Outing; Vol. XIII.; October, 1888 to March, 1889

Chapter XLI: Part II (16)

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The club was one of the earliest to join the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, and in 1886 a tournament for the championship of the South, held on its grounds under the auspices of that association, was won by Mr. C. B. Davis, of Lehigh University. Mr. Davis was thus the first champion of the South, both in singles and doubles, for he also captured the latter event with Mr. R. H. E. Porter, of Lehigh, as a partner. An open tournament, held in 1887, was likewise won by Mr. Davis, but on this occasion his partner in the doubles was Mr. A. G. Thomson, of Philadelphia. The grounds of the club will accommodate at least twenty-five courts, and as many as eighteen are in almost constant use. Out of a total membership of two hundred, about eighty are active lawn tennis players, and in this number are included several ladies, the most expert of whom is Miss Florence Bayard, a daughter of Mr. Cleveland’s Secretary of State. Of the club tournaments, which have been held since 1883, Mr. W. S. Hilles has succeeded in winning three, including that of 1888, while Mr. J. E. Smith was known as club champion in 1887, and Mr. J. L. Tatnall in 1884. Other leading players of the club are Mr. W. C. Jackson, the present champion of Cornell University, Mr. H. B. Bringhurst, Jr., and Mr. A. H. Smith. It is now believed that the next annual tournament of the Southern Lawn Tennis Association will be played on these courts, and everything points to the continued prosperity of the club.

Looking back over these brief sketches of lawn tennis in Washington, Baltimore, and Wilmington, we find that tournaments for the championship of the South have been held since 1886. The following table gives, in a condensed form, the facts relating to those contests.

TOURNAMENTS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE SOUTH.

The coming season promises to be a most interesting one to the lovers of lawn tennis throughout the United States, for it is hoped and expected that England will send some of her most expert and representative players to contest for our national championship at Newport. Let the South, also, send in its entries. Certain it is, that if the same interest and general improvement as has been shown during the past two seasons mark the future development of the game in that section, it will soon be able to send representatives who will win laurels among the most skilful.

SNOWSHOEING IN CANUCKIA.

BY JAMES C. ALLAN.

Snowshoeing is surely one of the most fascinating of sports. To the uninitiated it might appear strange that there should be any pleasure in ambling along over the snow in a manner somewhat resembling the ungraceful waddle of that unornamental bird, the domestic duck, and with feet hampered by the weight and the inconvenient form of a pair of ungainly snowshoes, so-called.

To a certain extent our captious critic would be right; the source of enjoyment is to be found in the accessories of the sport, and in the knowledge that under him are many feet of yielding snow, in which he would be helplessly floundering but for the aid of his trusty _raquettes_.

Then there is the peculiar indefinable charm of the winter scenery, the beautiful effects of the sunset on the dazzling expanse of snow, scenic effects perhaps even more entrancing when the pale moonlight casts ghostly shadows here and there, and brings into brilliant prominence some snow-crowned elevation in the landscape. I cannot do better than quote the glowing description which a noted American writer gives of the appearance of the country over which he tramped on one of his first excursions on “the merry snowshoe”:

“The mountain rose up behind us, covered with snow. Away toward the declining sun the landscape spread as far as the eye could reach, with low white hills away off on the horizon. Between the hills and the foreground flowed the river under its cover of ice. The red, wintry sun now low in the heavens, touched the prominent points of the rolling, snow-covered country with crimson, while the far-off clouds that stood motionless in the sky were of all the hues of the rainbow, and these varied tints were in turn faintly reflected on the broad expanse of spotless snow.”

The snow, let it be borne in mind, is not of the nature or consistency of that which falls in softer climes; it is so fine, so dry and loose as much to resemble flour, only infinitely whiter, and of dazzling purity.

As many of my readers very probably have never seen a snowshoe, a short description of its form and construction may not be amiss. It consists, broadly speaking, of a framework composed of a long, narrow piece of hickory wood, over which is stretched a network of thongs, or cords, made sometimes of strips of deerskin dried and prepared in a peculiar manner, and sometimes made of the intestines of animals. This network is called the “gut.” The hickory rod of which the frame is to be made, after having been steamed and steeped in boiling water, and so rendered pliable, is placed edgewise and then bent round somewhat in the shape of a tennis-bat, with an oval-shaped front, and the two ends joined together at one extremity and tapering off to a point corresponding to the handle of the tennis-bat. The total length of the shoe is about three feet, the extreme width from thirteen to sixteen inches. Across the oval and fitted into the inside of the framework by mortises, are two bars or battens of wood, each of them five or six inches clear of either end. In front of that cross-bar nearest the fore part of the shoe is an open space, and over the bar a deerskin thong is fastened, forming an aperture for the reception of the great toe. The thong is then crossed over the top of the foot, passed around the ankle once or twice and then tied. This leaves the heel free to move in any direction; the toe works in and out of the opening in the shoe, and in lifting the shoe in making a step forward its weight rests on the toe. When placing the foot down again the toe touches the snow first. Occasionally the framework is adorned with tufts of many-colored wool.

