_Rowing-men_ are usually swimmers, or they ought to be. To appreciate river life one must go to bed early and get up early; ten o’clock should be the latest hour at which to turn in, but after an extra hard day’s pull the sheets will be welcome by nine. To enjoy thorough fatigue one must do a hard day’s work in the open air. Up in the morning betimes, garments hastily donned, a sharp pull to the nearest bathing place, where one can dive in and have a few minutes delicious swim, and back to breakfast—and such a breakfast! Or possibly the way lies through the fields where the grass is knee-deep and saturated with refreshing dew: then off come shoes and socks, the trousers are well tucked-up, and one gets what a hydropath would possibly term a leg-bath—in reality a delicious, fragrant dew-bath, which, though more than cool, is mightily enjoyable and never seems to give cold. [Illustration: The dew-bath.] _Small-boned_ and fleshy persons naturally make the best swimmers, but it must not be supposed that thin people cannot learn to swim, and swim well. The writer well remembers seeing one morning at Brill’s swimming baths, Brighton, a young fellow who had just stepped from his dressing-box ready for a plunge. He was standing where the water is deepest, and judging by his appearance he literally could not have had an ounce of flesh to spare. It was absurd to suppose that so thin a man could swim, and his movements were curiously watched. After hesitating an instant, apparently measuring the size of the bath, he shot into the water head first as if propelled from a catapult, and shortly reappeared half-way across the bath, having swum the distance under water; he proved himself a thorough master of the element. It appeared that although passionately fond of the water he could only keep himself afloat by constant muscular exertion of both arms and legs; he was too thin to float naturally, and could not venture to swim out a greater distance than he felt sure of covering on his return. _Tuition_ in swimming has been for some time past, and is now, given gratuitously in town by the London Swimming Club, from the persevering and enthusiastic Honorary Secretary of which—Mr. J. Garrett Elliott, 14, Finsbury Square—particulars may be obtained. [Illustration] _NOTES._ Bathing after hard exercise must be indulged in judiciously: a bath after a day’s shooting or cricketing, or an afternoon at lawn-tennis—to an enthusiast, who really plays, by far the hardest and most tiring form of amusement of the three—is pleasant and invigorating, and better understood than when it was an article of faith that to plunge into cold water, when heated, was almost equivalent to committing suicide.