ROYAL HENLEY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 67

ROYAL HENLEY.

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, July 8. For three golden days each year the quaint little town of Henley finds itself on the topmost crest of the social wave. Then the wave passes and Henley sinks back into slumber and oblivion; but that “crowded hour of glorious life” has spread the fame of the little town throughout the world. This year the life of Henley and its regatta was prolonged an extra day, and the weather all through was so delightful that perspiring Londoners were readier than ever to leave the noise and humid heat of the metropolis far behind them, and spend the day afloat. One’s conscience salved itself satisfactorily. THs flight to Henley, it argued, was not a case of “duty” being “cast upon the dust heap ” as Bishop Julius would say. Rather was it a simple transference of duty from the purlieus of Fleet street to the placid reaches of the Upper Thames. But a visit to Henley regatta requires no palliation. It is one of the prettiest sights in the world, and one of the most agreeable. As an aquatic carnival- it is unique. The visitor from the Antipodes who fails to see Henley at the zenith of its glory has missed not only a wonderful picture, but a typical and distinctive feature of English life. It is one of the sights which he can see without any sense of disillusionment. Given, indeed, a fine day and a large attendance, and the seen© will probably surpass in colour, beauty, life and general brilliancy all the mental pictures he may have formed from books, and photographs and travellers’ tales. Just such a day was Wednesday. th« second day of the regatta. It was a per* feet summer’s day, and picturesque Henley with its green, well-ordered lawns, its spreading trees, its thousand® of rowing-skiffs and punts massed on either side of the course, its gaily decorated house-boats, its music, its brilliant throng Henley was at its best. To the colonial eye at any rate, there is a striking air of luxurious ease about the famous river pageant. The well-to-do English know how to take their pleasure comfortably. These armchairs on the lawn at the water’s edge, these lavishly-appointed launches and house-boats, these elegant punts and skiffs, with their comfortable cushions, are all designed to reduce physical exertion to a minimum. Eor the strenuous there is the racing, but the racers are few and the on-lookers many, as usual nowadays. For the energetic hut unskilled. there is the whole river below or above the mass of boats along the course. But why do that? You might as well go boating on the Serpentine, or the lake in Regent’s Park, The crush is everything at Henley—that, and the wonderful colour of the scene, and the delicious sense it brings of dreamy idleness. The regatta owes much of its picturesqueness to the fair sex. Of all the colours.of the rainbow are their costumes and their sunshades but the colouring is delicate and grateful to the eye, and the creations in pale pink and blue, green, heliotrope and so forth blend in perfect harmony. The “masked minstrels” are another feature of the scene. Afloat in a gondola, or a punt bedecked for the occasion with a canopy of flowers, they paddle up and down amongst the pleasure-seekers, and tune their merry lay to the spirit of the hour. Some of the voices in these “incognito” troupes are of unusually good quality. At the close of the long twilight, behold Henley in the soft glow of countless fairy lights and Chinese lanterns, picturesque to the lasf. Such is Royal Henley, and the memory one brings away is of a delightful interlude in the daily spectacle of workaday life.