Once, in order to make a short cut, we determined to swim the river, which, at the point where we were, was about sixty feet wide, deep, and what was of more consequence, bordered with weeds. We stripped, tied our clothes on the top of our heads and our boots to one end of our fishing lines, carrying the other end with us. When we got across we pulled our boots through mud and water after us. Alas! to our grief we found we could not get them on, and we were obliged to walk without them. Swimming we had been taught by an old sailor, who gave lessons to the school, and at last I could pick up an egg from the bottom of the overfall, a depth of about ten feet. I have also been upset from my boat, and had to lie stark naked on the grass in the sun till my clothes were dry. Twice I have been nearly drowned, once when I wandered away from the swimming class, and once when I could swim well. This later peril is worth a word or two, and I may as well say them now. I was staying by the sea-side, and noticed as I was lying on the beach about a couple of hundred yards from the shore a small vessel at anchor. I thought I should like to swim round her. I reached her without any difficulty, in perfect peace, luxuriously, I may say, and had just begun to turn when I was suddenly overtaken by a mad conviction that I should never get home. There was no real danger of failure of strength, but my heart began to beat furiously, the shore became dim, and I gave myself up for lost. “This then is dying,” I said to myself, but I also said—I remember how vividly—“There shall be a struggle before I go down—one desperate effort”—and I strove, in a way I cannot describe, to bring my will to bear directly on my terror. In an instant the horrible excitement was at an end, and _there was a great calm_. I stretched my limbs leisurely, rejoicing in the sea and the sunshine. This story is worth telling because it shows that a person with tremulous nerves, such as mine, never ought to say that he has done all that he can do. Notice also it was not nature or passion which carried me through, but a conviction wrought by the reason. The next time I was in extremity victory was tenfold easier. [Picture: Old Horne Lane, Bedford, in 1835]