ANTWERP TO BOOM



We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore and a lot of
dock porters took up the two canoes, and ran with them for the
slip. A crowd of children followed cheering. The Cigarette went
off in a splash and a bubble of small breaking water. Next moment
the Arethusa was after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the
paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and his porters
were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke or two the canoes were
away out in the middle of the Scheldt, and all steamers, and
stevedores, and other 'long-shore vanities were left behind.

The sun shone brightly; the tide was making--four jolly miles an
hour; the wind blew steadily, with occasional squalls. For my
part, I had never been in a canoe under sail in my life; and my
first experiment out in the middle of this big river was not made
without some trepidation. What would happen when the wind first
caught my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as trying a
venture into the regions of the unknown as to publish a first book,
or to marry. But my doubts were not of long duration; and in five
minutes you will not be surprised to learn that I had tied my
sheet.

I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself; of course,
in company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the
sheet in a sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a
canoe, and with these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find