The size and shape of the snowshoe varies according to the requirements or the taste of its owner. Some are nearly round and present a squat appearance; others again are long and narrow, and resemble somewhat in shape the Norwegian _ski_.

For a tramp over untrodden or “virgin” snow, of course a large shoe of considerable area is desirable; for racing purposes over a beaten track, a smaller shoe is used. The regulation width of a pair of racing shoes is not less than ten inches of gut; the weight, including strings, must not be less than one and a half pounds.

The Indians and the half-breeds seem to enjoy a monopoly of the manufacture of snowshoes, and of toboggans as well.

The snowshoe enabled them, in former days, to traverse with ease, when in pursuit of game or on the warpath, leagues of wilderness otherwise impassable in the winter season; the toboggan they used as a sledge on which to drag their provisions or to convey to camp their slaughtered game.

It is true that there is in use in Norway an implement somewhat similar to the American snowshoe, called a “_ski_,” and composed of a couple of long, narrow slabs of wood, one for each foot, painted and turned upward at both ends. The ski, however, is principally used for sliding down declivities and jumping crevasses; it is ungainly and awkward to use on level ground. The aid of a staff, or alpenstock, is necessary in skiing, and a description of it hardly comes within our province.

“Raquettes” was the name originally given by the hardy Canadian _coureurs du bois_ and the _voyageurs_ of the Hudson Bay Company to the snowshoe, and we can easily imagine of what inestimable value it must have been to these adventurous individuals in their trips of almost incredible length, difficulty and peril. To the present day hardly a farmhouse in all broad Canada is without its pair of snowshoes, and they are generally of the sturdy, old-fashioned kind, long and broad and substantial.

In hunting the moose and the caribou, in the wilder parts of the Dominion, the snowshoe plays an important part. The crust on top of the snow is insufficient to sustain the weight of these heavy animals; they break through it at every stride, its sharp edges lacerate their legs, and the hunter can follow their course guided by the blood-marks on the snow. Sustained by his trusty shoes, he soon overtakes the laboring game, and a well-directed shot puts it out of misery.

But it is in its aspect as a sport, as a means of healthful recreation, that we have principally to consider snowshoeing. Of late years many clubs have been formed all over Canada, and in those parts of the neighboring Republic favored with the slightest suspicion of the “beautiful,” and of all these the premier, in point of seniority, is the Montreal Club, founded in 1840, and composed originally of twelve members.

As Canada is the home of snowshoeing, so is Montreal, _par excellence_, the leading city of Canada in this branch of athletics, both on account of the severity and the long duration of its winters, the natural advantages possessed by the city as regards its situation, and the widespread devotion among its young men to sports in general.

And of all the hardy winter sports snowshoeing is easily the first. Tobogganing and skating rise in public estimation and decline, but snowshoeing, like Tennyson’s “Brook,” “goes on forever,” and is continually gaining ground, as any one who has been so fortunate as to witness one of those unique winter carnivals in Montreal, and to gaze upon the hosts of picturesquely clad athletic young “knights of the shoe” in their attack upon the marvelously beautiful ice castle may well believe.

In place of the one solitary club of twelve members in existence in 1840, Montreal may now boast of dozens. The old Tuque Bleue Club, _alias_ the Montreal, has now a membership of 2,000. The St. George has, perhaps, half that number; other principal organizations are the Emerald, Argyle, Le Trappeur, Le Canadien, St. Charles, Maple Leaf, Wolseley, Vandalia, Royal Scots, etc., while other Canadian cities are not far behind.

Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec, St. Hyacinthe, Winnipeg, Brandor, Souris and Portage la Prairie have all sent their representatives to the Montreal Ice Carnivals, and now St. Paul and Minneapolis, those twin cities of the American Northwest, have caught the fever and are enthusiastic in their emulation of their Canadian brethren.

A snowshoe club is organized in much the same manner as other athletic associations. It has its president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and last, but by no means least, its entertainment committee, whose pleasing duty it is to provide amusement for their fellow-members at the club rendezvous when half the tramp is over and the “boys” are resting previous to their return home.

The costume of the snowshoer is at once comfortable, singularly well adapted to its purpose, and picturesque in the extreme. The head is protected by a gaudy knitted woolen cap, with brilliant tassel, and is called a _tuque_, in the Norman French of the Canadian habitant, who used it first of all. Then there is a coat with capote, and knickerbockers made usually of white blankets with many-hued border. Of late years, however, colored blankets have come into favor and bid fair to rival the white in popularity. Around the waist the coat is drawn together by a sash; colored stockings and deerskin moccasins, and, of course, snowshoes, complete the costume. Each club is distinguished by some peculiarity in the uniform of its members; for example, the Montreal club affects a blue _tuque_, red sash and red stockings; the Knights of St. George, or the “Saints,” as they somewhat arrogantly style themselves, a purple _tuque_ with white stripes, purple sash, and stockings of Tyrian hue also. So with the other clubs.

