have taught us. Among our Swedish yachting brethren there are, however, one or two unmistakably English names, as there are also in the Royal Netherlands Yacht Club, and indeed in all foreign Yacht Clubs of our acquaintance. But in justice to our Scandinavian comrades, we must remember, that if they have borrowed yachting from England, it is from their Scandinavian ancestors that the peaceful English sea-rovers of the nineteenth century fetch their birth. And our jolly Dutch neighbours, who spend as much genius and energy in literally keeping their beads above water as some other nations do in maintaining their rank as Great Powers, are certainly no mere imitative yachtsmen. To their powers at sea our own naval history bears ample witness. As pleasure-sailors, Dutchmen are entitled at least to the merit of having given us a word, which many yachtsmen never succeeded in spelling correctly. Dutchmen certainly built the first "yachts," though Dutch yachting may have originally been a somewhat sleepy sport, if indeed it consisted in towing and being towed sluggishly up and down a canal in a sort of cut-down Noah's ark. Some antiquarians have ascribed to the Venetians-those Dutchmen of the Adriatic, as a Hollander might call them-the honour of having invented this amusement. may be so. But to all intents and purposes of our present paper, which deals with yachting as an organized national sport, there can be no question that it belongs to the British Isles. The gentlemen at ease, who, on either side of the Atlantic, go down to the sea for pleasure, and not for business, or profit, or duty, will be found, with very few exceptions, to combine in their blood the great kindred elements of the Saxon and the Scandinavian ancestry. It is to the Pagan pirates from the Saxon coasts and to the Slayers of the North, of the ninth and tenth centuries, and to the "Brethren of the Coast" of the Tudor times, that the harmless yachtsman, who is now hauling his beautiful craft off the mud in the Medina, owes the passion that urges him afloat.

It

In claiming for yachting as a "national sport" of the British Islanders a certain distinction, we are not insisting on the obvious fact that it is absolutely free from those parasitical industries or vices of gambling and betting which unfortunately degrade so many of our land sports, and even our fresh-water aquatics. We do not mean to say that yacht-racing has wholly escaped those sharp practices and crooked arts which have wrested the noble sport of horse-racing from its original purpose as an encouragement to the breeding of the finest and fleetest animals of the purest blood. We shall have occasion to touch presently upon some analogous corruptions which have grown into the customs and usages of yacht-racing, but which, we are happy to believe, are already tending to disappear rather than to increase. But it has certainly escaped that widespread popular demoralization which notoriously surrounds and infests every racing-stable in the kingdom, and has created a new and disreputable profession, fruitful in crime and misery. From these diseased excrescences Yachting, even in the limited sense of yachtracing, is, perhaps by the essentially natural conditions and circumstances of the pursuit, singularly free. We do not exalt the practice of yacht-sailing to the rank of a virtue on this account. The absence of corrupting influences and habits is to its credit, no doubt, but it is only to its credit as the absence of some vices is to the credit of early youth or of old age. A man may be ruined by yachting, if in order to keep a yacht he lives beyond his income. But he cannot be ruined by yachting as many a racing man is ruined by the Turf. Yachting, like any other amusement, may lead a man into many ways of mischief; but the mischief will neither be the fault of the yacht, nor of the pleasure and sport of cruising. Yachting must always be a select, if not an aristocratic, sport; and the more sea-going it is, the manlier, the healthier, the more unexceptionable it becomes. One obvious reason for the comparative innocence of yachting is, that it takes a man away from the "world," breathes into his lungs the purest air, and brings him into close communion with the serenity, the simplicity, the power, and the repose of Nature. Verily, the sea-life returns the love of its adepts with usury. It strengthens and braces their limbs, steadies their nerves, clears their brains, refreshes their spirits, cools and calms their tempers, appeases and consoles their hearts, renovates every fibre in their moral and physical frames.

