CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXIV.The Art of Swimming—Feats in Natation—Life Savers.Lord Byron and the Hellespont—The Art of Swimming a Necessary Accomplishment—The Numbers Lost from Drowning—A Lamentable Accident—Captain Webb’s Advice to Beginners—Bold and Timid Lads—Best Places to Learn in—Necessity of Commencing Properly—The Secret of a Good Stroke—Useful and Ornamental Natation—Diving—Advice—Possibilities of Serious Injury—Inventions for Aiding Swimming and Floating—The Boyton Dress—Matthew Webb—Brave Attempt to Save a Comrade—The Great Channel Swim—Twenty-Two Hours in the Sea—Stung by a Jelly-Fish—Red Light on the Waters—Cape Grisnez at Hand—Exhaustion of the Swimmer—Fears of Collapse—Triumphant Landing on Calais Sands—Webb’s Feelings—An Ingenious Sailor Saved by Wine-bottles—Life Savers—Thomas Fowell Buxton—Ellerthorpe—Lambert—The“Hero of the Clyde”—His Brave Deeds—Funny Instances—The Crowning Feat—Blinded and Neglected—Appreciation at Last.“But since he64crossed the rapid tide,According to the doubtful story,To woo ...And swam for love, as I for glory;“’Twere hard to say who fared the best: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 theSalsette’screw 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.65In presenting this chapter66on 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 theun-recorded cases are far more numerous. Not long since the National Lifeboat Institution published an instructive chart of the numbers lost in one year ininlandwaters, 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 herece 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.In commencing to learn, all boys should first learn to swim well on their chests. Since the introduction of the side stroke it will be often found that lads who have barely learned to swim properly at all try to imitate the first-class professionals, and in so doing succeed simply in making themselves ridiculous.“The great secret of a good stroke,”says Webb,“is to kick out the legs wide; and here let me observe that it is a popular fallacy to imagine that the speed of the swimmer in any way depends upon the resistance of the water against the soles of the feet. I have often heard it observed—‘Oh! that man would make a fine swimmer; he has got such large feet.’Now, in the movement of the legs the flat of the foot never directly meets the water, except in the case known as‘treading water.’The propelling power in swimming is caused by the legs being suddenly brought from a position in which they are placed wide apart into one in which they are close together, like the blades of a pair of scissors. In fact, the mechanical power here brought into play is that of the wedge. For instance, suppose a wedge of ice were suddenly pinched hard between the thumb and finger, it is evident that it would shoot off[pg 260]in the direction opposite to that in which the sharp edge points. Now a wedge of water is forced backwards, and the resistance caused propels the body forward in an opposite direction.”When this point is well considered, the importance of drawing the legs well up will at once become manifest.Again, too, in dwelling on the stroke (and by“dwelling on the stroke”is meant resting for a few seconds in the water while the body moves forward), care should be taken that the toes are pointed in a direction contrary to that in which the swimmer is going. The movement of the arms is never one in which great difficulty will be found. The two hands should be kept perfectly flat, the palms resting on the water; and at the same time as the swimmer strikes out his legs each hand should be brought slowly round, one to the right and the other to the left, care being taken that the palm of the hand is horizontal. Were the hands to be placed sideways, it is at once evident that the water would offer but little resistance. By keeping the hands in the position named the resistance offered by the water in case of sinking would be very considerable. Should the beginner doubt this, let him enter the water and stoop down, and keeping his hand flat, bring it suddenly downwards in the water; the resistance the water will offer prevents him from doing this with any speed at all. On the other hand, should he strike downwards with his hands sideways, he will find that he can do it as fast almost as he could in the air. Now, in reaching forward with the hands the swimmer should always endeavour to reach as far forward as possible. Let him imagine some small object is placed in the water just out of reach, and let him struggle to reach it; the more he reaches forward the faster he will swim. This is a very important point.Every boy should in learning to swim be very particular as to the kind of stroke he acquires with his legs. Bear in mind that if once you get into a bad style you will experience ten times the difficulty in altering it into a correct one than you would by commencing to learn to swim afresh; for this reason every one learning to swim should go and watch carefully some first-class swimmer, and note how he moves his legs, and then imitate him as closely as possible.Diving from a height requires, as Artemus Ward observed when he took the census, experience, like any other business; and just as that worthy gentleman got into difficulties with the two first old maids he met, and whose mouths he attempted to examine, not believing their answers to be correct with regard to age, so many a boy who has witnessed the apparently easy feat of taking a header has come to terrible grief by finding himself come down flat on the water, which he has shortly afterwards left with the appearance of having had a particularly strong mustard poultice on his chest. Now, in diving from a height of, say, six feet, the heels must be thrown well up, the legs should be kept straight and well together, and the two hands brought forward in front of the head, exactly similar to the position that a man takes in making his first attempt at swimming on his chest. The hands act simply as a breakwater, and they should be turned up the moment the water is reached, thus preventing the diver going deep, and also enabling him to dart forward along the surface the moment he reaches the water. A good diver can dive from a height of forty to fifty feet, and yet never go a yard below the surface.On one occasion, when only fourteen years of age, a boy dived from the top deck of Her Majesty’s shipPresident, stationed at the West India Docks. The height above water was[pg 261]forty-five feet, and those who witnessed him state that they did not think he went more than two feet below the surface. Neither man nor boy should attempt to dive from such a height. Were they to slip or to fall flat, the probability is that they would be killed on the spot. But should it at any time be necessary to take a dive from a high place, bear in mind that you must not give the same movement to your body as if you were going off from the height of a few feet, otherwise you will turn completely over in the air and come down on your back, which, should the distance be very great, would probably kill you; and if the distance be moderate, you would certainly have the appearance of having had a severe whipping. In diving, and in everything else, it is practice only that will make perfect. Webb dived off the yard-arm of a ship quite thirty feet above the water; but if by chance any one from such a height comes in the least degree flat, he will hurt himself considerably.DIVING.DIVING.Many stories have been told in this work of native divers, but referring merely to their power of remaining under water, and not their diving from a height; and, so far as swimming goes, no black people approach a first-class English swimmer. Three feet of water are sufficient to dive in, but no man in his senses would ever make a dive from any height unless the water was at least five or six feet deep, as if by chance he should come down a little straighter than he intended, he would inevitably dash his brains out, in addition to breaking both his arms against the bottom of the bath or river. Great care, too, should be taken in diving into any open piece of water. Webb mentions a case in which a man was seen to receive a fearful laceration of his skull from diving on to a broken green glass bottle which had been thrown in.Innumerable are the inventions for assisting the learner of swimming, or for aiding those who cannot swim to float. Foremost in the latter category must be placed what is known as the Boyton dress, an American invention. It is a complete india-rubber suit, and can be inflated at any point desired, the result being that the wearer can lie down, remain in a perpendicular or slanting direction in the water, his body being kept as warm, and if in exertion warmer, than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Captain Paul Boyton crossed the Channel in it without difficulty, floating, paddling, and evensailing(for a sail is part of the gear), meanwhile feeding from the knapsack or receptacle which is a component part of the dress, smoking, and drinking cherry brandy amid the boiling waves.[pg 262]This dress would no doubt enable a shipwrecked person to live for days, and even weeks, in the water. Its expense is not great, but too much for general adoption. It was while wearing this dress, in crossing the Straits of Messina on the 10th of March, 1877, that Captain Boyton met with the adventure illustrated in our plate. We translate from an Italian journal the following account of it:—CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.“Disregarding the counsels of those who warned him of the perils of such a rough sea, and one so infested with dog-fish, Boyton let himself into the water at eight in the morning, followed by a vessel, which more than once lost sight of him. He rowed in his apparatus with the aid of arms which appeared as though made of steel, when he suddenly felt himself strongly knocked against behind. It was a dog-fish! There was a flash; Boyton raised himself to the middle, drew the dagger which he always carried at his side, and repelled the assailant. Reassured, he then re-took the oar, drank for the third or fourth time some cognac, and about midday, with his eyes inflamed by the heavy strokes of the sea, arrived at the port of Messina, saluted with enthusiasm by the crowd of people, on shore and in boats and steamers, who were anxiously awaiting him.”Apparently one of the simplest devices for those unable to swim is that known as the Nautilus Safety Bathing Dress, the invention of Captain Peacock. It is simply a short shirt, made of the purest Irish flax, which fits closely round the neck and waist, &c., by means of elastic bands. It has an inflating tube and mouthpiece. The principle on which it is founded is simply this: Irish flax,when wet, is nearly air and water proof; dipping, then, first the shirt in water, air is blown inside by the tube till there is sufficient inflation. Should there be any slight leakage, more air can at any moment be blown into it by the wearer. These shirts are, of course, comparatively inexpensive.A seaman’s belt, invented by Captain Ward, R.N., and sanctioned by the National Life-Boat Institution, is highly commended by many authorities. A schoolmaster says that he has been accustomed for many years to take from thirty to forty boys, of all ages, during the bathing season, into deep water, and that not merely is it perfectly safe, and free from some objections urged against many swimming-belts, but that its use enables young people to swim more rapidly.Captain Warren has invented a life-buoy which is highly commended. It consists of a bladder chemically prepared, to which is affixed a patent valve, by means of which the former can be easily inflated. A second invention of Captain Warren’s consists of 500 life-buoys, three feet long, made of cork or specially prepared wood, and strung on to a series of iron rods, which are connected with the turret or mast of the ship. These are all kept together by means of a band, which, when the vessel is sinking, would be cut, and the whole of the buoys could be instantly released. This apparatus would cost £250, but of course it could be made on a smaller scale if required.A most ingenious“Life-Buoy Seat”has been invented by Mr. Richard Rose, an old traveller and colonist. It is composed of two semi-conical buckets of block tin, the smaller end of one screwing into the other, together forming a buoy resembling an hour-glass in shape. Placed upright it forms a capital deck camp-seat, the upper end being of cork, which of course increases its buoyancy. In the event of fire on board the two portions can be rapidly unscrewed, and each buoy thus representing two buckets,[pg 263]a ship with only two or three dozen would have an ample supply in such emergency. Practically tested in a swimming-bath, several bathers could not sink one placed there for the experiment, and it took a dead weight of nearly a hundredweight to do so. The buoy being water-tight could, of course, be utilised for carrying a supply of water, biscuit, or other food, valuable ship’s papers, and so forth, and without materially impairing its buoyancy, while several lashed together would form a raft. Two ropes are attached to each seat. When one considers the confusion and panic that too often attend collisions, fires at sea, and shipwrecks generally, this invention would prove of incalculable value, as it could be utilised on the immediate spur of the moment.The Royal Humane Society promulgates the following golden rules for bathers (and which apply also in part to swimmers), prepared by competent authorities:—1. Avoid bathing within two hours after a meal. 2. Avoid bathing when exhausted by fatigue. 3. Avoid bathing when the body is cooling after perspiration. But—4. Bathe when the body is warm, provided no time be lost in getting into the water. 5. Avoid chilling the body by sitting naked on the banks or in boats after having been in the water. 6. Avoid remaining too long in the water—leave the water immediately there is the slightest feeling of chillness. 7. Avoid bathing altogether in the open air, if, after having been a short time in the water, there is a sense of chilliness with numbness of the hands and feet. 8. The vigorous and strong may bathe early in the morning on an empty stomach. 9. The young and those that are weak had better bathe three hours after a meal—the best time for such is from two to three hours after breakfast. 10. Those who are subject to attacks of giddiness or faintness, and those who suffer from palpitation and other sense of discomfort at the heart, should not bathe without first consulting their medical adviser.And now we must speak of the greatest swimmer of our day—one who has never been excelled. Captain Matthew Webb swam the Channel when he was but twenty-six years of age. The son of a country surgeon, he had early become fond of the sea, and obtained his first instruction on board theConwaytraining ship at Liverpool.The event in Webb’s life which first brought his name prominently before the public in connection with swimming took place on board the Cunard steamshipRussia, then on the homeward voyage from America. One day a tremendous heavy sea caused the ship to roll in a manner which rendered it almost impossible for any one to keep their feet without a life-line (i.e., a rope stretched along or across the deck from one point to another), and all of a sudden a cry arose,“A man overboard!”A poor young fellow, Michael Hynes by name, who had been ordered aloft in the main rigging to“clear the sheet,”had missed his hold, and fell backwards into the water. Webb saw him fall, and within two or three seconds was after him in the sea, but, alas! could see nothing of him, save his cap floating on the waves. On this occasion he was thirty-seven minutes in the water before be was picked up by theRussia’slifeboat, the waves being“mountains high,”and the ship going at fifteen knots. Webb was utterly unable to save the poor fellow, who was never seen to rise again, but for his noble attempt deservedly received the leading medal, the—“Stanhope gold medal”—of the Royal Humane Society of London, another from the Liverpool Humane Society, and £100 from the passengers on board theRussia.The first time that Captain Webb took up the idea of swimming the Channel was after a[pg 264]“good try”—but failure—made by Johnson, to swim from Dover to Calais. Webb commenced by an excellent swim from Dover as far as the Varne Buoy, about mid-channel. On this occasion he remained four and a half hours in the water. His first public swim was from Blackwall Pier to Gravesend, a distance of twenty miles—mere child’s play to him. After considerable practice he made a trial trip from Dover to Ramsgate, remaining in the water nearly nine hours. He now publicly announced his intention of attempting to swim to Calais, and he received a considerable amount of encouragement as well as well-meant advice to make the attempt. A number of extraordinary precautions were recommended to him—one, however, being sensible enough: that being to cover his body with a coating of some kind of grease. On the Ramsgate swim he used cod-liver oil, and, on the first Channel attempt, porpoise oil.The second attempt of Captain Webb to swim across the Channel took place on August 24th, 1875, and was crowned with success, after a display of unequalled courage and physical endurance. At four minutes to one o’clock on that day he dived from the steps at the head of the Admiralty Pier, Dover, and at forty-one minutes past ten a.m. next day he touched the sands of Calais, having remained in the water, without even touching a boat on his way, no less than twenty-one and three-quarter hours.During the early part of the journey Captain Webb was particularly favoured by the weather. The sea was as calm as a mill-pond, and there was not a breath of wind. The lugger which accompanied him across the Channel had to be propelled a considerable distance by oars. The swimmer was accompanied by two small rowing-boats in immediate attendance upon himself, one containing his cousin, Mr. Ward, who supplied him occasionally with refreshments, and one of the referees, who had been appointed at Webb’s own request to see fair play; the other boat was used for the purpose of conveying messages to and from the lugger.Everything went on favourably till nine p.m., when Captain Webb complained of being stung by a jelly-fish, and asked for a little brandy. He had previously been supplied with some cod-liver oil and hot coffee. The weather still continued perfect, and the intrepid swimmer proceeded at a good rate, taking a long, clean breast stroke, which drove him well through the water. Owing to the phosphorescent state of the sea, he was sometimes almost surrounded with a glow of light. At 10.30 he was visited by a steam-tug, which had put off from Dover for the purpose, and which, strange to say, left the man who had ploughed through the waves for over nine hours without even the encouragement of a parting cheer. At 11.45, however, a Dover boat, on its way to Calais, gave cheer after cheer to greet him, and one of the small boats burnt a red light, which cast a ruddy glow over the scene, and illuminated the water all around, the face of Captain Webb being lighted up by it, so that he was distinctly seen by all on board the Continental mail boat.At two o’clock next morning Cape Grisnez light seemed close at hand, and Captain Webb was still bravely struggling on, although at this juncture the tide not merely impeded him, but was sweeping him farther and farther from the shore. He, however, showed signs of fatigue, and young Baker, a well-known diver, sat with a life-line round him by the side of the referee, in case of accident, as it was supposed by many that the long exposure to cold might cause Webb to become suddenly numbed and insensible, and so sink without a moment’s[pg 265]warning. But Webb is a man among ten thousand; the collapse from penetrating cold which the best swimmers usually experience after long exposure in the water seems unknown to him. By nine o’clock he was within a mile of the shore, a little to the westward of Calais, and at this juncture, young Baker, then only sixteen years of age, plunged in and kept the exhausted swimmer company, not, however, trying to aid him in any way except by encouragement.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB. (From a Photograph by Albert Fradelle.)Unfortunately, however, two hours previously a strong breeze had risen, and the sea, which had hitherto been like a sheet of glass, was running high, with crested waves. Webb was evidently fearfully exhausted. The tide was running strongly away from the shore, and the swimmer was battling against double odds when he was least fit for it. Still, at 9.45 he had lessened the distance by one-half; he was only half a mile from the beach. Would he ever reach it?Just as the now utterly exhausted swimmer was beginning bitterly to think that[pg 266]failure even at this point was possible, a steamboat put off from Calais, and her commander placed her in such a position that she acted as a kind of breakwater, for the sea was running so high that it nearly swamped the boats accompanying him. One last struggling exertion and he touched ground, so weak that he could not stand. A couple of men instantly went to his assistance, and he was able to walk slowly ashore. When the Calais boat left he was comfortably asleep, a medical man watching by his side.“I can only say,”says Captain Webb,“that the moment when I touched the Calais sands, and felt the French soil beneath my feet, is one which I shall never forget, were I to live for a hundred years. I was terribly exhausted at the time, and during the last two or three hours I began to think that, after all, I should fail. On the following day, after I had had a good night’s rest, I did not feel very much the worse for what I had undergone. I had a peculiar sensation in my limbs, somewhat similar to that which is often felt after the first week of the cricket season; and it was a week before I could wear a shirt-collar, owing to a red raw rim at the back of my neck, caused by being obliged to keep my head back for so long a period; for, it must be remembered, I was in the water for very nearly twenty-two hours.”67CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.When Webb returned to London he met with an enthusiastic reception. In the City he was welcomed by the same uproarious heartiness that Tom Sayers less deservedly received after his fight with Heenan. The cheering and hand-shaking of Webb began at the“Baltic,”increased in warmth at“Lloyds,”and culminated at the Stock Exchange, where“bulls”and“bears”were eclipsed by the lion of the day, and whence he had to beat a retreat to save his right hand from being wrung off.The following will show the value of ingenuity in the midst of great danger. It occurred at a terrible wreck, which took place on the coast, in the sight of hundreds of powerless spectators:—“In the midst of these horrifying moments a man was observed to jump from the wreck into the sea. It was concluded by the watchers that he had voluntarily destroyed himself to avoid dying by inches and hunger. After all, who could blame him? It was a question of only an hour or so, for hope there appeared none. But the crowd was agreeably disappointed, for the man held his head up in the midst of the hissing surges boldly, and although he disappeared every moment, yet by the aid of good glasses his head was seen to bob up again, a conspicuous black object in the surrounding foam. Expectation stood on tip-toe. Would he reach the shore? was asked by a hundred voices in an instant, and everybody was anxious to do something to assist a man who so nobly tried to assist himself. The minutes that followed were intensely exciting; every movement of the swimmer was eagerly noticed, and it was with difficulty that several generous spirits were prevented from dashing, at all risks, into the sea to his assistance. Slowly, but surely, the poor fellow approached the shore—his head well up yet. He is just within the outer tier of the breakers—poor fellow! he will stand no chance now. See, he is caught by a monstrous wave—he rides upon its crest, and is urged rapidly towards the beach; the horrid wave curls and breaks; he is rolled head over heels; he is gone. No; he rights[pg 267]himself, and he is taken out to sea again by a retiring wave. Back he comes again—head over heels he goes once more; but this time fortune pitied misfortune, for he was flung by a wave within reach of a coast-guard, who, at the risk of his life, rushed into the sea and saved him. The secret of his buoyancy soon appeared. Under each arm he had lashed (as seamen only know how) an empty wine bottle, well corked, and he had stuffed several others under an elastic Guernsey shirt, and buttoned his trousers over all, and with these frail floats he came through a heavy belt of breakers in safety.”68“That man has saved seventeen lives single-handed,”we heard a marine officer say one day at Lowestoft, pointing to a fine handsome young fellow who sat on the beach smoking his pipe.“He ought to be well off,”said a bystander.“He is well off,”was the answer.“He has the satisfaction of knowing that men, women, and children thank God for his bravery every day.”69Before the establishment of a floating light off Happisburg, wrecks were very numerous on the Cromer coast. One of the greatest philanthropists who ever lived, Thomas Fowell Buxton, the great anti-slavery leader, spent much of his time at Cromer Hall, and was constantly on the shore during bad weather, urging and directing the efforts of others, and often“giving a hand”himself. In the storm of the 31st October, 1823, still vividly remembered on that coast, Mr. Buxton performed an act of heroic bravery. About noon, a collier, theDuchess of Cumberland, ran upon the rocks off the Cromer lighthouse. The life-boatmen could not be induced to venture out, so terrific was the sea and surf. Once a wave ran up the beach and floated the wreck. Buxton sprang into the water, hoping that others might be induced to follow, but in vain. Captain Manby’s gun was fired several times, but the line fell short of the ill-fated brig, on which nine poor sailors were seen lashed to the shrouds. At length a huge sea completely broke her up, the water being blackened by the bursting coal. The helpless spectators looked on, horror-stricken.“Poor dear hearts! they’re all gone now,”exclaimed an old fisherman; but at that instant a body—was it alive or dead?—was seen on the crest of a wave. Without waiting for a rope, Mr. Buxton dashed into the surf, caught the exhausted sailor, flung himself upon him, and struggled against the strong reflux of the surf, until others could reach him. He, with his living burden, was dragged to land, both at that moment more dead than alive. Buxton said afterwards that he felt the waves play with him as he could play with an orange.70The record of a man in humbler life, John Ellerthorpe, foreman of the Humber Dock gates, Hull, who deservedly earned for himself the title of“Hero of the Humber”is very interesting. During a period of forty years he savedthirty-nineindividuals, most of whom were difficult cases, as they fell into the Humber through intoxication.His services were honourably recognised. Medals and other acknowledgments from the Royal Humane Society and the Board of Trade were showered on him; he received a donation from the Royal Bounty, a purse of a hundred guineas from his townsmen, and other valuable testimonials. Turn we now to the case of another hero, who saved one life more than Ellerthorpe, and until very late in his career received no recognition whatever. A hero of the Clyde now appears on the scene.[pg 268]It is to Mr. Charles Reade, the distinguished novelist, poet, and playwright, that we owe a“true and accurate account of the heroic feats and sad calamity of James Lambert, a living man.”71Mr. Reade had read in theGlasgow Timesof October 2nd, 1856, how, when a little boy was drowning in the Clyde, an elderly blind man would have dived in but for his granddaughter, who with a girl’s affection and unreasoning fears, had clung to his knees and utterly spoiled his good intentions. The boy was drowned. The poor blind hero went home crying like a child, saying,“It was a laddie flung away; clean flung away.”Mr. Reade, after long and weary searching, found Lambert in a wretched lodging in Calton, a suburb of Glasgow, and easily extracted from him a fund of anecdote, a part only of which can be presented here.The“first case”Lambert had attended to was a twenty-stone“drooning”baker, who gripped him tight to his breast, and nearly succeeded in drowning him. Lambert was then a youth of about fourteen. Another was of a poor old washerwoman who had overbalanced herself in the water, and who when saved wanted to go and pawn her tub that she might reward him. Instead of which her rescuer“clappit a shellin’”in her hand, and promised to repeat the kindness each Saturday from his own meagre wages.[pg 269]When Mr. Reade had provided the poor old man with a little refreshment, he told the following episode in his life.“Aweel, sirr, ye’ve heerd o’ the callant they wadna let me save—Hech, sirr, yon was a wean wastit72—noo, I’ll make ye the joodge whether I could na hae saved that ane, and twarree mair. There’s a beck they ca’‘the Plumb’rins doon fra’ the horsebrae into the Clyde near Stockwell Brigg. The bairns were aye for sporting in the beck, because it was shallow by ordinar, and ye’ll see them the color o’ vilets, and no’ hauf sae sweet, wi’ the dye that rins to the beck. Aweel, ae day there was a band o’ them there; and a high spate73had come doon and catched them, and the reesolt was I saw ane o’ th’ assembly in the Clyde. I had warned the neer-do-weels, ye ken, mony’s the time. By good luck I was na far away, and went in for him and took him by the ear.‘C’way, ye little deevil,’says I. I had na made three strokes when I am catched round the neck wi’ another callan.”“Where on earth did he spring from?”“I dinna ken. I was attending to number ane, when number twa poppit up, just to tak’ leave o’ Glasgee. I tell’t them to stick into me, and carried the pair ashore. Directly there’s a skirl on the bank, and up comes number three, far ahint me in the Clyde, and sinks before I can win74to him. Dives for this one, and has a wark to find him at the bottom. Brings him ashore in a kind o’ a dwam; but I had na fear for his life; he hadna been doon lang; my lord had a deal more mischief to do, ye ken. By the same token he came to vara sune, and d’ye ken the first word he said to me? he said:‘Dinna tell my feyther. Lord’s sake, man, dinna tell my feyther!’”“I never,”remarks Mr. Reade,“saw a man more tickled by a straw, than James Lambert was at this. By contemplating him I was enabled in the course of time to lose my own gravity, for his whole face was puckered with mirth, and every inch of it seemed to laugh.”“But,”said he,“wad ye believe it, some officious pairson tell’t his feyther, in spite o’ us baith. He was just a labouring man. He called on me, and thank’t me vara hairtily, and gied me a refreshment. And I thoucht mair o’t than I hae thoucht o’ a hantle siller on the like occasions.”After one or two other savings, that entitled him to a medal or two, Lambert admitted that,“By this time, sirr, I was aye prowling about day and night for vectims!”Mr. Reade suggested that he had the pride of an artist, and wanted them to fall in, that he might pull them out and show his dexterity. Lambert answered that in those days swimming was not an accomplishment so common as now; and if such a thing as drowning was to be, he would like to be there and save them.“Ech,”said he,“the sweetness o’t! the sweetness o’t!”He next told a funny story of rescuing a boy, and running up to the house to have him properly cared for.“Then,”said he,“I’m going oot, when a’ of a sooden I find I haena a steek on me, and twa hundred folk about the doore. Wad ye believe it,wi’ the great excitement I never knew I wa’ nakittill I saw the folk and bethought me.”At the[pg 270]foot of the stairs he found a bundle of linen, and he was not long in helping himself, coming back to the room in the wife’s apron and a sheet.“The sight o’ me made the lasses skairt and skirl;75for I was like a corp just poppit oot of the grave.”When he went for his clothes they had disappeared, but at last he discovered that a young lady had carefully kept them for him behind a hedge, fearing that some one might steal them.“I come now,”says Mr. Reade,“to the crowning feat of this philanthropic and adventurous life, and I doubt my power to describe it. I halt before it like one that feels weak and a mountain to climb, for such a feat, I believe, was never done in the water by mortal man, nor never will again while earth shall last.“James Lambert worked in Somerville’s Mill. Like most of the hands, he must cross the water to get home. For that purpose a small ferry-boat was provided: it lay at a little quay near the mill. One Andrew had charge of it ashore, and used to shove it off with a lever, and receive it on its return. He often let more people go into it than Lambert thought safe, and Lambert had remonstrated, and had even said,‘Ye’ll hae an accident some day that ye’ll rue but ance, and that will be a’ your life.’Andrew, in reply to him, told him to mind his own business.“Well, one evening James Lambert wanted to get away in the first boat-load. This was somehow connected with his having bought a new hat: perhaps he wished to avoid the crowd of workpeople—here I am not very clear. However, he watched the great wheel, and the moment it began to waver, previous to stopping, he ran for his hat and darted down the stairs. But as he worked in an upper storey full a dozen got into the boat before him. He told Andrew to put off, but Andrew would not till the boat should be full; and soon it was crammed. James Lambert then said it was a shame of him to let so many on board. This angered the man, and when the boat was so crowded that her gunwale was not far above water, he shoved her violently off into the tideway, and said words which, if he had not prayed God to forgive them in this world, will perhaps hang heavy round his neck in the next....‘ye beggars!’he cried.“This rough launching made the overladen boat wobble. The women got frightened, and before the boat had gone twenty yards she upset in dark, icy water, ten feet deep. It was night.“Before the boat coupit76athegither they a’ flew to me that could, for they a’ kenned me. I’ the water, them that hadna a hand o’ me, had a hand o’ them that had a hand o’ me, and they carried me doon like leed. * * *“Sirr, when yeve twa feet i’ the grave, your mind warks hard. I didna struggle, for it was nae mair use than to wrastle wi’ a kirk. I just strauchtened myself oot like a corp, and let them tak’ me doon to the bottom of the Clyde, and there I stude upright and waited; for I kenned the puir souls would droon afore me, and I saw just ae wee-wee chance to save them yet. Ye shall understond, sirr, that when folk are drooning, they dinna settle doon till the water fills their lungs and drives the air oot. At first they waver up and doon at sairtain intervals. Aweel, sirr, I waited for that, on the grund. I was the only ane grunded, you’ll obsairve. A slight upward movement commenced. I took advantage, and gieda vi’lent spang[pg 271]wi’ my feet against the bottom, and wi’ me, choosing my time, up we a’ came. My arms were grippit; but I could strike oot wi’ my feet and before ever we reached the surface, I lashed oot like a deevil, for the quay. Aweel, sirr, wi’ all I could do, we didna wend abune a yard, or may be a yard and a hauf and doone they carried me like leed. I strauchtened myself as we sank, and I grunded. The lave were a’ roond me like a fon.77I bides my time, and, when they are inclining upward I strikes fra the grund; an’ this time, maur slanting towards the quay. That helpit us, and in a dozen vi’lent strokes we maybe gained twa yards this time. Then doon like leed. Plays the same game again, up, and doon again. And noo, sirr, there was something that turned sair against us; but then there was something for us, to bollance it. It was against us that they had swallowed their pint o’ water by this time, and were nae sae buoyant; it was for us that the water was shallower noo, maybe not more than twa feet ower head. This wad droon us as weel as twanty; but wi’ nae mair nor twa feet water abune us I could spring up fra the grun by mere force; for the grun gies ye an awfu’ poower for a foot or twa. Sae noo I’m nae suner doon than up again, and still creeping for the quay, and the water aye a wee bit shallower. The next news is, I get sair spent, and that was bad; but to bollance that, some folk on the quay gat rapes and boat-hooks, and pickit off ane or twa that was the nearest; and now ilka time I cam’ up, they pickit ane off, and that lightened my burden; and bymby I drave a couple into shallow water mysel’, wi’ my feet. When I was in seven fut water mysel’, and fewer folk hauding me doon, I got to be maister, and shovit ane, and pu’d anither in, till we landed the whole saxteen or seventeen. But my wark was na’ done, for I kenned there were mair in the river. I saw the last o’ my ain band safe, and then oot into the Clyde, wherever I heerd cries, and sune I fund twa lasses skirling, takes ’em by their lang hair, and tows them to the quay in a minute. Just as I’m landing thir78twa, I hear a cry in the vara middle of the river, and in I splash. It was a strapping lass—they caed her Elizabeth Whitelaw.‘C’way, ye lang daftie,’says I, and begins to tow her. Lo an’ behold, I’m grippit wi’ a man under the water. It was her sweetheairt. She was hauding him doon. The hizzy was a’ reicht, but she was drooning the lad; pairts these79twa lovers—for their gude—and taks ’em ashore, one in each hand. Aweel, sirr, I saved just ane mair, and then I plunged in and sairched, but there was nae mair to be seen noo: three puir lasses were drooned, but I didna ken that at the time. And noo I’ll tell ye a farce. I’m seized wi’ a faintness, and maks for the shore. But I gat weaker, and dazed-like, and the lights o’ Glasgee begins to flecker afore my een: and, thinks I,‘I’ll no seeyeagain; I’m done this time.’It was all I could do for the bare life, to drift to the hinder part of the quay. I hadna the power to draw mysel’ oot. I just grippit the quay and sobbit. The folk were a’ busy wi’ them I had saved; nane o’ them noticed me, and I would ha’ been drooned that nicht: but wha d’ye think saved me, that had saved sae many?—an auld decrepit man: haw! haw! haw! He had a hookit stick, and gied me the handle, and towed me along the quay into shallow water, and I gat oot, wi’ his help, and swooned deed away. I’m tauld I lay there negleckit awhile; but they fand me at last, and then I had fifty nurses for ane.”The story of the cause of this hero’s blindness is very sad. He had dived in[pg 272]the river to save another while perspiring freely. It was winter, and the water icy cold. Soon after a great dazzling seized him, followed by darkness. This occurred again and again, until at last the darkness settled on him, and the light fled for ever.When Mr. Reade first saw him, the single public honour paid him was that he had the right, with one Bailie Harvey, to pass over a certain suspension bridge gratis till his death, while the rest of mankind paid a halfpenny! His only pension was one of three-and-sixpence a week from the Barony Parish, Glasgow. Mr. Reade’s efforts gained him an annuity, which he unfortunately did not live long to enjoy.

