The winners were a crew of the
peaceful down-river folk, who have learnt the art of boat-making from
the Malays of the coast; and they owed their victory to their superior
skill in fashioning their boat, rather than to superior strength. When
they passed the post we had an anxious moment -- How would the losers
take their beating? Would the winners play the fool, openly exulting
and swaggering? If so, they would probably get their heads broken,
or perhaps lose them. But they behaved with modesty and discretion,
and we diverted attention from them by swinging the steamer round and
driving her through the main mass of the boats. Allowing as accurately
as possible for the rate of the current as compared with the rate of
the tide at Putney, we reckoned the pace of the winning boat to be
a little better than that of the 'Varsity eights in racing over the
full course.
The excitement of the crowds on the bank was great, but it was entirely
good-humoured -- they seemed to have forgotten their feuds in the
interest of the racing. So the Resident seized the opportunity to
summon every one to the conference hall once more. This time we settled
down comfortably enough and with great decorum, the chiefs all in one
group at one side of a central space, and the common people in serried
ranks all round about it.
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