahickon at
home, or on Coney Island.
It was about here, in the cool of the evening, that the
anglers awoke. From a punt, where a young lady in
big hat and green ribbons, and a man in a blue flannel
jacket, sat side by side under the shade by Mapledurham
Ferry, we heard a jubilant cry, "O Paul, already!" And
Paul drew up his line and a man in a near boat paddled
up to see, and on the hook hung a fish no longer than a
minnow. And next, an old man, in long black alpaca coat
and tall hat, waved his hands towards us and begged our
help. He had a bite, and for half an hour had been trying
to get his fish out of water.
" A whale ! " asked J—-
"No, a young shark," answered another elderly man
dancing round the alpaca coat in excitement.

70 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
J  with a scull pushed gently under the line, and the
old man pulled and pulled and pulled, and at last, up came
a bunch of weeds !
From here to Caversham is the stupid stretch of which
guide and other books give fair warning. But at the hour
of sunset the ugliest country is glorified, and nowhere is
the river really ugly. The " Dictionary of the Thames "
for 1888 recommended as "snug and unpretendous " the
White Hart Inn on the left bank by Caversham Bridge.
Accordingly, to the left bank we drew up, but behold ! we
found a large hotel, a steam launch bringing in its pas
sengers, waiters in dress-coats, a remarkably good supper,
and a very attentive Signor Bona to add the pleasure of an
Italian kitchen to the clean comfort of the English inn.

'Hi  iC

T

VIII.

HE town of Reading,
" 'Mong other things so widely known
For biscuits, seeds, and sauce,"

seldom has a good word said for it by those who write from
the river point of view. And yet the stream of the Thames
makes glad the city with its railways and big brick factories
and tall chimneys, and it becomes, in its own way, as
picturesque, though not as characteristic of the upper
Thames, as the little villages and the old deserted market
towns. It is not, however, the ideal place for a house-boat,
and for this reason, I suppose, we found two or three

72

THE S J REAM OF PLEASURE.

within hearing of the ever-passing trains and within sight
of the chimneys and the smoke. From them, canoes were
carrying young men and their luggage to the convenient
station ; in the small boats at their bows young ladies were

ftV^V^'

^'

' ^-^,. .' '-^ V

lounging ; in the sterns white-capped maids were busy with
brooms and buckets.
Even if the much-abused banks, where the river the
" cleere Kennet overtakes," were unattractive, it is not far

 '/ 7 Ite J I

' i'"Hi

'lA "* 4

i e

fwi, i''

^«!!
I'lillil'l!'
\l
THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 75
to Holme Park and the shady riverside walk, known as
the Thames Parade, beyond which is Sonning Lock,
" That's famed
For roses and for bees, "
and for the lock-keeper who cared for them until his death
some three years ago, and whose poem called " Summer
Recreations " is perhaps the simplest description ever
written of the journey from Oxford to Windsor. Close
to the lock is the village, "set on fair and commodious
ground," with roses and sweet jasmine growing over every
cottage door. It was at the cheery "White Hart" the
Lazy Minstrel lunched
" Off cuts of cold beef and a prime Cheddar cheese
And a tankard of bitter at Sonning."
We too might have had our tankard in its pretty garden,
but there was no room for us ; and so we walked from the
river through the churchyard to " The Bull," low and
gabled, running round two sides of a square, with the third
shut in by the churchyard wall and a row of limes. It
would be a figure of speech, however, to say we stayed at
"The Bull," where we ate our meals and paid our bill.

76 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
But our rooms were in one of the near cottages ; and as
for the Publisher, when he drove up in a hansom from
Reading Station, he was given a freehold property all to
himself. It was chance that took us to " The Bull." Now we
^\ Jin

¦ J PI I. ; . . v:iissSi. "-

' lii*«ff*Mi?M^*^

find from Mr. Black that it was quite the correct place to
go. For "The White Hart," down by the riverside, he
says, is beloved of cockneys, but the artists who know the
Thames swear by " The Bull."
We thought Sonning quite the prettiest village we had
come to, and J  and the Publisher and the Parson
THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

77

thought the barmaid quite the nicest. But, to counter
balance these attractions, the weather was vile. All
Sunday drenching mist fell. Books are the last things to
be looked for in riverside inns ; boating men have some
thing better to do than to read. In only one did we find

••Srn'..-'. '-,

f'. J "^
¦7 / Ir

¦^W

ifSi:

)

anything in the shape of literature in the coffee-room ; and
there, a volume of Meditations on Death and Eternity had
been left for the delectation of people very busy with life
and the present. In many of the inns there was not even
a newspaper to be had. If there was one, as at Sonning,
it was sure to be the Daily Telegraph, just then full of the

78 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
" Is Marriage a Failure ? " question. But somehow time
did not hang very heavy. As we stood at the door we
heard the famous church bells, which a century ago carried
off a two-handled silver cup for the " superior style in
which they rang ten hundred and eight bob-major," and
for this we would much sooner have the word of the guide
book than hear for ourselves the way really beautiful bells
can be misused in England. We sat in the church porch
and listened to the hymns of the congregation. We
walked to the bridge where men and women watched for
clear weather, while on the near island campers pathetically
huddled together under the trees. But just in the hour
before dark, the mist rose and the clouds rolled away to
give fair promise for the morrow.
A gale was blowing, but no rain fell when we pulled —
for to-day there was no easy drifting — to Wargrave. The
poplars looked cold and bare, the willows showed all their
silver, and at Shiplake Lock, as J  ancl the Parson to
the best of their ability gave the familiar Thames cry of
" Lock! Lock !" and we waited for the gates to open, the
wind swung our boat clear round, and it took a deal of
manoeuvring with the boathook to bring the bow in position
again. A young man from a near tent ran up to play lock-

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

79

keeper — the favourite amusement of campers in the in
tervals between eating and cooking — and hardly had we
passed through when — a certain proof of the beauty of

Wargrave — we suddenly saw Mr. Alfred Parsons sailing
home from his work to "The George and Dragon."
W^argrave bears an air of propriety, as befits the last
resting-place of the creator of " Sandford and Merton."
Carriages with liveried footmen roll by on the village

8o THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
street, upon which new Queen Anne houses open their
doors. The artistic respectability of " The George and
Dragon " is vouched for by its painted sign, the not very
wonderful work of two R.A's. On each side the inn,
lawns slope down from private houses, and boats lie moored
along the shore. And, as if to show they are not common
folk, the boating men of Wargrave go so far as to make
themselves ugly and wear a little soldier cap stuck on one
side of their heads.
But litde of the time we gave to Wargrave was spent in
the village. We explored instead, the
" Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned,"
and the many near back-waters, with that indifference to
the sign " Private water " which Mr. Leslie in " Our
River" recommends. Indeed, no one seems to heed it. I
have heard men read aloud " Private water," and add at
once, " Oh, that's all right. Come on ! " In Patrick
Stream, as the only man who ever really painted English
landscape told us, there are Corots at every step, and what
more need we say ? In Bolney back-water the trees meet
above your head, and in the water below, with here and
there a glimpse beyond the willows of lovely poplars and

