The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Our Cruise in the Undine. By the Captain. John

W. Parker and Son.

A cray, rollicking narrative this that might have
been fathered (for its fun) upon Harry Lorrequer.
How many readers remember the " Log of the
Water Lily ?" As many, we wager, as glanced
through its pages—pages full of shrewdness, frolic,
and adventure. Scarcely a less number will bear
this pleasant journal in remembrance. Journal we
call it—not in the spirit of our designation, but in
obedience to the christening authority of the titre-
page—according to which it appears to be set forth
that the volume is in reality what we have here
termed it, being a " Journal of an English Pair-oar
Expedition." The expedition, in fact, through
France, Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, Prussia, and Bel-
gium, of three illustrious personages hight—the
Captain, the Doctor, and the Professor. Three as
merry, lighthearted, jovial companions as one
would ever wish, for their own sakes, to be
brought more frequently together especially
if we have, after such times, a record of
their sayings and doings as lively as the one here
particularised. Assembled together they were for-
tunately in the present instance intent upon carry-
ing out the proposed pair-oar expedition. So in-
tent upon it they apportion their various duties
and officers during the excursion. The Brown, Jones,
and Robinson of the trip were, as we have thus
designated mysteriously—the Captain, the Doctor,
and the Protessor. The Professor was to have the
entire management of the funds and of the provi-
sions—in other words, he was to be at once trea-
surer and procurator. The Doctor was to keep a
sharp look-out after the knapsacks, et cetera—in
other words (saving his presence), was to be guard
and watchdog combined. The aptain, as his title
implied, was to take charge of the boat, and to
attend to the responsibility of its navigation—
being, in other terms, formally installed a sort of
a grand naval commander-in-chief. Thus prepared
for the difficulties to be encountered by each,
the three adventurers start upon their paddling
cruise about the inland survey of the Continent—
comfortably but lightly equipped, and having
wisely supplied themselves with a first-rate boat
from the Lambeth yard of Messrs. Noulton and
Wyld, the eminent boat-builders. Starting from
Newhaven, they cross over the channel to Dieppe,
and so on, by Rouen to Paris. From the French
capital they proceed to Melun, to Corbel'. and to
Montereau. Thence they advance along the cur-
rent of the Yonne to its junction with the Arman-
con. Traversing which river, and passing through
Dijon, they arrive at Dole, and so on by the north-
east till they reach Besancon. A little higher up
they float along the Rhone and Rhine Canal, and
pause for a while at Strasbourg. North-
wards thence along the glorious Rhine, by.
Mannheim, by Worms, by Mainz, then turn-
ing slightly in a westerly direction by Co-
blenz and by Bonn, on to Cologne. Further along
they are at Aix-la-Chapelle—then at Liege, then
at Mechlin, then through Ghent and Bruges to
Ostend, at which place they enter deeper water
and a stronger craft, and so in a few hours across
to Dover, and so homewards. Everywhere the reader
is with them, from Newhaven all the way round to
Dover ; and if he opens the book a stranger to the
Captain and his little crew of a brace, meaning
those game " boys," the Doctor and the Professor,
he (the reader) closes the volume only after having
secured to himself (in his own mind) a new and
threefold friendship. The Captain especially proves
himself, from first to last, the blithest of blithe
companions. Take the followinc, as illustrative at
once of his style and his character:—
" It was necessary to keep a continual look-out for
`breakers ahead,' and we were every moment obliged to
alter the direction of our course, there being no main
channel. Now we are sweeping down a rapid so shallow
that we can see the bottom, and rush past the trunk of
an old tree, which itself, far from appearing to be sta-
tionary, seems as if it was being pulled up against the
stream by some invisible power ; now we reach the end
of the shallow, and the water is boiling and bubbling
about us in all directions, and the sharp-crested little
waves come rattling against the side of the boat like so
many undertakers at work. And again, at another
time, when we got into rather deeper water, where there
was less turmoil, we were able to paddle or even float
with the stream.

