large, Schuyler having backed his own horse heavily, and the excitement was intense as the contestants went flying down the course between the rows of flaring lights and shouting spectators. When old Sturgeon came in first, we may hope that Douw concealed his satisfaction and Schuyler his chagrin, since both were true-blue sportsmen of the old school, who could take good or ill fortune and give no sign. After a century and a half we find that the old spirit has not died out. Still the ice-decked river is the scene of many a winter carnival. Horses of famous pedigrees, sharp-shod and with nerves tingling in an atmosphere like an electric bath, have literally flung distance to the winds over those crystal courses, where, in summer, the boats tack lazily from shore to shore. ^ Even more exciting than the horse-races are the con- tests of ice-boats, for which the upper Hudson, espe- cially in the neighbourhood of Tivoli and Hyde Park, is famous. An ice-boat is to an ordinary boat what the Empire State Express is to a way freight. It does not Digitized by Microsoft® Sports and Industries 433 sail, it flies, reminding one of the Chinaman's famous de- scription of his first toboggan shde, — ' ' Phwt ! ! ! Walkee back two milee." At a speed of something approach- ing a mile a minute, a zero temperature is very much ICE-BOAT FLEET NEAR HYDE PARK like a keen-edged sword; it will certainly suggest "a dividing asunder of the joints and marrow," unless the sailor on that perilous plain has taken the precaution to swathe himself in as many garments as one of Knickerbocker's beswaddled Dutchmen, and is equipped ^with a circulatory system that can bid defiance' to a nipping air. 28 Digitized by Microsoft® 434 The Hudson River Not infrequently wreck and disaster add a spice of uncertainty to the ice-boatman's career. There is a fair percentage of danger to be encountered, sufficient to insure the sportsman against any risk of ennui. Sometimes an air-hole, invisible half a mile away, is an imminent condition in thirty seconds ; sometimes an unmanageable craft crosses a racer's bows, or a sudden squall keels her over. The crew of a boat that is going at a rate of speed that would put the cannon- ball flight of a wild duck to shame may escape with life and limb the shock of arrested motion, but that will be because the ways of Providence are past find- ing out. /^ It is a matter of course (but no less a subject for congratulation) that the passion for skating has not yet died out. The army of those who every year glide and stumble, stagger and pirouette on the frozen face of the waters still must be reckoned by the thousands. Nor can we imagine it otherwise as long as the Hudson valley is largely inhabited by descendants of those who brought to the new countr)'^ the tastes and habits that had been fostered for generations in the sturdy little land of dykes and canals. , Another form of winter sport, that frequently assumes the careful gravity of business, is ice fishing. There are still a number of sportsmen as well as pro- fessional fishermen, though not as many as formerly, who engage in this occupation. The solitary fisherman sets his lines through holes in the ice, fixing to each one Digitized by Microsoft® Sports and Industries 435 a tell-tale, sometimes in the form of a flag, that by a simple mechanical arrangement indicates when a fish has been hooked. With a sled to carry his parapher- nalia and a cube of frozen salt pork for his luncheon, such a fisherman may skate ten or twelve miles to find a favourable ground, and the fewer his companions the more he is to be congratulated. But usually the pro- fessionals are gregarious in their habits, which is neces- sary from the methods they employ. A long fissure, cut at right angles with the current of the river, admits the insertion of a weighted net, the upper edge of which is secured to transverse sticks above the open- ing. Such fishing is serious business and not likely to conduce to levity. The lines of the net freeze rigid as steel rods, the icy water soaks the thickest gloves till they are sodden and cold, the very fish that are drawn out of that dark and mysterious current under the ice are congealed — stiff as stakes — the moment they are exposed to the atmosphere, and to handle them is like handling pieces of ice. In the face of these discom- forts the winter fisherman, slapping his legs to restore lost circulation, moving stiffly because of the rheumat- ism contracted last year, or