Another sufficient reason for the comparative selectness of yachting is, that a sea-going yachtsman must, in the most exact sense of the word, have a "stomach" for the sport. Now, a sea-going stomach is, happily, perhaps, -by no means universal, even among Great Britons, who, as Captain Marryat used to insist, should be, one and all, more or less sailors. This previous question of a stomach will always limit the number of active sporting yachtsmen, -more effectually than that other previous question of an income sufficient to buy, fit out, and keep a yacht afloat for four months of the year. Probably in no country in the world, excepting always the United States, can there be found so many sea-going stomachs as in the United Kingdom. But it must not be forgotten that in no seas throughout the surface of the globe are finer opportunities and excuses for sea-sickness to be found than in the waters of Great Britain and Ireland. Here some unfortunate migratory reader, who has made a voyage to Australia and back in a Blackwall liner, or some soldier who has been boxed up for ninety days in a transport, or some man of business who has crossed the "Pond" half-a-dozen times in one of the magnificent Cunard steamers, interrupts us with a protest. "You know," he says, "I'm never sick. But I most cordially accept Dr. Johnson's definition of life at sea, -'a prison, with the chance of being drowned.' Intolerable monotony, a dull, insuperable sense of discomfort and uneasiness, even under the most favourable conditions of weather, and with the pleasantest passengers." To such a protest we can only reply, as the monk of the Camaldoli did to the too-enthusiastic tourist, "Cosi passando!" Three months in a packet-ship may well be weary work; ten days in a steamer, with an engine always thumping, and a deadly-lively mob of intimate strangers always in your way, may well be a purgatorial infliction. But, in a vessel of your own, -in a floating home with a choice of companions of congenial tastes and equal temper, with the faces about you of your own ship's company, --honest fellows who, "ever with a frolic welcome take the thunder or the sunshine," with your own times and seasons for sailing and staying at anchor, your own pick of ports to visit or to pass, yachting is what the monastic life appeared to the tourist, rather than what it was to the old monk's life-long experience.

The yachting world is perhaps more heterogeneously composed than any other of our numerous sporting confederations. From a Lord Chancellor to a fashionable music-master, all sorts and conditions of men belong to it. Parliament and Downing Street, the Stock Exchange, the clergy, the bar, the medical profession, the army and navy, the civil service, the fine arts, literature, commerce, Manchester, and country squires, may all be found side by side in the club lists. Some of the boldest riders and best shots are the most adventurous and devoted of yachtsmen. All the three kingdoms are represented in the sport. We take pleasure in recording that in the history of yachting, the first in point of date, and certainly not the second in all the qualities that ennoble the sport, stands Ireland. No better or braver yachtsmen than Irishmen; no heartier or more hospitable shipmates; no stauncher or more thorough seagoing vessels than those that hail from the Cove of Cork and the Bay of Dublin. Their home is on the blue water, and their daily cruising-ground is on the edge of soundings. Among no set of men, let us confess, are there more eccentric characters, or more strongly-marked varieties of species, than among the yachtsmen of the United Kingdom. For example, there is the man who keeps a yacht as a sort of Greenwich dinner afloat, en permanence; there is the man who keeps a yacht as a racing-machine; the man who keeps a yacht like a man-of-war; the man who keeps a yacht as what the Chinese would call a "family boat;" the man who buys a yacht for a single cruise in the Mediterranean or the Baltic, and sells her on his return, and never goes yachting again; the man who keeps a yacht because he loves the sea, and the freedom and quiet of a sea life; the man who keeps a yacht as a trawler; the man who keeps a yacht for the love of seamanship, and who is his own sailing-master; the man who keeps a yacht, and never stirs beyond the Isle of Wight; the man who goes round to all the regattas, and never enters for a match; the pert little London cockney who, as poor Albert Smith depicted him, sleeps in a chest in Margate harbour, within a few yards of a comfortable hotel, dresses like the hero of a nautical drama at the Surrey, and, -to do him justice, -knows how to handle the packthread, the walking-stick, and the pocket handkerchiefs of his own morsel of a cutter, which he thinks as big as a line-of-battle ship ;and we know not how many other originals.

Let us show as briefly as possible in what a noble national sense yachting, as an organised sport, deserves most honourable mention. We are not writing about such acrobatic vanities as "canoe" sailing, which is to yachting what circus-riding is to fox-hunting, however worthy of admiration, as a somewhat self-conscious exhibition of personal daring and endurance, such imitations of the aquatic sports of our ancient British forefathers may be.