CHAPTER XXIV.The Art of Swimming—Feats in Natation—Life Savers.Lord Byron and the Hellespont—The Art of Swimming a Necessary Accomplishment—The Numbers Lost from Drowning—A Lamentable Accident—Captain Webb’s Advice to Beginners—Bold and Timid Lads—Best Places to Learn in—Necessity of Commencing Properly—The Secret of a Good Stroke—Useful and Ornamental Natation—Diving—Advice—Possibilities of Serious Injury—Inventions for Aiding Swimming and Floating—The Boyton Dress—Matthew Webb—Brave Attempt to Save a Comrade—The Great Channel Swim—Twenty-Two Hours in the Sea—Stung by a Jelly-Fish—Red Light on the Waters—Cape Grisnez at Hand—Exhaustion of the Swimmer—Fears of Collapse—Triumphant Landing on Calais Sands—Webb’s Feelings—An Ingenious Sailor Saved by Wine-bottles—Life Savers—Thomas Fowell Buxton—Ellerthorpe—Lambert—The“Hero of the Clyde”—His Brave Deeds—Funny Instances—The Crowning Feat—Blinded and Neglected—Appreciation at Last.“But since he64crossed the rapid tide,According to the doubtful story,To woo ...And swam for love, as I for glory;“’Twere hard to say who fared the best: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 theSalsette’screw 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.65In presenting this chapter66on 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 theun-recorded cases are far more numerous. Not long since the National Lifeboat Institution published an instructive chart of the numbers lost in one year ininlandwaters, 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 herece 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.In commencing to learn, all boys should first learn to swim well on their chests. Since the introduction of the side stroke it will be often found that lads who have barely learned to swim properly at all try to imitate the first-class professionals, and in so doing succeed simply in making themselves ridiculous.“The great secret of a good stroke,”says Webb,“is to kick out the legs wide; and here let me observe that it is a popular fallacy to imagine that the speed of the swimmer in any way depends upon the resistance of the water against the soles of the feet. I have often heard it observed—‘Oh! that man would make a fine swimmer; he has got such large feet.’Now, in the movement of the legs the flat of the foot never directly meets the water, except in the case known as‘treading water.’The propelling power in swimming is caused by the legs being suddenly brought from a position in which they are placed wide apart into one in which they are close together, like the blades of a pair of scissors. In fact, the mechanical power here brought into play is that of the wedge. For instance, suppose a wedge of ice were suddenly pinched hard between the thumb and finger, it is evident that it would shoot off[pg 260]in the direction opposite to that in which the sharp edge points. Now a wedge of water is forced backwards, and the resistance caused propels the body forward in an opposite direction.”When this point is well considered, the importance of drawing the legs well up will at once become manifest.Again, too, in dwelling on the stroke (and by“dwelling on the stroke”is meant resting for a few seconds in the water while the body moves forward), care should be taken that the toes are pointed in a direction contrary to that in which the swimmer is going. The movement of the arms is never one in which great difficulty will be found. The two hands should be kept perfectly flat, the palms resting on the water; and at the same time as the swimmer strikes out his legs each hand should be brought slowly round, one to the right and the other to the left, care being taken that the palm of the hand is horizontal. Were the hands to be placed sideways, it is at once evident that the water would offer but little resistance. By keeping the hands in the position named the resistance offered by the water in case of sinking would be very considerable. Should the beginner doubt this, let him enter the water and stoop down, and keeping his hand flat, bring it suddenly downwards in the water; the resistance the water will offer prevents him from doing this with any speed at all. On the other hand, should he strike downwards with his hands sideways, he will find that he can do it as fast almost as he could in the air. Now, in reaching forward with the hands the swimmer should always endeavour to reach as far forward as possible. Let him imagine some small object is placed in the water just out of reach, and let him struggle to reach it; the more he reaches forward the faster he will swim. This is a very important point.Every boy should in learning to swim be very particular as to the kind of stroke he acquires with his legs. Bear in mind that if once you get into a bad style you will experience ten times the difficulty in altering it into a correct one than you would by commencing to learn to swim afresh; for this reason every one learning to swim should go and watch carefully some first-class swimmer, and note how he moves his legs, and then imitate him as closely as possible.Diving from a height requires, as Artemus Ward observed when he took the census, experience, like any other business; and just as that worthy gentleman got into difficulties with the two first old maids he met, and whose mouths he attempted to examine, not believing their answers to be correct with regard to age, so many a boy who has witnessed the apparently easy feat of taking a header has come to terrible grief by finding himself come down flat on the water, which he has shortly afterwards left with the appearance of having had a particularly strong mustard poultice on his chest. Now, in diving from a height of, say, six feet, the heels must be thrown well up, the legs should be kept straight and well together, and the two hands brought forward in front of the head, exactly similar to the position that a man takes in making his first attempt at swimming on his chest. The hands act simply as a breakwater, and they should be turned up the moment the water is reached, thus preventing the diver going deep, and also enabling him to dart forward along the surface the moment he reaches the water. A good diver can dive from a height of forty to fifty feet, and yet never go a yard below the surface.On one occasion, when only fourteen years of age, a boy dived from the top deck of Her Majesty’s shipPresident, stationed at the West India Docks. The height above water was[pg 261]forty-five feet, and those who witnessed him state that they did not think he went more than two feet below the surface. Neither man nor boy should attempt to dive from such a height. Were they to slip or to fall flat, the probability is that they would be killed on the spot. But should it at any time be necessary to take a dive from a high place, bear in mind that you must not give the same movement to your body as if you were going off from the height of a few feet, otherwise you will turn completely over in the air and come down on your back, which, should the distance be very great, would probably kill you; and if the distance be moderate, you would certainly have the appearance of having had a severe whipping. In diving, and in everything else, it is practice only that will make perfect. Webb dived off the yard-arm of a ship quite thirty feet above the water; but if by chance any one from such a height comes in the least degree flat, he will hurt himself considerably.DIVING.DIVING.Many stories have been told in this work of native divers, but referring merely to their power of remaining under water, and not their diving from a height; and, so far as swimming goes, no black people approach a first-class English swimmer. Three feet of water are sufficient to dive in, but no man in his senses would ever make a dive from any height unless the water was at least five or six feet deep, as if by chance he should come down a little straighter than he intended, he would inevitably dash his brains out, in addition to breaking both his arms against the bottom of the bath or river. Great care, too, should be taken in diving into any open piece of water. Webb mentions a case in which a man was seen to receive a fearful laceration of his skull from diving on to a broken green glass bottle which had been thrown in.Innumerable are the inventions for assisting the learner of swimming, or for aiding those who cannot swim to float. Foremost in the latter category must be placed what is known as the Boyton dress, an American invention. It is a complete india-rubber suit, and can be inflated at any point desired, the result being that the wearer can lie down, remain in a perpendicular or slanting direction in the water, his body being kept as warm, and if in exertion warmer, than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Captain Paul Boyton crossed the Channel in it without difficulty, floating, paddling, and evensailing(for a sail is part of the gear), meanwhile feeding from the knapsack or receptacle which is a component part of the dress, smoking, and drinking cherry brandy amid the boiling waves.[pg 262]This dress would no doubt enable a shipwrecked person to live for days, and even weeks, in the water. Its expense is not great, but too much for general adoption. It was while wearing this dress, in crossing the Straits of Messina on the 10th of March, 1877, that Captain Boyton met with the adventure illustrated in our plate. We translate from an Italian journal the following account of it:—CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.“Disregarding the counsels of those who warned him of the perils of such a rough sea, and one so infested with dog-fish, Boyton let himself into the water at eight in the morning, followed by a vessel, which more than once lost sight of him. He rowed in his apparatus with the aid of arms which appeared as though made of steel, when he suddenly felt himself strongly knocked against behind. It was a dog-fish! There was a flash; Boyton raised himself to the middle, drew the dagger which he always carried at his side, and repelled the assailant. Reassured, he then re-took the oar, drank for the third or fourth time some cognac, and about midday, with his eyes inflamed by the heavy strokes of the sea, arrived at the port of Messina, saluted with enthusiasm by the crowd of people, on shore and in boats and steamers, who were anxiously awaiting him.”Apparently one of the simplest devices for those unable to swim is that known as the Nautilus Safety Bathing Dress, the invention of Captain Peacock. It is simply a short shirt, made of the purest Irish flax, which fits closely round the neck and waist, &c., by means of elastic bands. It has an inflating tube and mouthpiece. The principle on which it is founded is simply this: Irish flax,when wet, is nearly air and water proof; dipping, then, first the shirt in water, air is blown inside by the tube till there is sufficient inflation. Should there be any slight leakage, more air can at any moment be blown into it by the wearer. These shirts are, of course, comparatively inexpensive.A seaman’s belt, invented by Captain Ward, R.N., and sanctioned by the National Life-Boat Institution, is highly commended by many authorities. A schoolmaster says that he has been accustomed for many years to take from thirty to forty boys, of all ages, during the bathing season, into deep water, and that not merely is it perfectly safe, and free from some objections urged against many swimming-belts, but that its use enables young people to swim more rapidly.Captain Warren has invented a life-buoy which is highly commended. It consists of a bladder chemically prepared, to which is affixed a patent valve, by means of which the former can be easily inflated. A second invention of Captain Warren’s consists of 500 life-buoys, three feet long, made of cork or specially prepared wood, and strung on to a series of iron rods, which are connected with the turret or mast of the ship. These are all kept together by means of a band, which, when the vessel is sinking, would be cut, and the whole of the buoys could be instantly released. This apparatus would cost £250, but of course it could be made on a smaller scale if required.A most ingenious“Life-Buoy Seat”has been invented by Mr. Richard Rose, an old traveller and colonist. It is composed of two semi-conical buckets of block tin, the smaller end of one screwing into the other, together forming a buoy resembling an hour-glass in shape. Placed upright it forms a capital deck camp-seat, the upper end being of cork, which of course increases its buoyancy. In the event of fire on board the two portions can be rapidly unscrewed, and each buoy thus representing two buckets,[pg 263]a ship with only two or three dozen would have an ample supply in such emergency. Practically tested in a swimming-bath, several bathers could not sink one placed there for the experiment, and it took a dead weight of nearly a hundredweight to do so. The buoy being water-tight could, of course, be utilised for carrying a supply of water, biscuit, or other food, valuable ship’s papers, and so forth, and without materially impairing its buoyancy, while several lashed together would form a raft. Two ropes are attached to each seat. When one considers the confusion and panic that too often attend collisions, fires at sea, and shipwrecks generally, this invention would prove of incalculable value, as it could be utilised on the immediate spur of the moment.The Royal Humane Society promulgates the following golden rules for bathers (and which apply also in part to swimmers), prepared by competent authorities:—1. Avoid bathing within two hours after a meal. 2. Avoid bathing when exhausted by fatigue. 3. Avoid bathing when the body is cooling after perspiration. But—4. Bathe when the body is warm, provided no time be lost in getting into the water. 5. Avoid chilling the body by sitting naked on the banks or in boats after having been in the water. 6. Avoid remaining too long in the water—leave the water immediately there is the slightest feeling of chillness. 7. Avoid bathing altogether in the open air, if, after having been a short time in the water, there is a sense of chilliness with numbness of the hands and feet. 8. The vigorous and strong may bathe early in the morning on an empty stomach. 9. The young and those that are weak had better bathe three hours after a meal—the best time for such is from two to three hours after breakfast. 10. Those who are subject to attacks of giddiness or faintness, and those who suffer from palpitation and other sense of discomfort at the heart, should not bathe without first consulting their medical adviser.And now we must speak of the greatest swimmer of our day—one who has never been excelled. Captain Matthew Webb swam the Channel when he was but twenty-six years of age. The son of a country surgeon, he had early become fond of the sea, and obtained his first instruction on board theConwaytraining ship at Liverpool.The event in Webb’s life which first brought his name prominently before the public in connection with swimming took place on board the Cunard steamshipRussia, then on the homeward voyage from America. One day a tremendous heavy sea caused the ship to roll in a manner which rendered it almost impossible for any one to keep their feet without a life-line (i.e., a rope stretched along or across the deck from one point to another), and all of a sudden a cry arose,“A man overboard!”A poor young fellow, Michael Hynes by name, who had been ordered aloft in the main rigging to“clear the sheet,”had missed his hold, and fell backwards into the water. Webb saw him fall, and within two or three seconds was after him in the sea, but, alas! could see nothing of him, save his cap floating on the waves. On this occasion he was thirty-seven minutes in the water before be was picked up by theRussia’slifeboat, the waves being“mountains high,”and the ship going at fifteen knots. Webb was utterly unable to save the poor fellow, who was never seen to rise again, but for his noble attempt deservedly received the leading medal, the—“Stanhope gold medal”—of the Royal Humane Society of London, another from the Liverpool Humane Society, and £100 from the passengers on board theRussia.The first time that Captain Webb took up the idea of swimming the Channel was after a[pg 264]“good try”—but failure—made by Johnson, to swim from Dover to Calais. Webb commenced by an excellent swim from Dover as far as the Varne Buoy, about mid-channel. On this occasion he remained four and a half hours in the water. His first public swim was from Blackwall Pier to Gravesend, a distance of twenty miles—mere child’s play to him. After considerable practice he made a trial trip from Dover to Ramsgate, remaining in the water nearly nine hours. He now publicly announced his intention of attempting to swim to Calais, and he received a considerable amount of encouragement as well as well-meant advice to make the attempt. A number of extraordinary precautions were recommended to him—one, however, being sensible enough: that being to cover his body with a coating of some kind of grease. On the Ramsgate swim he used cod-liver oil, and, on the first Channel attempt, porpoise oil.The second attempt of Captain Webb to swim across the Channel took place on August 24th, 1875, and was crowned with success, after a display of unequalled courage and physical endurance. At four minutes to one o’clock on that day he dived from the steps at the head of the Admiralty Pier, Dover, and at forty-one minutes past ten a.m. next day he touched the sands of Calais, having remained in the water, without even touching a boat on his way, no less than twenty-one and three-quarter hours.During the early part of the journey Captain Webb was particularly favoured by the weather. The sea was as calm as a mill-pond, and there was not a breath of wind. The lugger which accompanied him across the Channel had to be propelled a considerable distance by oars. The swimmer was accompanied by two small rowing-boats in immediate attendance upon himself, one containing his cousin, Mr. Ward, who supplied him occasionally with refreshments, and one of the referees, who had been appointed at Webb’s own request to see fair play; the other boat was used for the purpose of conveying messages to and from the lugger.Everything went on favourably till nine p.m., when Captain Webb complained of being stung by a jelly-fish, and asked for a little brandy. He had previously been supplied with some cod-liver oil and hot coffee. The weather still continued perfect, and the intrepid swimmer proceeded at a good rate, taking a long, clean breast stroke, which drove him well through the water. Owing to the phosphorescent state of the sea, he was sometimes almost surrounded with a glow of light. At 10.30 he was visited by a steam-tug, which had put off from Dover for the purpose, and which, strange to say, left the man who had ploughed through the waves for over nine hours without even the encouragement of a parting cheer. At 11.45, however, a Dover boat, on its way to Calais, gave cheer after cheer to greet him, and one of the small boats burnt a red light, which cast a ruddy glow over the scene, and illuminated the water all around, the face of Captain Webb being lighted up by it, so that he was distinctly seen by all on board the Continental mail boat.At two o’clock next morning Cape Grisnez light seemed close at hand, and Captain Webb was still bravely struggling on, although at this juncture the tide not merely impeded him, but was sweeping him farther and farther from the shore. He, however, showed signs of fatigue, and young Baker, a well-known diver, sat with a life-line round him by the side of the referee, in case of accident, as it was supposed by many that the long exposure to cold might cause Webb to become suddenly numbed and insensible, and so sink without a moment’s[pg 265]warning. But Webb is a man among ten thousand; the collapse from penetrating cold which the best swimmers usually experience after long exposure in the water seems unknown to him. By nine o’clock he was within a mile of the shore, a little to the westward of Calais, and at this juncture, young Baker, then only sixteen years of age, plunged in and kept the exhausted swimmer company, not, however, trying to aid him in any way except by encouragement.