The series of races I have mentioned gives some idea of the scheme and scope of English boating, but it is by no means exhaustive. The strength of the boating spirit gives rise to no end of casual and incidental races. Chief among these are the coxswainless fours, which take place about the middle of the autumn term, while the trials are on the river. The crews are from the four or five chief boating colleges, and are made up largely from the men in the 'varsity trials. The races have no relation that I could discover to the 'varsity race; the only point is to find which college has the best four, and it is characteristic that merely for the sport of it the training of the 'varsity trials is interrupted. After the 'varsity race the members of the crew rest during what remains of the Easter vacation, and then take their places in the boats of their respective colleges. Here they are joined by the other trials men, the remaining members of last year's college eight, and the two or three men who have come up from the torpids. Now begins the liveliest season in boating. Every afternoon the river is clogged with eights rowing to Iffley or to Sandford, and the towing-path swarms with enthusiasts. The course in the May bumping races is a mile and a quarter long--the same as the course of the torpids--and the crews race over it every day for a week, with the exception of an intervening Sunday, each going up a place or down a place in the procession daily according as it bumps or is bumped. These races, from the point of view of the expert oarsman, are far less important than the 'varsity race; yet socially they are far more prominent, and the enthusiasm they arouse among the undergraduates is incomparable. The vitality of Oxford is in the colleges: the university organizations are the flowers of a very sturdy root and branch. [Illustration: THE LAST DAY OF THE BUMPING RACES OF THE SUMMER EIGHTS (1895)] The difference between American and English boating is that we lack the root and branches of the college system. In a university of from three to four thousand men there are, in addition to the 'varsity crew, four class crews and perhaps a few scratch crews. In England, each of the score of colleges, numbering on an average something like one hundred and fifty men apiece, mans innumerable fours, one or more eight-oared torpids, and the college eight. A simple calculation will show that with us one man in fifty to seventy goes in for the sport, while in England the proportion is one man in five to seven.