SWIMMING.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Several very sad cases of drowning which have lately happened induce me to request that you will allow me to relate the remarkable manner by which two young women saved their lives when carried out of their depth by an undercurrent or the backwash of a wave. Staying some years ago at Hun- stanton I heard that two young women had been picked up floating in the sea some distance from land by a Dutch galliot. Having been from early days rather an enthusiastic swimmer, I was much interested in the account I heard, so I deter- mined to try to get as exact a relation of the matter as I could. I went to Snellisham, where the girls lived, and I had an interview with their mother. She told me that her daughters, aged sixteen and seventeen, had gone down to bathe from the shore, and had been suddenly carried off their feet out into the wash; that they remembered being told by an aunt that under such circumstances they should try to float upon their backs, clasping their hands behind their heads. They both managed to do this, and they actually floated in this manner for an hour and a half or more before one of them was seen on board the Dutch galliot, who hoisted out a boat and picked her up quite stiff and helpless, but just able to say that her sister was also in the water. The sister was found in the same rigid condition. They were landed near home, and the next day were none the worse for their long immersion. This story may be of use to others in a similar situation, and perhaps you may be disposed to publish it.—I
P.S.—The secret of their being able to float so long was, I believe, the fact of their hands being tightly clasped on their necks behind their heads. This would throw up their chests and keep their mouths much out of the water if there was no sea on.
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