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB. (From a Photograph by Albert Fradelle.)Unfortunately, however, two hours previously a strong breeze had risen, and the sea, which had hitherto been like a sheet of glass, was running high, with crested waves. Webb was evidently fearfully exhausted. The tide was running strongly away from the shore, and the swimmer was battling against double odds when he was least fit for it. Still, at 9.45 he had lessened the distance by one-half; he was only half a mile from the beach. Would he ever reach it?Just as the now utterly exhausted swimmer was beginning bitterly to think that[pg 266]failure even at this point was possible, a steamboat put off from Calais, and her commander placed her in such a position that she acted as a kind of breakwater, for the sea was running so high that it nearly swamped the boats accompanying him. One last struggling exertion and he touched ground, so weak that he could not stand. A couple of men instantly went to his assistance, and he was able to walk slowly ashore. When the Calais boat left he was comfortably asleep, a medical man watching by his side.“I can only say,”says Captain Webb,“that the moment when I touched the Calais sands, and felt the French soil beneath my feet, is one which I shall never forget, were I to live for a hundred years. I was terribly exhausted at the time, and during the last two or three hours I began to think that, after all, I should fail. On the following day, after I had had a good night’s rest, I did not feel very much the worse for what I had undergone. I had a peculiar sensation in my limbs, somewhat similar to that which is often felt after the first week of the cricket season; and it was a week before I could wear a shirt-collar, owing to a red raw rim at the back of my neck, caused by being obliged to keep my head back for so long a period; for, it must be remembered, I was in the water for very nearly twenty-two hours.”67CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.When Webb returned to London he met with an enthusiastic reception. In the City he was welcomed by the same uproarious heartiness that Tom Sayers less deservedly received after his fight with Heenan. The cheering and hand-shaking of Webb began at the“Baltic,”increased in warmth at“Lloyds,”and culminated at the Stock Exchange, where“bulls”and“bears”were eclipsed by the lion of the day, and whence he had to beat a retreat to save his right hand from being wrung off.The following will show the value of ingenuity in the midst of great danger. It occurred at a terrible wreck, which took place on the coast, in the sight of hundreds of powerless spectators:—“In the midst of these horrifying moments a man was observed to jump from the wreck into the sea. It was concluded by the watchers that he had voluntarily destroyed himself to avoid dying by inches and hunger. After all, who could blame him? It was a question of only an hour or so, for hope there appeared none. But the crowd was agreeably disappointed, for the man held his head up in the midst of the hissing surges boldly, and although he disappeared every moment, yet by the aid of good glasses his head was seen to bob up again, a conspicuous black object in the surrounding foam. Expectation stood on tip-toe. Would he reach the shore? was asked by a hundred voices in an instant, and everybody was anxious to do something to assist a man who so nobly tried to assist himself. The minutes that followed were intensely exciting; every movement of the swimmer was eagerly noticed, and it was with difficulty that several generous spirits were prevented from dashing, at all risks, into the sea to his assistance. Slowly, but surely, the poor fellow approached the shore—his head well up yet. He is just within the outer tier of the breakers—poor fellow! he will stand no chance now. See, he is caught by a monstrous wave—he rides upon its crest, and is urged rapidly towards the beach; the horrid wave curls and breaks; he is rolled head over heels; he is gone. No; he rights[pg 267]himself, and he is taken out to sea again by a retiring wave. Back he comes again—head over heels he goes once more; but this time fortune pitied misfortune, for he was flung by a wave within reach of a coast-guard, who, at the risk of his life, rushed into the sea and saved him. The secret of his buoyancy soon appeared. Under each arm he had lashed (as seamen only know how) an empty wine bottle, well corked, and he had stuffed several others under an elastic Guernsey shirt, and buttoned his trousers over all, and with these frail floats he came through a heavy belt of breakers in safety.”68“That man has saved seventeen lives single-handed,”we heard a marine officer say one day at Lowestoft, pointing to a fine handsome young fellow who sat on the beach smoking his pipe.“He ought to be well off,”said a bystander.“He is well off,”was the answer.“He has the satisfaction of knowing that men, women, and children thank God for his bravery every day.”69Before the establishment of a floating light off Happisburg, wrecks were very numerous on the Cromer coast. One of the greatest philanthropists who ever lived, Thomas Fowell Buxton, the great anti-slavery leader, spent much of his time at Cromer Hall, and was constantly on the shore during bad weather, urging and directing the efforts of others, and often“giving a hand”himself. In the storm of the 31st October, 1823, still vividly remembered on that coast, Mr. Buxton performed an act of heroic bravery. About noon, a collier, theDuchess of Cumberland, ran upon the rocks off the Cromer lighthouse. The life-boatmen could not be induced to venture out, so terrific was the sea and surf. Once a wave ran up the beach and floated the wreck. Buxton sprang into the water, hoping that others might be induced to follow, but in vain. Captain Manby’s gun was fired several times, but the line fell short of the ill-fated brig, on which nine poor sailors were seen lashed to the shrouds. At length a huge sea completely broke her up, the water being blackened by the bursting coal. The helpless spectators looked on, horror-stricken.“Poor dear hearts! they’re all gone now,”exclaimed an old fisherman; but at that instant a body—was it alive or dead?—was seen on the crest of a wave. Without waiting for a rope, Mr. Buxton dashed into the surf, caught the exhausted sailor, flung himself upon him, and struggled against the strong reflux of the surf, until others could reach him. He, with his living burden, was dragged to land, both at that moment more dead than alive. Buxton said afterwards that he felt the waves play with him as he could play with an orange.70The record of a man in humbler life, John Ellerthorpe, foreman of the Humber Dock gates, Hull, who deservedly earned for himself the title of“Hero of the Humber”is very interesting. During a period of forty years he savedthirty-nineindividuals, most of whom were difficult cases, as they fell into the Humber through intoxication.His services were honourably recognised. Medals and other acknowledgments from the Royal Humane Society and the Board of Trade were showered on him; he received a donation from the Royal Bounty, a purse of a hundred guineas from his townsmen, and other valuable testimonials. Turn we now to the case of another hero, who saved one life more than Ellerthorpe, and until very late in his career received no recognition whatever. A hero of the Clyde now appears on the scene.[pg 268]It is to Mr. Charles Reade, the distinguished novelist, poet, and playwright, that we owe a“true and accurate account of the heroic feats and sad calamity of James Lambert, a living man.”71Mr. Reade had read in theGlasgow Timesof October 2nd, 1856, how, when a little boy was drowning in the Clyde, an elderly blind man would have dived in but for his granddaughter, who with a girl’s affection and unreasoning fears, had clung to his knees and utterly spoiled his good intentions. The boy was drowned. The poor blind hero went home crying like a child, saying,“It was a laddie flung away; clean flung away.”Mr. Reade, after long and weary searching, found Lambert in a wretched lodging in Calton, a suburb of Glasgow, and easily extracted from him a fund of anecdote, a part only of which can be presented here.The“first case”Lambert had attended to was a twenty-stone“drooning”baker, who gripped him tight to his breast, and nearly succeeded in drowning him. Lambert was then a youth of about fourteen. Another was of a poor old washerwoman who had overbalanced herself in the water, and who when saved wanted to go and pawn her tub that she might reward him. Instead of which her rescuer“clappit a shellin’”in her hand, and promised to repeat the kindness each Saturday from his own meagre wages.[pg 269]When Mr. Reade had provided the poor old man with a little refreshment, he told the following episode in his life.“Aweel, sirr, ye’ve heerd o’ the callant they wadna let me save—Hech, sirr, yon was a wean wastit72—noo, I’ll make ye the joodge whether I could na hae saved that ane, and twarree mair. There’s a beck they ca’‘the Plumb’rins doon fra’ the horsebrae into the Clyde near Stockwell Brigg. The bairns were aye for sporting in the beck, because it was shallow by ordinar, and ye’ll see them the color o’ vilets, and no’ hauf sae sweet, wi’ the dye that rins to the beck. Aweel, ae day there was a band o’ them there; and a high spate73had come doon and catched them, and the reesolt was I saw ane o’ th’ assembly in the Clyde. I had warned the neer-do-weels, ye ken, mony’s the time. By good luck I was na far away, and went in for him and took him by the ear.‘C’way, ye little deevil,’says I. I had na made three strokes when I am catched round the neck wi’ another callan.”“Where on earth did he spring from?”“I dinna ken. I was attending to number ane, when number twa poppit up, just to tak’ leave o’ Glasgee. I tell’t them to stick into me, and carried the pair ashore. Directly there’s a skirl on the bank, and up comes number three, far ahint me in the Clyde, and sinks before I can win74to him. Dives for this one, and has a wark to find him at the bottom. Brings him ashore in a kind o’ a dwam; but I had na fear for his life; he hadna been doon lang; my lord had a deal more mischief to do, ye ken. By the same token he came to vara sune, and d’ye ken the first word he said to me? he said:‘Dinna tell my feyther. Lord’s sake, man, dinna tell my feyther!’”“I never,”remarks Mr. Reade,“saw a man more tickled by a straw, than James Lambert was at this. By contemplating him I was enabled in the course of time to lose my own gravity, for his whole face was puckered with mirth, and every inch of it seemed to laugh.”“But,”said he,“wad ye believe it, some officious pairson tell’t his feyther, in spite o’ us baith. He was just a labouring man. He called on me, and thank’t me vara hairtily, and gied me a refreshment. And I thoucht mair o’t than I hae thoucht o’ a hantle siller on the like occasions.”After one or two other savings, that entitled him to a medal or two, Lambert admitted that,“By this time, sirr, I was aye prowling about day and night for vectims!”Mr. Reade suggested that he had the pride of an artist, and wanted them to fall in, that he might pull them out and show his dexterity. Lambert answered that in those days swimming was not an accomplishment so common as now; and if such a thing as drowning was to be, he would like to be there and save them.“Ech,”said he,“the sweetness o’t! the sweetness o’t!”He next told a funny story of rescuing a boy, and running up to the house to have him properly cared for.“Then,”said he,“I’m going oot, when a’ of a sooden I find I haena a steek on me, and twa hundred folk about the doore. Wad ye believe it,wi’ the great excitement I never knew I wa’ nakittill I saw the folk and bethought me.”At the[pg 270]foot of the stairs he found a bundle of linen, and he was not long in helping himself, coming back to the room in the wife’s apron and a sheet.“The sight o’ me made the lasses skairt and skirl;75for I was like a corp just poppit oot of the grave.”When he went for his clothes they had disappeared, but at last he discovered that a young lady had carefully kept them for him behind a hedge, fearing that some one might steal them.“I come now,”says Mr. Reade,“to the crowning feat of this philanthropic and adventurous life, and I doubt my power to describe it. I halt before it like one that feels weak and a mountain to climb, for such a feat, I believe, was never done in the water by mortal man, nor never will again while earth shall last.“James Lambert worked in Somerville’s Mill. Like most of the hands, he must cross the water to get home. For that purpose a small ferry-boat was provided: it lay at a little quay near the mill. One Andrew had charge of it ashore, and used to shove it off with a lever, and receive it on its return. He often let more people go into it than Lambert thought safe, and Lambert had remonstrated, and had even said,‘Ye’ll hae an accident some day that ye’ll rue but ance, and that will be a’ your life.’Andrew, in reply to him, told him to mind his own business.“Well, one evening James Lambert wanted to get away in the first boat-load. This was somehow connected with his having bought a new hat: perhaps he wished to avoid the crowd of workpeople—here I am not very clear. However, he watched the great wheel, and the moment it began to waver, previous to stopping, he ran for his hat and darted down the stairs. But as he worked in an upper storey full a dozen got into the boat before him. He told Andrew to put off, but Andrew would not till the boat should be full; and soon it was crammed. James Lambert then said it was a shame of him to let so many on board. This angered the man, and when the boat was so crowded that her gunwale was not far above water, he shoved her violently off into the tideway, and said words which, if he had not prayed God to forgive them in this world, will perhaps hang heavy round his neck in the next....‘ye beggars!’he cried.“This rough launching made the overladen boat wobble. The women got frightened, and before the boat had gone twenty yards she upset in dark, icy water, ten feet deep. It was night.“Before the boat coupit76athegither they a’ flew to me that could, for they a’ kenned me. I’ the water, them that hadna a hand o’ me, had a hand o’ them that had a hand o’ me, and they carried me doon like leed. * * *“Sirr, when yeve twa feet i’ the grave, your mind warks hard. I didna struggle, for it was nae mair use than to wrastle wi’ a kirk. I just strauchtened myself oot like a corp, and let them tak’ me doon to the bottom of the Clyde, and there I stude upright and waited; for I kenned the puir souls would droon afore me, and I saw just ae wee-wee chance to save them yet. Ye shall understond, sirr, that when folk are drooning, they dinna settle doon till the water fills their lungs and drives the air oot. At first they waver up and doon at sairtain intervals. Aweel, sirr, I waited for that, on the grund. I was the only ane grunded, you’ll obsairve. A slight upward movement commenced. I took advantage, and gieda vi’lent spang[pg 271]wi’ my feet against the bottom, and wi’ me, choosing my time, up we a’ came. My arms were grippit; but I could strike oot wi’ my feet and before ever we reached the surface, I lashed oot like a deevil, for the quay. Aweel, sirr, wi’ all I could do, we didna wend abune a yard, or may be a yard and a hauf and doone they carried me like leed. I strauchtened myself as we sank, and I grunded. The lave were a’ roond me like a fon.77I bides my time, and, when they are inclining upward I strikes fra the grund; an’ this time, maur slanting towards the quay. That helpit us, and in a dozen vi’lent strokes we maybe gained twa yards this time. Then doon like leed. Plays the same game again, up, and doon again. And noo, sirr, there was something that turned sair against us; but then there was something for us, to bollance it. It was against us that they had swallowed their pint o’ water by this time, and were nae sae buoyant; it was for us that the water was shallower noo, maybe not more than twa feet ower head. This wad droon us as weel as twanty; but wi’ nae mair nor twa feet water abune us I could spring up fra the grun by mere force; for the grun gies ye an awfu’ poower for a foot or twa. Sae noo I’m nae suner doon than up again, and still creeping for the quay, and the water aye a wee bit shallower. The next news is, I get sair spent, and that was bad; but to bollance that, some folk on the quay gat rapes and boat-hooks, and pickit off ane or twa that was the nearest; and now ilka time I cam’ up, they pickit ane off, and that lightened my burden; and bymby I drave a couple into shallow water mysel’, wi’ my feet. When I was in seven fut water mysel’, and fewer folk hauding me doon, I got to be maister, and shovit ane, and pu’d anither in, till we landed the whole saxteen or seventeen. But my wark was na’ done, for I kenned there were mair in the river. I saw the last o’ my ain band safe, and then oot into the Clyde, wherever I heerd cries, and sune I fund twa lasses skirling, takes ’em by their lang hair, and tows them to the quay in a minute. Just as I’m landing thir78twa, I hear a cry in the vara middle of the river, and in I splash. It was a strapping lass—they caed her Elizabeth Whitelaw.‘C’way, ye lang daftie,’says I, and begins to tow her. Lo an’ behold, I’m grippit wi’ a man under the water. It was her sweetheairt. She was hauding him doon. The hizzy was a’ reicht, but she was drooning the lad; pairts these79twa lovers—for their gude—and taks ’em ashore, one in each hand. Aweel, sirr, I saved just ane mair, and then I plunged in and sairched, but there was nae mair to be seen noo: three puir lasses were drooned, but I didna ken that at the time. And noo I’ll tell ye a farce. I’m seized wi’ a faintness, and maks for the shore. But I gat weaker, and dazed-like, and the lights o’ Glasgee begins to flecker afore my een: and, thinks I,‘I’ll no seeyeagain; I’m done this time.’It was all I could do for the bare life, to drift to the hinder part of the quay. I hadna the power to draw mysel’ oot. I just grippit the quay and sobbit. The folk were a’ busy wi’ them I had saved; nane o’ them noticed me, and I would ha’ been drooned that nicht: but wha d’ye think saved me, that had saved sae many?—an auld decrepit man: haw! haw! haw! He had a hookit stick, and gied me the handle, and towed me along the quay into shallow water, and I gat oot, wi’ his help, and swooned deed away. I’m tauld I lay there negleckit awhile; but they fand me at last, and then I had fifty nurses for ane.”The story of the cause of this hero’s blindness is very sad. He had dived in[pg 272]the river to save another while perspiring freely. It was winter, and the water icy cold. Soon after a great dazzling seized him, followed by darkness. This occurred again and again, until at last the darkness settled on him, and the light fled for ever.When Mr. Reade first saw him, the single public honour paid him was that he had the right, with one Bailie Harvey, to pass over a certain suspension bridge gratis till his death, while the rest of mankind paid a halfpenny! His only pension was one of three-and-sixpence a week from the Barony Parish, Glasgow. Mr. Reade’s efforts gained him an annuity, which he unfortunately did not live long to enjoy.

