cook, looking on from the shore, thought I had been drowned. But at last I felt the line tighten, my head rose above the water, there was the boat just in front of me, and I scrambled on board.'
The following hints apply to river-sailing in open boats. In a river the current generally runs stronger in the centre, and more slowly along the banks; but bear in mind that, if the river is winding, the strength of the current sweeps close past the point at the convex side of each bend, and then, at first preserving its old direction, crosses diagonally towards the other side before distributing itself evenly in the channel and acquiring the direction of the new reach. On the other hand, in the bay formed on the concave side of a bend, there is little or no current, and sometimes even a back eddy will be found. When racing on a river it is important to make use of this knowledge; and also, when cruising on a river like the Seine, where the tide rushes up in a steep and dangerous wave, or bore as it is called in England, one's safety often depends on close attention to this tendency of river currents; for at each big bend of the river the tide is deflected, and there is generally a place on one side or the other where one can anchor in smooth water, while everywhere else the bore is breaking heavily. In straight reaches the bore is most dangerous close to the banks; at Caudebec, on the Seine, it piles up along the quay-side in a roller twenty feet in height at spring tides. If overtaken by the bore when sailing
