poetry of motion and suspension. For elegance,
a trapezist's performance is not to be compared
to an accomplished swimmer's. He does nothing
by jerks, by fits and starts. There is no thrashing
of the water (except when, on his back, he
does the steamer, making of his legs a sort of
paddle-wheel); there is no clutching at imaginary
straws, or fighting imaginary enemies. He knows
exactly the moment when to press the slippery
liquid and turn its resistance to his own advantage.
He is confident, sure of his own safety,
and therefore breathes freely instead of panting
fast. It is the learner's hurry, the drowning
man's hurry, which retards the one and destroys
the other. As soon as the learner can strike
leisurely and pause between the strokes, he has
well begun (which is half done) his task of
learning to swim.

Secondly, you are in the water (shallow) up
to the waist. You have entered, if not head
first, at least at full length, or in a lump, with
a dash, a dip, or a plunge, so as to immerse your
whole person at once. If you go in delicately,
little by little, commencing with the tips of your
toes, and letting the water creep gradually up
your legs, you will probably be seized with short
sudden pantings, making you say "Ha, ha,
ha!" with a sort of spasm, and afterwards with
headache: the whole caused by the blood being
driven up from the lower extremities to the
chest and head. To obviate the latter
inconvenience, in the bathing establishments of
Normandy they give you a warm foot-bath as
soon as you come out of the sea. You stand
in this, while wiping yourself dry. The blood is
coaxed down to the feet, and headache after
bathing rendered almost impossible. Why
this excellent practice is not more widely
extended is hard to say, unless because of the
trouble.

You are standing in the water, then, facing
the ladder or the steps by which you will finally
leave it.

Lesson I. Grasp with both hands the stave
of the ladder, which is on a level with, or
a little below, the surface. Assume the
horizontal swimming position. Get your legs well
up, the feet nearly or quite to the surface, your
head well down and a little on one side, so that
as much as possible of your brain is submerged,
and your mouth only just out of the water.
The mouth even need not be above the water,
except at the intervals of taking breath. Then
strike out slowly, to your heart's content, with
both legs at once, in regular strokes, bringing
them together afterwards, until you are tired.
Rest, and repeat the operation. The grand
preparation for acquiring the faculty of swimming
consists in daring to keep the head down,
the legs up, and the whole body horizontal.
Man walks erect, but he swims prone, prostrate,
or reclining.

Lesson II. Repeat the same, holding to the
ladder with one hand only, and either paddling
with the hand open and the fingers closed, or
giving the arm stroke, with the arm disengaged.
Do this with each arm alternately.

Lesson III. Remember that swimming (like
the performance of tours de force on the piano,
like brilliant leaps in the hunting-field, like a
flight on the trapeze) is one of the things that
must be done with a dash. You do it, the first
time you try, because you will to do it. Having
done it once, you do it again. Therefore, when
you no longer fear a horizontal position in the
water—when you are convinced that you may
keep your legs up, your head down, and your
arms submerged, without danger of drowning—
retire a couple of paces from your ladder, and
resolve to swim, as if you were Leotard launched
in mid-air. C'est le premier pas qui coûte. As
soon as you can swim one yard, the thing is
done. The distance swum, will increase rapidly
with practice and the consequent increasing
confidence of the swimmer. But as swimming,
like mountain-climbing, calls into action muscles
which are comparatively little used in our
ordinary habits, it is only by gradual exercise
that they can be brought to perform long-
continued efforts.

Swimming is much more beneficial to the
health as a gymnastic training than a mere cold
bath, in which no exercise is taken. Swimming
is strong exercise, which, notwithstanding,
causes no loss by perspiration, since it is taken
in a medium that is both cool and dense. Such
loss would be considerable were the same
exertion made in air, especially in warm air.
Besides the strengthening influence of the
reaction caused by the application of cold water
to the skin, swimming increases muscular power,
and acts on the nervous system as a sedative.

Of all recorded feats of swimming, unquestionably
the most famous is the crossing of the
Hellespont by "Leander, Captain Ekenhead, and
I,"   "I" having been Lord Byron the poet. It
has been rivalled in several instances. At the
beginning of the present century, a young Swiss,
residing at Immensee, used to swim across the
Lake of Zug at its narrowest breadth nearly
every day, to visit his sweetheart, who dwelt at
Walchwyl. He continued his aquatic excursions
till the close of summer, when he brought home
his bride (probably in a boat, and not on his
back), and enjoyed the sweets of matrimony on
easier terms than he had tasted those of courtship.

Some years since, a Norfolk sailor, shipwrecked,
sustained himself in a stormy sea for
seventeen hours before reaching the shore. He
had some small assistance from a piece of plank;
but he owed his safety to swimming, floating,
and power of endurance. The other swimmers
just mentioned, were stimulated by passion
and vanity; his efforts claim our higher
sympathies, from having been inspired by a
less selfish motive—the love of his wife and
children.

It is worth consideration whether, at swimming
races, prizes should not be offered, not only
to the quickest swimmer—to him who performs a
given distance in the shortest space of time—but
also to him who performs the greatest distance,
irrespective of the time occupied in doing it,