There are few pleasanter memories in my life than those of the river-side, when we were training behind him in our college crew. He was perhaps a thought too easy, and did not keep us quite so tightly in hand as the captains of some of the other leading boats kept their men. But the rules of training were then barbarous, and I think we were all the better for not being strictly limited even in the matter of a draught of cold water, or compelled to eat our meat half cooked. He was most judicious in all the working part of training, and no man ever knew better when to give his crew the long Abingdon reach, and when to be content with Iffley or Sandford. At the half-hour’s rest at those places he would generally sit quiet, and watch the skittles, wrestling, quoits, or feats of strength which were going on all about. But if he did take part in them, he almost always beat everyone else. I only remember one occasion on which he was fairly foiled. In consequence of his intimacy with F. Menzies, our crew were a great deal with that of University College, and much friendly rivalry existed between us. One afternoon one of their crew,[10] R. Mansfield, brother of George’s old vaulting antagonist, rode down to Sandford, where, in the field near the inn, there was always a furze hurdle for young gentlemen to leap over. In answer to some chaffing remark, Mansfield turned round, and, sitting with his face towards his horse’s tail, rode him over this hurdle. Several of us tried it after him, George amongst the number, but we all failed; and of course declared that it was all a trick, and that his horse was trained to do it under him, and to refuse under anybody else. [10] Author of “The Log of the Water Lily,” &c. The four-oar race was the last of my brother’s boating triumphs. At the end of the term he gave up rowing, as his last year was beginning, and he was anxious to get more time for his preparation for the Schools. I am not sure that he succeeded in this as, strong exercise of some kind being a necessity to him, he took to playing an occasional game at cricket, and was caught and put into the University Eleven. He pulled, however, in one more great race, in the Thames Regatta of 1845, when he was still resident as a bachelor, attending lectures. Number 6 in the Oxford boat broke down, and his successor applied to him to fill the place, to which he assented rather unwillingly. The following extract from a letter to his father gives the result, and the close of his boating career:— “You will have seen that Oxford was unsuccessful in London for the Grand Cup, but I really think we should have won it had it not been for that unlucky foul. I only consented to take an oar in the boat because they said they could not row without me, and found myself well up to the work.”