I also remember speaking to the ladies and subsequently to some gentlemen. I saw too, as in a dream, a group of people and a dog, and wondered what they were all doing. During the five days I remained at Sorrento I received nothing but the greatest care and attention from everybody. Then I was removed to my own home at South Melbourne, where through starting to walk too soon, my legs and feet got bad again and I was confined to bed for six weeks. I believe I will ultimately get all right, but up to present time of writing, I still feel, in nerves and muscles, the effects of the long exposure. Frequently at night I wake up suddenly, suffering from severe cramps and under the impression that I am on the raft at sea! This reminds me of a remark I overheard the other day in Melbourne that “the survivor of the _Alert_ stuck to his raft because he could not swim.” No greater mistake could be made. I am a native of Tortworth, near Bristol, England, and when at school there was taught to swim by the clergyman of the parish. Afterwards I removed to Clevedon, in the Bristol Channel, where I practised daily, during summertime, swimming in the surf. Without reckoning myself an _expert_, I purpose in the next chapter to make a few remarks on this important subject. [Illustration: Decoration] [Illustration: R. PONTING AND MR. A. STANTON’S DOG “VICTOR HUGO.” From a Photo taken after the Wreck.] [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER X. HINTS ON SWIMMING. There is not an effect without a cause, Swimming is an outcome of nature’s laws. It is easy to learn to swim, and hence, The main requisition is confidence, Men cannot do it—at least so they say— Till they’ve been taught by those who know the way. How do brutes learn?—swim splendidly they can— Nature guides them, and nature teaches man, _Minus_ teaching, lower animals swim. The training they get is just “a throw in!” I have had a good deal of experience in the matter and my advice to any person swimming _towards_ heavy seas is this—When a large wave is coming, don’t wait till it breaks on you, dive under it to save being struck and carried away. On the other hand, if swimming _with_ the seas—that is, in the direction in which they are going—and a larger one than usual is coming along behind you, turn round, face it, and dive as in the former case. I don’t know whether Shakespeare could swim, or not, but in his play of “The Tempest” he describes exactly the mode of procedure in rough water, thus— “I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swol’n that met him; his bold head ’Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar’d Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore.”