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

83

old farmhouses and " wide meadows which the sunshine
fills." Reeds and lilies and long trailing water plants in
places choke the stream, so that sculls are put away for the
paddle. May and/ sweetbrier, with the bloom all gone now

-Am

r *>'*¦'• 'i^

in mid-August, trail over the banks. Flowering black
berries festoon the bridges, where you must lie low as you
float under the arch. The stillness is broken only by the
plashing of your paddle and the twittering of birds ; the
dragon-fly comes to dream on the water, blue kingfishers

84 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
fly from shore to shore, and the water-rat swims across the
track of your boat. The solitude is seldom disturbed,
except perhaps by a boy in a dinghy, by the one-armed
ferryman of Wargrave in a punt coaching a beginner, or by
a canoe silently stealing along.
In the quiet of the evening it was pleasant to pull back
to " The George and Dragon " in time to see the sun sink,
a ball of fire, below the wide stretch of golden meadowland
^ opposite, where villagers
" played cricket after their
day's work.
ij ^'^¦^ ^ 'f- ' From Wargrave, past the
- ' —-^^s^^-^^^t — ==1- colony of house-boats within
- - _—  -^ easy distance of Shiplake
Station, at the foot of a shady
lane, where, if you land, a man suddenly appears and
claims a penny (for what I hardly know) ; past Bolney
with its ugly big house and pretty islands where the swans
rest at noontide ; past the ferry where the Lazy Minstrel
sat and sang " Hey down derry ! " until the young lady
came to his rescue ; past Park Place with its grotesque
boat-house, niched and statued ; through Marsh Lock, at
who.se gates during Regatta week boats crowd and push

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

M

and jostle, just as people do at the pit doors of a popular
theatre — 'tis a short three-miles' journey to "The Angel"
at Henley.

IX.

HENLEY seemed quiet by comparison with the
July day when we came down from London and
found the river a mass of boats and brilliant
colours, and the banks crowded with people, and Gar
gantuan lunches spread at " The Lion " and " The
Angel " and " The Catherine Wheel." But that was
during Regatta week, when Englishmen masquerade in
gay attire and Englishwomen become "symphonies in frills
and lace," and together picnic in house-boats, launches,
rowboats, canoes, punts, dinghies, and every kind of boat

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 89
invented by man. It is true that now and then the course
is cleared and a race rowed :
" But if you find a luncheon nigh —
A mayonnaise, a toothsome pie —
You'll soon forget about the race,"
But whatever life there was at Henley we saw from
"The Angel." Across the way was the "finely toned,
picturesque, sunshiny Lion," where Shenstone wrote his
famous lines, too often quoted to be quoted again, and
where the coach starts for Windsor. The pretty bow-
window of our coffee-room opened upon the river, and
grey as were the three days, we waited in vain to see
Henley in sunshine, pleasure parties were always starting
from the landing-place, boats never stopped passing, swans
floated by in threes, while boys forever hung over the open
balustrade of the old grey bridge, where, now and then, we
could see the long boats on Salter's van as it crept Oxford-
ward. It is this bridge which is adorned with the heads of
Isis and Thamesis, whose praise by Sir Horace Walpole
was a piece of family log-rolling one hundred years or
more before the expression was invented.
A strong wind was blowing and there was quite a sea on

90 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
when, late one afternoon, we pulled away from " The

«^

^r" ri'l rn ^

J

,1 ^ la

I'ife^

Angel," under the bridge, down the Regatta reach, wide

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 91
and desolate without its July crowds ; by the island with its
little classic temple and its poplars set against a background
of low hills — the starting-point of the race ; past many
houses, among others that of Mr. W. H. Smith, an
improvement on the usual Thames-side house ; and then,
like the "countless Thames toilers, now coming, now
going," we took our pink ticket at Hambledon Lock,
where there is a red lock-house covered with creepers,
close to a great weir, and a mill-stream, a white mill, and a
little village full of yellow gables and big deserted barns,
with grass growing on their old roofs and weeds choking
their neglected yards.
We landed just below the lock, determined to break a
record. For I fancy never before has any one on the
Thames journey succeeded in making but nine miles in a
week ! We put up at a brand-new, very ugly, but com
fortable brick " Flower Pot," where there was a landlord
who had much to say about art and the Royal Academy.
For Royal Academicians often lunch with him, and Royal
Academy pictures have been painted under the very
shadow of his house, as well they might, for all the near
country was as pretty as the inn was ugly. Elms, the
loveliest in the whole length and breadth of England, met

92

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

overhead in the narrow lanes, bordered the fields "with
poppies all on fire," and shut in the old-fashioned gardens
full of weary sunflowers waiting to count the steps of the
sun that would not shine. Here and there through the

elms we caught a glimpse of the river, and in the distance
the tower of Medmenham Abbey.
We dropped down to the Abbey towards noon the next
day, just as the first picnic party was landing in the near

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 93
meadows. For this place, where for centuries men worked
in silence and knew not pleasure ; where later those who
wore the brown robes obeyed no law but the Fay ce que
Voudras carved above their doorway, is now but a popular
picnicing ground. Even in its degeneracy, however, it is
true to its traditions. Medmenham monks, of the Cister
cian order and of the Hell-Fire Club, were alike In this :
whatsoever their hands found to do, they did with their
might ; they were no less great in vice than in virtue.
And so to-day, those who come there, picnic with all their
might, and are great in the lunches they spread upon the
grass and the games of tennis they play on the lawn of the
big new hotel, where we saw a Gentleman Gipsy's van in
the shade and a Gentleman Waterman's boat by the shore.
We, too, have lunched at Medmenham. We had been but
a few weeks in England then, and I remember how we
wondered at the energy of the young girls in fresh muslins
who unpacked the hampers, laid the cloth, and washed the
dishes ; and how we thought nothing could be prettier than
the old Abbey turned into a farmhouse, with its cloisters
and ivy-grown ruined tower. That was four years ago,
and in the interval we have seen much of . England's
loveliness. Now, we were not so much impressed, though
6

94

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

the Abbey makes a pleasant enough picture, with its grey
ivied arches and red roof and tall chimneys, and the beauti
ful trees on either side. Even the tower, if it be but a
sham ruin, is effective. The Fay ce que Voudras of the

eighteenth-century Children of Light can still be read above
the old door, and he who would know how differently men
can Interpret the golden rule of the Monks of Thelema has
but to turn from Besant and Rice's well-known novel to
the less famous hundred years' old story of Chrysal.

