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THE ROB ROY is a canoe, built of oak,

T feet long, India-rubber its tightly around the comb

who is also crew, and all hands. A cover of ing, and is fastened by a button to the Captain's breast, keeping all dry below deck. The Rob Roy is, in form, dimensions, build, and equipment, a civilized brother of the Esquimaux kyack. But we doubt whether any civilized canoeman would for any money undertake the gymnastic feats performed by the Greenland kyackers, as described by Mr. Charles F. Hall:*

ty-eight inches broad (she should, her Captain thinks, have been two feet shorter and two inches narrower); nine inches deep, weighs eighty pounds, and draws, when manned, three inches of water with an inch keel. For her a stream with a clear channel four inches deep, a yard wide, without bends of less than fifteen feet, is a navigable river. Her means of propulsion are a man with a stout pair of arms, a double-bladed paddle seven feet long; and, when occasion serves, a lug-sail, or preferably a "sprit," rigged to a five-foot mast, with bamboo yard. When not in use the sail, mast, and yard are rolled up together, making "I enjoyed a rare sight. One of the Esquimaux a bundle much like an artist's sketching umturned summersets in the water seated in his kyack. Over and over he and his kyack went till we cried, brella. In the deck is an elliptic hole fifty-Enough!' and yet he wet only his hands and face. This four inches by twenty, in which sits Captain, is a fent performed only by a few.

Owner, Captain, and crew of the Rob Roy is J. Macgregor, M. A., Trinity College, Cambridge, of the "Temple," London, and so we

It requires great skill and strength to do it. One miss in the stroke of an oar as they pass from the centre (when their head and body are under the water) to the surface might terminate fatally. No one will attempt this feat, however, unless a companion in his kyack is near. The next feat I witnessed was for an Esquimaux to run his kyack, while seated in it, over another. Getting some distance off he strikes briskly and pushes forward. In an instant he is over, having struck the upturned peak of his own kyack nearly amid-ships, and at right angles, of the other. These feats were rewarded by a few plugs of tobacco." -Hall's Arctic Researches, p. 78.

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suppose a Barrister at Law: at all events a gentleman and "muscular Christian" in the best sense of that rather abused phrase; for he paddled his own canoe a thousand miles; took kindly to almost every body and every thing; laid by duly on Sundays, carried religious. tracts for gratuitous distribution, and gives to the "Royal National LifeBoat Institution," and to the "Shipwrecked Mariners' Society," the profits of the clever little book in which he narrates the incidents of his summer vacation.

The thousand miles of canoeing were performed

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upon the British Thames; the German Sam- For a three months' cruise the following is bre, Meuse, Rhine, Main, and Danube; the given as a list of "Useful Stores:" Basket to Swiss Reuss, Aar, and Ill; the French Mo- sit on, 12X6X1 inches, holding an India-rubselle, Meurthe, Marne, and Seine; the Ger- ber coat; nails, screws, putty, gimlet, cord, man Lake Titisee; the Swiss lakes Constance, thread, string; buttons, needles, pins; lugUntersee, Zurich, Zug, and Lucerne; half a gage-bag 12X12X5 inches; flannel jacket dozen canals in Belgium and France, and two with short flaps, two pairs of flannel trowsers, expeditions in the open sea of the British Chan- two flannel shirts, one on the person, the other nel. Mr. Macgregor is an experienced trav- for shore; thin alpaca Sunday coat, thick waisteler. He has climbed glaciers and volcanoes; coat; pair of light-soled shoes, straw-hat, two has dived into caves and catacombs; has trotted collars, three pocket - handkerchiefs; brush, in a Norway carriole, and galloped in a Rus- comb, tooth-brush; Testament, tracts for dissian tarantasse; has sailed on the Egean, and tribution; purse, circular notes, and small boated on the Nile; has "muled" in Spain, change; blue spectacles, book for journal and "donkeyed" in Egypt, "cameled" in Syria, sketches, pen and pencils; maps, cutting of a "sleighed" in Canada, and "rantooned" in six-inch square at a time for pocket-references; Ireland. He has, he says, "most thoroughly pipe, tobacco-case, and light-box; guide-books, enjoyed these and other methods of locomotion and pleasant book for evening reading, tearing in the four quarters of the world; but the pleas-off covers, advertisements, and pages as read; ure in the canoe was far greater than them all." for no needless weight should be carried hun

