CANOEING ON THE BALTIC.*
IT is not likely that any man will start on such a cruise as this and will then publish an account of it, unless he is an enthusiastic votary of canoeing. We do not know that Mr. Baden-Powell saw anything which was inaccessible to the ordinary traveller, while, as regards comfort, the latter must certainly have had the advantage. We are told in the preface that "there are many lovely wild spots on lakes, rivers, and seas to which no man can get in his yacht ; no railway, no horse, not even his own legs can take him there. In some cases a rowing-boat might avail, but in bad weather the heavy seas would render any open-boat work dangerous, if not impossible ; or if once there, might detain him beyond his time or will ; whereas a good cruising-canoe, at once his lifeboat, portable yacht, and house, is equally efficient whether the water be deep or shallow, rough or smooth." Yet the Swedish lakes, the Gotha Canal, and the coast of the Baltic may all be visited by steamer, and if that mode of travel does not present the excitement of a canoe voyage, it has other recommen- dations. Mr. Baden-Powell does not seem to have fully enjoyed the sleeping accommodation of his canoe. He describes the way in which he and his companion stretched themselves out at full length in their wet clothes with their legs under the fore-deck and the upper part of their body under the after-dock of the canoe, a rug to lie upon, and the hatch covered with a mackintosh. The accompanying picture makes the canoes and their inmates look very snug, but we should have ,thought the sleeper's head and shoulders must be in a somewhat cramped position, and besides this, we are told that the intense cold of sleeping in wet things was insupportable by three in the morning. Again, the picture of the two canoeists standing on a rock with their chart spread out in the rain, and trying vainly to detect the spot at which the river Motala made its exit from a lake, is anything but cheerful. Mr. Baden-Powell speaks in his preface of canoeing as not really dangerous, but we should have thought his experience on the Wener lake might have taught him a different lesson. As the two canoes were crossing from one headland to another they were constantly buried in the trough of the water, and nothing but the top of the mast was visible ; while the waves ran high enough to make it difficult to realize that they were the waters of an in- land lake, and not those of the British Channel. However, as Mr. Baden-Powell has returned safely and evidently intends to go again, we may infer that danger, trouble, and discomfort have a charm for him, and we have no wish to interfere with his enjoy- ment. His sketch of the cruise, though very slight, is pleasantly written, and he is in more than one sense a worthy follower of Mr. Macgregor.
The most exciting incidents of Mr. Baden-Powell's canoe voyage are those to which we have just alluded, though both crossing the Sound and paddling up the Baltic against a strong head wind were more or less hazardous. We read of desperate strokes just saving the canoe from a capsize, of frequent stoppages for the purpose of baling-out, of the canoeists being thoroughly drenched, and of the weariness of incessant, almost-mechanical, work with the paddles in the teeth of a head wind. Indeed, the weather was so unfavourable during Mr. Baden-Powell's trip to Sweden that drenching were of constant occurrence. One night he and his friend slept in a hay-loft during a violent thunderstorm, and in the middle of the night a Blight change in his friend's position brought him right under a hole in the roof, through which a water-spout was pouring. We have spoken of the deplorable picture presented by the two canoeists with their chart spread out in the rain ; but, on the whole, Mr. Baden-Powell's calm indifference to duck- logs shows the strength of his character. Amongst other things, he tells us that, while cruising near Stockholm, he and his friend practised the art of getting into their canoes after a capsize in deep water. We do not know how far Mr. Baden-Povvell's hints on this subject may be serviceable to any of our readers, but the process as he describes it is pretty simple. You are to slide out Of the canoe, seal fashion, to swim alongside, bale the canoe out with your hat, and then to drop astern, shove the stern between your legs, lift yourself along the deck, and vault both legs into the hatchway. More cold-blooded reviewers than ourselves might think it a subject of regret that Mr. Baden-Powell had no practical experience of the value of this method, but at all events his zeal in making such experiments deserves full recognition. On all other points con- nected with canoes he is a patient and careful inquirer, and the instructions to future builders, which occupy the second part of the book, will be found amply sufficient. We cannot wonder at his
* Canoe•Travelling: Log of a Cruise on the Baltic, and Practical flints on Building and Fitting canoug. By Varripgtoa Badou-Poixoll. lemilu4: Smith, Elder, oma
Co, 1871,
being so much absorbed in the interests of his canoe as to give us comparatively little new information about the places he visited. It must be borne in mind that his own presence was the greatest novelty. The scenery on the Maier lake probably ceased to have any attraction for the passengers in the steamers, who saw Mr. Baden-Powell and his friend stretched out at full length on their canoes and taking their luncheon. In all places which were visited by the canoes the population turned out and displayed a gratifying curiosity. Mr. Baden-Powell seems to have been a little spoilt by such universal tributes to his merit, for in one place being invited to go and see a lady who could speak English, he replied that she had better come and see him. She came accordingly, and showed him and his friend over the town of Mariestad and its prison, in which they were interested to see two or throe prisoners convicted of murder, but kept with- out being executed until they chose to confess. Mr. Baden-Powell gives us an interesting glimpse of the Falls of Trollhattan ; "a mouu- taiu face, as it were, with locks rising one above another—vessels stepping up before one's eyes from lock to lock, to a height of 120 feet from the lower part of the river into the Trollhattan Canal above, which deposits them back again in the river, but above the waterfalls. There is a grand old canal which was blasted and cut through half a mile of solid mountain, forming a huge narrow dyke, with a series of locks along its bottom ; but this is now left unused, owing to the still greater work since achieved." Another interesting description is that of the swimming-match held at Malmo. The men who competed for the degree of "Doctor of Swimming" were dressed in white shirts and short bathing- drawers, and we are told that the effect of this costume was ludi- crous in the extreme, each man's shirt forming a sort of white bladder behind his head while he was in the water. After various feats had been performed, the swimmers all drew up in a line tread- ing water, and then each in turn swam to a boat, where he was crowned with a wreath. This was not Mr. Baden-Powell's only experience of Swedish swimmers, for he tells us that he and his friend brought their canoes through an opening in some rails into the middle of a bath in Gothenburg harbour, much to the surprise of the occupants. Very similar to this must have been the feeling of the seals which were floating in the Sound or asleep on its rocks when Mr. Baden-Powell's canoe passed through the midst of them, and when his whistle was answered by their clustering round, eyeing him with the most puzzled, attentive look. We may assume that the several voyages of the Rob Roy have not yet been translated into the seal language, and that they were not prepared for such a strange apparition. To us Mr. Baden- Powell is not the first inventor of canoes, and we cannot give him credit for any marked originality.
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