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 97
At Lady Place, but little more than a mile below, men
came together to save their country from the Stuarts. But
in a boat under a blue sky, drifting past hay-scented
meadows, sightseeing loses its charm, and it was a relief to
be told by the lock-keeper that some of the family were
now at home and so the gates of Lady Place were closed
against the public. There was nothing to see anyway ;
just a few tablets stuck in the walls, and a cellar where
a conspiracy went on once — he couldn't exactly say just
when. " O, Bisham banks are fresh and fair"; and Bisham
Abbey stands where it cannot be hid from the river,
and you need not leave your boat to see the old grey
walls ancl gables or the weather-worn Norman tower of
Bisham Church, past which Shelley so often drifted as he
dreamed his dreams of justice. For by Marlow shores,
in Bisham Woods,
¦ "Or where, with sound like many voices siveel,
AVaterfalls leap among wild islands green,"
he, like Lord Lovelace and the knights at Hurlc)', con
spired to sct men free.

98 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
Great Marlow was a disappointment. Only the street
which leads to the river, where the ferry was of old,
shows a {^\M picturesque gabled houses. Gravel was
heaped on the shores, where the girls stand in Fred
Walker's picture, and instead of the ferry-boat, pleasure
punts and canoes and skiffs lay beyond. The town was
poor in Shelley's time. When he was not seeking to
establish a moral world governed by the law of love,
Mrs. Shelley tells how he was busy going about from
cottage to cottage, seeking to lessen the heart-rending
evils of the people among whom he lived, until in the
end, he shared part at least of their misery ; a severe
attack of ophthalmia was the price he paid for his charity.
Now, Marlow, to the outsider, looks fairly well to do.
It shares in the prosperity of the river. Launches are
for ever bringing pleasure parties to " The Anglers " on
the river bank. As we learned to our cost, that very day
"The George and Dragon" had provided lunches and
dinners and teas for" three fifties." One fifty was disport
ing itself upon the river to the imminent danger of the
red-skirted, white-bodlced girls in canoes and the men in
racing boats. When dinner-time came we found that not
only the hotel larder, but apparently the town larder also
had been emptied.

L

X.

IF you wake up early enough in " dear old Marlow
town " you will see all the men in flannels walking
riverward you met yesterday in boats, each with a
towel over his arm. They are on their way " to headers
take at early dawn." And presently. If it be Sunday
morning, after the breakfast hour, the procession reforms
and divides, one half in top hats and conspicuous prayer
books, the other still in flannels and carrying hampers
instead of towels. For Sunday is the river day on the
stretch between Marlow and Maidenhead.
When we came downstairs in the morning, an Oxford

loo THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
friend had just arrived to take a pair of sculls for the
day, and it was in fine style we made our start. Dickens
in his "Dictionary of the Thames" advises caution in
passing Marlow Weir. Though, as a rule, he is as nervous
as "Taunt" is easy-going, his nervousness here is not
without reason. The weir, less protected than many,
stretches to your right as you go towards Marlow Lock,
and the angler-haunted current by the mill is on your
left and you must keep straight in the middle, or what
is the result ? You go over, as so many have already
gone, and, once over, you never come out again. But
still, on the Thames, with moderate care there is no
occasion for accidents so long as daylight lasts, for at
every weir is the sign " Danger ! " big enough to be
read long before you come to it. After dark, however,
even those who know the river best are not safe.
" And Quarry woods are green " ; and at the foot of
low hills, yellowing with the late harvest, is Bourne-End,
a group of red roofs and a long line of poplars ; and next
Cookham church tower comes in sight. Under its shadow
Fred Walker lies burled near the river he loved in life.
Within the church a tablet is set up in his honour In
the west wall, and a laurel wreath hangs beneath. But

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

lol

over his grave only a grey stone, like those one sees in all
English country graveyards, is erected to his memory, and
that of his mother and brother.
At the Ferry Hotel at Cookham we unpacked our boat

W rv

i/^

and ceased to be travellers, to become, with the many on
the water, pleasure-seekers of a day. Anglers no longer
slept on the banks, but were alert to order us out of their
way if we drew too near. In every house-boat, in every
steam launch, was a gay party. Along the beautiful stretch

102

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

between Marlow and Cookham, beneath the steep wooded
slopes of Cliefden — where here and there the cedars and
beeches leave a space to show the great house of the
Duke of Westminster rising far above, its gray facade in
fine perspective against the sky — up the near back-waters
winding between sedge and willow, one to a mill, another
to a row of eel-butts, the name of the smaller boats was
legion. Among them was
every possible kind of row-
boat, and there were punts,
some with one some with two
^ at the pole, dinghies, sail
boats, even a gondola and two
sandolas, and canoes with
single paddle, canoes with
double paddles, and one at least vvith an entire family on
their knees paddling as if from the wilds of America or
Africa. On the Thames it seems as if no man were too
old, no child too young, to take a paddle, a pole, or a scull.
In one boat you find a grey-haired grandfather, in the next
a little girl In short frocks and big sun-bonnet.
The locks were more crowded than usual, and on their
banks men waited with baskets of fruit and flowers. In

^ #1!*

THE STREAM Of PLEASURE. 103
one we sunk to the bottom to the music of the " Brav'
General," and the musicians, when there was no escape, let
down the lock-keeper's boathook with a bag at the end
for pennies.
But it was outside Boulter's Lock,, on the way back to
Cookham, that we found the greatest crowd. There was
such a mass of boats one might have thought all
" The men who haunt the waters.
Broad of breast and brown of hue,
All of Beauty's youngest daughters,
Perched in punt or crank canoe,"
were waiting to pass through together. But presently the
lock-keeper called out, " Keep back ! There are a lot of
boats coming ! " and the lock gates slowly opened and out
they came, pell-mell, pushing, paddling, poling, steaming,
and there was great scrambling, and bumping, and meeting
of friends, and cries of "How are you?" "Come to
dinner at eight," "Look out where you're going!" and
brandishing of boathooks, and glaring of eyes, and savage
shoutings, and frantic handshakings, and scrunching of
boats, and scratching of paint, and somehow we all made
our way into the lock as best we could, the lock-keeper

104 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
helping the slower boats with his long boathook and fitting
all in, until there was not space for one to capsize if it
would. But indeed in a crowded lock If you cannot
manage your own boat some one else will manage it for
you ; and, for that matter, when there is no crowd you
meet men whose only use of a boathook is to dig it into
your boat as you are quietly making your way out. Both
banks were lined with people looking on, for Boulter's
Lock on Sunday afternoon is one of the sights of the
Thames. When the upper gates opened, there was again pushing
and scrambling, and it was not until we were out of the
long cut and under the Cliefden heights that we could pull
with ease. The boats kept passing long after we had got
back to Cookham and while we lingered in the hotel
garden. Almost the last were the sandolas and the
gondola, and as we watched them, with the white figures
of the men at the oar outlined against the pale sky and
bending in slow, rhythmic motion, we understood why
these boats are so much more picturesque than the punt,
the action of the gondolier so much finer than that of the
punter. The entire figure rises above the boat, and there
is no pause in the rhythm of the motion. In a punt the

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

105

man at the pole, except in the upper reaches near Oxford,
stands not above but in the boat ; and fine as is his action
when he draws the pole from the water and plunges it in
again, the Interval when he pushes on it or walks with it is

not so graceful. To know the punt at its very best you
should see it in a race, when the action of the punter
is as continuous as that of the gondolier.
Gradually the launches began to hang out their lights.

