Nevertheless the river was just as popular then though for quite different reasons. There were no rowing Blues to be had in those days; no presidents of boat clubs--no boat clubs even. There was only Dame Hooper’s--an odd-looking, tumble-down, shed-like place, where the gownsmen blarneyed the old lady and hired out skiffs, gigs, cutters, and canoes. Unlike our togger men who, like strange hairy creatures from another planet, hatlessly converge from all parts of the town through the Broad Walk to the Barges, emitting yards of muscular leg for all the world to view in amusement and admiration, the eighteenth-century wet-bobs went down to the river in square--or, as they called it, trencher--and gown. But Dame Hooper was old, unskittish, and trustworthy, and so they threw off their academical garb in her shed and arrayed themselves in the trousers, jackets, and caps which were then the thing. It might well be thought that these were a great hindrance to correct ’varsity swinging. But they did not worry their heads about that--there was no boat race to be taken into agitated consideration--and it has been left for 1911 to pour out its bleeding heart in vehement controversy anent the true ’varsity style as opposed to the new fangled Belgian method. In those days the motto was air and exercise. Now, dare it be said, the river is a business, a profession, to which are consecrated all the waking moments, and many of those which we should like to dedicate to bed, of our whole university careers. Southey, who was, oddly enough, a Balliol man, said that he only learned two things at Oxford--to swim and to row. After he went down he wrote the following description of the river:-- “A number of pleasure boats were gliding in all directions upon this clear and rapid stream; some with spread sails; in others the caps and tassels of the students formed a curious contrast with their employment at the oar. Many of the smaller boats had only a single person in each; and in some of these he sat face forward, leaning back as in a chair, and plying with both hands a double-bladed oar in alternate strokes, so that his motion was like the path of a serpent. One of these canoes is, I am assured, so exceedingly light, that a man can carry it; but few persons are skilful or venturous enough to use it.”[8] It would be well worth while to watch the face of one of these timid canoers if we could bring him down to the barges to-day to one of the “rag” regattas and show him scores of “venturous persons” who not only dispense with paddles, but dash about in a Canadian canoe with a punt pole.