_Salt-water_ is more energetic in its action on the skin than fresh, and, after a dip in the sea, there is not the same liability to take cold from insufficient drying as after a fresh-water bath. Some bathers go so far as to habitually only half-dry themselves, the saline particles left on the skin further exciting its action, and producing a healthy and more vigorous glow. Children at the sea-side may safely be allowed, without the slightest fear of taking cold, to dabble and patter about in the little pools left by the receding tide: their constitutions will be positively invigorated and improved. _A love_ of cold-water bathing can perhaps be carried to excess, as in the case of those self-devoted Spartan swimmers, who, every morning, even in winter, assemble on the banks of the Serpentine, and audaciously defying their own instinct, plunge into the freezing water, even though they have first to break through the icy covering under which it is concealed by nature: the strongest constitution must suffer sooner or later from this treatment. [Illustration: Taking the Plunge.] _Boys_ and girls ought to be taught swimming at school as they are taught gymnastics and calisthenics—as a matter of course. We ought, as islanders, to be swimmers, and it is to be regretted that we are not: swimmers are of necessity bathers, but bathers are not always, as they should be, swimmers. The percentage of swimmers in this country is perhaps considerably less than might be expected by those who have not given any thought to the subject, and yet the art itself is a necessary one, easy to acquire, healthy, and sometimes of the greatest possible service. _When_ once learned the action of swimming comes as naturally as walking, and doubtless man in a state of nature, would, like a dog, swim at once if thrown into the water. Swimming is an art which seems to incorporate itself into the physique, and become part of one’s being—at any rate, it can never be forgotten, and a person finding himself unexpectedly in deep water, after a twenty years’ rest from swimming, will strike out as naturally and surely, and with little more effort, than if the practice had never been given up.