CHAPTER XXIV.The Art of Swimming—Feats in Natation—Life Savers.Lord Byron and the Hellespont—The Art of Swimming a Necessary Accomplishment—The Numbers Lost from Drowning—A Lamentable Accident—Captain Webb’s Advice to Beginners—Bold and Timid Lads—Best Places to Learn in—Necessity of Commencing Properly—The Secret of a Good Stroke—Useful and Ornamental Natation—Diving—Advice—Possibilities of Serious Injury—Inventions for Aiding Swimming and Floating—The Boyton Dress—Matthew Webb—Brave Attempt to Save a Comrade—The Great Channel Swim—Twenty-Two Hours in the Sea—Stung by a Jelly-Fish—Red Light on the Waters—Cape Grisnez at Hand—Exhaustion of the Swimmer—Fears of Collapse—Triumphant Landing on Calais Sands—Webb’s Feelings—An Ingenious Sailor Saved by Wine-bottles—Life Savers—Thomas Fowell Buxton—Ellerthorpe—Lambert—The“Hero of the Clyde”—His Brave Deeds—Funny Instances—The Crowning Feat—Blinded and Neglected—Appreciation at Last.“But since he64crossed the rapid tide,According to the doubtful story,To woo ...And swam for love, as I for glory;“’Twere hard to say who fared the best: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 theSalsette’screw 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.65In presenting this chapter66on 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 theun-recorded cases are far more numerous. Not long since the National Lifeboat Institution published an instructive chart of the numbers lost in one year ininlandwaters, 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 herece 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.In commencing to learn, all boys should first learn to swim well on their chests. Since the introduction of the side stroke it will be often found that lads who have barely learned to swim properly at all try to imitate the first-class professionals, and in so doing succeed simply in making themselves ridiculous.“The great secret of a good stroke,”says Webb,“is to kick out the legs wide; and here let me observe that it is a popular fallacy to imagine that the speed of the swimmer in any way depends upon the resistance of the water against the soles of the feet. I have often heard it observed—‘Oh! that man would make a fine swimmer; he has got such large feet.’Now, in the movement of the legs the flat of the foot never directly meets the water, except in the case known as‘treading water.’The propelling power in swimming is caused by the legs being suddenly brought from a position in which they are placed wide apart into one in which they are close together, like the blades of a pair of scissors. In fact, the mechanical power here brought into play is that of the wedge. For instance, suppose a wedge of ice were suddenly pinched hard between the thumb and finger, it is evident that it would shoot off[pg 260]in the direction opposite to that in which the sharp edge points. Now a wedge of water is forced backwards, and the resistance caused propels the body forward in an opposite direction.”When this point is well considered, the importance of drawing the legs well up will at once become manifest.Again, too, in dwelling on the stroke (and by“dwelling on the stroke”is meant resting for a few seconds in the water while the body moves forward), care should be taken that the toes are pointed in a direction contrary to that in which the swimmer is going. The movement of the arms is never one in which great difficulty will be found. The two hands should be kept perfectly flat, the palms resting on the water; and at the same time as the swimmer strikes out his legs each hand should be brought slowly round, one to the right and the other to the left, care being taken that the palm of the hand is horizontal. Were the hands to be placed sideways, it is at once evident that the water would offer but little resistance. By keeping the hands in the position named the resistance offered by the water in case of sinking would be very considerable. Should the beginner doubt this, let him enter the water and stoop down, and keeping his hand flat, bring it suddenly downwards in the water; the resistance the water will offer prevents him from doing this with any speed at all. On the other hand, should he strike downwards with his hands sideways, he will find that he can do it as fast almost as he could in the air. Now, in reaching forward with the hands the swimmer should always endeavour to reach as far forward as possible. Let him imagine some small object is placed in the water just out of reach, and let him struggle to reach it; the more he reaches forward the faster he will swim. This is a very important point.Every boy should in learning to swim be very particular as to the kind of stroke he acquires with his legs. Bear in mind that if once you get into a bad style you will experience ten times the difficulty in altering it into a correct one than you would by commencing to learn to swim afresh; for this reason every one learning to swim should go and watch carefully some first-class swimmer, and note how he moves his legs, and then imitate him as closely as possible.Diving from a height requires, as Artemus Ward observed when he took the census, experience, like any other business; and just as that worthy gentleman got into difficulties with the two first old maids he met, and whose mouths he attempted to examine, not believing their answers to be correct with regard to age, so many a boy who has witnessed the apparently easy feat of taking a header has come to terrible grief by finding himself come down flat on the water, which he has shortly afterwards left with the appearance of having had a particularly strong mustard poultice on his chest. Now, in diving from a height of, say, six feet, the heels must be thrown well up, the legs should be kept straight and well together, and the two hands brought forward in front of the head, exactly similar to the position that a man takes in making his first attempt at swimming on his chest. The hands act simply as a breakwater, and they should be turned up the moment the water is reached, thus preventing the diver going deep, and also enabling him to dart forward along the surface the moment he reaches the water. A good diver can dive from a height of forty to fifty feet, and yet never go a yard below the surface.On one occasion, when only fourteen years of age, a boy dived from the top deck of Her Majesty’s shipPresident, stationed at the West India Docks. The height above water was[pg 261]forty-five feet, and those who witnessed him state that they did not think he went more than two feet below the surface. Neither man nor boy should attempt to dive from such a height. Were they to slip or to fall flat, the probability is that they would be killed on the spot. But should it at any time be necessary to take a dive from a high place, bear in mind that you must not give the same movement to your body as if you were going off from the height of a few feet, otherwise you will turn completely over in the air and come down on your back, which, should the distance be very great, would probably kill you; and if the distance be moderate, you would certainly have the appearance of having had a severe whipping. In diving, and in everything else, it is practice only that will make perfect. Webb dived off the yard-arm of a ship quite thirty feet above the water; but if by chance any one from such a height comes in the least degree flat, he will hurt himself considerably.DIVING.DIVING.Many stories have been told in this work of native divers, but referring merely to their power of remaining under water, and not their diving from a height; and, so far as swimming goes, no black people approach a first-class English swimmer. Three feet of water are sufficient to dive in, but no man in his senses would ever make a dive from any height unless the water was at least five or six feet deep, as if by chance he should come down a little straighter than he intended, he would inevitably dash his brains out, in addition to breaking both his arms against the bottom of the bath or river. Great care, too, should be taken in diving into any open piece of water. Webb mentions a case in which a man was seen to receive a fearful laceration of his skull from diving on to a broken green glass bottle which had been thrown in.Innumerable are the inventions for assisting the learner of swimming, or for aiding those who cannot swim to float. Foremost in the latter category must be placed what is known as the Boyton dress, an American invention. It is a complete india-rubber suit, and can be inflated at any point desired, the result being that the wearer can lie down, remain in a perpendicular or slanting direction in the water, his body being kept as warm, and if in exertion warmer, than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Captain Paul Boyton crossed the Channel in it without difficulty, floating, paddling, and evensailing(for a sail is part of the gear), meanwhile feeding from the knapsack or receptacle which is a component part of the dress, smoking, and drinking cherry brandy amid the boiling waves.[pg 262]This dress would no doubt enable a shipwrecked person to live for days, and even weeks, in the water. Its expense is not great, but too much for general adoption. It was while wearing this dress, in crossing the Straits of Messina on the 10th of March, 1877, that Captain Boyton met with the adventure illustrated in our plate. We translate from an Italian journal the following account of it:—CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.“Disregarding the counsels of those who warned him of the perils of such a rough sea, and one so infested with dog-fish, Boyton let himself into the water at eight in the morning, followed by a vessel, which more than once lost sight of him. He rowed in his apparatus with the aid of arms which appeared as though made of steel, when he suddenly felt himself strongly knocked against behind. It was a dog-fish! There was a flash; Boyton raised himself to the middle, drew the dagger which he always carried at his side, and repelled the assailant. Reassured, he then re-took the oar, drank for the third or fourth time some cognac, and about midday, with his eyes inflamed by the heavy strokes of the sea, arrived at the port of Messina, saluted with enthusiasm by the crowd of people, on shore and in boats and steamers, who were anxiously awaiting him.”Apparently one of the simplest devices for those unable to swim is that known as the Nautilus Safety Bathing Dress, the invention of Captain Peacock. It is simply a short shirt, made of the purest Irish flax, which fits closely round the neck and waist, &c., by means of elastic bands. It has an inflating tube and mouthpiece. The principle on which it is founded is simply this: Irish flax,when wet, is nearly air and water proof; dipping, then, first the shirt in water, air is blown inside by the tube till there is sufficient inflation. Should there be any slight leakage, more air can at any moment be blown into it by the wearer. These shirts are, of course, comparatively inexpensive.A seaman’s belt, invented by Captain Ward, R.N., and sanctioned by the National Life-Boat Institution, is highly commended by many authorities. A schoolmaster says that he has been accustomed for many years to take from thirty to forty boys, of all ages, during the bathing season, into deep water, and that not merely is it perfectly safe, and free from some objections urged against many swimming-belts, but that its use enables young people to swim more rapidly.Captain Warren has invented a life-buoy which is highly commended. It consists of a bladder chemically prepared, to which is affixed a patent valve, by means of which the former can be easily inflated. A second invention of Captain Warren’s consists of 500 life-buoys, three feet long, made of cork or specially prepared wood, and strung on to a series of iron rods, which are connected with the turret or mast of the ship. These are all kept together by means of a band, which, when the vessel is sinking, would be cut, and the whole of the buoys could be instantly released. This apparatus would cost £250, but of course it could be made on a smaller scale if required.A most ingenious“Life-Buoy Seat”has been invented by Mr. Richard Rose, an old traveller and colonist. It is composed of two semi-conical buckets of block tin, the smaller end of one screwing into the other, together forming a buoy resembling an hour-glass in shape. Placed upright it forms a capital deck camp-seat, the upper end being of cork, which of course increases its buoyancy. In the event of fire on board the two portions can be rapidly unscrewed, and each buoy thus representing two buckets,[pg 263]a ship with only two or three dozen would have an ample supply in such emergency. Practically tested in a swimming-bath, several bathers could not sink one placed there for the experiment, and it took a dead weight of nearly a hundredweight to do so. The buoy being water-tight could, of course, be utilised for carrying a supply of water, biscuit, or other food, valuable ship’s papers, and so forth, and without materially impairing its buoyancy, while several lashed together would form a raft. Two ropes are attached to each seat. When one considers the confusion and panic that too often attend collisions, fires at sea, and shipwrecks generally, this invention would prove of incalculable value, as it could be utilised on the immediate spur of the moment.The Royal Humane Society promulgates the following golden rules for bathers (and which apply also in part to swimmers), prepared by competent authorities:—1. Avoid bathing within two hours after a meal. 2. Avoid bathing when exhausted by fatigue. 3. Avoid bathing when the body is cooling after perspiration. But—4. Bathe when the body is warm, provided no time be lost in getting into the water. 5. Avoid chilling the body by sitting naked on the banks or in boats after having been in the water. 6. Avoid remaining too long in the water—leave the water immediately there is the slightest feeling of chillness. 7. Avoid bathing altogether in the open air, if, after having been a short time in the water, there is a sense of chilliness with numbness of the hands and feet. 8. The vigorous and strong may bathe early in the morning on an empty stomach. 9. The young and those that are weak had better bathe three hours after a meal—the best time for such is from two to three hours after breakfast. 10. Those who are subject to attacks of giddiness or faintness, and those who suffer from palpitation and other sense of discomfort at the heart, should not bathe without first consulting their medical adviser.And now we must speak of the greatest swimmer of our day—one who has never been excelled. Captain Matthew Webb swam the Channel when he was but twenty-six years of age. The son of a country surgeon, he had early become fond of the sea, and obtained his first instruction on board theConwaytraining ship at Liverpool.The event in Webb’s life which first brought his name prominently before the public in connection with swimming took place on board the Cunard steamshipRussia, then on the homeward voyage from America. One day a tremendous heavy sea caused the ship to roll in a manner which rendered it almost impossible for any one to keep their feet without a life-line (i.e., a rope stretched along or across the deck from one point to another), and all of a sudden a cry arose,“A man overboard!”A poor young fellow, Michael Hynes by name, who had been ordered aloft in the main rigging to“clear the sheet,”had missed his hold, and fell backwards into the water. Webb saw him fall, and within two or three seconds was after him in the sea, but, alas! could see nothing of him, save his cap floating on the waves. On this occasion he was thirty-seven minutes in the water before be was picked up by theRussia’slifeboat, the waves being“mountains high,”and the ship going at fifteen knots. Webb was utterly unable to save the poor fellow, who was never seen to rise again, but for his noble attempt deservedly received the leading medal, the—“Stanhope gold medal”—of the Royal Humane Society of London, another from the Liverpool Humane Society, and £100 from the passengers on board theRussia.The first time that Captain Webb took up the idea of swimming the Channel was after a[pg 264]“good try”—but failure—made by Johnson, to swim from Dover to Calais. Webb commenced by an excellent swim from Dover as far as the Varne Buoy, about mid-channel. On this occasion he remained four and a half hours in the water. His first public swim was from Blackwall Pier to Gravesend, a distance of twenty miles—mere child’s play to him. After considerable practice he made a trial trip from Dover to Ramsgate, remaining in the water nearly nine hours. He now publicly announced his intention of attempting to swim to Calais, and he received a considerable amount of encouragement as well as well-meant advice to make the attempt. A number of extraordinary precautions were recommended to him—one, however, being sensible enough: that being to cover his body with a coating of some kind of grease. On the Ramsgate swim he used cod-liver oil, and, on the first Channel attempt, porpoise oil.The second attempt of Captain Webb to swim across the Channel took place on August 24th, 1875, and was crowned with success, after a display of unequalled courage and physical endurance. At four minutes to one o’clock on that day he dived from the steps at the head of the Admiralty Pier, Dover, and at forty-one minutes past ten a.m. next day he touched the sands of Calais, having remained in the water, without even touching a boat on his way, no less than twenty-one and three-quarter hours.During the early part of the journey Captain Webb was particularly favoured by the weather. The sea was as calm as a mill-pond, and there was not a breath of wind. The lugger which accompanied him across the Channel had to be propelled a considerable distance by oars. The swimmer was accompanied by two small rowing-boats in immediate attendance upon himself, one containing his cousin, Mr. Ward, who supplied him occasionally with refreshments, and one of the referees, who had been appointed at Webb’s own request to see fair play; the other boat was used for the purpose of conveying messages to and from the lugger.Everything went on favourably till nine p.m., when Captain Webb complained of being stung by a jelly-fish, and asked for a little brandy. He had previously been supplied with some cod-liver oil and hot coffee. The weather still continued perfect, and the intrepid swimmer proceeded at a good rate, taking a long, clean breast stroke, which drove him well through the water. Owing to the phosphorescent state of the sea, he was sometimes almost surrounded with a glow of light. At 10.30 he was visited by a steam-tug, which had put off from Dover for the purpose, and which, strange to say, left the man who had ploughed through the waves for over nine hours without even the encouragement of a parting cheer. At 11.45, however, a Dover boat, on its way to Calais, gave cheer after cheer to greet him, and one of the small boats burnt a red light, which cast a ruddy glow over the scene, and illuminated the water all around, the face of Captain Webb being lighted up by it, so that he was distinctly seen by all on board the Continental mail boat.At two o’clock next morning Cape Grisnez light seemed close at hand, and Captain Webb was still bravely struggling on, although at this juncture the tide not merely impeded him, but was sweeping him farther and farther from the shore. He, however, showed signs of fatigue, and young Baker, a well-known diver, sat with a life-line round him by the side of the referee, in case of accident, as it was supposed by many that the long exposure to cold might cause Webb to become suddenly numbed and insensible, and so sink without a moment’s[pg 265]warning. But Webb is a man among ten thousand; the collapse from penetrating cold which the best swimmers usually experience after long exposure in the water seems unknown to him. By nine o’clock he was within a mile of the shore, a little to the westward of Calais, and at this juncture, young Baker, then only sixteen years of age, plunged in and kept the exhausted swimmer company, not, however, trying to aid him in any way except by encouragement.