The Cruise of the Branwen

THE OLYMPIC GAMES almost say a disciple of Baron de Coubertin, ensured that individual and painstaking persistence without which the best and highest endeavours must necessarily fail in practical results. In 1905 the secretary of the Greek Olympic Committee in London was Mr. Marinaky, of the Greek Legation, and as soon as he explained that an athletic gathering of an important international character was to be held in Athens in 1906, I felt that it would be an unrivalled opportunity to take out a British Fencing Team and compete with the epee de combat upon that historic soil. I had had the honour of taking to Pa:ris in 1903 the first team of English fencers who ever entered an open competition abroad. Athens was farther off than Paris, but I was not mistaken in my belief that five thoroughly representative swordsmen would accompany me, even with the very considerable sacrifice of time and money which so long a journey implied. The team was composed as follows : Height ft. in. Lord Desborough . . 6 o Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon , 6 o Edgar Seligman • . 5 8! Charles Newton Robinson . . 5 7 Lord Howard de Walden (spare Age 50 43 38 52 Weight st. lbs. 14 0 12 7 12 8 10 7 man) • • . . • 5 II! 26 12 z Theodore Andrea Cook (Captain) . 5 II! 39 13 4 Among these, the man who had had the longest experience of fencing against foreign competitors was Newton Robinson, who intro– duced the epee to far wider popularity in England 20