An entire outfit, including complete costume and snowshoes, may be procured for less than twenty-five dollars, and the suit under ordinary circumstances will outlast several winters. Some of the boys who have plenty of cash, or better opportunities of obtaining the articles than the rest, invest in buckskin hunting shirts and fringed leggings. They are made by Indians and half-breeds in Manitoba and the Northwest, and are, of course, more expensive than the blanket suits.

In Montreal it is usual for each club to tramp out on one evening in each week, and to take a more extended tour across country on Saturday afternoons.

On the evening appointed for the tramp the boys meet at their club-rooms; shoes are strapped on, the president leads the way, the members follow in Indian file, and the whipper-in brings up the rear to give the novice or the lazy a lift, and off they go. Let us suppose we are taking the route usual for evening tramps, partially around and up over a spur of Mount Royal, thence across country for about a mile and a half to our rendezvous. The pace increases, and, excepting an occasional nip at one’s ears, Jack Frost is forgotten as we warm to our work. “Number off,” cries the president. “No. 1, No. 2,” and so on, until the whipper-in responds, “No. 60; all up.”

What a pretty picture the long line of ghost-like shadows makes, as it silently winds in and out in the light of the moon! Now they disappear from view for a moment or so as they plunge through brushwood; they race down gullies, clamber over fences and mount hills, until at last the goal of their desire is reached at mine host Lumpkin’s, or at the Athletic Club-house, where, after enjoying the programme provided by the committee, and perhaps refreshing the inner man, we take up our homeward march, and, our starting-point attained, separate for another week, or until the following Saturday afternoon.

It is a popular though erroneous idea among the uninitiated that snowshoeing in the night is done by torchlight. Torches are never used. This notion probably owes its birth to the fact that at the various carnivals snowshoers have used torches, purely, however, for effect, and rather against their will.

A new member of the club or a distinguished visitor is generally welcomed by his future comrades or his hosts by “bouncing” him. The victim is seized by as many as can lay hold of him and is unceremoniously flung skyward, or, more correctly, ceiling-ward, and on his descent from on high he is caught again and the ceremony repeated two or three times. He is not allowed to fall, however. He suffers only in his wind and perhaps his nerves.

In snowshoeing the fatigue and consequent stiffness are great at first, but with practice this soon wears off, and the motions become easy and rapid. Of course, it is hardly possible to travel on snowshoes as rapidly as afoot on dry ground, yet, nevertheless, the speed obtained is not inconsiderable, as the records of snowshoe racing will show. For the various distances these are as follows:

Min. Sec.
100 yards, 12
220 “ 26
440 “ 1 08
½ mile, 2 33
1 “ 5 42½
2 “ 11 52¾
3 “ 20 18½
5 “ 33 43

Mount Royal Steeplechase, distance about 2 miles, 500 yards, 17m. 20s.

The last record, as well as others, is held by Mr. James G. Ross, perhaps the fastest all-round amateur who ever buckled on the “raquette.”

It is not an uncommon thing, however, for clubs to traverse thirty, and even eighty, miles across country in a tramp. A tramp from Montreal to St. John’s is a regular annual event with the Tuque Bleues.

I will conclude by quoting the words of a well-known litterateur, who had been induced by the genial president of a certain club to come out for a tramp with his club:

“Thus briefly was I brought to know that our winter sports are a means of health and good spirits to all who take part in them. They quicken the circulation, clear the brain and lighten the heart. No such good is got out of the formal drill of a gymnasium as there is out of a snowshoe tramp or a toboggan slide, under the broad sky with pleasant companionship. Men with kinky spines, sluggish livers and narrow chests--get blanket suits, moccasins and snowshoes, and use them soon and often. They will dispel your pains and aches and gloomy views of life.”

HOW TO CYCLE IN EUROPE.

BY JOSEPH PENNELL.

A desire for independent traveling is growing daily. The reasons for this are various. It may be the person who wishes to indulge the desire is eccentric and eager to make a show of himself. It may be economy which prompts him to leave a railway carriage and foot it. It may be because he imagines it to be “English, you know,” though let me assure him that this is one of the many myths about the English. Englishmen as a rule are not great cycling tourists. More Americans, comparatively, have toured in England and on the Continent than Englishmen themselves, and the number is increasing daily. Or it may be that the tourist wishes to see the country in the only way it can be properly seen; and this is probably why in the winter and the spring so many Americans write to me, as the representative in England of the League of American Wheelmen, and ask for information about roads and routes.

