Next use one arm in swimming style. Next use one arm and kick at the same time. Try to use both arms, lifting the hand from the sand a little first, and presently more. Stand up to the chest in water, stoop somewhat and bend the knee, one foot in front of the other, and use the arms together, walking at the same time, so as to get the proper motion of the hands. Place the hands on the sand again, and try to use both arms once more. Finally, stand up to the chest, face the shore, lean forward, and push off and try a stroke--the feet will easily recover themselves. Presently two strokes will become possible, after awhile three; that is swimming. The sea is so buoyant, so beautiful, that let them only once feel the sense of floating, and they will never rest till they have learned. Ladies can teach themselves so quickly, and swim better than we do. The best swimming I ever saw was done by three ladies together: the waves were large, but they swam with ease, the three graces of the sea. Volume One, Chapter X. SAVAGES. Bevis and Mark went eagerly to bathe by themselves, but immediately left the direct path. Human beings must be kept taut, or, like a rope, they will slacken. The very first morning they took a leaping-pole with them, a slender ash sapling, rather more than twice their own height, which they picked out from a number in the rick-yard, intending to jump to and fro the brook on the way. But before they had got half way to the brook they altered their minds, becoming eager for the water, and raced to the bathing-place. The pole was now to be an oar, and they were to swim, supported by an oar, like shipwrecked people. So soon as he had had a plunge or two, Bevis put one arm over the pole and struck out with the other, thinking that he should be able in that way to have a long swim. Directly his weight pressed on the pole it went under, and did not support him in the least. He put it next beneath his chest, with both arms over it, but immediately he pushed off down it went again. Mark took it and got astride, when the pole let his feet touch the bottom. “It’s no use,” he said. “What’s the good of people falling overboard with spars and oars? What stories they must tell.” “I can’t make it out,” said Bevis; and he tried again, but it was no good, the pole was an encumbrance instead of a support, for it insisted upon slipping through the water lengthways, and would not move just as he wished. In a rage he gave it a push, and sent it ashore, and turned to swimming to the rail. They did not know it, but the governor, still anxious about them, had gone round a long distance, so as to have a peep at them from the hedge on the other side of Fir-Tree Gulf by the Nile. He could tell by the post and rails that they did not go out of their depth, and went away without letting them suspect his presence.