A Sportsman in Excelsis.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 16, 20 April 1907, Page 42

A Sportsman in Excelsis.

Lord Desborough, who is working

like a Trojan to secure the success of the Olympic Games, which are next to be belli in England, is undoubtedly the “crack” athlete of the House of Lords. In bis fifty-two years he has done everything it is possible for any athlete to

do, and much that is impossible to most of those who lay elaiin to the title. For this reason he always looks in the “pink of condition.” and is able to look Time between the eyes and laugh ac him. At Harrow he was the crack bowler in the Eleven, and at Oxford he showed that his mind was equal to his muscle by taking Honours in his first examinations. Then, as an example of his wonderful powers of endurance, he surprised his college and the world o£ sport by running a three-mile race against Cambridge one day, and rowing No. 4 in the Boat Race on the day following. That year the result was a dead-beat, but in the year following he helped to a well-won victory. Lord Desborough is one of the most expert swimmers of our time who have successfully negotiated Niagara. Few people know that his lordship has performed this daring feat on two separate occasions. He was about to return to England after successfully accomplishing his first swim, and before the boat sailed was discussing . the feat. with a. number of. acquaintances. . An American stood by sceptically, and then, unable to contain himself, broke in with—- " Did I hear you say you had swum Niagara?” Lord Desborough nodded. “Yes,” he replied. “I have.” “It’s not quite good enough.” laughed the American, “no man could attempt, it and come out. alive.” Lord Desborough shrugged his shoulders. “Then 1 had better go back and swim it again,” he retorted. So with that indomitable pluck of his, he went back and swam it again to the utter discomfiture of the sceptical American.

It goes without saying that the man who swam Niagara a second time, in

order to convince an unbeliever, has been in some tight corners. He has stroked an eight across the C hannel and covered the same distance alone in a light racing skiff: has fallen over a precipice ami dangled at. the. cud of a rope in mid air with a sheer drop of a thousand feet between him and Mother Earth; has had to fly before the wild charge of a mad elephant, which ultimately went down..before iris well-aimed Imllet : has had his'life despaired of in the Rockies

while bn ft big-game expedition, and has almost become the prey of a horde of howling Dervishes. It was while he was in the Soudan, its war correspondent for the .“Daily<Telegraph.” (In the famous Sunday morning when . ths Dervishes surprised the British camp, and the camels “stampeded” on our lines. Lord Desborough- had taken his' <amp ; stool and paint-box ami sauntered oil .about half-a-mile front the camp to do. a little sketching. While thus absorbed the Dervishes burst upon him fioni behind a' bluff. It was’ neck or nothing. Dressed in holland suit and tennis shoes, Lord Desborough put his activity to the' severest strain of his life. With the bullets pattering round him he ran oi> like the wind, leaving his palette, brushes and stool; as loot for the swarthy, multitude. The. officers who saw the face declared that he had not too mueli time to spare when he passed the judge’s box and when lite pursuers found'their advance stayed by a hail of lead. Ixtrd Dchboroit|rh*H work as a Thames Conservator has won for him the titla

of the "F.oster:Eal,bei' of the Thames.” He lives at Taplow and spends most of his time on its banks or waters. He has been energetic in his. support of river reform, ami the present excellent state of the Thames is largely -due to his influence. He has been amateurchampion punter of the Thames, so what he doesn’t know about the river, from the boatman’s point of view, is scarcely worth knowing. He stands six feet two inches in height, and is a remarkably fine figure of a man. He

has typically English features — lights curly hair falling sbiiiewtTat carelessly over a broad and intellectual brow, and dear, Jar-seeing eyes, just steeled by A shadow of determination.