I presume this last to be the real reason for the growth of independent traveling, and I leave out of consideration all walking tours, because, after having walked in one year 500 miles and cycled nearly as many thousand, I feel justified in saying that walking is not for a moment to be compared with cycling. I may some day compare these two modes of traveling, but just now this is not my purpose. What I say about cycling applies equally well to riding and driving, though of course you cannot ride or drive continuously the same number of miles you can cycle. I can very well remember the state of dense ignorance concerning the means of independent traveling in Europe, in which I was six years ago, as well as the almost utter impossibility of obtaining any definite information. Six years, every one of which has seen at least one tour, have, however, given me some little experience.

If you are a rider of an American cycle, of course it will be necessary to bring your machine with you. Ask the steamship authorities whether to crate it or not. If it is a bicycle, and you carry it without crating, they may charge nothing. There is no duty on entering England; but if you ride an English machine, I should advise you to sell your present mount and make arrangements, either with the dealer you know in America or the firm itself in England, giving them three or four months to get your machine ready and to have it awaiting you at their agents in Liverpool, Southampton or Glasgow, or wherever you may land. Tell the makers what sort of a tour you propose taking, and you will probably find that they will understand your needs better than you. If, however, you are confident you know exactly what you want, you may be able to make suggestions.

Before leaving America--though I suppose what I say applies equally well to Australians--join the Cyclists’ Touring Club. From their offices you will receive a vast amount of useful information concerning your tour. You can also obtain route-books, maps, guides, etc. Americans should apply to F. W. Weston, Savin Hill, Boston, Mass.; Canadians to H. S. Tibbs, 26 Union Avenue, Montreal; Australians and Indians to S. A. Stead, 19 Tabley Road, Holloway, London, N. The subscription is the equivalent of two shillings and sixpence, and the entrance fee is another shilling. Any amateur cycler can become a member without trouble. Another thing to be provided is a Baedeker guidebook for the country over which you wish to tour. In it you will find the rates of the various hotels, and of course you will go to those which suit your pocket, remembering that now you are an independent traveler, and that if you do not like the outside of an hotel, there is no reason why you should go in. The C. T. C. hotels in England are mainly respectable, and with the hand-book you know where you are going. But the C. T. C. rates, except in the large towns, are frequently an advance upon the ordinary rates. You will find it almost impossible to obtain breakfast before eight o’clock in the morning, in many places before nine, without considerable trouble. A breakfast will cost from one to three shillings, according to the hotel: On leaving the hotel it is necessary to fee the boots and the waiter, but sixpence goes quite as far as half a crown.

In riding, keep to the left, Englishmen differing in this, as in so many other respects, from all creation. Do not ride on the side paths or you will be promptly arrested. It is useless to expect any cycler you meet to be more civil to you than the driver of any other conveyance. Cycling clubs in England are not what they are in America or on the Continent. Therefore you need not look for any of those attentions bestowed upon the touring cycler at home, though you may encounter some very delightful fellows. Of course, it is a very good thing to have letters of introduction.

At noon, in any save the large towns and on market days, you will not be able to get a hot dinner without waiting a long time. But you will probably find excellent cold roast beef, or you can eat a succession of lunches of bread and cheese and drink a modicum of bitter ale, called beer. My practice is never to eat much in the middle of the day when touring. The succession of small lunches and short rests is better than a single long one. Coffee taverns--that is, temperance houses--may be found everywhere, but they range from very good to very bad, and you had better investigate them before deciding to stay overnight. It is unnecessary and quite useless to bargain for anything in England. Your lunch will cost from sixpence to two shillings, and you should give the waiter a penny for every shilling. You will have to order your dinner in the evening in the majority of places, and in the small towns it is wiser to have what is called a “meat tea,” that is, a chop or a steak, one or two vegetables, jam and tea; or else a cold supper, that is, cold meat or fowl, salad, a tart and cheese.

If you arrive wet, you will find it possible to have your clothes dried, and very well too, as innkeepers in England rather expect to have to perform this duty. In fact you may receive many little attentions which are very pleasing, and there is a cozy, homelike feeling about an English inn which one finds nowhere else. It is not necessary to inflict the fact that you are an American upon everybody you meet; they have seen Americans before, and they probably knew it before you opened your mouth. I have seen it stated and hinted that one can obtain a room in an English inn or hotel for sixpence or ninepence a night. This is, of course, absurd. You can, if you go to a house with the sign “Accommodation for Travelers; beds, sixpence a night.” In the same way, in America, you can go to a station-house for nothing, or to a tramps’ lodging-house for almost as little. It is necessary to count upon spending about eight shillings or two dollars a day for touring in England; but it is possible to do it for half that amount, though not comfortably or decently. Even this is a moderate figure, and is less than the C. T. C. rate.

In London I can recommend the Charing Cross Hotel, and, I believe, Burr’s private hotel in Queen Square. There are thousands of hotels in London, but both of these are central, and can be reached on the wheel. London streets, however, require very careful riding, owing to the rapid driving, and, to the American, the fact that everybody seems to be on the wrong side of the road.