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the best, because you lean all the time against a backboard, and the moment you rest the paddle on your lap you are as much at ease as in an arm-chair; so that, while drifting along with the current or the wind, you can gaze around, and eat or read or chat with the starers on the bank, and yet, in a moment of sudden danger, the hands are at once on the faithful paddle ready for action.

channel is too narrow for oars, or, if wide, it is | for days and weeks of hard work, it is evidently too shallow for a row-boat; and the tortuous passages, the rocks and banks, the weeds and snags, the milldams, barriers, fallen trees, rapids, whirlpools, and waterfalls which constantly occur on a river winding among hills, make those very parts where the scenery is wildest and best to be quite unapproachable in an open boat, for it would be swamped by the sharp waves, or upset over the sunken rocks which are utterly impossible for a steersman to

see.

"But these very things, which are obstacles or dangers to the 'pair oar,' become interesting features to the voyager in a covered canoe. For now he looks forward, and not backward, as he sits in his little bark. He sees all his course, and the scenery besides. With one powerful sweep of his paddle he can instantly turn the canoe, when only a foot distant from fatal destruction. He can steer within an inch in a narrow place, or press through reeds and weeds, branches and grass; can hoist and lower his sail without changing his seat; can shove with his paddle when aground, or jump out in good time to prevent a decided smash. He can wade and haul the light craft over shallows, or on dry ground, through fields and hedges, over dykes, barriers, and walls; can carry it by hand up ladders and stairs, and can transport his boat over high mountains and broad plains in a cart drawn by a horse, a bullock, or a cow.

"Nay, more than this, the covered canoe is far stronger than an open boat, and may be fearlessly dropped headforemost into a deep pool, or a lock, or a millrace, and yet, when the breakers are high, in the open sea or fresh water rapids, they can only wash over the covered deck, while it is always dry within.

"Again, the canoe is safer than a rowingboat, because you sit so low in it, and never require to shift your place or lose hold of the paddle; while for comfort during long hours,

THE ROB ROY ON WHEELS.

"Finally, you can lie at full length in the canoe, with the sail as an awning for the sun, or a shelter for rain, and you can sleep in it thus at night, under cover, with an opening for air to leeward, and at least as much room for turning in your bed as sufficed for the great Duke of Wellington; or, if you are tired of the water for a time, you can leave your boat at an inn-it will not be eating its head off,' like a horse; or you can send it home or sell it, and take to the road yourself, or sink into the dull old cushions of the 'Première Classe,' and dream you are seeing the world.

"With such advantages, then, and with good weather and good health, the canoe voyage about to be described was truly delightful, and I never enjoyed so much continuous pleasure in any other tour."

The ease and cheapness with which the light canoe can be packed upon a railway or steamer, carried overland upon a cart, or borne through the streets of a village when the day's rowing is done, are no small items of advantage. Indeed, on most railways the boat was taken as luggage, as though it were a trunk, without extra charge. Mr. Macgregor's usual mode of procedure was to have his canoe carried as nearly as possible to the head-waters of a river which he wished to explore, and then to row down the current, setting sails upon broad streams and lakes. Thus he struck the Danube at its very source, in a clear spring in the princely gardens at Donauschwingen, and launching

his canoe a little below where, two or three brooks having joined, the stream is a few feet broad, he followed it to Ulm, where it has become a great river.

Mr. Macgregor's tour was commenced by rowing from London down the Thames to Sheerness, where he had a chance to try his canoe in rough water. Her buoyancy and stability more than equaled his expectations. In the very midst of the waves he managed to rig up mast and sail. Then he sent the canoe by rail to Dover, thence by steamer to Ostend,

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where he gave her another trial in the rough | you in succession. How careful was I," conrollers of the British Channel, where she behaved admirably, to the great delectation of the bathers on the beach and the spectators on the pier. Thence canoe and crew went by rail and cart to Namur, where trial was made on the Sambre and Meuse.

