Some Recollections of Sport
Some Recollections of Sport is an article by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in The Strand Magazine in september 1909. He tells some souvenirs of sporting events where he was involved.
The article was reused with modifications and additions in Memories and Adventures, chapter XXIV (1924).
Editions
- Some Recollections of Sport (september 1909, The Strand Magazine [UK]) 3 photos and 5 illustrations by Arthur Twidle
- Some Recollections of Sport (october 1909, The Strand Magazine [US]) 3 photos and 5 illustrations by Arthur Twidle
- Some Recollections of Sport (may-june 1924, The Strand Magazine [UK]). Article revised and enlarged.
- in Memories and Adventures (18 september 1924, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. [UK])
- in Memories and Adventures (1924, Little, Brown & Co. [US])
- in Memories and Adventures (29 july 1929, John Murray [UK])
Illustrations
- Photos and illustrations by Arthur Twidle in The Strand Magazine
-
"One had some exciting moments as it waved its great fins in the air or tried to reach us with its tail." -
"I took two pairs of gloves aboard the whaler with me, and taught several of the men to box." -
"I used in my early golfing days to practise onthe very rudimentary links in front of the Mena Hotel, just under the pyramids." -
"The most singular ball I have ever received." -
"I felt the weight getting heavier moment by moment, and wondered how long my vertebre could stand it." -
"Starting on a balloon trip." -
"The running wolf - a norwegian snow apparatus being tested in the Engadine." -
"A fall in skis."
Some Recollections of Sport
As one approaches one's fiftieth birthday one looks back at one's career in sport as a thing completed. Yet I have at least held on to it as long as I could, for I played a hard match of Association football at forty-four, and I played cricket for ten years more. I have never specialized, and have therefore been a second-rater in all things. I have made up for it by being an all-rounder, and have had, I dare say, as much fun out of sport as many an adept. It would be odd if a man could try aa many games as I for so many years without having some interesting experiences or forming a few opinions which would bear recording and discussion.
And first of all let me "damn the sins I have no mind to" by recording what most of my friends will regard as limitation. I never could look upon flat-racing as a true sport. Sport is what a man does, not what a horse does. Skill and judgment are shown, no doubt, by the professional jockeys, but I think it may be argued that in nine cases out of ten the best horse wins, and would have equally won, could his head be kept straight, had there been a dummy on his back. But making every allowance on the one side, for what human qualities may be called forth, and for any improvement of the breed of horses (though I am told that the same pains in other directions would produce infinitely more fruitful and generally useful results), and putting on the other side the demoralization from betting, the rascality among some book-makers, and the collection of undesirable characters brought together by a race meeting, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the harm greatly outweighs the good from a broadly national point of view. Yet I recognize, of course, that it is an amusement which lies so deeply in human nature — the oldest, perhaps, of all amusements which have come down to us — that it must have its place in our system until the time may come when it will be gradually modified, developing, perhaps, some purifying change, as prize-fighting did when it turned to contests with the gloves.
I have purposely said "flat-racing," because I think a stronger case, though not, perhaps, an entirely sound one, could be made out for steeplechasing. Eliminate the mob and the money, and then, surely, among feats of human skill and hardihood there are not many to match that of the winner of a really stiff point-to-point, while the man who rides at the huge barriers of the Grand National has a heart for anything. As in the old days of the ring, it is not the men nor the sport, but it is the followers who cast a shadow on the business. Go down to Waterloo and meet any returning race train, if you doubt it.