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB. (From a Photograph by Albert Fradelle.)Unfortunately, however, two hours previously a strong breeze had risen, and the sea, which had hitherto been like a sheet of glass, was running high, with crested waves. Webb was evidently fearfully exhausted. The tide was running strongly away from the shore, and the swimmer was battling against double odds when he was least fit for it. Still, at 9.45 he had lessened the distance by one-half; he was only half a mile from the beach. Would he ever reach it?Just as the now utterly exhausted swimmer was beginning bitterly to think that[pg 266]failure even at this point was possible, a steamboat put off from Calais, and her commander placed her in such a position that she acted as a kind of breakwater, for the sea was running so high that it nearly swamped the boats accompanying him. One last struggling exertion and he touched ground, so weak that he could not stand. A couple of men instantly went to his assistance, and he was able to walk slowly ashore. When the Calais boat left he was comfortably asleep, a medical man watching by his side.“I can only say,”says Captain Webb,“that the moment when I touched the Calais sands, and felt the French soil beneath my feet, is one which I shall never forget, were I to live for a hundred years. I was terribly exhausted at the time, and during the last two or three hours I began to think that, after all, I should fail. On the following day, after I had had a good night’s rest, I did not feel very much the worse for what I had undergone. I had a peculiar sensation in my limbs, somewhat similar to that which is often felt after the first week of the cricket season; and it was a week before I could wear a shirt-collar, owing to a red raw rim at the back of my neck, caused by being obliged to keep my head back for so long a period; for, it must be remembered, I was in the water for very nearly twenty-two hours.”67CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.When Webb returned to London he met with an enthusiastic reception. In the City he was welcomed by the same uproarious heartiness that Tom Sayers less deservedly received after his fight with Heenan. The cheering and hand-shaking of Webb began at the“Baltic,”increased in warmth at“Lloyds,”and culminated at the Stock Exchange, where“bulls”and“bears”were eclipsed by the lion of the day, and whence he had to beat a retreat to save his right hand from being wrung off.The following will show the value of ingenuity in the midst of great danger. It occurred at a terrible wreck, which took place on the coast, in the sight of hundreds of powerless spectators:—“In the midst of these horrifying moments a man was observed to jump from the wreck into the sea. It was concluded by the watchers that he had voluntarily destroyed himself to avoid dying by inches and hunger. After all, who could blame him? It was a question of only an hour or so, for hope there appeared none. But the crowd was agreeably disappointed, for the man held his head up in the midst of the hissing surges boldly, and although he disappeared every moment, yet by the aid of good glasses his head was seen to bob up again, a conspicuous black object in the surrounding foam. Expectation stood on tip-toe. Would he reach the shore? was asked by a hundred voices in an instant, and everybody was anxious to do something to assist a man who so nobly tried to assist himself. The minutes that followed were intensely exciting; every movement of the swimmer was eagerly noticed, and it was with difficulty that several generous spirits were prevented from dashing, at all risks, into the sea to his assistance. Slowly, but surely, the poor fellow approached the shore—his head well up yet. He is just within the outer tier of the breakers—poor fellow! he will stand no chance now. See, he is caught by a monstrous wave—he rides upon its crest, and is urged rapidly towards the beach; the horrid wave curls and breaks; he is rolled head over heels; he is gone. No; he rights[pg 267]himself, and he is taken out to sea again by a retiring wave. Back he comes again—head over heels he goes once more; but this time fortune pitied misfortune, for he was flung by a wave within reach of a coast-guard, who, at the risk of his life, rushed into the sea and saved him. The secret of his buoyancy soon appeared. Under each arm he had lashed (as seamen only know how) an empty wine bottle, well corked, and he had stuffed several others under an elastic Guernsey shirt, and buttoned his trousers over all, and with these frail floats he came through a heavy belt of breakers in safety.”68“That man has saved seventeen lives single-handed,”we heard a marine officer say one day at Lowestoft, pointing to a fine handsome young fellow who sat on the beach smoking his pipe.“He ought to be well off,”said a bystander.“He is well off,”was the answer.“He has the satisfaction of knowing that men, women, and children thank God for his bravery every day.”69Before the establishment of a floating light off Happisburg, wrecks were very numerous on the Cromer coast. One of the greatest philanthropists who ever lived, Thomas Fowell Buxton, the great anti-slavery leader, spent much of his time at Cromer Hall, and was constantly on the shore during bad weather, urging and directing the efforts of others, and often“giving a hand”himself. In the storm of the 31st October, 1823, still vividly remembered on that coast, Mr. Buxton performed an act of heroic bravery. About noon, a collier, theDuchess of Cumberland, ran upon the rocks off the Cromer lighthouse. The life-boatmen could not be induced to venture out, so terrific was the sea and surf. Once a wave ran up the beach and floated the wreck. Buxton sprang into the water, hoping that others might be induced to follow, but in vain. Captain Manby’s gun was fired several times, but the line fell short of the ill-fated brig, on which nine poor sailors were seen lashed to the shrouds. At length a huge sea completely broke her up, the water being blackened by the bursting coal. The helpless spectators looked on, horror-stricken.“Poor dear hearts! they’re all gone now,”exclaimed an old fisherman; but at that instant a body—was it alive or dead?—was seen on the crest of a wave. Without waiting for a rope, Mr. Buxton dashed into the surf, caught the exhausted sailor, flung himself upon him, and struggled against the strong reflux of the surf, until others could reach him. He, with his living burden, was dragged to land, both at that moment more dead than alive. Buxton said afterwards that he felt the waves play with him as he could play with an orange.70The record of a man in humbler life, John Ellerthorpe, foreman of the Humber Dock gates, Hull, who deservedly earned for himself the title of“Hero of the Humber”is very interesting. During a period of forty years he savedthirty-nineindividuals, most of whom were difficult cases, as they fell into the Humber through intoxication.His services were honourably recognised. Medals and other acknowledgments from the Royal Humane Society and the Board of Trade were showered on him; he received a donation from the Royal Bounty, a purse of a hundred guineas from his townsmen, and other valuable testimonials. Turn we now to the case of another hero, who saved one life more than Ellerthorpe, and until very late in his career received no recognition whatever. A hero of the Clyde now appears on the scene.[pg 268]It is to Mr. Charles Reade, the distinguished novelist, poet, and playwright, that we owe a“true and accurate account of the heroic feats and sad calamity of James Lambert, a living man.”71Mr. Reade had read in theGlasgow Timesof October 2nd, 1856, how, when a little boy was drowning in the Clyde, an elderly blind man would have dived in but for his granddaughter, who with a girl’s affection and unreasoning fears, had clung to his knees and utterly spoiled his good intentions. The boy was drowned. The poor blind hero went home crying like a child, saying,“It was a laddie flung away; clean flung away.”Mr. Reade, after long and weary searching, found Lambert in a wretched lodging in Calton, a suburb of Glasgow, and easily extracted from him a fund of anecdote, a part only of which can be presented here.The“first case”Lambert had attended to was a twenty-stone“drooning”baker, who gripped him tight to his breast, and nearly succeeded in drowning him. Lambert was then a youth of about fourteen. Another was of a poor old washerwoman who had overbalanced herself in the water, and who when saved wanted to go and pawn her tub that she might reward him. Instead of which her rescuer“clappit a shellin’”in her hand, and promised to repeat the kindness each Saturday from his own meagre wages.[pg 269]When Mr. Reade had provided the poor old man with a little refreshment, he told the following episode in his life.“Aweel, sirr, ye’ve heerd o’ the callant they wadna let me save—Hech, sirr, yon was a wean wastit72—noo, I’ll make ye the joodge whether I could na hae saved that ane, and twarree mair. There’s a beck they ca’‘the Plumb’rins doon fra’ the horsebrae into the Clyde near Stockwell Brigg. The bairns were aye for sporting in the beck, because it was shallow by ordinar, and ye’ll see them the color o’ vilets, and no’ hauf sae sweet, wi’ the dye that rins to the beck. Aweel, ae day there was a band o’ them there; and a high spate73had come doon and catched them, and the reesolt was I saw ane o’ th’ assembly in the Clyde. I had warned the neer-do-weels, ye ken, mony’s the time. By good luck I was na far away, and went in for him and took him by the ear.‘C’way, ye little deevil,’says I. I had na made three strokes when I am catched round the neck wi’ another callan.”“Where on earth did he spring from?”“I dinna ken. I was attending to number ane, when number twa poppit up, just to tak’ leave o’ Glasgee. I tell’t them to stick into me, and carried the pair ashore. Directly there’s a skirl on the bank, and up comes number three, far ahint me in the Clyde, and sinks before I can win74to him. Dives for this one, and has a wark to find him at the bottom. Brings him ashore in a kind o’ a dwam; but I had na fear for his life; he hadna been doon lang; my lord had a deal more mischief to do, ye ken. By the same token he came to vara sune, and d’ye ken the first word he said to me? he said:‘Dinna tell my feyther. Lord’s sake, man, dinna tell my feyther!’”“I never,”remarks Mr. Reade,“saw a man more tickled by a straw, than James Lambert was at this. By contemplating him I was enabled in the course of time to lose my own gravity, for his whole face was puckered with mirth, and every inch of it seemed to laugh.”“But,”said he,“wad ye believe it, some officious pairson tell’t his feyther, in spite o’ us baith. He was just a labouring man. He called on me, and thank’t me vara hairtily, and gied me a refreshment. And I thoucht mair o’t than I hae thoucht o’ a hantle siller on the like occasions.”After one or two other savings, that entitled him to a medal or two, Lambert admitted that,“By this time, sirr, I was aye prowling about day and night for vectims!”Mr. Reade suggested that he had the pride of an artist, and wanted them to fall in, that he might pull them out and show his dexterity. Lambert answered that in those days swimming was not an accomplishment so common as now; and if such a thing as drowning was to be, he would like to be there and save them.“Ech,”said he,“the sweetness o’t! the sweetness o’t!”He next told a funny story of rescuing a boy, and running up to the house to have him properly cared for.“Then,”said he,“I’m going oot, when a’ of a sooden I find I haena a steek on me, and twa hundred folk about the doore. Wad ye believe it,wi’ the great excitement I never knew I wa’ nakittill I saw the folk and bethought me.”At the[pg 270]foot of the stairs he found a bundle of linen, and he was not long in helping himself, coming back to the room in the wife’s apron and a sheet.“The sight o’ me made the lasses skairt and skirl;75for I was like a corp just poppit oot of the grave.”When he went for his clothes they had disappeared, but at last he discovered that a young lady had carefully kept them for him behind a hedge, fearing that some one might steal them.“I come now,”says Mr. Reade,“to the crowning feat of this philanthropic and adventurous life, and I doubt my power to describe it. I halt before it like one that feels weak and a mountain to climb, for such a feat, I believe, was never done in the water by mortal man, nor never will again while earth shall last.“James Lambert worked in Somerville’s Mill. Like most of the hands, he must cross the water to get home. For that purpose a small ferry-boat was provided: it lay at a little quay near the mill. One Andrew had charge of it ashore, and used to shove it off with a lever, and receive it on its return. He often let more people go into it than Lambert thought safe, and Lambert had remonstrated, and had even said,‘Ye’ll hae an accident some day that ye’ll rue but ance, and that will be a’ your life.’Andrew, in reply to him, told him to mind his own business.“Well, one evening James Lambert wanted to get away in the first boat-load. This was somehow connected with his having bought a new hat: perhaps he wished to avoid the crowd of workpeople—here I am not very clear. However, he watched the great wheel, and the moment it began to waver, previous to stopping, he ran for his hat and darted down the stairs. But as he worked in an upper storey full a dozen got into the boat before him. He told Andrew to put off, but Andrew would not till the boat should be full; and soon it was crammed. James Lambert then said it was a shame of him to let so many on board. This angered the man, and when the boat was so crowded that her gunwale was not far above water, he shoved her violently off into the tideway, and said words which, if he had not prayed God to forgive them in this world, will perhaps hang heavy round his neck in the next....‘ye beggars!’he cried.“This rough launching made the overladen boat wobble. The women got frightened, and before the boat had gone twenty yards she upset in dark, icy water, ten feet deep. It was night.“Before the boat coupit76athegither they a’ flew to me that could, for they a’ kenned me. I’ the water, them that hadna a hand o’ me, had a hand o’ them that had a hand o’ me, and they carried me doon like leed. * * *“Sirr, when yeve twa feet i’ the grave, your mind warks hard. I didna struggle, for it was nae mair use than to wrastle wi’ a kirk. I just strauchtened myself oot like a corp, and let them tak’ me doon to the bottom of the Clyde, and there I stude upright and waited; for I kenned the puir souls would droon afore me, and I saw just ae wee-wee chance to save them yet. Ye shall understond, sirr, that when folk are drooning, they dinna settle doon till the water fills their lungs and drives the air oot. At first they waver up and doon at sairtain intervals. Aweel, sirr, I waited for that, on the grund. I was the only ane grunded, you’ll obsairve. A slight upward movement commenced. I took advantage, and gieda vi’lent spang[pg 271]wi’ my feet against the bottom, and wi’ me, choosing my time, up we a’ came. My arms were grippit; but I could strike oot wi’ my feet and before ever we reached the surface, I lashed oot like a deevil, for the quay. Aweel, sirr, wi’ all I could do, we didna wend abune a yard, or may be a yard and a hauf and doone they carried me like leed. I strauchtened myself as we sank, and I grunded. The lave were a’ roond me like a fon.77I bides my time, and, when they are inclining upward I strikes fra the grund; an’ this time, maur slanting towards the quay. That helpit us, and in a dozen vi’lent strokes we maybe gained twa yards this time. Then doon like leed. Plays the same game again, up, and doon again. And noo, sirr, there was something that turned sair against us; but then there was something for us, to bollance it. It was against us that they had swallowed their pint o’ water by this time, and were nae sae buoyant; it was for us that the water was shallower noo, maybe not more than twa feet ower head. This wad droon us as weel as twanty; but wi’ nae mair nor twa feet water abune us I could spring up fra the grun by mere force; for the grun gies ye an awfu’ poower for a foot or twa. Sae noo I’m nae suner doon than up again, and still creeping for the quay, and the water aye a wee bit shallower. The next news is, I get sair spent, and that was bad; but to bollance that, some folk on the quay gat rapes and boat-hooks, and pickit off ane or twa that was the nearest; and now ilka time I cam’ up, they pickit ane off, and that lightened my burden; and bymby I drave a couple into shallow water mysel’, wi’ my feet. When I was in seven fut water mysel’, and fewer folk hauding me doon, I got to be maister, and shovit ane, and pu’d anither in, till we landed the whole saxteen or seventeen. But my wark was na’ done, for I kenned there were mair in the river. I saw the last o’ my ain band safe, and then oot into the Clyde, wherever I heerd cries, and sune I fund twa lasses skirling, takes ’em by their lang hair, and tows them to the quay in a minute. Just as I’m landing thir78twa, I hear a cry in the vara middle of the river, and in I splash. It was a strapping lass—they caed her Elizabeth Whitelaw.‘C’way, ye lang daftie,’says I, and begins to tow her. Lo an’ behold, I’m grippit wi’ a man under the water. It was her sweetheairt. She was hauding him doon. The hizzy was a’ reicht, but she was drooning the lad; pairts these79twa lovers—for their gude—and taks ’em ashore, one in each hand. Aweel, sirr, I saved just ane mair, and then I plunged in and sairched, but there was nae mair to be seen noo: three puir lasses were drooned, but I didna ken that at the time. And noo I’ll tell ye a farce. I’m seized wi’ a faintness, and maks for the shore. But I gat weaker, and dazed-like, and the lights o’ Glasgee begins to flecker afore my een: and, thinks I,‘I’ll no seeyeagain; I’m done this time.’It was all I could do for the bare life, to drift to the hinder part of the quay. I hadna the power to draw mysel’ oot. I just grippit the quay and sobbit. The folk were a’ busy wi’ them I had saved; nane o’ them noticed me, and I would ha’ been drooned that nicht: but wha d’ye think saved me, that had saved sae many?—an auld decrepit man: haw! haw! haw! He had a hookit stick, and gied me the handle, and towed me along the quay into shallow water, and I gat oot, wi’ his help, and swooned deed away. I’m tauld I lay there negleckit awhile; but they fand me at last, and then I had fifty nurses for ane.”The story of the cause of this hero’s blindness is very sad. He had dived in[pg 272]the river to save another while perspiring freely. It was winter, and the water icy cold. Soon after a great dazzling seized him, followed by darkness. This occurred again and again, until at last the darkness settled on him, and the light fled for ever.When Mr. Reade first saw him, the single public honour paid him was that he had the right, with one Bailie Harvey, to pass over a certain suspension bridge gratis till his death, while the rest of mankind paid a halfpenny! His only pension was one of three-and-sixpence a week from the Barony Parish, Glasgow. Mr. Reade’s efforts gained him an annuity, which he unfortunately did not live long to enjoy.