These quiet streams were for a while suffi

cient to please the voyager. "The banks would be called tame if seen from the shore, but are altogether new when you open up the vista from the middle of the stream. The picture that is rolled up sideways to the common traveler now pours out before you, ever enlarging from a centre, and in the gentle sway of the stream the landscape seems to swell on this side and that with new things ever advancing to meet

tinues Mr. Macgregor, "at the first shallow, getting out and wading as I lowered the boat. A month afterward, I would dash over them, with a shove here and a stroke there, in answer to a hoarse creak of the stones at the bottom grinding against my keel."

The voyage down the Meuse gives occasion for some pleasant Dutch pictures in pen and ink. Sometimes when a steamer passed, the voyager would draw alongside, get a penny roll, and glass of beer, to the astonishment of the wondering passengers, who set the visitor down as a mad Englishman.

"The pleasure of meandering with a new river is very peculiar and fascinating. Each few yards brings a novelty or starts an excite

CATTLE SWIMMING THE MEUBE

ment. A crane jumps up here, a duck flutters
there, splash leaps a gleaming trout by your
side, the rushing sound of rocks warns you
round that corner, or anon you come suddenly
upon a millrace.
All these, in addition to the
scenery and the people and the weather, and
the determination that you must get on, over,
through, or under every difficulty, and can not
leave your boat in a desolate wold, and ought
to arrive at a house before dark, and that your
luncheon bag is long since empty; all these, I
say, keep the mind awake, which would per-
chance dose away for 100 miles in a first-class
carriage.

joined to help the boats over a weir, or, by way of change, walked a while on the bank, towing the canoes after them. At intervals were floating-baths, filled with merry bathers, and squads of soldiers marched down for their daily dip or target-shooting on shore. Once, on rounding a point, they came right into a great herd of cattle swimming in close column across the stream.

The two voyagers kept company for a while, passing Maestricht, once thought one of the most strongly-fortified places in Europe, whose straight walls would go down in a few hours before the heavy shot of modern artillery. Thence they struck eastward by railway toward the Rhine. The railway officials demurred at first to taking the two boats, but suddenly, at a word from a by-stander, hurried the canoes aboard. "Do you know," said this stranger, after they were fairly on the way, "why they yielded so suddenly ?" "Not at all," replied the Englishmen. "It was because I told them that one of you was the son of the Prime Minister, and the other Lord Russell's son."

"The river soon got fast and lively, and hour after hour of vigorous work prepared one well for breakfast. Trees seemed to spring up in front and grow tall, but it was only because I came rapidly toward them. Pleasant villages floated, as it were, to meet me, gently moving. All life got to be a smooth and gliding thing, without fuss and without dust, or any thing sudden or loud, till at length the bustle and hammers of Liege neared the Rob Roy-for it was always the objects and not myself that seemed to move. Here I saw a fast steamer, The canoes were launched upon the Rhine the Seraing, propelled by water forced from its at Bingen, and after a day's pleasuring were sides, and as my boat hopped and bobbed in put on the cars for the River Main. The Enthe steamer's waves we entered a dock togeth-glishmen fell into converse with a German feler, and I hoisted the canoe into a garden for low-passenger, to whom they endeavored to the night."

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give some idea of their pleasure trip. But the honest German, mistaking the word "canoes" for "cannons," was for a while under the impression that the foreigners were traveling for pleasure with a couple of pieces of artillery fifteen feet long, weighing only eighty pounds.

At Frankfort-on-the-Main the voyagers parted company, the Earl paddling down the Rhine, the Barrister taking his canoe up the river by

steamer as far as steamers run; thence by wagon through the passes of the Black Forest, stopping for a day's sail upon Titisee-a lonely little lake, or, as we should call it, pond, 3000 feet above the sea-one of the score or two in which, according to popular belief, the troubled ghost of Pontius Pilate has its habitation until the Day of Judgment, then onward again through forests and defiles, by lonely mountain brooks, over the ridge to Donauschwingen, the source of the Danube. Mr. Macgregor notes the kindliness and intelligence of the dwellers of the lonely mountain villages. At the hotels each guest utters his

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