io6 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
the row of house-boats opposite Cookham Church lighted
their lamps and Japanese lanterns, making a bright illu
mination in one cornePT and " when the evening mist
clothed the riverside with poetry as with a veil," "all
sensible people " turned their backs upon it and went in
to dinner.
After Cookham, there is history enough to be learned
from the guide-book for those who care for it : scandalous
as you pass under
" Cliefden's proud alcove.
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and of love ; "
Stirring about Maidenhead, where the conspiracy of Hurley
bore some of its good fruit ; mainly ecclesiastical at Bray,
where lived the famous Vicar, Simon Aleyn, who never
faltered in his faith unless the times required it :
" Whatsoever king shall reign
Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir."
He showed his good taste. The village is as charming
when you first see from the river the long lines of poplars
and the church tower overlooking a row of eel-butts, as
when you wander through the streets to the old brick

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

107

almshouse with the quaindy clipped trees in front and the
statue of the founder over the door. For the first time in
our river experience there was not a room to be had in the
village. At least so the landlady of " The George" on the
river bank told us, while she struggled with her h's. She

Cif'T^

advised us to try at the H-h-hind's H-h-head in the village.
We did, but with no success. Now was the time to unfold
our canvas and put up in our own hotel. Instead, we
dropped down-stream in search of an Inn where we should
not have to make our own beds and do our own cooking.

loS

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

Between Bray and Boveney Locks is the swiftest stream
in the river, and we saw only one boat being towed, and
another sculled with apparently hard work up past Monkey

Island, where the Duke of Mariborough's painted monkeys^
which give the island its name, are said still to climb the
walls of his pleasure house.
The river flowed in long reaches and curves between

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

109

shores where there was litde to note. But as we passed
Queen's Island we saw the great grey mass of Windsor
Castle gradually coming into view on the horizon. We lost
sight of it when, with a turn of the stream, we came to
Surly, where the Eton boys end their famous 4th of June,
and to little Boveney Church, shut in by a square of trees
much as a Normandy farm is enclosed. Just before the
lock the casde was again In front of us, nearer now

and more massive. But hardly had we seen it when it
went behind the trees. Below the lock dozens of boats
and many swans with them were on the water ; not the
crowd we had left at Maidenhead, however. Men sculled
in stiff hats and shirt-sleeves. Parties were being pulled
instead of iDulling themselves. Soldiers, their little caps
still stuck on their heads, but their elegance taken off with
their coats, tumbled about in old tubs : once in the midst
7

IIO THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
of them a crew of eight, spick amd span as if for a parade
and coached by an officer, passed In a long racing-boat.
The banks, where fishermen sat, grew higher and more
commonplace ; one or two little back-waters quietly joined
the main stream. A long railway embankment stretched
across the plain. The river carried us under a great
archway, and just before us, Windsor towered, grand and
impressive, from its hill looking down upon river and town.
The veil of soft smoke over the roofs at its foot seemed to
lift It far above them, a symbol of that gulf fixed between
royalty and the people.
Rain began to fall as we drew up to a hotel on the
Eton side, just opposite to where the castle "stands on
tiptoe to behold the fair and goodly Thames."
In the town we could forget the river, so seldom did we
see the river uniform, so often did we meet tourists with
red Baedekers. In the hotel we could as easily forget the
town, for here we overlooked the water and the passing
boats. Even when It was so dark that we could no longer
see them, we could hear the whistle of the steam launches,
the dipping in time of many sculls, and the cries of cox
swains.

i t '-/•.->, , r ^-'- -; ft ^.-,
V- ' ¦'' t ¦"'--' V --';' ' ' '' ¦#=f^**™v ¦; —

XI.

^1 ""HE morning we left, Windsor was brilliant with
I sunshine. J^eep well to the right is painted in big
letters on the upper side of the bridge. For facing
you as you pass through the middle arch is the sharp
point of land familiarly known as the Cobbler, which
separates the lock cut from the main stream ; and when the
river is high the current is strong, and many are the
unwary whose boats have been dashed against the Cobbler.
But he looked peaceable enough, a punt stationed just
in front, as we passed. And now, we could face the
strongest current without a doubt.

114

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

Near Romney Lock the red walls and grey chapel
of Eton came in sight, and when we looked back it
was to see a corner of Windsor Castle framed by the
trees that line the narrow cut. Beyond the lock were the
beautiful Eton playing fields, where crowds meet on the
4th of June ; and next Datchet and Datchet Mead, where

Falstaff was thrown for foul clothes into the river ; and
Windsor Park, where the sun went under the clouds and
down came the rain in torrents. At the first drop all
the boats disappeared. The minute before, a girl had
been poling down-stream at our very side. Now she
had gone as mysteriously as the Vanishing Lady. We,
not understanding the trick, kept calmly on our way and

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

115

were none the worse for our wetting. And when the sun
shone again the boats all reappeared as suddenly. One
cannot tell in words how the river, with the first bit of
sunshine, like the Venetian lagoons, becomes filled with
life.

>^ ^^ ^..

At Old Windsor the weir seemed to us much the most
dano-erous we had come to, and the lock by far the most
dilapidated. After we left the lock we passed the yellow
bow-windowed " Bells of Ousely," an inn famous I hardly
know for what, its sign hanging from one of the wide-

ii6

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

branching elms that overshadow it ; and Magna Charta
Island, where the barons claimed the rights which they
have kept all to themselves ever since, and where two or
three pleasure parties were picnicing, and a private house
stands on the spot so sacred to English liberty ; opposite,
those who to-day are its defenders were playing at making
a pontoon-bridge, and the field was dotted with red coats
and white tents. Below, was Runnymede, a broad meadow
at the foot of a beau

tiful hillside, where
the great fight was
fought. At Bell Weir Lock
the gates were closed.
Too many barges
had crowded In from the lower side, and the last had
to back out, an operation which took much time and
more talk. A boat-load of campers pulled up while we
waited. " Back water. Stroke!" cried the man at the bow,
who had a glass screwed in one eye. " Easy now ! Bring
her in ! Look out where you're going ! " And with his
glass fixed upon Stroke, he quite forgot to look out where
he was going himself, and bang went the bow into a

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 117
post and over he tumbled Into a heap of tents and
bags at the bottom of the boat. When he got up the
glass was still there, as it apparently had been for several
weeks, for we had seen the party going up-stream when we
were at Sonning. They had probably been to the top of
the Thames and were on their way back, but they had not
yet learned to manage a boat. When the gates at last
opened Stroke saw some young ladies on shore, and at
once put his pipe In his mouth and his hands into the
pockets of his blue and black blazer, and struck an attitude,
and Bow gave orders in vain. The boat swung from one
side of the lock to the other and still he posed. How
ever, we had the worst of it in coming out. For In trying
to clear the waiting barge we ran aground and stuck
there ignominiously, while all the boats that had been
behind us in the lock went by. But it was not much work
to push off again, and almost at once we were in Staines.
The town is thought to be the rival of Reading in
ugliness, an eyesore on the Thames. We minded this
but little, for we spent the evening sitting at a table in
the garden of " The Pack Horse," watching the never-
ceasing procession of boats — the punt with the two small
boys come to meet their father after his day in London ;

