The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: July third, enjoying a shell game on the Thames.

The world's best rowers have gathered around Henley, a small town in the green Berkshire hills, 40 miles up the Thames River from London. The 162nd Henley Royal Regatta starts tomorrow, and for five days, school kids, club rowers and university students from dozens of countries will compete in sleek rowing shells on the one mile-550-yard course between the river's narrow banks. Each two-boat heat will be hotly contested, and overall winners can claim to be the world's fastest rowers in their various classes, at least for a year.

But the scene that unfolds along the river's banks is as interesting as the drama between them. The Henley Royal, like the Windsor Horse Show, the Derby, Ascot and Wimbledon, always brings out England's upper crust, especially now that the hoof and mouth scourge has been muzzled. Ladies in their best frocks and parasols; lean faced men in rowing blazers, school ties and be-ribboned straw boaters, English society comes to see and be seen.

The very best place to do that is the Steward's Enclosure at the course's end. It's for members only. Champagne and Pimm's Cup, gin laced lemonade, flow freely and formal dress codes are strictly observed. A regimental band contributes to the Edwardian ambiance.

Tickets are sold to the Regatta Enclosure, where the airs are somewhat less formal. Elsewhere, under white tents set up in car parks along the river, the hoi palloi will dine on linen while watching heats of sweating rowers puff by. It's something like a football tailgate party, with the civilization quotient cranked up as high as it ever gets.

FMI For information on Henley Royal Regatta, visit www.hrr.co.uk

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