Even more exciting than the horse-races are the contests of ice-boats, for which the upper Hudson, especially inthe 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

Sports and Industries 433

sail, it flies, reminding one of the Chinaman's famous descri] )tion of his first toboggan shde, -- ' ' Phwt !!! Walkee back two mik^e." At a speed of something approaching 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.

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 cannonball 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 finding 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.