Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest:
For he was drowned, and I’ve the ague.”
So sang Lord Byron after his memorable swim across the Hellespont with Lieutenant Ekenhead, of H.M.S. Salsette. The distance from Abydos to Sestos is about a mile, but the distance swum was four; the current there runs so strongly that no boat can cross direct. “It [pg 258]may,” says Byron, “in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress, and Oliver mentions it having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette’s crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance, and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander’s story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability.” Byron’s allusion to the ague caught was simply put in for effect.[65]
In presenting this chapter[66] on swimming and feats of natation, the writer is earnest in the hope that it may lead to a more general knowledge and practice of the art. Were it merely the healthy, manly exercise it is, it would be worthy of all encouragement; but there is another and a more important side to the question. Annually thousands of valuable lives are lost which might be easily saved, not by others, but by their own knowledge. Every father of a family should make his children learn at the earliest opportunity, and, except in the case of very delicate children, they will inevitably take kindly to the exercise. Young men should count it as one of their most pleasant and useful recreations. Cricket, rowing, riding (if even on a bicycle) are to-day among the accomplishments of almost all respectable youths; let all of them add swimming to the list. The first three are health-giving and invigorating pursuits; the art of natation is all this, and very much more besides. Some one or more in every large family to-day travel or voyage frequently; usually one, two, or more are settled in the colonies or foreign countries, to reach or return from which the wide ocean must be crossed. And in spite of steam and all modern facilities, wrecks are not unknown to-day. The writer strongly advocates the establishment of Government schools of swimming.
Every year the papers record numerous cases of drowning, but the un-recorded cases are far more numerous. Not long since the National Lifeboat Institution published an instructive chart of the numbers lost in one year in inland waters, rivers, lakes, and ponds. It amounted to scarcely less than two thousand persons, a large proportion being young people, all of whom ought to have been able to swim. The full annual record of those lost at sea and on the coasts would be something appalling.
There is no doubt that swimming is much easier learned in youth than in middle age, and the younger a lad is the easier it is for him to learn. Of all places for this purpose none will be found better than a bath. It will always be found that where the water is warm it is much easier to remain in a long period than where the water is cold. It is for this reason [pg 259]that all our fast swimmers come from inland towns. Boys at the sea have probably but a few weeks, or at the outside but a few months, in the course of the year in which they find it practicable to go into the water. Rough days, cold weather, too often deter lads from bathing, though cases are indeed occasionally found in which men will bathe in the sea all the year round, not only in midsummer, but in mid-winter as well.
In commencing to teach a person to swim, the first point is entering the water, and here ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte. Where the learner is very young the greatest difficulty often is to induce him to enter the water at all. Still, most healthy boys are courageous enough in this regard.
“Having once persuaded a pupil to walk about within his depth, the next great point is to prove to him how great is the buoyancy of the water. I think it will be found that, in almost all works written on the subject of swimming, the same plan is recommended, viz., to place some object at the bottom of the bath (such as a large stone or piece of white chalk), and then to tell the pupil to pick it up with his hand. He will now experience the difficult, not of keeping himself up, but of getting down. The buoyancy of the water is so great that, supposing him to be about chest-deep, probably he will be unable to pick up the stone at all. He will now find from this how very little is necessary to keep a man afloat.”
Another good plan is to let some person go into the water with the beginner, and float on his back, resting on the learner’s hand. Then tell him to take his hand away for a second or two at a time, and, so to speak, balance the body on his hand. He will find the pressure of the body barely that of a few ounces. In fact, the human body is so nearly the same weight as an equal bulk of water that the movement of the arms and legs in swimming is not necessary so much to keep the body afloat as to keep it afloat in the right position. Many a drowning man has come repeatedly to the surface, but often, unfortunately, the mouth or nose, through which he could breathe, has not been the portion that reached the surface. Another method by which you can give a pupil confidence is to go into the water yourself, and prove to him by ocular demonstration how very slight a movement of the limbs is necessary to keep the body afloat and the mouth above water. All good swimmers know how very little movement of the hands or feet will be sufficient for this purpose.