DIVING. 



261 



forty-five feet, and those who witnessed him state that they did not think he went more than 

 two feet below the surface. Neither man nor boy should attempt to dive from such a height. 

 Were they to slip or to fall flat, the probability is that they would be killed on the spot. But 

 should it at any time be necessary to take a dive from a high place, bear in mind that you 

 must not give the same movement to your body as if you were going off from the height of a 

 few feet, otherwise you will turn completely over in the air and come down on your back, 

 which, should the distance be very great, would probably kill you ; and if the distance be 

 moderate, you would certainly have the 

 appearance - of having had a severe whip- 

 ping. In diving, and in everything else, 

 it is practice only that will make perfect. 

 Webb dived off the yard-arm of a ship 

 quite thirty feet above the water ; but if 

 by chance any one from such a height comes 

 in the least degree flat, he will hurt him- 

 self considerably. 



Many stories have been told in this 

 work of native divers, but referring merely 

 to their power of remaining under water, 

 and not their diving from a height; and, 

 so far as swimming goes, no black people 

 approach a first-class English swimmer. 

 Three feet of water are sufficient to dive 

 in, but no man in his senses would ever 

 make a dive from any height unless the 

 water was at least five or six feet deep, as 

 if by chance he should come down a little 

 straighter than he intended, he would 

 inevitably dash his brains out, in addition 

 to breaking both his arms against the 

 bottom of the bath or river. Great care, 



too, should be taken in diving into any open piece of water. Webb mentions 

 which a man was seen to receive a fearful laceration of his skull from divi 

 broken green glass bottle which had been thrown in. 



Innumerable are the inventions for assisting the learner of swimming, or for aiding 

 those who cannot swim to float. Foremost in the latter category must be placed what 

 is known as the Boyton dress, an American invention. It is a complete india-rubber 

 suit, and can be inflated at any point desired, the result being that the wearer can lie 

 down, remain in a perpendicular or slanting direction in the water, his body being kept as 

 warm, and if in exertion wanner, than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Captain 

 Paul Boyton crossed the Channel in it without difficulty, floating, paddling, and even sailing 

 (for a sail is part of the gear), meanwhile feeding from the knapsack or receptacle which is a 

 component part of the dress, smoking, and drinking cherry brandy amid the boiling waves. 



a case n 

 on to a 



