impassiveness of a dead body. But you cannot; your
fears prevent you. You are alive, not dead.
Impressionable by alarm, distractable by despair,
you struggle, and, filling your lungs with water,
become altogether heavier than water.
Consequently you sink. The art of swimming teaches
you that there is no need to feel either alarm or
despair. The swimmer, obeying the laws of
specific gravity, and keeping his lungs clear of
water, floats motionless for any reasonable
length of time. The duration will depend on
the temperature of the water in which he is
floating.

Now, the human body, as a whole, is so nearly
of the same specific gravity as river water, that
when the lungs are in their natural state, that
is, occupied by air, it floats in that medium;
when filled with water, it sinks. The different
capacities of chest in different individuals, and
their different degrees of fatness, will cause
their line of floatation, their mark of tonnage, to
differ slightly. I have read of a Neapolitan
ecclesiastic so fat, that he used to swim about
the Bay without being able to bathe his person
higher than the waist, in spite of all his efforts
to sink deeper. Grease would float, whatever
pains he might take to submerge it. Still, the
rule holds good as a generality.

With the equilibrium, therefore, so nicely
balanced, every inspiration which a person fallen
into the water attempts to make while his mouth
is under water, diminishes the possibility of his
floating, by causing him to inhale water instead
of air. Three such inspirations generally suffice
to bring about the final catastrophe.

I once saw a wealthy and highly respected
tradesman drowned in the presence of his wife
and children, who came out to meet him on his
arrival home. The old-fashioned river steamer
on which he was travelling, stopped to land him
at his country villa. The boat was crowded.
A company of provincial actors were amusing
themselves on deck with a game at cards. The
steamer's only bulwark was a rope, which broke
somehow as he leaned against it to pass a group
of passengers. He fell into deep water, at
scarcely a couple of yards' distance from his
own garden steps. While people were shouting
"He can swim!"   "No, he can't!"   "Throw
a rope!"   "Bring the boat round!" and other
incoherent cries, everybody giving orders, and
nobody doing anything, the unfortunate man
beat the water in despair, raised his arms above
his head (the sure way to sink, and one mode
employed by swimmers when they want to
sink), did sink, rose thrice to the surface,
and then sunk to rise no more alive. Had
he learned to swim, his family might have been
spared that sad spectacle. Had his wife learned
to swim, she might have saved her husband's
life.

A woman has quite as much need of knowing
how to swim as a man—nay more. She is more
constantly with young children, and therefore
more likely to be near, in case of accident
happening to them. In case of accident happening
to herself, the life of a mother of a family is of
inappreciable value. Learning to swim is surely
an easy premium to pay for assurance from one
terrible form of death. And what has a lady to
do, what terrible sacrifice has she to make, to
accomplish the feat of learning to swim? She
has simply to frequent a swimming bath for a
few weeks in summer; to bathe in trousers
instead of the usual dress, and to pay a few
shillings to a swimming mistress—or carefully
study and carry out the remainder of the present
paper. I myself learned to swim in the way
here recommended.

Swimming would be much better for pale-faced
girls (whose chests are all right) than the cold
bath, with repeated dippings, which is commonly
prescribed instead. Bathing, generally, is
injurious to all when digestion is not thoroughly
completed, during profuse and even free perspiration,
as well as at certain times and seasons,
and in the great heats of a summer's day.
Persons disposed to spitting of blood, apoplexy,
and deafness, or who are seized with continued
shiverings and tightness of the chest after leaving
the water, will be wise to abstain from bathing
and swimming.

Suppose a swimmer deposited in the water,
in the usual well-known swimming position. To
advance, he usually first gives the stroke with
the arms, as if they were a couple of oars, and
then the stroke by striking with the legs. It
is the latter which causes him the most to
progress; the former is comparatively ineffectual.
It affords, however, a space of breathing-time
(after the stroke) and of rest for the legs, and
also allows the legs to be drawn into position to
give the really propulsive stroke. As a proof
that it is so, you can swim on your back (when
your arms should be folded in complete repose)
nearly, if not quite, as fast as in the reverse
position.

A frog is the model for human swimmers.
He is scarcely a quadruped, either in the water
or out of it. True, he does not walk erect;
but on land even, he leaps entirely by the
muscular spring of his hinder legs; and, in the
water, he has two legs and feet which propel
him along, and two arms and hands with which
he paddles and plays and also effects a landing.
This continued exercise of the lower limbs
develops them to more than the proportions of an
opera dancer's, and causes the thighs to be the
morsel sought by epicures, for which all the rest
of the creature is sacrificed. His "header," or
pitch into the water, is perfect; and his diving
and his swimming under water are exactly what
ours should be, entirely effected by the action
of the legs. The hands, closed over the head,
should act as a guard and a cutwater. If
we could only acquire his power of holding
breath!

First, watch a good swimmer. Notice
especially how deliberate and leisurely are all his
movements. His strokes are not hurried. His
attitudes are graceful, because they are easy,
and (like what Taglioni's dancing was)
continuous, never quite still as a statue, and never
violent as if running a race. They are the