I have presumed that you are a practical cycler, and therefore that you will carry whatever you are in the habit of taking with you at home, or will send your baggage from one place to another as you do there. In England it is wiser to use the Parcel’s Post, as the express is very unreliable. Personally, I either ride a safety or a tandem tricycle, and, whether alone or with my wife, always carry every thing we want on the machine. We are consequently perfectly independent, and have been out for six weeks at a time.

On leaving England for the Continent, unless money is absolutely no object, you must go to France by Dieppe, Havre or St. Malo. By Calais or Boulogne the charges are extortionate, and you will have to pay in the custom-houses. The greater part of Belgium is paved with Belgian blocks, over which you cannot ride. To Holland you can go by way of Amsterdam, and I believe the riding is fairly good over the brick roads, but I have never been there. The principal attractions in Norway seem to be the cheapness and the scenery, and for both you have to walk about as much as you ride, which is not my idea of cycling. Anyhow, it cannot be compared to Switzerland, and the reason it is so much talked about in English cycling papers is because it is a fine pot-hunting ground for racing men.

Of Spain I am entirely ignorant, and the accounts of this country all contradict each other with the most wonderful unanimity. No reliable data of the roads have yet been obtained. I hope to go over them myself before long. But in the first place, to visit any foreign country you must understand something of the language, the more the better.

The following, which is a portion of an article I contributed to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ a short time since, contains all that need be said on touring in France: “You must provide yourself with good road maps, showing the main road, the _routes nationales_ and the _routes départementales_. There are, of course, byroads all over France--that is, _routes communales_ and _routes vicinales_--but it is never safe, save in the south, to make short cuts or detours or to trust to these byroads in any way. They are frequently as bad as the others are good. Stick to the high-road. Work out on your map the route you wish to follow. You can buy excellent road maps of Hachette or of Phillips. The maps sold by the Cyclists’ Touring Club are not up to date, and you are compelled to purchase four sheets when you may only need one. Recently I was detained in Avignon for having these maps in my possession, being told by the _préfet_ of the department of Vaucluse that it was illegal to carry them, as in France they are made and sold for the private use of the War Department. How true this is I do not know. I have usually carried them, and never before had any trouble. However, they are becoming rather out of date, and Hachette is bringing out new series all the time.

“Supposing you land at Dieppe, your machine will be taken to the custom-house, whither you should accompany it. If you can succeed in satisfying the officials that you intend to leave the country with your machine within three months, they will not charge you duty, and will not, unless you ask for it, give you a receipt. If you do get a receipt--this is, of course, the lawful method--you will be obliged to deposit 50f., only two-thirds of which will probably be returned to you when you leave the country. But the French Government has usually been very accommodating in this matter, though at Calais the duty or the deposit is nearly always demanded. If you wish to go by train from Dieppe, have your cycle registered, for which you pay a penny if it is under 56 lbs. Two people can take a tandem for the same money, if it is under 112 lbs. But do not stand on your dignity, and write to the papers, and make a frightful row, because the Swiss, German, and Italian railways compel you to pay a big price whenever you carry a cycle on their lines. Their rules are not those of France. In frontier stations you need never be surprised at any regulations.

“But let us suppose that you intend to ride away from the station at Dieppe. You are hungry, having been landed there at five o’clock in the morning. Have your coffee in any café on the Place, or in the very expensive one in the station. And this is the point where, if you want to live inexpensively, you must remember the customs of the country. In the station you never see a Frenchman, and on one occasion I paid two francs and twenty-five centimes for the privilege of having a pot of coffee and rolls and butter there. The next time, I went to a café in the street leading from the pier to the Place. It was full of townspeople, was more gorgeous, the coffee was equally good, and I paid seventy-five centimes. Why I should pay a franc and a half for having my coffee on the pier, I am unable to see. Cafés are always good, and charge just about half the price of an hotel or a station restaurant, and the French traveler, as a rule, does not take his coffee in the hotel unless he is in a great hurry. He goes to the café across the street, reads his morning paper, and pays half the price. The landlord does not object; it is the custom of the country. For lunch, if I know the town where I am going, I stop, not at the swellest restaurant on the boulevard, nor at the dirty _estaminet_ of the workman--I object to one as much as to the other--but at a decent, clean, middle-class restaurant, where it is the exception if I do not fare very well at the cost of about a franc and a half. And how do I find it? Either by using my own eyes, or by asking the first decent-looking man who comes along. If it is between half-past ten and one in the day he will probably be on his way to or from his own breakfast, and will be only too glad to show you the place. If you do not like the place, there is no reason why you should go in. If it is good, and the people are jolly and talkative, as they usually will be, ask them for a good hotel, of the sort they, as Frenchmen, would go to, in the town where you purpose to spend the night. They will tell you readily. It may be the first, or more likely the last, on Baedeker’s list; it may not be there at all. If it is a very swell place, don’t be afraid to go in if Frenchmen have recommended it; if it is very disreputable on the outside, and the proprietor in cook’s cap and apron rushes out to meet you, do not turn away, for he will probably greet you as warmly and give you as good a dinner as you have ever had in your life. You will find at the table a lot of jolly commercial travelers, who will take pleasure in giving you a list of hotels from one end of your route to the other. And what will it cost you? The dinner will vary from two and a half to three and a half francs, and your room from one and a half to two and a half, and there will be no extras. Totting this up, we have eight francs fifty for the day. Say you give the waiter half a franc. That makes nine.

