Then followed one of the temporary fits of delirium which sometimes seize Englishmen, the sight of which makes one slow to disbelieve any crazy story which is told of the doings of other people in moments of intense excitement. The crew had positively to fight their way into their hotel, and barricade themselves there, to escape being carried round Henley on our shoulders. The enthusiasm, frustrated in this direction, burst out in all sorts of follies, of which you may take this as a specimen. The heavy toll-gate was pulled down, and thrown over the bridge into the river, by a mob of young Oxonians headed by a small, decorous, shy man in spectacles, who had probably never pulled an oar in his life, but who had gone temporarily mad with excitement, and I am confident would, at that moment, have led his followers not only against the Henley constables, but against a regiment with fixed bayonets. Fortunately, no harm came of it but a few broken heads and black eyes, and the local authorities, making allowances for the provocation, were lenient at the next petty sessions. The crew went up to London from Henley, to row for the Gold Cup, in the Thames Regatta, which had just been established. Here they met the Cambridge Rooms’ crew again, strengthened by a new No. 3 and a new stroke, and the Leander, then in its glory, and won the cup after one of the finest and closest races ever rowed. There has been much discussion as to these two races ever since in the boating world, in which my brother was on one occasion induced to take part. “The Oxford University came in first,” was his account, “with a clear lead of the Leander, the Cambridge crew overlapping the Leander. We were left behind at the start, and had great difficulty in passing our opponents, not from want of pace, but from want of room.” And, speaking of the Henley race, which was said to have been won against a “scratch crew,” he adds: “A ‘scratch crew’ may mean anything short of a perfectly trained crew of good materials. Anyone who cares about it will find the names of the Rooms’ crew at p. 100 of Mr. Macmichael’s book, and by consulting the index will be able to form a judgment as to the quality of our opponents. _We_ had a very great respect for them. I never attempted to exaggerate the importance of the ‘seven oars’ race,’ and certainly never claimed to have beaten a Cambridge University crew on that occasion.” It will always remain, however, one of the most interesting of the heroic records of a noble English sport. He announced his own triumphs at home as follows, from the Golden Cross, where the Oxford crew then stopped:—