ONE-ARM SWIMMING.
Here the swimmer must be more erect than usual, hold his head more backward, and use the legs and arm more quickly and powerfully. The arm, at its full extent, must be struck out rather across the body, and brought down before, and the breast kept inflated. This mode of swimming is best adapted for assisting persons who are drowning, and should be frequently practised—the learner carrying first under, then over the water, a weight of a few pounds.
In assisting drowning persons, however, great care should be taken to avoid being caught hold of by them. They should be approached from behind, and driven before, or drawn after the swimmer to the shore, by the intervention, if possible, of anything that may be at hand, and if nothing be at hand, by means of their hair; and they should, if possible, be got on their backs. Should they attempt to seize the swimmer, he must cast them loose immediately; and, if seized, drop them to the bottom, when they will endeavour to rise to the surface.
Two swimmers treading water may assist a drowning person by seizing him, one under each arm, and carrying him along with his head above water, and his body and limbs stretched out and motionless.
FEATS IN SWIMMING.
Men have been known to swim in their clothes a distance of 4000 feet.
Others have performed 2200 feet in twenty-nine minutes.
Some learn to dive and bring out of the water burdens as heavy as a man.
[This art, however, has made little if any progress from the earliest records that we possess of it. Leander’s feat of passing from Abydos to Sestos was the crack performance of antiquity; and it was the ultra achievement of Lord Byron, probably one of the best swimmers of our day.—Ed. Fifth Edition.]