" It was on such a bit of water as this that we were
quietly resting on our oars and enjoying our pipes, the
Doctor, as usual, 'when there was no work to be done,
lying at full length in the bows, and the Professor
puzzling his brains about the different changes of money
we should in all probability meet with, when the Cap-
tain, suddenly hearing a much louder noise than was at
all ordinary, and standing up, discovered that we were
making straight away for a waterfall, about a half mile
distant. Oars, all!' he cries ; 'put your backs into it,
and keep her steady whatever you do ;' for he was
obliged to stand up, that looking well ahead he might
determine what course to follow. So, pulling the rud-
der hard up, and steering for the opposite bank, we
managed, after a few dozen strokes, hard pulling, to
avoid the fall ; although; even then, we were not the
boat's length from one end of it. As we swept down
another channel, and got a full view of the danger we
had escaped, the Professor could not refrain from a shout
of mingled pleasure and surprise. Had the boat gone
over, she must have been inevitably smashed to pieces,
for the fall was one of about ten feet, and there was an
immense body of water rushing over at a fearful rate.
" The Coxswain was often greatly puzzled to decide
which stream to follow, or on which side of an island or
sandbank he should steer ; and down about the mouth
of the Elz, a small river which runs from Freyburg, the
shallows were frequent, so that we seemed quite to have
entered a maze of them. We were in a fair direction for
avoiding one of these shallows, and the Coxswain pad,
as he thought, a clear run, wrien another, at a small dis-
tance further on, made its appearance. For a moment
he could not think what to be at ; there was not space
to pull across it, as he had managed the first, for had
this been attempted we should have been carried upon
the shallow broadside on,' and rolled over and over like
a barrel, whilst it would have been madness to have at-
tempted the sheer impossibility of pulling against the
stream. So, making the best of a bad matter, he fol-
lowed the counsel of the Cornishman, who, seeing the
lamps of a mail coach coming down hill at a rapid pace,
while he in his single gig was ascending, and fancying
them both dangerous-looking articles, thought the best
plan would be to draire raight 'twix 'em,' which we did
accordingly in regard of the shallows. Fortunately for
us, the issue was in our case less disastrous, for he, poor
man, was very much injured, and his gig of course
smashed to pieces, whilst we, after floating down a little
way, only scraped the boat keel along the gravelly bot-
tom, until we gradually came to a stand-still. The
Professor was going to jump out, when 'Vast a bit,'
said the Captain ; we sh all have some work to get you
on board again. And altering our position in the boat
so to weight her forward, she floated off again, but
grated her keel all the way down the shallow."
Cordially as we might have commended " The
Log of the Water commend we now " Our
Cruise in the Undine "---the soul of which Undine,
by the way, was not created by Love (as with the
Undine of Fouque), but by the author of the merry
little volume before us-,...an archer stripling than
Dan Cupid—this Captain of " ours " the brave, the
gay, the warm-hearted

GREAT BOAT RACE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP
OF THE TINE AND 2001.

- - I
The great scullers' content, between Jas. Messenger,
of Teddington, and James Candlish, of Gateshead, was
determined yesterday (Tuesda.,,
y) upon the Tyne, in the
presence of a vast concourse of spectators. The event
was one which had created, both in London and the
north, the most lively interest, and very large sums of
money depended upon the result. The celebrity of the
men is so great, that this was
considered by all the
cognoscenti as not only deciding the aquatic mastery
of the Tyne, but also being, in fact, the trial race for
the championship of the Thames against Thomas Cole,
the present holder of that proud position. The com-
batants of yesterday before contended, this last
season, from Putney to Mortlake, when Messenger
defeated him ; but as Candlish was known to be in any-
thing but first-rate condition, his friends thought that he
would be successful if anotker opportunity for
were, however, as the result competi-
-3'
tion were afforded him; the
shows, Mistaken. They were evenly matched in weight
and age, both rowing a trifle above lOst, Messenger
having 61b or 71b more upon him than his opponent.
At Newcastle some money had been laid out at even,
,
but as the day approached for the conflict, Messenger
was the favourite. In the metropolis the thing was
more decided, Messenger being all along the favourite
at a good price, and in
many instances 7 to 4 being spe-
culated upon him. Messenger trained under the care-
ful management of Mr. Styles, of the Rose and Crown,
Putney, until two or three days ago ; Candlish taking
his exercise amongst his friends in the north. The race was
appointed for an hour before high water yesterday, the
boat moored off the Mansion-house
distance beiisg from a
to Scotswood. Messenger took the lead, and maintained
it throughout, Winning easily by between 20 and 30
lengths. The time occupied was half an hour ; but this
was owing to the roughness of the weather.

CHILD MURDER IN THE CITY.—Last evening, be-
tween seven and eight o'clock, as Police-constable
Graves was going his round up Bell-court, Walbrook,
he found a bundle up the court in question, and on
opening the cloth, which was tied tightly, was horrified
to find that it contained the dead body of a chill, which
was quite cold. He conveyed the wrapper and child to
Bow-lane station, where he left it in charge of the officer
at that place. A medical gentleman, who was called in
to examine the body of the child, entertains but little
doubt that it met with an untimely end. Information
has been forwarded to J. Payne, Esq., coroner, who has
ordered an examination to be made by the medical gen-
tleman, when the result will be known. The time of
the learned coroners has lately been taken up with the
increased crime of infanticide. _ _

CHINA.—The fact of the rate of exchange at the vari-
ous Chinese ports continuing without alteration in the
face of the large specie shipments made from this coun-
try during the past year has excited surprise. The de-
cline reported three or four mails ago still left a large
prospect of profit on future shipments of silver, and
hence such arrivals as take place from Mexico and else-
where are quickly absorbed at high quotations.