1 1 8 THE S TRE AM OF PLEA S URE.
the racing punts ; the long, black canoe, either the Minne
haha or the Hiazuatha (it was too far away to see its
name) ; the picnic parties coming home with empty
hampers ; the sail-boats ; the ferry punt, where now and
then an energetic man in flannels took the pole from the
ferryman and sent the punt zig-zagging through the water,
but somehow, and In the course of time, always got to the
other side. And If an ugly railway bridge crossed the
river just here, we could look under it to the still busier
ferry, where the punt, crossing every minute, was so
crowded with gay dresses and flannels that one might have
thought all Staines had been for an outing. The sun
set behind the dense trees on the opposite bank, its light
shining between their trunks and the dark reflections ;
moonlight lay on the water, and still we sat there. We
could understand our landlord when he told us that, though
he had travelled far and wide, there was no place he cared
for as he did for Staines. Like his wife and the pile of
trunks at the head of the stairs, he had an unmistakable
theatrical look. Later he went into the bar and played
the violin, and people gathered about the tables while he
gave now a Czardas, now the last London Music Hall song.
The evening was the liveliest we spent upon the river.

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 119
A fine Scotch mist fell the next morning. Of the first
part of the day's voyage there was not much to remember
but grey banks, a grey river, and an occasional fishing-punt
with umbrellas in a row. In our depression we forgot
when we passed Laleham that the village has become a
place of pilgrimage. Matthew Arnold lies buried in its
churchyard, and perhaps he, who hated the parade of
death, would rather have the traveller pass his grave
without heeding it than stop to drop a sentimental
tear. At Chertsey the mist rose and our spirits with it. We
had arrived just in time for the Chertsey Regatta, and
when presently the sun struggled through the clouds, as if
by magic the river was crowded with boats. The races
were not worth seeing. The men sculled in their vests,
poled in their suspenders. Punts at the start got so
hopelessly entangled that spectators roared with laughter.
But there was an attempt to do the thing as at Henley.
Between the races, canoes and punts and skiffs went up
and down the racecourse, and the people in the two house
boats received their friends and tea was made. Among
the lookers-on, at least, costumes were correct.
From the river, Chertsey was so pretty and gay, we

1 20 THE S TRE A M OF PLEA S URE.
did not go into the town, which Dickens says is dull and
quiet, even to hunt for the humble nest where Cowley
" 'Scaped all the toils that life molest.
And its superfluous joys,''
or the mansion where Fox raised his turnips.
We neared Shepperton Lock as the sun was going down.
Just below, the long straggling village of Weybridge was
hidden round a corner of the river at the mouth of the
Wey. Close by another litde stream and a canal join
the Thames, and their waters meet in the weir pool, which
was a broad sheet qf light when we first saw it. At the
landing-place of " The Lincoln Arms " lay the usual mass
of boats, but almost all were marked with monograms
repeated on every scull and paddle, and on the road above
carriages with liveried footmen waited.
The litde river Wey runs to Guildford and still farther
through the fair county of Surrey, and on its banks, not far
from Weybridge, lived the rollicking, frolicking, jolly old
monks whose legend is said to drive away sentiment as
suddenly as a north wind scatters sea-fog. But after all,
If you turned from the Thames to explore every stream
rich in story and in beauty, you would never get down to

Missing Page

Missing Page

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 123
London. Besides, on the Wey there are locks every hour
or less, and at almost all you must be your own lock-keeper
and carry your tools with you, and there are those who say
the pleasure is not worth the work.
From Weybridge to Walton is the neighbourhood
abounding with memories of olden time, where Mr. Leland
once went gypsying. There is first Shepperton, with its
little Gothic church and many anglers, on your left, and
then Halliford, a quaint old street facing the river, where
we found the Shuttlecock
moored to the landing-place.

Who but the Lazy Minstrel

has a right to row or sail,
paddle or pole a Shuttlecock
on the waters of the Thames ? But an Impudent young
man we had never seen, came down the steps, boarded
her, and paddled away as placidly as if he had nothing
to be ashamed of! And next came Cowie Stakes, where
Cssar is said to have crossed the Thames, pulling
up ruthlessly the stakes driven in by the Britons —
"He is the sort of man," Mr. Jerome says, "we
want round the back-waters now." And then Walton,
with its relics of days when scolds were called by their

124 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
right name, when gallantry was the fashion and astrology a
profession. For if there is a picture at every turn of the
Thame.s, there is a story as well ; and if you are not
too lazy, you read it in your guide-book and are much
edified thereby, but you go no further to prove it true.
The cut to Sunbury Lock, with its unpollarded willows
and deep reflections, was like a bit of a French canal. At
the lock there was one of the slides found only in the most
crowded parts of the river. On these, boats are pulled up
an Inclined plane over rollers,
and then let down another
Into the water above or
..^¦,„. ,....- .= „,^-, , , below, as the case may be,
"' ' and this in one-fifth of the
time It takes to go through a lock, nor is there any long
waiting for water to be let out or in.
And after Sunbury came Hampton, where a large barge
with red sail furled showed we were nearing London ; and
close by Garrick's Villa with Its Temple of Shakspere ; and
on the opposite shore Moulsey Hurst, where the coster-
mongers' races are run in the month when gorse Is in
bloom, and where I was first introduced by the great Rye
Leland to Mattie Cooper, the old gipsy, whose name Is an.

THE STREAM OF PL.EASURE. 125
authority among scholars. And here the river divides
into two streams to run round islands, which stretch one
after another almost to Moulsey, so that as you pass down
on either side the river seems no wider than it was many
miles away at Oxford.
At Moulsey Lock on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday
you find everything that goes to make a regatta but the
races. It is the headquarters of that carnival on the river
which begins with June, is at its height in midsummer, and
ends only with October. Not even in the July fetes on
the Grand Canal in Venice is there livelier movement,
more graceful grouping or brighter colour. There may
be gayer voices and louder laughter, for the English take
their pleasure quietly. But I do not believe that men
In their every-day amusements can show a more beauti
ful pageant anywhere. The Venetian fetes can be seen
only once each summer. But though for that of the
Thames you must go to Henley Regatta, every week
Boulter's or Moulsey Lock makes a no less brilliant
picture. And as Mr. Leland has said, " It is very strange
to see this tendency of the age to unfold itself in new festi
val forms, when those who believe that there can never be
any poetry or picturing in life but in the past are walling
over the banishing of Maypoles and all English sports."

IV",

XII.

