A TRAVELOG BY FRED CHASE
Dear Arthur: I found your letter awaiting me when I returned to my office on August 20, and I thank you for your kind offer of unlimited space in the columns of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE for an account of my trip abroad. Perhaps Ye Editor would not be so free and easy with his space, but anyway here is a little proof.
A trip abroad is a grand tonic if one does not take an overdose of museums and cathedrals. I had not been across for over twenty years, when I went with Rufus Day, Karl Skinner ('03), and my brother Philip ('07). One ought to go every twenty years, at the least, so as to be able to drink afternoon tea and other things without undue self-consciousness. More frequent doses would be advisable.
I went with Lil and his Tabor Academy crew to the Regatta at Henley-on-Thames. Lil has the idea that schoolboys, as well as older students, should have the experience of knowing their contemporaries in other lands, and he has been a leader in the organized movement for the exchange of students. Boys from Tabor and several other American schools have for several years been going to France and Germany for a summer term of study in the native language and history. And it was in furtherance of the same idea that the crew went over this year. It was a big, husky bunch averaging over 171 pounds, and it had shown class in the races of the spring.
We sailed June 19 from New York on the S.S. Majestic of the White Star Line, making a party of eighteen. A rowing machine was taken along and set up on deck, so that the boys had daily practice. A fine bunch of boys they were, and everyone gave them a friendly boost, all the way along; the White Star officials, the Harvard rowing officials, the people of Henley, and the English boys who raced with them. Harvard was the only other American crew to race. Both were defeated, as you no doubt saw in the papers, Harvard by the London Rowing Club "A" crew, in the Grand Challenge Cup race, and Tabor by the London Rowing Club "B" crew, in the Thames Challenge Cup race.
Landing in Southampton on the 26th of June, the boys had a fine first impression of the English country on the bus ride of about sixty miles to Henley, up through old Hampshire, with a visit to Winchester School and Cathedral en route. The shell was waiting at Henley, so the crew had its first practice on the river that evening. Henley during regatta-time is a beautiful sight. The course is one and five-sixths miles long, straightaway and upstream. It is marked off with posts and booms, but is only wide enough for two crews to race at once. Up there the river is fresh water, about two or three times as wide as the race-course, and with a current of several miles an hour. There is an official drawing in the town hall to determine places in the heats, the Grand Challenge cup serving as the receptacle to hold the names.
The regatta was held on the first four days of July, and we were filled with admiration at the way the races were run off. Every detail was provided for; the races started exactly on time, and the course was kept cleared and policed. Neither was the comfort of the spectators neglected. Chairs, standing platforms, grandstands, and refreshments were all provided for. The Englishman certainly knows how to be comfortable during his sporting events.
Tabor was eliminated on the second day. The crew put up a great fight, but the greater age and experience of the London Rowing Club told in its favor, and it won the race by three lengths. We had some consolation in the fact that our time was the same as that of the crew that beat Harvard, also that our opponents went through without a defeat and won the cup. We stayed on till the last day of the regatta and saw most of the races, then went by bus to Oxford, Stratford, Warwick, and Kenilworth, and so to London, where we spent about a week.
I had an afternoon of championship tennis at Wimbledon and saw Shields beat Austin. Another day Lil and I watched the Oxford-Cambridge cricket match, but I knew so little about it that I was completely surprised when it ended!
Several of the crew had to sail for home very soon, and the rest dribbled across to Paris and did some high-pressure sight-seeing. Lil followed with the second party, bound for a boarding school near Versailles, an old chateau in a beautiful old park. There we left about twenty boys to study French, play tennis, and go sight-seeing with French boys and instructors, while Lil and I flew to Berlin.
The flight was my first and was entirely successful, if I omit the first hour. We had a fast Farman-Hansa trimotored monoplane, and were in the air four and a half hours, with a stopover at Cologne for lunch. We ate a full lunch—and kept it too. Some of the front-line trenches were visible from the air, as well as innumerable shell holes filled with water. It is a marvelous panorama, as villages, grain fields, forests, cities, and rivers sweep beneath you. Often we could see the shadow of our plane on the ground. I think the calmest flying was across the mountains of Westphalia, strange to say.
Several days of intensive sight-seeing in Berlin followed, conducted by two enthusiastic German boys, one a former exchange student and the other about to be. Then Lil had to start home, and I was left to my own devices, knowing only about a half dozen words of German. I took my courage in both hands and traveled up to a little summer resort near the Baltic, where I really learned a little German and met interesting people from a dozen different countries. A real Egyptian Pasha was there, a nice old man, cultured and friendly. By rights he should be addressed as "Excellency," but the Englishspeaking guests dubbed him Mr. Cairo! He didn't mind, and when a fresh German asked him if he had 250 wives, he serenely replied, "In Egypt we get them legally!"
Bathing in the Baltic sounds romanticfine, white sand, stories of amber, Hanseatic fleets, etc. but it is really rather tame, as there is no tide and very few waves. The old towns of Lubeck and Bremen are decidedly worthwhile. The best beer I tasted in Germany was in a famous old ship tavern in Lubeck, about five hundred years old, where the natives shout "Hoch" with their steins held high. The Ratskellers were all to the good, too. Little Lubeck has two, a Ratsweinkeller and a Ratsbierkeller. Both are excellent, I can testify. The intricacies of "der, die, das" are beyond me as yet, and as for irregular verbs, "gewesen" and "getrunken" are about all I can remember. But I liked Germany and have left a lot of it to see next time. I acquired there a fine tan and a moustache, both of which I still retain. If you are two or three years old, you need not wear anything on the German beaches. If you are older, only a little more is necessary on the beach and nothing at all in the nudist parks.
We landed in Berlin at the height of the financial crisis, but had not the slightest trouble in cashing our American dollars wherever we went. I cannot say that I saw any signs of real suffering or distress. The natives were short of funds and were staying at home and economizing. Everywhere I met cordial, friendly treatment.
The big speedy SS. Bremen of the North German Lloyd brought me home. Under the guidance of a jolly, red-faced German-American professor I over-ate outrageously, in both German and English, and so put on a few pounds of weight during the voyage. One day we saw the mail plane catapulted off the top deck to fly to shore. That same day a little waterspout appeared off to one side. Hot, humid New York seemed like the tropics after cool Germany. But it was good to be back to the youthful U. S. A. and to find my family safe and sound, and some work to be done at the office. Faithfully yours,