Lord Byron and the Hellespont—The Art of Swimming a Necessary Accomplishment—The Numbers Lost from Drowning—A Lamentable Accident—Captain Webb’s Advice to Beginners—Bold and Timid Lads—Best Places to Learn in—Necessity of Commencing Properly—The Secret of a Good Stroke—Useful and Ornamental Natation—Diving—Advice—Possibilities of Serious Injury—Inventions for Aiding Swimming and Floating—The Boyton Dress—Matthew Webb—Brave Attempt to Save a Comrade—The Great Channel Swim—Twenty-Two Hours in the Sea—Stung by a Jelly-Fish—Red Light on the Waters—Cape Grisnez at Hand—Exhaustion of the Swimmer—Fears of Collapse—Triumphant Landing on Calais Sands—Webb’s Feelings—An Ingenious Sailor Saved by Wine-bottles—Life Savers—Thomas Fowell Buxton—Ellerthorpe—Lambert—The“Hero of the Clyde”—His Brave Deeds—Funny Instances—The Crowning Feat—Blinded and Neglected—Appreciation at Last.

Lord Byron and the Hellespont—The Art of Swimming a Necessary Accomplishment—The Numbers Lost from Drowning—A Lamentable Accident—Captain Webb’s Advice to Beginners—Bold and Timid Lads—Best Places to Learn in—Necessity of Commencing Properly—The Secret of a Good Stroke—Useful and Ornamental Natation—Diving—Advice—Possibilities of Serious Injury—Inventions for Aiding Swimming and Floating—The Boyton Dress—Matthew Webb—Brave Attempt to Save a Comrade—The Great Channel Swim—Twenty-Two Hours in the Sea—Stung by a Jelly-Fish—Red Light on the Waters—Cape Grisnez at Hand—Exhaustion of the Swimmer—Fears of Collapse—Triumphant Landing on Calais Sands—Webb’s Feelings—An Ingenious Sailor Saved by Wine-bottles—Life Savers—Thomas Fowell Buxton—Ellerthorpe—Lambert—The“Hero of the Clyde”—His Brave Deeds—Funny Instances—The Crowning Feat—Blinded and Neglected—Appreciation at Last.