If I have alienated half my readers by my critical attitude to the Turf, I shall probably offend the other half by stating that I cannot persuade myself that we are justified in taking life as a pleasure. To shoot for the pot must be right, since man must feed, and to kill creatures which live upon others (the hunting of foxes, for example) must also be right, since to slay one is to save many; but the rearing of birds in order to kill them, and the shooting of such sensitive and inoffensive animals as hares and deer, cannot, I think, be justified. I must admit that I shot a good deal before I came to this conclusion. Perhaps the fact, while it prevents my assuming any airs of virtue, will give my opinion greater weight, since good shooting is still within my reach, and I know nothing more exhilarating than to wait on the borders of an autumn-tinted wood, to hear the crackling advance of heaters, to mark the sudden whirr and the yell of "Mark over," and then, over the top-most branches, to see a noble cock pheasant whizzing down wind at a pace which pitches him a 100 yards behind you when you have dropped him. But when your moment of exultation is over, and you. note what a beautiful creature he is and how one instant of your pleasure has wrecked him, you feel that you had better think no longer if you mean to slip two more cartridges into your gun and stand by for another. Worse still is it when you hear the child-like wail of the wounded hare. I should think that there are few sportsmen who have not felt a disgust at their own handiwork when they have heard it. So, too, when you see the pheasant fly on with his legs showing beneath him as sign that he is hard hit. He drops into the thick woods and is lost to sight. Perhaps it is as well for your peace of mind that he should be lost to thought also.
Of course, one is met always by the perfectly valid argument that the creatures would not live at all if it were not for the purposes of sport, and that it is presumably better from their point of view that they should eventually meet a violent death than that they should never have existed. No doubt this is true. But there is another side of the question as to the effect of the sport upon ourselves — whether it does not blunt our own better feelings, harden our sympathies, brutalize our natures. A coward can do it as well as a brave man; a weakling can do it as well as a strong man. There is no ultimate good from it. Have we a moral right then, to kill creatures for amusement ? I know many of the best and most kind-hearted men who do it, but still I feel that in a more advanced age it will no longer be possible.
And yet I am aware of my own inconsistency when I say I am in sympathy with fishing, and would gladly have a little if I knew where to get it. And yet, is it wholly inconsistent ? Is a cold-blooded creature of low organization like a fish to be regarded in the same way as the hare which cries out in front of the beagles, or the deer which may carry the rifle bullet away in its side ? If there is any cruelty it is surely of a much less degree. Besides, is it not the sweet solitude of Nature, the romantic quest, rather than the actual capture which appeals to the fisherman? One thinks of the stories of trout and salmon which have taken another fly within a few minutes of having broken away from a former one, and one feels that their sense of pain must be very different from our own.
I once had the best of an exchange of fishing stories, which does not sound like a testimonial to my veracity. It was in a Birmingham inn, and a commercial traveller was boasting of his success. I ventured to back the weight of the last three fish which I had been concerned in catching against any day's take of his life-time. He closed with the bet and quoted some large haul, 100 lbs. or more. "Now, sir," he asked triumphantly, "what was the weight of your three fish ?" "Just over 200 tons," I answered. "Whales ?" "Yes, three Greenland whales." "I give you best," he cried; but whether as a fisherman, or as a teller of fish stories, I am not sure. As a matter of fact, I had only returned that year from the Arctic seas, and the three fish in question were, in truth, the last which I had helped to catch.
There is, indeed, a royal sport, the greatest on earth, if the size and value of the quarry be taken into account. At the time whalebone was fifteen hundred pounds a ton, and that amount could be taken from a large fish, besides another thousand pounds' worth of oil. To have the value of two thousand five hundred pounds at the end of a line, and to master it by sheer skill and audacity, is the apotheosis of fishing. In the course of my voyage I had the good fortune once to be in the harpooning boat and once in the lancing boat, which actually kills the exhausted creature. In the former instance, I was too busy in pulling and backing according to the whispered orders of the harpooner to have any thought beyond my oar, but in the second case the boat was for half an hour alongside the dying fish, and one had some exciting moments as it waved its great fins in the air or tried to reach us with its tail, while we boat-hooked ourselves to its shoulder. But the danger of the sport is less than one would imagine, for the great Greenland whale is not a vicious creature, and if it occasionally splinters a boat it is, I think, as often by accident as design. My only actual experience of heavy game shooting was during this cruise, though I still live in hopes of getting a tiger before I finish. We shot a considerable variety of seals and about fifty Polar bears. It was our habit when anchored to an icefield to burn a few bones, with the result that the fumes carried down wind would fetch up any bears within twenty miles of us. It was strange to see them coming up, two at a time, quite yellow against the Arctic snow, shuffling swiftly along, and pausing continually to snuff the appetizing smell. In an hour or two their skins were usually drying upon our deck.
