Nowhere is midnight so late as in Oxford. It is announced from so many towers at so many moments by bells of the most various tone and cadence; but by all, even to the most maundering and belated, with the same precise conviction, as if one could hear all the lecturers saying the same thing in their own words--_It is midnight here, now_. And faint and loud another and another awakes and insists, _It is midnight here, now_. Through the middle clamour the chime of St. Mary's drops down three pathetic steps and climbs up through the same intervals. The University is older by another hour. [Illustration: IFFLEY MILL.] The great deed of the new undergraduates was the discovery of the river. In the early years of the century it was still only a place for fishing in; occasionally a heavy tub was rowed down to Nuneham. Bell-ringing had gone out as an exercise; cricket was the game of one exclusive club; the nearest approach to a healthy rivalry between the colleges was a competition between New College and All Souls' in making negus. New College won by putting in no water. It was not till 1837 that the old boats had their sides cut down. About ten years later outriggers came in, and after another ten, keelless boats. Another ten brought sliding seats from America, and so the skiff and the four and the eight reached their perfect economy of construction, and the quality of beauty they share with their counterpart, the bicycle, on land. Both bicycle and skiff are extensions of the human machine within such limits that they remain as it were mere developed limbs working at every moment as parts of one balancing frame, projections of the person. [Illustration: IFFLEY CHURCH.] In 1839 the University Boat Club was started, and the great Oxford school of rowing shot up to overshadow the older faculties. Before this time college racing had begun on the admirable bumping system, that not only makes the race a prolonged spectacle for those who stand still to see, but allows of so much spirit of body in those who run by their college boat. At first the boats started out of Iffley Lock. The stroke of each boat, as its turn came, ran down the thwarts pushing out, and the next boat followed as soon as he cleared the lock. [Illustration: LITTLEMORE CHURCH AND KENNINGTON ISLAND.]