“But since he64crossed the rapid tide,According to the doubtful story,To woo ...And swam for love, as I for glory;

“But since he64crossed the rapid tide,

According to the doubtful story,

To woo ...

And swam for love, as I for glory;

“’Twere hard to say who fared the best:Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!He lost his labour, I my jest:For he was drowned, and I’ve the ague.”

“’Twere hard to say who fared the best:

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 theSalsette’screw 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 chapter66on 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 theun-recorded cases are far more numerous. Not long since the National Lifeboat Institution published an instructive chart of the numbers lost in one year ininlandwaters, 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 herece 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.

In commencing to learn, all boys should first learn to swim well on their chests. Since the introduction of the side stroke it will be often found that lads who have barely learned to swim properly at all try to imitate the first-class professionals, and in so doing succeed simply in making themselves ridiculous.

“The great secret of a good stroke,”says Webb,“is to kick out the legs wide; and here let me observe that it is a popular fallacy to imagine that the speed of the swimmer in any way depends upon the resistance of the water against the soles of the feet. I have often heard it observed—‘Oh! that man would make a fine swimmer; he has got such large feet.’Now, in the movement of the legs the flat of the foot never directly meets the water, except in the case known as‘treading water.’The propelling power in swimming is caused by the legs being suddenly brought from a position in which they are placed wide apart into one in which they are close together, like the blades of a pair of scissors. In fact, the mechanical power here brought into play is that of the wedge. For instance, suppose a wedge of ice were suddenly pinched hard between the thumb and finger, it is evident that it would shoot off[pg 260]in the direction opposite to that in which the sharp edge points. Now a wedge of water is forced backwards, and the resistance caused propels the body forward in an opposite direction.”When this point is well considered, the importance of drawing the legs well up will at once become manifest.

Again, too, in dwelling on the stroke (and by“dwelling on the stroke”is meant resting for a few seconds in the water while the body moves forward), care should be taken that the toes are pointed in a direction contrary to that in which the swimmer is going. The movement of the arms is never one in which great difficulty will be found. The two hands should be kept perfectly flat, the palms resting on the water; and at the same time as the swimmer strikes out his legs each hand should be brought slowly round, one to the right and the other to the left, care being taken that the palm of the hand is horizontal. Were the hands to be placed sideways, it is at once evident that the water would offer but little resistance. By keeping the hands in the position named the resistance offered by the water in case of sinking would be very considerable. Should the beginner doubt this, let him enter the water and stoop down, and keeping his hand flat, bring it suddenly downwards in the water; the resistance the water will offer prevents him from doing this with any speed at all. On the other hand, should he strike downwards with his hands sideways, he will find that he can do it as fast almost as he could in the air. Now, in reaching forward with the hands the swimmer should always endeavour to reach as far forward as possible. Let him imagine some small object is placed in the water just out of reach, and let him struggle to reach it; the more he reaches forward the faster he will swim. This is a very important point.

Every boy should in learning to swim be very particular as to the kind of stroke he acquires with his legs. Bear in mind that if once you get into a bad style you will experience ten times the difficulty in altering it into a correct one than you would by commencing to learn to swim afresh; for this reason every one learning to swim should go and watch carefully some first-class swimmer, and note how he moves his legs, and then imitate him as closely as possible.

Diving from a height requires, as Artemus Ward observed when he took the census, experience, like any other business; and just as that worthy gentleman got into difficulties with the two first old maids he met, and whose mouths he attempted to examine, not believing their answers to be correct with regard to age, so many a boy who has witnessed the apparently easy feat of taking a header has come to terrible grief by finding himself come down flat on the water, which he has shortly afterwards left with the appearance of having had a particularly strong mustard poultice on his chest. Now, in diving from a height of, say, six feet, the heels must be thrown well up, the legs should be kept straight and well together, and the two hands brought forward in front of the head, exactly similar to the position that a man takes in making his first attempt at swimming on his chest. The hands act simply as a breakwater, and they should be turned up the moment the water is reached, thus preventing the diver going deep, and also enabling him to dart forward along the surface the moment he reaches the water. A good diver can dive from a height of forty to fifty feet, and yet never go a yard below the surface.

On one occasion, when only fourteen years of age, a boy dived from the top deck of Her Majesty’s shipPresident, stationed at the West India Docks. The height above water was[pg 261]forty-five feet, and those who witnessed him state that they did not think he went more than two feet below the surface. Neither man nor boy should attempt to dive from such a height. Were they to slip or to fall flat, the probability is that they would be killed on the spot. But should it at any time be necessary to take a dive from a high place, bear in mind that you must not give the same movement to your body as if you were going off from the height of a few feet, otherwise you will turn completely over in the air and come down on your back, which, should the distance be very great, would probably kill you; and if the distance be moderate, you would certainly have the appearance of having had a severe whipping. In diving, and in everything else, it is practice only that will make perfect. Webb dived off the yard-arm of a ship quite thirty feet above the water; but if by chance any one from such a height comes in the least degree flat, he will hurt himself considerably.

DIVING.DIVING.

DIVING.

Many stories have been told in this work of native divers, but referring merely to their power of remaining under water, and not their diving from a height; and, so far as swimming goes, no black people approach a first-class English swimmer. Three feet of water are sufficient to dive in, but no man in his senses would ever make a dive from any height unless the water was at least five or six feet deep, as if by chance he should come down a little straighter than he intended, he would inevitably dash his brains out, in addition to breaking both his arms against the bottom of the bath or river. Great care, too, should be taken in diving into any open piece of water. Webb mentions a case in which a man was seen to receive a fearful laceration of his skull from diving on to a broken green glass bottle which had been thrown in.

Innumerable are the inventions for assisting the learner of swimming, or for aiding those who cannot swim to float. Foremost in the latter category must be placed what is known as the Boyton dress, an American invention. It is a complete india-rubber suit, and can be inflated at any point desired, the result being that the wearer can lie down, remain in a perpendicular or slanting direction in the water, his body being kept as warm, and if in exertion warmer, than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Captain Paul Boyton crossed the Channel in it without difficulty, floating, paddling, and evensailing(for a sail is part of the gear), meanwhile feeding from the knapsack or receptacle which is a component part of the dress, smoking, and drinking cherry brandy amid the boiling waves.[pg 262]This dress would no doubt enable a shipwrecked person to live for days, and even weeks, in the water. Its expense is not great, but too much for general adoption. It was while wearing this dress, in crossing the Straits of Messina on the 10th of March, 1877, that Captain Boyton met with the adventure illustrated in our plate. We translate from an Italian journal the following account of it:—

CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.

CAPTAIN BOYTON ATTACKED BY A DOG-FISH IN THE STRAITS OF MESSINA.

“Disregarding the counsels of those who warned him of the perils of such a rough sea, and one so infested with dog-fish, Boyton let himself into the water at eight in the morning, followed by a vessel, which more than once lost sight of him. He rowed in his apparatus with the aid of arms which appeared as though made of steel, when he suddenly felt himself strongly knocked against behind. It was a dog-fish! There was a flash; Boyton raised himself to the middle, drew the dagger which he always carried at his side, and repelled the assailant. Reassured, he then re-took the oar, drank for the third or fourth time some cognac, and about midday, with his eyes inflamed by the heavy strokes of the sea, arrived at the port of Messina, saluted with enthusiasm by the crowd of people, on shore and in boats and steamers, who were anxiously awaiting him.”

Apparently one of the simplest devices for those unable to swim is that known as the Nautilus Safety Bathing Dress, the invention of Captain Peacock. It is simply a short shirt, made of the purest Irish flax, which fits closely round the neck and waist, &c., by means of elastic bands. It has an inflating tube and mouthpiece. The principle on which it is founded is simply this: Irish flax,when wet, is nearly air and water proof; dipping, then, first the shirt in water, air is blown inside by the tube till there is sufficient inflation. Should there be any slight leakage, more air can at any moment be blown into it by the wearer. These shirts are, of course, comparatively inexpensive.

A seaman’s belt, invented by Captain Ward, R.N., and sanctioned by the National Life-Boat Institution, is highly commended by many authorities. A schoolmaster says that he has been accustomed for many years to take from thirty to forty boys, of all ages, during the bathing season, into deep water, and that not merely is it perfectly safe, and free from some objections urged against many swimming-belts, but that its use enables young people to swim more rapidly.

Captain Warren has invented a life-buoy which is highly commended. It consists of a bladder chemically prepared, to which is affixed a patent valve, by means of which the former can be easily inflated. A second invention of Captain Warren’s consists of 500 life-buoys, three feet long, made of cork or specially prepared wood, and strung on to a series of iron rods, which are connected with the turret or mast of the ship. These are all kept together by means of a band, which, when the vessel is sinking, would be cut, and the whole of the buoys could be instantly released. This apparatus would cost £250, but of course it could be made on a smaller scale if required.

A most ingenious“Life-Buoy Seat”has been invented by Mr. Richard Rose, an old traveller and colonist. It is composed of two semi-conical buckets of block tin, the smaller end of one screwing into the other, together forming a buoy resembling an hour-glass in shape. Placed upright it forms a capital deck camp-seat, the upper end being of cork, which of course increases its buoyancy. In the event of fire on board the two portions can be rapidly unscrewed, and each buoy thus representing two buckets,[pg 263]a ship with only two or three dozen would have an ample supply in such emergency. Practically tested in a swimming-bath, several bathers could not sink one placed there for the experiment, and it took a dead weight of nearly a hundredweight to do so. The buoy being water-tight could, of course, be utilised for carrying a supply of water, biscuit, or other food, valuable ship’s papers, and so forth, and without materially impairing its buoyancy, while several lashed together would form a raft. Two ropes are attached to each seat. When one considers the confusion and panic that too often attend collisions, fires at sea, and shipwrecks generally, this invention would prove of incalculable value, as it could be utilised on the immediate spur of the moment.

The Royal Humane Society promulgates the following golden rules for bathers (and which apply also in part to swimmers), prepared by competent authorities:—1. Avoid bathing within two hours after a meal. 2. Avoid bathing when exhausted by fatigue. 3. Avoid bathing when the body is cooling after perspiration. But—4. Bathe when the body is warm, provided no time be lost in getting into the water. 5. Avoid chilling the body by sitting naked on the banks or in boats after having been in the water. 6. Avoid remaining too long in the water—leave the water immediately there is the slightest feeling of chillness. 7. Avoid bathing altogether in the open air, if, after having been a short time in the water, there is a sense of chilliness with numbness of the hands and feet. 8. The vigorous and strong may bathe early in the morning on an empty stomach. 9. The young and those that are weak had better bathe three hours after a meal—the best time for such is from two to three hours after breakfast. 10. Those who are subject to attacks of giddiness or faintness, and those who suffer from palpitation and other sense of discomfort at the heart, should not bathe without first consulting their medical adviser.

And now we must speak of the greatest swimmer of our day—one who has never been excelled. Captain Matthew Webb swam the Channel when he was but twenty-six years of age. The son of a country surgeon, he had early become fond of the sea, and obtained his first instruction on board theConwaytraining ship at Liverpool.

The event in Webb’s life which first brought his name prominently before the public in connection with swimming took place on board the Cunard steamshipRussia, then on the homeward voyage from America. One day a tremendous heavy sea caused the ship to roll in a manner which rendered it almost impossible for any one to keep their feet without a life-line (i.e., a rope stretched along or across the deck from one point to another), and all of a sudden a cry arose,“A man overboard!”A poor young fellow, Michael Hynes by name, who had been ordered aloft in the main rigging to“clear the sheet,”had missed his hold, and fell backwards into the water. Webb saw him fall, and within two or three seconds was after him in the sea, but, alas! could see nothing of him, save his cap floating on the waves. On this occasion he was thirty-seven minutes in the water before be was picked up by theRussia’slifeboat, the waves being“mountains high,”and the ship going at fifteen knots. Webb was utterly unable to save the poor fellow, who was never seen to rise again, but for his noble attempt deservedly received the leading medal, the—“Stanhope gold medal”—of the Royal Humane Society of London, another from the Liverpool Humane Society, and £100 from the passengers on board theRussia.

The first time that Captain Webb took up the idea of swimming the Channel was after a[pg 264]“good try”—but failure—made by Johnson, to swim from Dover to Calais. Webb commenced by an excellent swim from Dover as far as the Varne Buoy, about mid-channel. On this occasion he remained four and a half hours in the water. His first public swim was from Blackwall Pier to Gravesend, a distance of twenty miles—mere child’s play to him. After considerable practice he made a trial trip from Dover to Ramsgate, remaining in the water nearly nine hours. He now publicly announced his intention of attempting to swim to Calais, and he received a considerable amount of encouragement as well as well-meant advice to make the attempt. A number of extraordinary precautions were recommended to him—one, however, being sensible enough: that being to cover his body with a coating of some kind of grease. On the Ramsgate swim he used cod-liver oil, and, on the first Channel attempt, porpoise oil.

The second attempt of Captain Webb to swim across the Channel took place on August 24th, 1875, and was crowned with success, after a display of unequalled courage and physical endurance. At four minutes to one o’clock on that day he dived from the steps at the head of the Admiralty Pier, Dover, and at forty-one minutes past ten a.m. next day he touched the sands of Calais, having remained in the water, without even touching a boat on his way, no less than twenty-one and three-quarter hours.

During the early part of the journey Captain Webb was particularly favoured by the weather. The sea was as calm as a mill-pond, and there was not a breath of wind. The lugger which accompanied him across the Channel had to be propelled a considerable distance by oars. The swimmer was accompanied by two small rowing-boats in immediate attendance upon himself, one containing his cousin, Mr. Ward, who supplied him occasionally with refreshments, and one of the referees, who had been appointed at Webb’s own request to see fair play; the other boat was used for the purpose of conveying messages to and from the lugger.

Everything went on favourably till nine p.m., when Captain Webb complained of being stung by a jelly-fish, and asked for a little brandy. He had previously been supplied with some cod-liver oil and hot coffee. The weather still continued perfect, and the intrepid swimmer proceeded at a good rate, taking a long, clean breast stroke, which drove him well through the water. Owing to the phosphorescent state of the sea, he was sometimes almost surrounded with a glow of light. At 10.30 he was visited by a steam-tug, which had put off from Dover for the purpose, and which, strange to say, left the man who had ploughed through the waves for over nine hours without even the encouragement of a parting cheer. At 11.45, however, a Dover boat, on its way to Calais, gave cheer after cheer to greet him, and one of the small boats burnt a red light, which cast a ruddy glow over the scene, and illuminated the water all around, the face of Captain Webb being lighted up by it, so that he was distinctly seen by all on board the Continental mail boat.

At two o’clock next morning Cape Grisnez light seemed close at hand, and Captain Webb was still bravely struggling on, although at this juncture the tide not merely impeded him, but was sweeping him farther and farther from the shore. He, however, showed signs of fatigue, and young Baker, a well-known diver, sat with a life-line round him by the side of the referee, in case of accident, as it was supposed by many that the long exposure to cold might cause Webb to become suddenly numbed and insensible, and so sink without a moment’s[pg 265]warning. But Webb is a man among ten thousand; the collapse from penetrating cold which the best swimmers usually experience after long exposure in the water seems unknown to him. By nine o’clock he was within a mile of the shore, a little to the westward of Calais, and at this juncture, young Baker, then only sixteen years of age, plunged in and kept the exhausted swimmer company, not, however, trying to aid him in any way except by encouragement.

CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB.CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB. (From a Photograph by Albert Fradelle.)

CAPTAIN MATTHEW WEBB. (From a Photograph by Albert Fradelle.)

Unfortunately, however, two hours previously a strong breeze had risen, and the sea, which had hitherto been like a sheet of glass, was running high, with crested waves. Webb was evidently fearfully exhausted. The tide was running strongly away from the shore, and the swimmer was battling against double odds when he was least fit for it. Still, at 9.45 he had lessened the distance by one-half; he was only half a mile from the beach. Would he ever reach it?