In 1867 there were thirty-one yacht clubs in the United Kingdom, -and, with two exceptions, sea-going yacht squadrons, -bearing the Admiralty warrants; and about 1,740 yachts, of which 240 only were under twelve tons' admeasurement. The total tonnage of these yachts amounted to about 55,700 tons. Allowing one man for every ten tons, we find here a force of 5,700 men, and boys, -employed in the yachting service. The Royal Thames Yacht Club, -it is the grant of the Admiralty warrant that confers the title of "Royal," stands first on the list in date of establishment, the Royal Western of the sister island comes second, and the Royal Cork third. But in justice to our gallant Irish brethren it should be recorded that the Royal Cork is probably the oldest yacht club in the world. It was established as long ago as 1720, although it was not until 1827 that the "Old Cork Water Club" was re-christened the Royal Cork Yacht Club. The earliest record of the Royal Yacht Squadron of England,as it is now called, -is that of a meeting held in 1815 at the Thatched House Tavern, at which Earl de Grey presided, in the capacity, we suppose, of commodore. The seal of the R.Y.S. bears date 1812, in which year we may assume the original Club was established. But this distinguished society, which is now regarded by all as the headquarters of the yachting world, comes only tenth on the list, according to the date of its Admiralty warrant, having been preceded in this privilege by the Royal Thames, the Royal Northern, - of Scotland, the Royal Western, of Ireland, -the Royal Cork, the Royal Eastern, -of Scotland, -the Royal Western, - of England, -the Royal Southern, of England, -the Royal St. George's, -of Ireland, and the Royal London. The Admiralty warrant confers much more than a title; it constitutes, in fact, the "pleasure navy" of the United Kingdom; it gives the yachts, at home and abroad, a distinct rank second only to that of men-of-war; permits them to carry one or other of the ensigns of the fleet; exempts them from the payment of tonnage dues in British and foreign ports, -local dues on going into

basins or private harbours of course excepted; enables yacht-owners to remove their furniture or property from place to place in the United Kingdom without coasting license, to deposit wine and spirits in the Customs warehouses on arrival from foreign ports free of duty, until reshipped for another voyage; and authorises the yachts to take up man-of-war moorings, and their boats to go alongside and land company at the King's sally-port at Portsmouth, and similar landing-places of her Majesty's ships'-boats at the other naval ports. All the foreign Powers of Europe have granted the like privileges in their ports to the yachts of the United Kingdom bearing the Admiralty warrant. No yacht on hire is allowed to carry the colours of the club, or to enjoy the privileges of the Admiralty warrant; and any infringement of the local laws and customs in foreign ports forfeits the warrant, and entails expulsion from the club. When the Admiralty first recognised the public policy of granting their warrants to yacht clubs, no doubt it was not only a privilege that was conceded, but a certain responsibility that was intended to be enforced.

Some yachtsmen, as we have said, happen to be of an eccentric turn, and a little apt to kick up their heels and sing "Rule Britannia" a little too loudly in foreign waters. We have heard of an owner of a long, low, black schooner, who had a taste for chasing strange merchantmen when he got well into blue water, more especially in hazy weather, in the grey light of the dawn, or the shadowy gloaming. He would suddenly round to and hoist the black flag with death's head and cross-bones, and crowd his bulwarks with an effective row of fierce red caps; and then, as suddenly, turn on his heel and bear away. There might be no great harm in such antics, but among our seventeen or eighteen hundred active yachtsmen there may possibly be British subjects of wild and unruly disposition, perfectly capable of getting the flag of their country into scrapes, and perhaps of offending the susceptibility of a foreign government by some silly freak, and upon these exceptional characters the responsibility of bearing the Admiralty warrant exerts, perhaps, a salutary restraint.

The crews of these 1,740 yachts come from all parts of the kingdom; principally, it seems, from the Isle of Wight, which even in the time of Queen Elizabeth was a royal yachting station. In the days of Queen Bess there were twenty-nine royal yachts, that is, vessels in her Majesty's service employed for conveying great personages of State, always stationed at Cowes. A yacht was understood, in those days, to be a small ship with one deck, carrying from eight to ten guns, and averaging from 30 to 160 tons.

The principal yacht seamen of our day come from Cowes, Bembridge, St. Helens, and Yarmouth, -Isle of Wight, from Portsmouth, Southampton, Lymington, Poole, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and the fishing villages adjoining these two latter ports. There are some, too, from Gravesend, and other places on the Thames and the coast of