“But the next night, being a touring cycler, you have not reached the town where you intended to stay, owing to something of interest on the road, or you have passed beyond it. You will stop in a decent, clean _auberge_ by the roadside--and you will find many--or in the best inn in the village, where your bill will be about four francs for lodging, dinner and coffee. And so, in the course of two or three weeks, instead of exceeding an average of seven francs a day, you will fall below it. This is the way Frenchmen do. This is the way men like Louis Stevenson have done. And this is the plan I like to follow; not to go to an hotel where one has to pay for the dirty swallow-tail and bad English of the waiter, the sham plate and the stupid _table d’hôte_; nor, on the other hand, to stint one’s self and to glory in saving a sou here and doing a man out of a franc there; but to quietly adapt yourself as much as you possibly can to the habits and customs of the people, of the middle and characteristic class, whose country you are visiting. If you do not like to do this and cannot afford the swell hotels, you had better stay at home.”

Very much the same conditions exist in Italy and Switzerland. In Italy, however, you must bargain for everything; you must even know how much your candle is going to cost you before you go to bed, and how much you are to pay for the waiter and chambermaid. In Germany one lives more in English style. The laws of the road are the same in all these countries as in America.

Many of the hills on the Continent, owing to their S-shaped curves, are very dangerous. In England one finds warnings everywhere for cyclers. You can ride or be pulled or pushed up behind a diligence over every pass in Switzerland that is used by vehicles. On the Continent you will find yourself everywhere legally treated as the driver of a carriage. Carry a passport, and do not regard all foreigners as fools and thereby make a fool out of yourself. Do not regard yourself as the first man who ever visited the place, and do not try to paint the town red. I admit these foreigners do not understand our little ways.

As to touring singly or with a party, that is your own affair, not mine; only I can warn you it is rather lonely work to cross a great country by yourself. If there is anything I have not made clear, write to me to the care of ~Outing~. I shall be only too glad to answer your questions.

AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY.

BY ELLERSLIE WALLACE.

When we come to criticise photographs _as pictures_, we find that one great defect is to be found in their small size. It is true that the perfection of detail and fine finish compound for this in a measure, but it has often been said that one good print of 11 × 14 inches, or larger, is worth dozens of the little scraps made on 5 × 4 and 4 × 3 inch plates. It has lately become too much the fashion to advise the use of small sizes, and to depend upon some enlarging process when a print of good size is wanted. The idea of making small negatives and enlarging them afterwards seems fair enough, and it is, indeed, successfully done in many cases; but if such a size as 10 × 12 were settled upon, we should advise that the negatives be made direct, and the prints not enlarged from, say, 5 × 7 or 5 × 4 inch negatives. All experienced operators agree that the making of negatives for enlargement requires great skill and care. Remembering how greatly the cost of making photographs has been reduced, and what excellent outfits can now be had for a moderate sum, we feel justified in advising those who aim at good artistic results to begin boldly with plates of a fair size--certainly not less than 8½ × 6½, or, better, 10 × 8 inches.

Now, since the first thing to be considered in the selection of a photographic outfit is the size of picture desired, and the next the character of work to be done, let us here say that the difficulties of obtaining clean, good results increase with the increase of size to a certain extent, and the expense of making the picture increases very materially. Nevertheless, in spite of the various processes for making large prints from small negatives--enlarging processes, as they are technically termed--we repeat that we should not advise the purchase of very small cameras, unless mere amusement is the only thing to be considered. Plenty of fun can undoubtedly be had out of the little “detective” cameras now so commonly used, but more satisfaction will be felt in a nice collection of views or portraits on plates measuring, say, five inches by eight or ten inches by eight, the camera for which would be too large to be conveniently concealed as the smaller sizes are:

Since the introduction of the gelatine dry plate, and the consequent simplifying of the chemical part of the work, large-sized photographs may be made with far greater ease than formerly, and to those of our readers who have devoted any attention to art matters we will suggest one of the larger-sized cameras for plates, say fourteen inches by eleven, as offering more scope for the artistic treatment of fine subjects, particularly landscapes.