Just as the now utterly exhausted swimmer was beginning bitterly to think that[pg 266]failure even at this point was possible, a steamboat put off from Calais, and her commander placed her in such a position that she acted as a kind of breakwater, for the sea was running so high that it nearly swamped the boats accompanying him. One last struggling exertion and he touched ground, so weak that he could not stand. A couple of men instantly went to his assistance, and he was able to walk slowly ashore. When the Calais boat left he was comfortably asleep, a medical man watching by his side.

“I can only say,”says Captain Webb,“that the moment when I touched the Calais sands, and felt the French soil beneath my feet, is one which I shall never forget, were I to live for a hundred years. I was terribly exhausted at the time, and during the last two or three hours I began to think that, after all, I should fail. On the following day, after I had had a good night’s rest, I did not feel very much the worse for what I had undergone. I had a peculiar sensation in my limbs, somewhat similar to that which is often felt after the first week of the cricket season; and it was a week before I could wear a shirt-collar, owing to a red raw rim at the back of my neck, caused by being obliged to keep my head back for so long a period; for, it must be remembered, I was in the water for very nearly twenty-two hours.”67

CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.

CAPTAIN WEBB’S ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.

When Webb returned to London he met with an enthusiastic reception. In the City he was welcomed by the same uproarious heartiness that Tom Sayers less deservedly received after his fight with Heenan. The cheering and hand-shaking of Webb began at the“Baltic,”increased in warmth at“Lloyds,”and culminated at the Stock Exchange, where“bulls”and“bears”were eclipsed by the lion of the day, and whence he had to beat a retreat to save his right hand from being wrung off.

The following will show the value of ingenuity in the midst of great danger. It occurred at a terrible wreck, which took place on the coast, in the sight of hundreds of powerless spectators:—“In the midst of these horrifying moments a man was observed to jump from the wreck into the sea. It was concluded by the watchers that he had voluntarily destroyed himself to avoid dying by inches and hunger. After all, who could blame him? It was a question of only an hour or so, for hope there appeared none. But the crowd was agreeably disappointed, for the man held his head up in the midst of the hissing surges boldly, and although he disappeared every moment, yet by the aid of good glasses his head was seen to bob up again, a conspicuous black object in the surrounding foam. Expectation stood on tip-toe. Would he reach the shore? was asked by a hundred voices in an instant, and everybody was anxious to do something to assist a man who so nobly tried to assist himself. The minutes that followed were intensely exciting; every movement of the swimmer was eagerly noticed, and it was with difficulty that several generous spirits were prevented from dashing, at all risks, into the sea to his assistance. Slowly, but surely, the poor fellow approached the shore—his head well up yet. He is just within the outer tier of the breakers—poor fellow! he will stand no chance now. See, he is caught by a monstrous wave—he rides upon its crest, and is urged rapidly towards the beach; the horrid wave curls and breaks; he is rolled head over heels; he is gone. No; he rights[pg 267]himself, and he is taken out to sea again by a retiring wave. Back he comes again—head over heels he goes once more; but this time fortune pitied misfortune, for he was flung by a wave within reach of a coast-guard, who, at the risk of his life, rushed into the sea and saved him. The secret of his buoyancy soon appeared. Under each arm he had lashed (as seamen only know how) an empty wine bottle, well corked, and he had stuffed several others under an elastic Guernsey shirt, and buttoned his trousers over all, and with these frail floats he came through a heavy belt of breakers in safety.”68

“That man has saved seventeen lives single-handed,”we heard a marine officer say one day at Lowestoft, pointing to a fine handsome young fellow who sat on the beach smoking his pipe.“He ought to be well off,”said a bystander.“He is well off,”was the answer.“He has the satisfaction of knowing that men, women, and children thank God for his bravery every day.”69

Before the establishment of a floating light off Happisburg, wrecks were very numerous on the Cromer coast. One of the greatest philanthropists who ever lived, Thomas Fowell Buxton, the great anti-slavery leader, spent much of his time at Cromer Hall, and was constantly on the shore during bad weather, urging and directing the efforts of others, and often“giving a hand”himself. In the storm of the 31st October, 1823, still vividly remembered on that coast, Mr. Buxton performed an act of heroic bravery. About noon, a collier, theDuchess of Cumberland, ran upon the rocks off the Cromer lighthouse. The life-boatmen could not be induced to venture out, so terrific was the sea and surf. Once a wave ran up the beach and floated the wreck. Buxton sprang into the water, hoping that others might be induced to follow, but in vain. Captain Manby’s gun was fired several times, but the line fell short of the ill-fated brig, on which nine poor sailors were seen lashed to the shrouds. At length a huge sea completely broke her up, the water being blackened by the bursting coal. The helpless spectators looked on, horror-stricken.“Poor dear hearts! they’re all gone now,”exclaimed an old fisherman; but at that instant a body—was it alive or dead?—was seen on the crest of a wave. Without waiting for a rope, Mr. Buxton dashed into the surf, caught the exhausted sailor, flung himself upon him, and struggled against the strong reflux of the surf, until others could reach him. He, with his living burden, was dragged to land, both at that moment more dead than alive. Buxton said afterwards that he felt the waves play with him as he could play with an orange.70

The record of a man in humbler life, John Ellerthorpe, foreman of the Humber Dock gates, Hull, who deservedly earned for himself the title of“Hero of the Humber”is very interesting. During a period of forty years he savedthirty-nineindividuals, most of whom were difficult cases, as they fell into the Humber through intoxication.

His services were honourably recognised. Medals and other acknowledgments from the Royal Humane Society and the Board of Trade were showered on him; he received a donation from the Royal Bounty, a purse of a hundred guineas from his townsmen, and other valuable testimonials. Turn we now to the case of another hero, who saved one life more than Ellerthorpe, and until very late in his career received no recognition whatever. A hero of the Clyde now appears on the scene.

It is to Mr. Charles Reade, the distinguished novelist, poet, and playwright, that we owe a“true and accurate account of the heroic feats and sad calamity of James Lambert, a living man.”71Mr. Reade had read in theGlasgow Timesof October 2nd, 1856, how, when a little boy was drowning in the Clyde, an elderly blind man would have dived in but for his granddaughter, who with a girl’s affection and unreasoning fears, had clung to his knees and utterly spoiled his good intentions. The boy was drowned. The poor blind hero went home crying like a child, saying,“It was a laddie flung away; clean flung away.”

Mr. Reade, after long and weary searching, found Lambert in a wretched lodging in Calton, a suburb of Glasgow, and easily extracted from him a fund of anecdote, a part only of which can be presented here.

The“first case”Lambert had attended to was a twenty-stone“drooning”baker, who gripped him tight to his breast, and nearly succeeded in drowning him. Lambert was then a youth of about fourteen. Another was of a poor old washerwoman who had overbalanced herself in the water, and who when saved wanted to go and pawn her tub that she might reward him. Instead of which her rescuer“clappit a shellin’”in her hand, and promised to repeat the kindness each Saturday from his own meagre wages.

When Mr. Reade had provided the poor old man with a little refreshment, he told the following episode in his life.

“Aweel, sirr, ye’ve heerd o’ the callant they wadna let me save—Hech, sirr, yon was a wean wastit72—noo, I’ll make ye the joodge whether I could na hae saved that ane, and twarree mair. There’s a beck they ca’‘the Plumb’rins doon fra’ the horsebrae into the Clyde near Stockwell Brigg. The bairns were aye for sporting in the beck, because it was shallow by ordinar, and ye’ll see them the color o’ vilets, and no’ hauf sae sweet, wi’ the dye that rins to the beck. Aweel, ae day there was a band o’ them there; and a high spate73had come doon and catched them, and the reesolt was I saw ane o’ th’ assembly in the Clyde. I had warned the neer-do-weels, ye ken, mony’s the time. By good luck I was na far away, and went in for him and took him by the ear.‘C’way, ye little deevil,’says I. I had na made three strokes when I am catched round the neck wi’ another callan.”

“Where on earth did he spring from?”

“I dinna ken. I was attending to number ane, when number twa poppit up, just to tak’ leave o’ Glasgee. I tell’t them to stick into me, and carried the pair ashore. Directly there’s a skirl on the bank, and up comes number three, far ahint me in the Clyde, and sinks before I can win74to him. Dives for this one, and has a wark to find him at the bottom. Brings him ashore in a kind o’ a dwam; but I had na fear for his life; he hadna been doon lang; my lord had a deal more mischief to do, ye ken. By the same token he came to vara sune, and d’ye ken the first word he said to me? he said:‘Dinna tell my feyther. Lord’s sake, man, dinna tell my feyther!’”

“I never,”remarks Mr. Reade,“saw a man more tickled by a straw, than James Lambert was at this. By contemplating him I was enabled in the course of time to lose my own gravity, for his whole face was puckered with mirth, and every inch of it seemed to laugh.”

“But,”said he,“wad ye believe it, some officious pairson tell’t his feyther, in spite o’ us baith. He was just a labouring man. He called on me, and thank’t me vara hairtily, and gied me a refreshment. And I thoucht mair o’t than I hae thoucht o’ a hantle siller on the like occasions.”

After one or two other savings, that entitled him to a medal or two, Lambert admitted that,“By this time, sirr, I was aye prowling about day and night for vectims!”Mr. Reade suggested that he had the pride of an artist, and wanted them to fall in, that he might pull them out and show his dexterity. Lambert answered that in those days swimming was not an accomplishment so common as now; and if such a thing as drowning was to be, he would like to be there and save them.“Ech,”said he,“the sweetness o’t! the sweetness o’t!”

He next told a funny story of rescuing a boy, and running up to the house to have him properly cared for.“Then,”said he,“I’m going oot, when a’ of a sooden I find I haena a steek on me, and twa hundred folk about the doore. Wad ye believe it,wi’ the great excitement I never knew I wa’ nakittill I saw the folk and bethought me.”At the[pg 270]foot of the stairs he found a bundle of linen, and he was not long in helping himself, coming back to the room in the wife’s apron and a sheet.“The sight o’ me made the lasses skairt and skirl;75for I was like a corp just poppit oot of the grave.”When he went for his clothes they had disappeared, but at last he discovered that a young lady had carefully kept them for him behind a hedge, fearing that some one might steal them.

“I come now,”says Mr. Reade,“to the crowning feat of this philanthropic and adventurous life, and I doubt my power to describe it. I halt before it like one that feels weak and a mountain to climb, for such a feat, I believe, was never done in the water by mortal man, nor never will again while earth shall last.

“James Lambert worked in Somerville’s Mill. Like most of the hands, he must cross the water to get home. For that purpose a small ferry-boat was provided: it lay at a little quay near the mill. One Andrew had charge of it ashore, and used to shove it off with a lever, and receive it on its return. He often let more people go into it than Lambert thought safe, and Lambert had remonstrated, and had even said,‘Ye’ll hae an accident some day that ye’ll rue but ance, and that will be a’ your life.’Andrew, in reply to him, told him to mind his own business.

“Well, one evening James Lambert wanted to get away in the first boat-load. This was somehow connected with his having bought a new hat: perhaps he wished to avoid the crowd of workpeople—here I am not very clear. However, he watched the great wheel, and the moment it began to waver, previous to stopping, he ran for his hat and darted down the stairs. But as he worked in an upper storey full a dozen got into the boat before him. He told Andrew to put off, but Andrew would not till the boat should be full; and soon it was crammed. James Lambert then said it was a shame of him to let so many on board. This angered the man, and when the boat was so crowded that her gunwale was not far above water, he shoved her violently off into the tideway, and said words which, if he had not prayed God to forgive them in this world, will perhaps hang heavy round his neck in the next....‘ye beggars!’he cried.

“This rough launching made the overladen boat wobble. The women got frightened, and before the boat had gone twenty yards she upset in dark, icy water, ten feet deep. It was night.

“Before the boat coupit76athegither they a’ flew to me that could, for they a’ kenned me. I’ the water, them that hadna a hand o’ me, had a hand o’ them that had a hand o’ me, and they carried me doon like leed. * * *

“Sirr, when yeve twa feet i’ the grave, your mind warks hard. I didna struggle, for it was nae mair use than to wrastle wi’ a kirk. I just strauchtened myself oot like a corp, and let them tak’ me doon to the bottom of the Clyde, and there I stude upright and waited; for I kenned the puir souls would droon afore me, and I saw just ae wee-wee chance to save them yet. Ye shall understond, sirr, that when folk are drooning, they dinna settle doon till the water fills their lungs and drives the air oot. At first they waver up and doon at sairtain intervals. Aweel, sirr, I waited for that, on the grund. I was the only ane grunded, you’ll obsairve. A slight upward movement commenced. I took advantage, and gieda vi’lent spang[pg 271]wi’ my feet against the bottom, and wi’ me, choosing my time, up we a’ came. My arms were grippit; but I could strike oot wi’ my feet and before ever we reached the surface, I lashed oot like a deevil, for the quay. Aweel, sirr, wi’ all I could do, we didna wend abune a yard, or may be a yard and a hauf and doone they carried me like leed. I strauchtened myself as we sank, and I grunded. The lave were a’ roond me like a fon.77I bides my time, and, when they are inclining upward I strikes fra the grund; an’ this time, maur slanting towards the quay. That helpit us, and in a dozen vi’lent strokes we maybe gained twa yards this time. Then doon like leed. Plays the same game again, up, and doon again. And noo, sirr, there was something that turned sair against us; but then there was something for us, to bollance it. It was against us that they had swallowed their pint o’ water by this time, and were nae sae buoyant; it was for us that the water was shallower noo, maybe not more than twa feet ower head. This wad droon us as weel as twanty; but wi’ nae mair nor twa feet water abune us I could spring up fra the grun by mere force; for the grun gies ye an awfu’ poower for a foot or twa. Sae noo I’m nae suner doon than up again, and still creeping for the quay, and the water aye a wee bit shallower. The next news is, I get sair spent, and that was bad; but to bollance that, some folk on the quay gat rapes and boat-hooks, and pickit off ane or twa that was the nearest; and now ilka time I cam’ up, they pickit ane off, and that lightened my burden; and bymby I drave a couple into shallow water mysel’, wi’ my feet. When I was in seven fut water mysel’, and fewer folk hauding me doon, I got to be maister, and shovit ane, and pu’d anither in, till we landed the whole saxteen or seventeen. But my wark was na’ done, for I kenned there were mair in the river. I saw the last o’ my ain band safe, and then oot into the Clyde, wherever I heerd cries, and sune I fund twa lasses skirling, takes ’em by their lang hair, and tows them to the quay in a minute. Just as I’m landing thir78twa, I hear a cry in the vara middle of the river, and in I splash. It was a strapping lass—they caed her Elizabeth Whitelaw.‘C’way, ye lang daftie,’says I, and begins to tow her. Lo an’ behold, I’m grippit wi’ a man under the water. It was her sweetheairt. She was hauding him doon. The hizzy was a’ reicht, but she was drooning the lad; pairts these79twa lovers—for their gude—and taks ’em ashore, one in each hand. Aweel, sirr, I saved just ane mair, and then I plunged in and sairched, but there was nae mair to be seen noo: three puir lasses were drooned, but I didna ken that at the time. And noo I’ll tell ye a farce. I’m seized wi’ a faintness, and maks for the shore. But I gat weaker, and dazed-like, and the lights o’ Glasgee begins to flecker afore my een: and, thinks I,‘I’ll no seeyeagain; I’m done this time.’It was all I could do for the bare life, to drift to the hinder part of the quay. I hadna the power to draw mysel’ oot. I just grippit the quay and sobbit. The folk were a’ busy wi’ them I had saved; nane o’ them noticed me, and I would ha’ been drooned that nicht: but wha d’ye think saved me, that had saved sae many?—an auld decrepit man: haw! haw! haw! He had a hookit stick, and gied me the handle, and towed me along the quay into shallow water, and I gat oot, wi’ his help, and swooned deed away. I’m tauld I lay there negleckit awhile; but they fand me at last, and then I had fifty nurses for ane.”

The story of the cause of this hero’s blindness is very sad. He had dived in[pg 272]the river to save another while perspiring freely. It was winter, and the water icy cold. Soon after a great dazzling seized him, followed by darkness. This occurred again and again, until at last the darkness settled on him, and the light fled for ever.

When Mr. Reade first saw him, the single public honour paid him was that he had the right, with one Bailie Harvey, to pass over a certain suspension bridge gratis till his death, while the rest of mankind paid a halfpenny! His only pension was one of three-and-sixpence a week from the Barony Parish, Glasgow. Mr. Reade’s efforts gained him an annuity, which he unfortunately did not live long to enjoy.

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