I took two pairs of gloves aboard the whaler with me, and taught several of the men to box. I have always been keen upon the noble old English sport, and, though of no particular class myself, I suppose I might describe my form as that of a fair average amateur. I should have been a better man had I taught Jess and learned more, but after my first tuition I had few chances of professional teaching. However, I have done a good deal of mixed boxing among many different types of men, and had as much pleasure from it as from any form of sport. It stood me in good stead aboard the whaler. Upon the very first evening I had a strenuous bout with the steward, who was an excellent sportsman. I heard him afterwards, through the partition of the cabin, declare that I was "the best sur-r-r-geon we've had, Colin- he's blacked my ee." It struck me as a singular test of medical ability, but I dare say it did no harm.
I remember when I was a medical practitioner going down to examine a man's life for insurance in a little Sussex village. He was the gentleman farmer of the place, and a most sporting and jovial soul. It was a Saturday, and I enjoyed his hospitality that evening, staying over till Monday. After breakfast it chanced that several neighbours dropped in, one of whom, an athletic young farmer, was fond of the gloves. Conversation soon brought out the fact that I had a weakness in the same direction. The result was obvious. Two pairs of gloves were hunted from some cupboard, and in a few minutes we were hard at it, playing light at first and Jetting out as we warmed. It was soon clear that there was no room inside a house for two heavy-weights, so we adjourned to the front lawn. The main road ran across the end of it, with a low wall of just the right, height to allow the village to rest its elbows on it and enjoy the spectacle. We fought several very brisk rounds, with no particular advantage either way, but the contest always stands out in my memory for its queer surroundings and the old English picture in which it was set.
They say that every form of knowledge comes useful sooner or later. Certainly my own experience in boxing and my very large acquaintance with the history of the prize-ring found their scope when I wrote "Rodney Stone." No one but a fighting man would ever, I think, quite understand or appreciate some of the detail. A friend of mine read the scene where Boy Jim fights Berks to a prize-fighter as he lay in what proved to be his last illness. The man listened with growing animation until the reader came to the point where the second advises Boy Jim, in technical jargon, how to get at his awkward antagonist. "That's it! By God, he's got him!" shouted the man in the bed. It was an incident which gave me pleasure when I heard it.
I have never concealed my opinion that the old prize-ring was an excellent thing from a national point of view — exactly as glove-fighting is now. Better that our sports should be a little too rough than that we should run a risk of effeminacy. But the ring outlasted its time. It was ruined by the villainous mobs who cared nothing for the chivalry of sport or the traditions of British fair play as compared with the money gain which the contest might bring. Their blackguardism drove out the good men — the men who really did uphold the ancient standards, and so the whole institution passed into rottenness and decay. But now the glove contests carried on under the discipline of the National Sporting or other clubs perpetuate the noble old sport without a possibility of the more evil elements creeping into it once more. An exhibition of hardihood without brutality, of good-humoured courage without savagery, of skill without trickery, is, I think, the very highest which sport can give. People may smile at the mittens, but a twenty-round contest with four-ounce gloves is quite as punishing an ordeal as one could wish to endure. There is as little room for a coward as in the rougher days of old, and the standard of endurance is probably as high as in the average prize-fight.