IT was still early Saturday afternoon when we reached
Moulsey. At once we unloaded our boat and secured
a room at the Castle Inn, close to the bridge and
opposite that
" Structure of majestic frame
Which from the neighbouring Hampton takes its name,"

The rest of the day and all the next we gave to the river
between Hampton ancl the Court. In the lock the water
never rose nor fell without carrying with it as many boats

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

127

as could find a place upon its surface. At the slide, where
there are two rollers for the boats going up and two for
those coming down, there were always parties embarking
and disembarking, men in flannels pulling and pushing

canoes and skiffs. Far along the long cut, boats were
always waiting for the lock gates to open. And on the
gates, and on both banks, and above the slide, sat rows of
lookers-on, as if at a play ; and the beautiful rich green of
the trees, the white and coloured dresses, the really pretty

128 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
women and the strong, athletic men, casting gay reflections
In the water, made a picture ever to be remembered. On
the road were ragged men and boys, with ropes and horses,
offering to "tow you up to Sunbury, Shepperton, Wey
bridge, W^indsor," and still raggeder children chattering
in Romany and turning somersaults for pennies. If we
pulled up to Hampton it was to see the broad reach there
"overspread with shoals of labouring oars," or with a fleet
of sailing boats tacking from side to side — dangerous, it
seemed to us, as the much hated steam launches. Below
the weir were the anglers' punts. And up the little Mole,
which "digs through earth the Thames to win," the
luncheon cloth was spread and the tea-ketde sang under
the willows. But however far we went, when we came
back to the lock, it was only to find the same crowd, to
hear the same endless grating of boats over the rollers,
the same slow paddling out through the gates, the same fall
of the water over the weir, and above all other sounds,
the monotonous cries of " Tow you up to Sunbury, Shep
perton, Weybridge, Windsor." All the long Sunday
afternoon the numbers of boats and people never lessened,
though the scene was ever varying. And when the sun
sank below Moulsey Hurst, there was still the same crowd

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 131
in the lock, there were still the rows of figures sitting on
the banks ; the men and horses on the road, the stray
cycler riding towards Thames Ditton — all now, however,
but so many silhouettes cut out against the strong light.
Close to Moulsey Lock is Hampton Court, with its
park and gardens, its galleries and courts, its bad pictures
and fine tapestries, its fountains and terraces. What good
American who has been in England does not love this
most beautiful of English palaces ? But of all those who
come to it Sunday after Sunday, there is scarcely one
who knows that within a ten-minutes' walk is another sight
no less beautiful in its way —very different, but far more
characteristic of the England of to-day.

XIII.

AT Moulsey we felt that our journey had really come
to an end ; but everybody who does the Thames is
sure to go as far as the last lock at Teddington,
and so for Teddington we set out early on Monday morn
ing. There is no very fine view of Hampton Court from
the river. One little corner, crowned with many twisted
and fluted chimney pots, rises almost from the banks, and
the wall of the park follows the towpath for a mile or
more. On our left we passed Thames Ditton, where, in
the Swan Inn, Theodore Hook, who to an abler bard
singing of sweet Eden's blissful bowers would " Ditto say

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1 3 4 THE S TRE A M OF PLEA S URE.
for Ditton," is as often quoted as is Shenstone at " The
Lion" at Henley; and Kingston, with its pretty church
tower, where the great coal barges of the lower Thames
lay by the banks, and a back-water we explored degenerated
into a sewer ; and then we were at Teddington with its
group of tall poplars, where there is a large lock for
the barges and steam tugs, and a smaller one and a slide
as well for pleasure boats, and where the familiar smoky
smell that always lingers over the Thames at Westminster
or London Bridge greeted us.
The tide was going out or coming in — it was so low
we hardly knew which — and now on each side the river
were mud banks. But it was still early, and we decided
to pull down and leave our boat at Richmond. After
Teddington it was ho ! for Twickenham Ferry, and the
village of eighteenth-century memories. From the river
we saw the villa where Pope patched up his constitution
and his grotto, and where to-day the Labouchere family
patch together gossip and finance and politics and call it
Trttth ; and the mansion where the princes of the house
of Orleans lived In banishment ; and many other villas
and cheerful houses and terraced gardens, with their
associations of wits and courtiers, on either side — all

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

135

this very delightful, as Fitzgerald wrote in one of his
letters. And in front of us rose Richmond Hill, where
Turner painted and many poets have sung, and " The
Star and Garter" overlooked the Thames's "silver winding

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way," but not the memory of the " lass " who inspired the
sweetest of old English songs or even "to call her mine"
on the C in alt, delayed our steps, for we should be
bankrupt if we had stopped.

136 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
In places the shores were as pastoral as in the upper
narrow reaches, but again we came to the mud banks.
From every landing-place men cried, " Keep your boat,
sir ? " — for Salter has agents on the river whose business it
is to take care of boats left by river travellers until his van
calls to carry them back to Oxford. Everybody expected
us to stop ; something of that great noise of London,
which has been likened to the loom of Time, seemed to
reach us. We had left the Stream of Pleasure and were
now on the river that runs through the world of work, as
the big barges and the steam tugs told us. At Richmond
we pulled up to shore for the last time, and intrusted the
Rover, with a good deal of its paint scratched off and
many honourable scars of long travel and good service,
to the waiting boatman, and so
"At length they all to mery London came,"

A PRACTICAL CHAPTER.

THE writer of this chapter is really a modest
person, and in venturing to give some prac
tical hints on boating on the Thames, he thinks
it just as well to state the fact. The chapter is not,
however, intended for the members of any Thames
rowing, sailing, or canoe club, nor for those sensible
Cockneys whose custom it is, summer by summer, to
pass a few spare days towing up or drifting down the
placid reaches of the river. It is meant for the visitors
to London whose knowledge of the Thames is limited to
glimpses of it at Westminster and Richmond, or possibly

138 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
at Windsor and Oxford ; and for the indolent Londoner,
who knows Hampton Court, perhaps, and the Surbiton
Waterworks, but has never smoked a pipe on Streatley
Bridge or in the back-water below Cookham Lock. Its
object is to show how easily the beauties of which this
book has treated may be seen by any one who has energy
enough to catch a fairly early train. The Thames is not
the least bit coy, and a more innocent siren would be hard
to discover. If the sage warnings given earlier in these
pages as to weirs and locks be observed, and never more
than one person at a time stands upright in the boat, the
row from Oxford to London is as free from danger as a
walk from Charing Cross to the Bank. And now to
business.