The size of plate and camera being settled upon, the next thing is to get a suitable lens, and this is often no easy matter. In most of the detective cameras the lens is supplied as a part of the outfit, but one intending to provide himself with a regular photographic apparatus ought to have some knowledge of lenses before purchasing. Without going into too great detail in the matter, we may say that some general distinctions between the different varieties of lenses should be borne in mind, as follows: (1) Lenses including an ordinary angle or amount of subject, say forty to fifty-five degrees on the base-line of the picture, and of tolerably long focus; and (2) wide-angle lenses including eighty degrees, or even more, and of very short focus. It would be natural for the purchaser to imagine that that lens which included most subject would be best, but as a general rule the contrary is true, namely, that the longer-focus lenses are the more practically useful and give the more pleasing pictures. There is another distinguishing characteristic between lenses that are “single” or “doublet.” The former are cheaper, but quite good enough for average landscape work, while the latter are indispensably necessary for architectural subjects and the accurate copying of anything like maps, plans, engravings, etc. To those who are disposed to be very economical, we may say that the front lens of an opera-glass will make excellent photographs. It should be unscrewed from the barrel, and set in a short tube with its flat side facing the view; or, in other words, it should have its position just reversed from what it was in the opera-glass. A stop of suitable size is then set in front of it at a distance equaling one-fifth of its burning focus.

It should be remembered that the _perspective of the photograph is made by the lens_, and cannot be altered by the operator, except in so far as he provides himself with a number of lenses of different focus and angle, so as to be able to treat different subjects with lenses suitable to their peculiarities, using each lens _pro re rata_, as the doctors would say.

It may not be generally known that experienced outdoor operators are pretty well agreed upon certain proportions between the focus of the lens and the size of plate, as affording the most pleasing pictures, and being most useful in the long run. We should thus choose an 11-inch focus lens for the 8½ × 6½ plate, a 9-inch for the 8 × 5, etc., or, in other words, _one whose equivalent focus was about equal to the diagonal of the plate_.[5] But let us take this occasion to say that we cannot too strongly insist upon the desirability of the photographer’s having more than one lens irrespective of the size or style of his pictures. We ourselves have worked with lenses of 11-inch, 7-inch, and 5½-inch focus on the 8½ × 6½ plate, and succeeded in a great variety of subjects. The 11-inch was probably used five or six times where the 7-inch was once, while the 5½-inch was only resorted to on rare occasions where the peculiarities of the subject required a very wide angle.

We enter into this matter at some length because the artistic qualities in landscape photographs will be found to depend in great measure upon the ability of the operator to include just the desired amount of subject on his plate from any given point of view; for the latter cannot always be changed so as to favor the lens. Then, also, it must not be forgotten that every change in the position of the camera will change something in the view; the whole character of the picture may be altered by shifting the apparatus a little in one direction or the other. A speaking proof of this is seen when examining the results obtained by the members of photographic clubs and societies after having been out for a field-day; here we often see two photographs of the same subject, where the men have stood side by side, one being complete as a picture, while the other fails in its effect simply because the lens has been a few inches or a few feet farther to the right or left, and has omitted or included some object which has been the making or marring of the picture.

Another prominent defect in photographs, taken as a whole, is that they are usually made in fixed sizes in spite of varieties or peculiarities of subject. How unpleasant it is in the case of a fine panoramic view, where the interest lies in the extended horizontal sweep rather than in the sky or foreground, to see things forced into a nearly square plate, say 10 × 8 inches, which gives entirely too much space above and below, with insufficient length! On the other hand, how empty the ends of a long, narrow 8 × 5-inch plate appear if some isolated and rather square object, such as a villa or group of trees, occupies the centre! Many a picturesque subject, dealing in high and narrow lines, will be utterly ruined if crowded on a square-shaped plate--street views in cities, for example, made near to churches with high steeples. Here we must either have a long, narrow plate, or use a lens of short enough focus to reduce the whole scale of the picture so that it can be afterwards trimmed to suit the subject. Here we see an additional reason why the plate should be of a good generous size to start with, and the outfit of lenses complete. If we had only a small plate on which to make the view, the trimming might make the finished print too small to be worth anything.

Let us now consider the shape of the picture, or plate, together with the proportions existing between its boundaries or sides, premising that while here and there a print may be trimmed square, circular or oval, to suit some particular subject, the oblong shape will be by far the most generally useful.

If we compare two plates, one measuring 8½ × 6½ inches and the other 8 × 5, we find that the diagonal line connecting two opposite corners is 1¼ inches longer in the former than in the latter. We also find that the former has a clear space 1½ inches wider than the other, extending over the whole of the long dimensions of the plate, together with another space half an inch wide at the narrow end. To put it in other words, the 8½ × 6½ plate differs from the 8 × 5 both in shape and in size, but offers considerably more surface with but a slightly longer diagonal. This latter has an important relationship to the covering or defining powers of the lens, for, supposing we wanted a lens to just cover the plate, we should have to select one the diameter of whose field or circle of light was equal to the diagonal of the plate--_not_ to its base line, for in that case the plate would not be covered. Again, if we desired a lens to give perfect sharpness up to the corners of a given size of plate, we should reckon by the diagonal, and not by the base line.

