Meantime Iffley Lock ends the shorter course for rowing practice, Sandford the longer; while Nuneham and Abingdon, to keep to an Oxford point of view, mark the longer picnic courses. It is all Frideswide ground; the saint was rowed to the outhouse near Abingdon by an angel, when she was warned in a dream and fled. The meadows of her convent now are lined by the college barges. These are an interesting study in development. The first of them were old procession barges of the London City Companies. One of them, the Oriel barge, still remains, with its delicate form, and long sharp prow, in which the rowers sat. The bronze figures by the door of the saloon are untouched, the oval windows, the tarnished gilding within. But the spirit of utility rebelled and the model changed. The long prow was chopped off close, the semblance of the high stern went, and there was left merely a square floating dressing-room with railings round its roof, and seats for the spectators of races. Then the sense of beauty mutinied, perhaps alleging the use of the toy for picnic excursions, and the prow and stern were restored. The University barge is a monument of the Gothic revival. Several architects have tried their hand in designs for these craft, and new ones are from time to time constructed. It is the oddest little street, this row of motley Noah's Arks; and when the high poles shake out their amazing flags, and the men come down in fearless college colours, and a vast and diverse millinery decks every foot of standing room the roofs can give, there would seem to be some touch of an Arabian Night about a very English day, were it not that the vigorous people wear many more colours than Arabia would allow. A little hill at Iffley lifts up the rusty-grey rectory and church. The church is, for its size, made in an absurd number of styles, beginning with Late Norman. The heavy arches inside are carved round with sunflowers, looking like an ancient imitation of modern work. Outside, there is the strangest confusion of carvings; a centaur strayed from Phigaleia, and other pagan images among the Christian symbols. The Gods in Exile have visited Iffley too. On the south side a great yew has been building all through the Transition and the Perpendicular and the Tractarian times, and the people who Decorated, and the people who Late Middle Pointed, and the rest make the ground quite uneven round its roots. An undated villager, who styles himself Archdeacon of Iffley, and has a venerable humour, comes among the graves for company.