boat.

Long after I had been sent to bed, I heard the uproar from below
continuing, and, in the strictest confidence, I have every reason
to believe that they made a real night of it.

Two of that crew are still alive. Gallant old Sir George Higginson
was born in 1826, consequently the General is now ninety-four
years of age. The splendid old veteran's mental faculties are as
acute as ever; he is not afflicted with deafness and he is still
upright as a dart, though his eyesight has failed him. It is to
Sir George and to Sir David Erskine that I am indebted for the
greater portion of the details concerning this boat-race of 1866,
and of its preliminaries, for many of these would not have come
within the scope of my knowledge at nine years of age.

Sir David Erskine, the other member of the crew still surviving,
ex-Sergeant-at-Arms, was a most familiar, respected, and greatly
esteemed personality to all those who have sat in the House of
Commons during the last forty years. I might perhaps have put it
more strongly; for he was invariably courteous, and such a great
gentleman. Sir David was born in 1838, consequently he is now
eighty-two years old.

One of my brothers has still in his keeping a very large gold
medal. One side of it bears the effigy of "Napoleon III., Empereur
des Francais." The other side testifies that it is the "Premier
Prix d'Avirons de la Mediterrannee, 1866." The ugly hybrid word
"Championnat" for "Championship" had not then been acclimatised in
France.