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BOATS.
UCH need not be said on this head. Most watermen
will see that you are at least safely boated ¦; and
you are not likely, unless you are anxious for it, to
be planted in a racing-shell which takes months of practice
to sit. One word of advice may be given. Those who know
a little, but not enough, about pleasure-boating, are often
fascinated by what is known as a half-outrigged boat. For
real comfort, hov/ever, they are to be sneezed at ; the broad-
beamed inrigged boat is everything. The more saucer-like
the better. As regards oars or sculls, use sculls by all
means, if you can. In a broad-beamed boat there is no

I40 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
doubt you will make better way with them, and find them
less fatiguing. The advantage of oars is that half-an-
hour's practice (in a safe " tub," as comfortable boats are
often called) will enable any reasonably athletic man to jog
along with enjoyment for half a day.
In most pardes there will probably be at least one who
can manage sculls ; and for a party the boat is a randan,
propelled by both oars and sculls, with a stern more or less
roomy to suit your numbers. The sculler sits on the centre
thwart, bow and stroke use oars, and the three of them can
easily row down stream seven passengers, or even more.
Towing cannot be recommended, unless there is one of
the party who understands it, or unless you set about it
very gingerly. Towing appears to one at first sight as
simple an operation as driving a perambulator. But a first
attempt may be dangerous, and is certainly as ridiculous as
a first essay at punting. A boat, when being towed, should
not be allowed to get far out in the stream ; keep her nose
only slightly away from the bank you are skirting. Towers
may be recommended not to gambol at the end of the line,
and not to upset fishermen. The Thames angler is a
patient creature, and deserves to be kindly treated.
Punting is out of the question for a long journey, and

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

141

requires not only a good deal of practice, but also local
knowledge of currents and the river bottom. Once, how
ever, you can keep a punt straight, and know your ground,
there is nothing like it for sheer luxury. As a rule, in a
punt two are company and three are none.

"A .U \'V\||\\ %.'.j

For a final word, you may be recommended before
stepping into your boat to assure yourself, however respect
able your boatman, that the most handy instrument for
dealing with locks — viz., a compound boat-hook and paddle
— has not been omitted, and that you have not been sup-

142 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
plied with a cranky old pair ot sculls, worn through at the
leather and worn away at the button. Such things do
happen. Boating is, on the whole, an inexpensive amusement.
You should get a boat almost anywhere, for practically the
whole day, for is. 6d. a head — unless, of course, you do
not return to your starting-place, but leave the boat to be
called for. The following table gives in a handy form the
prices charged for excursions down the river from Oxford :
Teddington, Eton. Henley. Extra Hire.
£ r.. d. i£ », d, £ s d. Day, Week,
Canoe, Whiff, Outrigged Dingey (for one person) iioo 15° 100 2/6 10/-
Dingey, Sculling Gig or Skiff, Double Canoe .,200 i 15 o i 10 o ) , ,
Pair-oared Gig, Canadian Canoe. . ,. ,, 2100 250 200'
Randan Gig, Thames Slciff ., .. ,.300 2150 2100I , ,
Four-oared Gig, Randan Skiff  3 10 o 30c 2 15 o '
Eight-oar  . , 5 o o 4 10 o 4 o o 7/6 30/-
Largek Boats : —
Large Shallop Four-oar . , ,. .. ,.600 500 400 7/6 30/-
Large Four-oared Gig, with side seats . . 1
Randan Pleasure Skiff  , 4 o o 3150 3 10 o |
Pair-oared do, 19ft. to 20ft, , with side seats 3 10 o 300 2 15 o | ^' '
Do. do, i6ft. to i8ft,, ,, ' 300 2 15 o 2 10 o /
Ditto, fitted with tent cover and mattress ,,3150 3 10 o 350) /^ /.
Randan, do. do. ,.500 ;ioo 400.'
These prices include hire of boat for one week, after
which extra hire is charged. It should be added that
when a boat is left to be called for, a fee of 2s. 6d. is
usually charged at the receiving boat-yard.

CAMPING.
CAMPING out on the Thames cannot be honestly
recommended for any one with a greater sense
of responsibility than the average undergraduate.
You may, of course, sleep under canvas without catching
cold, if you are lucky enough to hit on a dry summer ; but
no doubt the authors of this book exercised a sound dis
cretion when they abandoned their arrangement of hoops
and awnings to throw themselves into the arms of the
riverside inn-keepers — harpies less rapacious, perhaps,
except at Maidenhead, than they are described to be.
Still, for those who are free from that sobering sense, there
are few more enjoyable outings than a week or ten days'
9

144

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

camping on the river. What freedom from restraint, when
every man is for the nonce his own cook, kitchen-maid, bed-
maker, and valet ! What opportunities for the study of
natural history ! The habits and tastes of the water-rat

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and other fearful game are no longer a secret to you.
And the thing is delightfully easy to contrive. Salter, of
Oxford, and most of the larger boatmen down-river, will
supply you at short notice with every requisite, down to a
neatly-packed hamper of crockery. You may either have

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 145
a boat equipped with waterproof awning {vide the descrip
tion of the Rover, in chapter i.), or you may take a tent.
The tent is better fun on the whole.
As for camping-places, they are easily found, though ttie
old days of camping at one's own sweet will on any private
lawn have gone. The simplest plan is to ask a lock-keeper
where you may pitch your tent. He will often be found
to have an eligible island at hand ; he will, at any rate,
direct you to a field where you may take up your quarters.
A shilling a night is often charged for such accommodation
— not very extortionate perhaps. The lock-keeper, by-
the-way, will give you eggs, milk, and butter of a morning,
or tell you where to get them.
The following is a list of camping-places which have
been actually used, though inquiries must still be made
before pitching, as owners and lock-keepers change ; —
Below Iffley Lock ; at Rose Island; above Sandford Lock;
below Abingdon ; above Day's Lock ; at Moulsford (leave
obtained from the " Beede and Wedge ") ; at Tllehurst ;
on the island above the bridge at Henley ; above Spade
Oak Ferry, near Bourne End ; and below the island at
Penton Hook. Goring and Mapledurham are, or recendy
were, awkward places for camping purposes.

146

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

Things are a little less civilized above than below
Oxford ; but if a party has energy to go camping at all,
they will probably have a more entertaining time — certainly
a more exciting one — between Lechlade and Oxford than
between Oxford and Teddington. It may be added, in
case the tent should be found to leak, that there are one
or two snug inns above Oxford absurdly reasonable in
their charges.

'^'m»i«-l!'^-^ ^^

EXCURSIONS.

WERE it not for the attractions of Richmond there
would be comparatively little pleasure-boating
below Teddington Lock. The tide introduces
an unpleasant element In the difficulties of watermanship,
and the banks of mud and gravel at low water offend both
eyes and nose. And yet it is not so long ago that a person
thought it natural enough to step into a boat at Chelsea
for an afternoon or evening paddle. If the proposed lock
below Richmond be ever built, the crowd of boats between
Richmond and Teddington will throw Molesey and Maiden
head deep into the shade.

