He had been sitting on the top bar of a ladder, of which the lower end rested on the bottom of a very deep part of the river under a high and steep bank, for the purpose of aiding a swimmer in his ascent from the water. The day was cold, and O’Mackerry remained in a crouching posture for a few moments on the ladder, meditating the plunge, but not taking it. His playful friend stole behind and jerked him, heels over head, into the water, and immediately ran away. O’Mackerry, after recovering from the shock and getting out of the river, pursued the offender nearly half a mile, and happily without catching him. Tydvill rather unhandsomely afterwards caricatured his friend as a barometrical green frog in a broad pellucid bottle partly filled with water, squatting on a rung of a ladder, ingeniously serving as a graduated scale, to show the condition of the atmosphere; the frog rising or descending as its sensations led it to immerse its body in water, or rise more or less above it. O’Mackerry was a capital swimmer, and was sometimes seen to capsize himself from an Indian canoe, which he had purchased somewhere on the river Shannon, into its tidal waters with his clothes on, for the purpose of habituating himself to swim under such difficulty. He had the satisfaction of saving the lives of two persons in danger of drowning, by his skill, courage, and presence of mind.
“But how did you learn to swim and dive so well?”
“When I was a little boy, I was fond of books of Voyages, and I liked, above all things, to read the description of the bathing pranks of the Otaheite savages, who were such active divers, that when a nail was thrown overboard, they would plunge after it, and catch it before it reached the bottom. I thought that I could do what a savage did so easily, and I soon learned to do what so many animals do without any instruction at all. If you want a model, take a frog, and imitate its motions in the water. Courage is everything.”
“But, Mack, every one hasn’t such long and strong legs and arms as you have—just like a frog’s.”
“Thank you for the comparison—not for the first time, Master Tyd—but I have not a great belly like a frog’s, which is useful in swimming—at least in floating. A large pot-bellied man may lie on the water as long as he likes, if he keeps his head well back so as to have it supported by the water—and with his heels closed and neck up.”
“But surely in that position he would be like a log on the water, and make no way,” remarked some one of the listeners.
“True, but he can rest himself in that position until he chooses to strike out again. Just fancy yourself a fish: you are specifically lighter than water, and you can lie as near the surface as you please; use your fins and you can move about to the right or left—as a boat is moved by its oars; use your tail and you steer in any direction—as the rudder turns the direction of the boat. Then fancy your fins and tail cut off—there you lie like a raft—without poles or oars—but you do not sink. If you have one fin, or part of one, you move like a boat with one whole or broken oar. Now our bodily apparatus is not designed like that of a fish for swimming, but it is capable of enabling us to swim sufficiently well for our necessities. Just read Old Franklin on the art of swimming, and you will understand the theory of the matter at once. The great difficulty in practice is the fear which people have of being drowned, and this can only be overcome by accustoming ourselves to the water.”
“Now, Mack,” said Tydvill, “you know I cannot swim; what ought I to have done if you had pitched me into that awful hole?”
“You should have kept yourself from struggling and plunging, letting the back of your head lie quietly under the water, with your mouth free for breathing—but not for screaming and water-drinking—till I had taken the trouble of catching hold of you.”
“But surely,” replied Tydvill, “the weight of my clothes would have sunk me?”