One wonders how our champions of to-day would have fared at the hands of the heroes of the past. I know something of this end of the question, for I have seen nearly all the great boxers of my time, from J. L. Sullivan down to Tommy Burns and Johnson, not forgetting Ian Hague, who, we all hope, may restore the long-eclipsed fame of the British heavy-weight. But how about the other end — the men of old? Wonderful Jem Mace was the only link between them. On the one hand, he was supreme in the 'sixties as a knuckle-fighter; on the other, he gave the great impetus to glove-fighting in America, and more especially in Australia, which has brought over such champions as Frank Slavin and Fitzsimmons, who, through Mace's teaching, derive straight from the classic line of British boxers. He of all men might have drawn a just comparison between the old and the new. But even his skill and experience might be at fault, for it is notorious that many of the greatest fighters under the old régime were poor hands with the mittens. Men could bang poor Tom Sayers all round the ring with the gloves, who would not have dared to get over the ropes had he been without them.
If boxing is the finest single man sport, I think that Rugby football is the best collective one. Strength, courage, speed and resource are great qualities to include in a single game. I have always wished that it had come more my way in life, but my football was ruined, as many a man's is, by the fact that at my old school they played a hybrid game peculiar to the place, with excellent points of its own, but unfitting the youngster for any other. All these local freak games, wall games, Winchester games, and so on are national misfortunes, for while our youths are wasting their energies upon them — those precious early energies which make the instinctive players — the young South African or New Zealander is brought up on the real universal Rugby, and so comes over to pluck a few more laurel leaves out of our depleted wreath. In Australia I have seen in Victoria a hybrid, though excellent game of their own, but they have had the sense in other parts to fall into line, and are already taking the same high position which they hold in other branches of sport. I hope that our headmasters will follow the same course.
In spite of my wretched training I played for a short time as a forward in the Edinburgh University team, but my want of knowledge of the game was too heavy a handicap. Afterwards I took to Association, and played first goal and then back for Portsmouth, when that famous club was an amateur organization. Even then we could put a very fair team in the field, and were runners-up for the County Cup the last season that I played. In the same season I was invited to play for the county. I was always too slow, however, to be a really good back, though I was a long and safe kick. After a long hiatus I took up football again in South Africa and organized a series of inter-hospital matches in Bloemfontein which helped to take our minds away from enteric. My old love treated me very scurvily, however, for I received a foul from a man's knee which buckled two of my ribs and brought my games to a close. I have played occasionally since, but there is no doubt that as a man grows older a brisk charge shakes him up as it never did before. Let him turn to golf, and be thankful that there is still one splendid game which can never desert him. There may be objections to the "Royal and Ancient" — but a game which takes four miles of country for the playing must always have a majesty of its own.
Personally I was an enthusiastic, but a very inefficient golfer'— a ten at my best, and at my worst outside the pale of all decent handicaps. But surely it is a great testimony to the qualities of a game when a man can be both enthusiastic and inefficient. It is a proof at least that a man plays for the game's sake and not for personal kudos. Golf is the coquette of games. It always lures one on and always evades one. Ten years ago I thought I had nearly got it. I hope so to-day. But my scoring cards will show, I fear, that the coquette has not yet been caught. The elderly lover cannot hope to win her smile.
I used in my early golfing days to practise on the very rudimentary links in front of the Mena Hotel, just under the Pyramids. It was a weird course, where, if you sliced your ball, yon might find it bunkered in the grave of some Rameses or Thothmes of old. It was here, I believe, that the cynical stranger, after watching my energetic but ineffectual game, remarked that he had always understood that there was a special tax for excavating in Egypt. I have a pleasant recollection of Egyptian golf in a match played with the late Sirdar, then head of the Intelligence Department. When my ball was teed I observed that his negro caddie pointed two fingers at it and spat, which meant, as I was given to understand, that he cursed it for the rest of the game. Certainly I got into every hazard in the course, though I must admit that I have accomplished that when there was no Central African curse upon me. Those were the days before the reconquest of the Soudan, and I was told by Colonel Wingate — as he then was — that his spies coming down from Omdurman not infrequently delivered their messages to him while carrying his golf clubs, to avoid the attention of the Calipha's spies, who abounded in Cairo. On this occasion the Sirdar beat me well, but with a Christian caddie I turned the tables on him at Dunbar, and now we have signed articles to play off the rubber at Khartoum, no cursing allowed. When that first match was played we should as soon have thought of arranging to play golf in the moon.