A little study of perspective is most highly to be recommended to those who desire their pictures to be truthful and pleasing. Now, by this we do not at all mean that our readers should wade through ponderous volumes filled with mathematical problems and long equations, but that they should, for instance, set themselves to consider such facts as the following: If an empty box be set on the end of a long table with its hollow facing the student, it will be observed that the bottom and the sides are in a certain proportion to each other, and that the lines of junction between them appear to recede at a certain angle. If the box now be moved up to within twelve inches of the face, these lines of junction will be seen to stand at much more obtuse angles, besides which the sides will appear broader in proportion to their height than when the box was at a distance. Let him now consider that the principles here involved would hold true in the photographing of street views, and many other subjects where both near and distant objects were included. For if a wide-angle lens be employed, all the receding lines in the picture, such as cornices of buildings, railroads, curbstones, etc., etc., will stand at much more obtuse angles than when a narrow-angle lens is used; the terms “wide-angle” or “short-focus,” on the one hand, and “narrow-angle” or “long-focus,” on the other, being indiscriminately used by the photographer.

This great obtuseness of angle in the perspective of pictures made with wide-angle lenses, is sometimes the cause of most unsightly and ridiculous pictorial failures. It will be seen at once that the objection to using very wide-angle lenses is that, owing to this great obtuseness of angle of the perspective lines, distant objects will appear unnaturally dwarfed in size, while those near at hand will come out immensely larger than they ought to. A few trials on street views with a lens including, say, eighty degrees of angle, with prominent objects close in the foreground, will soon prove the truth of what we have been saying, and sometimes well-known localities will be so changed in the photograph that no one would recognize them. We are thus met by the paradox that the perspective of the photograph, while mathematically correct, is false to the eye.

These ideas of perspective will be found very useful in photographing architectural subjects, wide-angle lenses often being indispensable here. Caution must be observed in using them on these subjects, however, for if the buildings stand in confined positions, where there is no room to move the camera backward, the picture will have an unnatural effect, and might be compared to the eye of an observer trying to see something that was too close for convenience.

In portraiture, the perspective will suffer very much if the distance between the sitter and the lens be too small, and the lens of too wide an angle. In this case, the cheeks will look too narrow in proportion to the length of the face, while the hands and feet will be absurdly larger than they ought to be if at all obtruded. The head, and indeed the whole figure, will look more rotund and more life-like if a fair distance--say twice the sitter’s height--is kept between the lens and the sitter. If this should give too small a picture, a lens of longer focus will have to be used. Objects look broader when taken near at hand with wide-angle lenses. Interior views of buildings, halls, etc., where there is plenty of room to keep the camera well back, will not be found difficult, but the interiors of small private houses and rooms will often be very unsatisfactory subjects because there is not room for the camera to be set well back and give a life-like, natural effect.

Photographs of long, narrow objects will be great failures in the pictorial point of view if the camera be brought too close, and so that the nearer portions are unduly magnified while the more distant become dwarfed in size. Here we see one of the principal reasons why the photographer should have lenses of different focus, so that if he is compelled to take an unfavorable point of view he may not be confined to one focus and angle.

To be continued.

[5] The equivalent focus of a compound lens is taken as equal to
the focus of a _single lens_ which would form an image of the
same size.

EVOLUTION OF FORM IN COLLEGE ROWING.

BY E. M. GARNETT.

I.--~The Harvard Stroke.~

~Scientific~ rowing may be properly called a modern luxury. It may be said, with a moderate degree of certainty, that neither the Greeks, the Romans, nor yet the early English, were in the habit of pulling themselves about in ten-inch shells provided with anti-crab swivel rowlocks and ball-bearing slides. Had any one of them been caught in such an act he would have been condemned, in all probability, to drink the hemlock, or worshipped as a wizard. Of course, from time immemorial there have been certain vague principles regulating the application of the weight of the body to the oar. But up to the time when that eccentric genius lubricated the seat of his boat and the seat of his trousers with some fatty substance, and slid his greasy way to victory, rowing was much more a matter of brute strength than of exquisite skill. And with the evolution of the sliding seat from the crude but effective idea, possibilities were offered for great improvements in the art of pulling an oar. During the last twenty years new inventions and radical changes in the rigging of boats have necessitated a departure, not only from former methods of rowing, but also from its recognized tenets. The principles are not immutable--as some would have us believe. For example, it is a physical impossibility, with some styles of rigging, to apply much power at the end of the stroke. Still, different systems have their ardent supporters, and the superiority of one over another is apparently a mooted question.

According to some aquatic enthusiasts, it is the best plan to let the men get into a boat and pull: time and a little intelligence will remedy their faults. Others urge that it is only necessary to master “the few essential principles,” and, as Mr. Julian Hawthorne says, “the refinements will take care of themselves.” Still others, who treat with withering scorn the opponents of “form,” lay great stress upon the absolute importance of sedulous attention to the minutest details.

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Outing; Vol. XIII.; October, 1888 to March, 1889Chapter XLI: Part II (16)

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