148 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
Of the river above locks, and within easy reach of a
day from London, there may be said to be three zones —
the first, distinctly suburban, extending from Teddington
through Kingston, Hampton, and Chertsey to Staines;
the second, from Staines through Windsor, Maidenhead,
Marlow, and Henley to Sonning ; and the third, from
Sonning to Streatley. The favourite beverage among
excursionists In the first zone appears to be bottled beer ;
in the second, particularly above and below Maidenhead,
champagne bottles may be observed floating in the stream ;
in the third, honest stone jars of cider or shandygaff are
felt to be more in accord with the landscape.
On Saturday and Sunday afternoons the crowd is likely
to be terrific in the first zone. Unless, therefore, the
crowd itself be the object of your curiosity, you are not
recommended to select this zone for your operations.
The fun at Molesey Lock, a scene possibly busier, and
certainly noisier, than Boulter's, may be observed with
greater comfort from the towing-path than from the river.
That these suburban reaches should be crowded is natural
enough, but the reasons why the third zone is select as
compared with the second are three : First, whereas the
second zone is served both by the Great Western from

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 149
Paddington and by the South-Western from Waterloo,
the third zone can only be reached by the Great Western.
Second, the railway journey in the latter case takes from
fifteen to twenty minutes longer. Third, the Great
Western gives you cheap excursion tickets to Windsor,
Maidenhead, Cookham, Marlow, and Henley, but no
further. So powerful are these reasons, that but for the
existence of Reading Streatley, Pangbourne, and Maple
durham would be as free from day-trippers as Walling
ford. And yet the train service between Paddington and
Reading is excellent, and between Paddington and Goring
very fair.
Here let intending visitors be recommended to take
their lunch with them in a hamper If they are starting
for the whole day. Supper in some riverside inn at the
end of a long journey accords well with the fitness of
things, but as for lunches at such inns — well, time, temper,
and digestion are saved by avoiding them. The rooms
are often crammed, cold beef and mustard pickles seem
to exhaust the bill of fare, and a good salad, the vision
of all others conjured up by the landscape, remains a
dream. But If you do go picnicking, sink or bury your
empty bottles and refuse.

ISO

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

It may be useful to give the novice two actual instances
of excursions comfortably to be made within a single day
from town.

fi f

MARLOW TO WINDSOR.

PERHAPS the best journey for the purposes of mere
sightseeing is that from Marlow to Windsor. This
is a good but not severe day's work, and the mere
mention of the places passed on the itinerary will show its
interest. You catch an early train at Paddington for
Marlow, making sure of getting there not later than eleven.
Arrived at Marlow, you have a stroll of some ten minutes
to the bridge, above and below which lies a whole flotilla.
Once afloat, paddle or tow up-stream for half a mile or so
in order to get a glimpse of Bisham Abbey. Then turn,
and after passing the weir you will see the lock on your

1 5 4 THE S TRE A M OF PLEA S URE.
right. You have next a glorious view of the Quarry
Woods as you swing past them, and, after a stretch of
flat and somewhat bare meadow-land, you reach Bourne
PLnd, and then, a mile further on, Cookham. Here you
should take a stroll through the churchyard, and then
make your way down the straight cutting which leads to
the lock. Cookham Lock is one of the gems of the
river. Not only is it embowered in foliage of its own,
but it has the whole range of the Cliefden Woods for a
backing. When a Thames lock is set up on the London
stage, the first the scene-painter selects is pretty sure to
be Cookham. It is Impossible to see too much of the
Cliefden Woods, and so, when you have got through
the lock, turn up to your left and visit the weir. Here
It may parenthetically be remarked that It is as much
safer to visit a weir from below than from above as It is
easier to fall In than to get out of the water. Don't run
Into It, that is all. However, when you have got under
weigh, drop down-stream for half a mile or so, and turn
up the back-water to the right. This particular back
water Is pretty enough in itself, but is especially worth a
visit for the magnificent view it affords of the Cliefden
Woods and of the house itself, seen in perspective between

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE. 155
two arching elms. If you are wise, you will have brought
your lunch, and will eat it here. Lunch over, you traverse
the graceful sweep of Cliefden Reach and come to Boulter's
Lock. As you will have read earlier in these pages, this
is on Sunday afternoons a remarkable sight. From the
variety and the quantity of its traffic it may be called the
Piccadilly Circus of the Upper Thames. When through the
lock, or over the rollers, it is well here, as at Cookham, to
turn up to your left and visit the weir — the back-water
leading up to it is so good. Boulter's Lock, through
Maidenhead to Bray, is the next stage. At Bray you
should visit the Church and the Almshouses, and then
make your way to the lock. A long stretch of three miles
takes you past Monkey Island and Surly to Boveney Lock.
After passing this, Windsor Castle dominates the landscape
as the Eiffel Tower does Paris, and the full view of it
bursting upon you as you emerge from the shadow of the
railway-bridge is majestic enough to crown any day of
sight-seeing. From Windsor. you can drop down to Romney Lock,
following the tow-path where the stream divides, and,
without passing through the lock, land for a glimpse of
Eton and the Playing-fields ; or you may pass through the

iS6

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

lock, turn up the back-water, and land any of your party
who care for it to stroll through Eton to the inn at
Windsor where you have elected to sup. The boat you
must take back to the boat-yard where you have arranged
to leave It. After supper you may have time before the
last train goes to saunter up to the Castle, and to enjoy the
famous view from its terrace.

.STREATLEY TO CAVERSHAM.

FOR interest of a general kind the journey which has
just been sketched is perhaps unrivalled, but there is
another trip which for pure beauty of river scenery far
surpasses it. The Thames from Streadey to Tllehurst is
one uninterrupted stretch of loveliness passing before you
like a pageant. There are no comparative wastes such
as those between Marlow and Bourne End, between
Maidenhead Bridge and Bray, to break the charm. The
journey is not a long one ; indeed, you can start from
Streatley, row down to Tllehurst, and get back to Streat
ley in time for the last train, or you may go on to Sonning,

158 THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.
or even Henley. Let us suppose that you are content
with the single journey, and, preferring wisely to row with
rather than against the stream, have, instead of getting
out at Reading, decided to go on to Goring. A train
leaving Paddington about nine will bring you to Goring
before eleven. The walk from the station at Goring to
the bridge which connects Goring with Streatley is a
pretty one, and the vision of Streatley on the further
side will probably make you reluctant to step at once
into your boat. When, however, you do find yourself
comfortably boated, you should first of all row up-stream
as far as Cleeve Lock, one of the most wonderful half-
miles to be found for river " bits." Then turn below
the mill and make your way back to Goring Lock, and
on past the glorious chalk hills of Streadey and the
beech woods above Coombe Lodge to Pangbourne — a
stretch of four miles or so. The lock, known as Whit
church Lock, is here, as often elsewhere, the very focus
of all that makes for picturesqueness, and you will pro
bably be tempted to rest on your oars for some time, both
above and below it, before you tackle the two miles which
bring you to Mapledurham. The strong stream below
the lock carries you all too swiftly over the short mile

THE STREAM OF PLEASURE.

159

to Tllehurst. There you pass abrupdy from enchanted
ground into the prosy reach, redeemed only by long
tangled hedges of brier-rose, which sweeps past Reading.
At Caversham Bridge, about two miles from " The Roe
buck" at Tllehurst, you leave your boat, stroll to Reading
Station, and so back to town. The day's work is, as has
been said, a short one, but such a scene as the Thames
between Cleeve Lock and Tllehurst is not to be hurried
through. If you take the journey at all, take it in sips,
not at a gulp.

^^'S;;';5v''<i.,;,,
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STEAMERS.
IN conclusion, but
tell it only in
Gath, the river
can be seen from the
decks of a couple of
steamboats plying be
tween Kingston and
Oxford thrice a week !

iUnivin Brothers, Printers, Chil-worth and London.

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