There is said to be a considerable analogy between golf and billiards, so much so that success in the one generally leads to success in the other. Personally, I have not found it so, for though I may claim, I suppose, to be above the average amateur at billiards, I am probably below him in golf. I have never quite attained the three-figure break, but I have so often topped the eighty, and even the ninety, that I have lived in. constant hope. My friend, the late General Drayson, who was a great authority on the game, used to recommend that every player should ascertain what he called his "decimal," by which he meant how many innings it took him, whether scoring or not, to make a hundred. The number, of course, varies with the luck of the balls and the mood of the player; but, taken over a dozen or twenty games, it gives a fair average idea of the player's form, and a man by himself can in this way test his own powers. If, for example, a player could, on an average, score a hundred in twenty innings then his average would be five, which is very fair amateur form. If a man finds his "decimal" rise as high as ten over a sequence of games, he may be sure that he can hold his own against most players that he is likely to meet.
My earliest recollection of cricket is not a particularly pleasant one. When I was a very small boy at a preparatory school I was one of a group of admirers who stood around watching a young cricketer who had just made his name hitting big hits off the school bowlers. One of the big hits landed on my knee-cap and the cricketer in his own famous arms carried me off to the school infirmary. The name, Tom Emmett, lingers in my memory, though it was some years before I appreciated exactly what he stood for in the game. I think, like most boys, I would rather have been knocked down by a first-class cricketer than picked up by a second-rater.
That was the beginning of my acquaintance with a game which has on the whole given me more pleasure during my life than any other branch of sport. I have ended by being its victim, for a fast bowler some years ago happened to hit me twice in the same place under my left knee, which has left a permanent weakness. I have had as long an inning as one could reasonably expect, and carry many pleasant friendships and recollections away with me.
I was a keen cricketer as a boy, but in my student days was too occupied to touch it. Then I took it up again, but my progress was interrupted by work and travel. I had some cause, therefore, to hold on to the game as I had lost so much of it in my youth. Finally, I fulfilled a secret ambition by getting into the fringe of first-class cricket, though rather, perhaps, through the good nature of others than my own merits. However, I can truly say that in the last season when I played some first-class cricket, including matches against Kent, Derbyshire, and the London County, I had an average of thirty-two for those games, so I may claim to have earned my place. I was more useful, however, in an amateur team, for I was a fairly steady and reliable bowler, and I could generally earn my place in that department, while with the M.G.C. the professional talent is usually so strong that the amateur who fails in batting and is not a particularly good field has no chance of atoning with the ball. Yet even with the M.C.C. I have occasionally had a gleam of success. Such a one came some years ago, when the team presented me with a little silver hat for getting three consecutive clean-bowled wickets against the Gentlemen of Warwick. One of my victims explained his downfall by assuring me that he had it thoroughly in his head that I was a left-handed bowler, and when the ball came from my right hand he was too bewildered to stop it. The reason is not so good as that of an artist who, when I had bowled him out, exclaimed: "Who can play against a man who bowls in a crude pink shirt against an olive-green background?"
