females, cheers of either contending party as it charged the enemy from
Carfax to Trumpington Street, proclaimed that the battle was at its
height.

In Berlin they would have said it was a revolution, and the cuirassiers
would have been charging, sabre in hand, amidst that infuriate mob. In
France they would have brought down artillery, and played on it with
twenty-four pounders. In Cambridge nobody heeded the disturbance--it was
a Town and Gown row.

The row arose at a boat-race. The Town boat (manned by eight stout
Bargees, with the redoubted Rullock for stroke) had bumped the Brazenose
light oar, usually at the head of the river. High words arose regarding
the dispute. After returning from Granchester, when the boats pulled
back to Christchurch meadows, the disturbance between the Townsmen and
the University youths--their invariable opponents--grew louder and more
violent, until it broke out in open battle. Sparring and skirmishing
took place along the pleasant fields that lead from the University gate
down to the broad and shining waters of the Cam, and under the walls of
Balliol and Sidney Sussex. The Duke of Bellamont (then a dashing young
sizar at Exeter) had a couple of rounds with Billy Butt, the bow-oar
of the Bargee boat. Vavasour of Brazenose was engaged with a powerful
butcher, a well-known champion of the Town party, when, the great
University bells ringing to dinner, truce was called between the
combatants, and they retired to their several colleges for refection.

During the boat-race, a gentleman pulling in a canoe, and smoking a
narghilly, had attracted no ordinary attention. He rowed about a hundred
yards ahead of the boats in the race, so that he could have a good view
of that curious pastime. If the eight-oars neared him, with a few rapid