Rowing clubs are numerous all along the river from Ulm to Vienna. Soon after leaving the flat-boat we landed at one near Deggendorf, a quiet old town with miraculous relics in the church, which attract many thousands of pious pilgrims annually. Later on in the day, as we were rounding a great bend in a solitary part of the river where we least expected to see anything afloat, we suddenly met a single-scull boat of the newest pattern shooting up the river like an arrow. A handsome athletic young fellow was pulling with all his might, evidently in training for a race. Our surprise was naturally mutual, for he no more expected to see a fleet of graceful, polished canoes than we did to see the Danube waters parted by the keen bow of a racing boat. He recovered from his astonishment first, and shouted heartily, “Hip! hip! Hip! hip!” We replied with the same salutation, for we had learned by this time that this call was not, as we had at first supposed, a playful imitation of the English cheer, but the common greeting in boating circles. We needed no further introduction, and could, indeed, have had no better one than our canoes, and we freely accepted the hospitalities of the Winzer Ruder Verein, whose tidy boat-house stands on the river-bank a mile or more from the village. The club has a membership of thirty-six, all of them sturdy young fellows of the neighborhood, with an enthusiastic love of water sports. A certain count, the local magnate, is the patron of the club, and contributes largely towards the training of the oarsmen, who compete with success in the regattas all over Germany. The jolly young fellows made so much of us, and received us so heartily into their brotherhood, that we had not the courage to explain that we were not real boating men at all, but only temporary members of the guild. Indeed, it is doubtful if they would have believed our statement, for we were quite as sunburned as they were, and our five days’ canoing had put us in first-rate physical condition. But on this, as on several other similar occasions, we had a lingering feeling of mental discomfort, because we could not help knowing that we were passing for what we were not, and never expected to be--sporting men. CHAPTER VI