A bowler has many days when everything is against him, when a hard, smooth wicket takes all the spin and devil out of him, when he goes all round and over the wicket, when lofted balls refuse to come to hand, or, if they do come, refuse to stay. But, on the other hand, he has his recompense with many a stroke of good fortune. It was in such a moment that I got the wicket of the greatest of all cricketers. Alas! there was nothing in the ball to make the deed memorable. It was a little short of a half-volley outside the off wicket. But that is just where luck comes in. Four first-class professionals had done nothing against Grace's impenetrable defence because he was on his guard against them. But this innocuous ball was above suspicion. He tried to pull it, and getting under it sent it up to an amazing height into the air. My heart seemed to go about as high as I saw Storer run from the wickets to get under it, but it was very safe in the hands of the Derbyshire crack. That moment of supreme good fortune atoned for many a missed chance and many a day's pounding on a hard wicket.
The grand old cricketer had his speedy revenge, for he had my scalp at his girdle before we finished. There is nothing more childlike and bland than that slow, tossed-up bowling of his, and nothing more subtle and treacherous. He is always on the wicket or about it, never sends down a really loose ball, works continually a few inches from the leg, and has a perfect command of length. It was the latter quality which was my downfall. I had made some thirty or forty, and began to relax in the deep respect with which I faced the Doctor's deliveries. I had driven him for four, and jumped out at him again the next ball. Seeing my intention, as a good bowler does, he dropped his ball a foot or two shorter. I reached it with difficulty, but again I scored four. By this time I was very pleased with myself, and could see no reason why every one of these delightful slows should not mean a four to me. Out I danced to reach the next one on the half-volley. It was tossed a little higher up in the air, which gave the delusion that it was coming right up to the bat, but as a matter of fact it pitched well short of my reach, broke sharply across, and Lilley, the wicketkeeper, had my bails off in a twinkling. One feels rather cheap when one walks from the middle of the pitch to the pavilion, longing to kick oneself for one's own foolishness all the way. I have only once felt smaller, and that was when I was bowled by A. P. Lucas, by the most singular ball that I have ever received. He propelled it like a quoit into the air to a height of at least thirty feet, and it fell straight and true on to the top of the bails. I have often wondered what a good batsman would have made of that ball. To play it one would have needed to turn the blade of the bat straight up, and could hardly fail to give a chance. I tried to cut it off my stumps, with the result that I knocked down my wicket and broke my bat, while the ball fell in the midst of this general chaos. I spent the rest of the day wondering gloomily what I ought to have done — and I am wondering yet.
l have had two unusual experiences upon Lord's ground. One was that I got a century in the very first match that I played there. It was an unimportant game, it is true, but still the surprising fact remained. It was a heavy day, and my bat, still encrusted with the classic mud, hangs as a treasured relic in my hall. The other was less pleasant and even more surprising. I was playing for the Club against Kent, and faced for the first time Bradley, who was that year one of the fastest bowlers in England. His first delivery I hardly saw, and it landed with a terrific thud upon my thigh. A little occasional pain is one of the advantages of cricket, and one takes it as cheerfully as one can, but on this occasion it suddenly became sharp to an unbearable degree. I clapped my hand to the spot, and found to my amazement that I was on fire. The ball had landed straight on a small tin vesta box in my trouser pocket, had splintered the box, and set the matches ablaze. It did not take me long to turn out my pocket and scatter the burning vestas over the grass. I should have thought this incident unique, but Alec Hearne, to whom I told it, assured me that he had seen more than one accident of the kind.
There are certain matches which stand out on one's memory for their peculiar surroundings. One was a match played against Cape de Verde at that island on the way to South Africa. There is an Atlantic telegraph Station there with a large staff, and they turn out an excellent eleven. I understand that they played each transport as it passed, and that they had defeated all, including the Guards. We made up a very fair team, however, under the captaincy of Lord Henry Scott, and after a hard fight we defeated the islanders. I don't know how many of our eleven left their bones in South Africa; three at least-Blasson, Douglas Forbes (who made our top score), and young Maxwell Craig never returned. I remember one even more tragic match in which I played for the Incogniti against Aldershot Division a few months before the war. The regiments quartered there were those which afterwards saw the hardest service. Major Ray, who made the top score, was killed at Magersfontein. Young Stanley, who went in first with me, met his death in the Yeomanry. Taking the two teams right through, I am sure that half the men were killed or wounded within two years. How little we could have foreseen it that sunny summer day ! When one thinks of all the good cricketers who took their turn at the war — Jackson, Spooner, Milligan (killed in action), Turner of Essex (wounded in several places), Lewis, the old Blue, Mitchell of Yorkshire, and so many others-one feels that sport was justified of its children, though, on the whole, I believe the Rugby footballers had the better record to show.
One reform is badly needed in order to improve cricket as a spectacular game. It is the abolition of left-handed batting. The lefthanded bowler hurts no one, but the batsman is undeniably a perfect nuisance, delaying the game and giving the field an immense amount of extra trouble. Why should he be permitted to do this when he is in so immense a minority? Of course, any legislation upon the subject should respect the position of all existing batsmen, and should give a margin of three or four years, so that those players who are coming on might not be disqualified. But after that date I would enact that no new player be admitted as a left-handed batsman into first - class cricket. In most cases a lad who shows an inclination to be left-handed can be easily trained into using his right hand, and so, by encouraging him in the beginning, the matter can Le set right at the source. At present, however, there is no reason why the youngster should be trained as a right-hander, and so we have the perpetuation of a nuisance which a little foresight and firm legislation could easily remove. I could devote the whole of this article very easily to experiences and reminiscences of cricket if I could hope to interest others in that which interested myself. However, my intention was rather to take a bird's-eye glance at many branches of sport than to hold forth upon any one, so I will turn away before I become garrulous.
Of fencing my experience has been limited, and yet I have seen enough to realize what a splendid toughening exercise it is. I nearly had an ugly mishap when practising it. I had visited a medical man in Southsea who was an expert with the foils, and at his invitation had a bout with him. I had put on the mask and glove, but was loath to have the trouble of fastening on the heavy chest plastron. He insisted, however, and his insistence saved me from an awkward wound, for, coming in heavily upon a thrust, his foil broke a few inches from the end, and the sharp point thus created went deeply into the pad which covered me. I learned a lesson that day.
On the whole, considering the amount or varied sport which I have done, I have come off very well as regards bodily injury. One finger broken at football, two at cricket (one after the other in the same season), the disablement or my knee, which may, I rear, prove permanent-that almost exhausts it. Though a heavy man and quite an indifferent rider, I have never hurt myself in a fair selection of falls in the hunting field and elsewhere. Once when I was down the horse hit me over the eye with his forefoot, but I got off with a rather ragged wound, though it might have been very much more serious.
Indeed, when it comes to escapes, I have had more than my share of luck. One of the worst was in a motor accident, when the machine, which weighed over a ton, ran up a high bank, threw me out on a gravel drive below, and then, turning over, fell upon the top of me. The steering-wheel projected slightly from the rest, and thus broke the impact and undoubtedly saved my life, but it gave way under the strain, and the weight of the car settled across my spine just below the neck, pinning my face down on to the gravel, and pressing with such terrific force as to make it impossible to utter a sound. I felt the weight getting heavier moment by moment, and wondered how long my vertebrae could stand it. However, they did so long enough to enable a crowd to collect and the car to be levered off me. I should think there are few who can say that they have held up a ton weight across their spine and lived unparalyzed to talk about it It is an acrobatic feat which I have no desire to repeat.
There is plenty of sport in driving one's own motor and meeting the hundred and one unexpected roadside adventures and difficulties which are continually arising. These were greater a few years ago, when motors were themselves less solidly and accurately constructed, drivers were less skilled, and frightened horses were more in evidence. No invention of modern civilization has done so much for developing a man's power of resource and judgment as the motor. To meet and overcome a sudden emergency is the best of hum an training, and if a man is his own driver and mechanician on a fairly long journey he can hardly fail to have some experience of it.
No doubt the coming science of aviation will develop the same qualities in an even higher degree. It is a form of sport in which I have only aspirations and little experience. I had one balloon ascent in which we covered some twenty-five miles and ascended six thousand feet, which was so delightful an expedition that I have always been eager for another and a longer one. A man has a natural trepidation the first time he leaves the ground, but I remember that, as I stood by the basket with the gas bag swinging about above me and the assistants clinging to the ropes, someone pointed out an elderly gentleman and said, "That is the famous Mr. So-and-so, the aeronaut." I saw a venerable person and I asked how many ascents he had made. "About a thousand," was the answer. No eloquence or reasoning could have convinced me so completely that I might get into the basket with a cheerful mind, though I will admit that for the first minute or so one feels very strange, and keeps an uncommonly tight grip of the side-ropes. This soon passes, however, and one is lost in the wonder of the prospect and the glorious feeling of freedom and detachment. As in a ship, it is the moment of nearing land once more which is the moment of danger — or, at least, of discomfort; but, beyond a bump or two, we came to rest very quietly in the heart of a Kentish hop-field. If anyone desires to make his first flight under safe and pleasant auspices, I can confidently recommend him to Mr. Percival Spencer at the Crystal Palace.
There is one form of sport in which I have, I think, been able to do some practical good, for I can claim to have been the first to introduce skis into the Grisons division of Switzerland, or at least to demonstrate their practical utility as a means of getting across in winter from one valley to another. It was in 1894 that I read Nansen's account of his crossing of Greenland, and thus became interested in the subject of ski-ing. It chanced that I was compelled to spend that winter in the Davos valley, and I spoke about the matter to Tobias Branger, a sporting tradesman in the village, who in turn interested his brother. We sent for skis from Norway, and for some weeks afforded innocent amusement to a large number of people who watched our awkward movements and complex tumbles. The Brangers made much better progress than I. At the end of a month or so we felt that we were getting more expert, and determined to climb the Jacobshorn, a considerable hill just opposite the Davos Hotel. We had to carry our unwieldy skis upon our backs until we had passed the fir trees which line its slopes, but once in the open we made splendid progress, and had the satisfaction of seeing the flags in the village dipped in our honour when we reached the summit. But it was only in returning that we got the full flavour of ski-ing. In ascending you shuffle up by long zigzags, the only advantage of your footgear being that it is carrying you over snow which would engulf you without it. But coming back you simply tum your long toes and let yourself go, gliding delightfully over the gentle slopes, flying down the steeper ones, taking an occasional cropper, but getting as near to flying as any earthbound man can. In that glorious air it is a delightful experience.
Encouraged by our success with the Jacobshorn, we determined to show the utility of our accomplishment by opening up communications with Arosa, which lies in a parallel valley and can only be reached in winter by a very long and round-about railway journey. To do this we had to cross a high pass, and then drop down on the other side. It was a most interesting journey, and we felt all the pride of pioneers as we arrived in Arosa. I remember that when we signed the hotel register Tobias Branger filled up the space after my name, in which the new arrival had to describe his profession, by the word "Sportesmann," which I took as a compliment. It was at any rate more pleasant than the German description of my golf clubs, which went astray in the railway and turned up at last with the official description of "Kinderspieler" (child's toys) attached to them. To return to the skis, they are no doubt in very general use, but I think I am right in saying that these and other excursions of ours first demonstrated their possibilities to the people of the country. If my rather rambling career in sport has been of any practical value to anyone it is probably in this matter, and also, perhaps, in the opening up of miniature rifle-ranges when the. idea was young in this country. It is splendid to see how this movement has spread, so that already we seem within measurable distance of the time when every village will once again, as in the Middle Ages, have its own butts. What is most needed now is that they should have the moral courage to open on Sunday afternoons, as their ancestors did before them, and as is done to day in every Protestant country in Europe. Patriotism has its duties as well as Religion, and they may well be fulfilled upon the same day.
