138 MEMOIR OF ALFRED SMEE. [ChAp. XII. 



no year did we escape witnessing terrible calamities. On one day about 

 twenty-two were drowned by a boat casualty. Continually ttere were 

 deaths from swimming misadventures, notwitbstanding that an almost 

 fabulous number of lives were saved by a skilled boatman named 

 Solomons. 



The bed of the river Lea is unequal. At every curve there is a deep 

 and dangerous hole, with under back currents, and there are deep shelves 

 in many parts of the banks. Hence the ordinary apparatus used by the 

 Royal Humane Society for dragging the river is comparatively useless, and 

 the boat hook has to be relied upon. 



I have been present when bodies have been raised. The exact position 

 to a foot has been known. The body could be felt by the hook and even 

 turned over, and yet could not be raised till repeated trials had been made. 

 All this caused so much delay that the last spark of life had fled before 

 the body could be recovered ; and well do I remember the terrible scenes 

 of grief which were witnessed among the surviving relatives at so sudden 

 a bereavement. 



No person ought to venture to swim in the river Lea unless an 

 expert swimmer, and then only when thoroughly conversant with the 

 peculiarities of the river, and the boats ought to have police surveillance to 

 see that they are sound in structure, and that they are not let to an undue 

 number of persons. 



There was always a popular idea that the water of the Lea was 

 particularly deadly, but at that time the water was clear and pure. Pro- 

 bably its deadly character is to be ascribed to its sluggishness, its great 

 depth, to its undercurrents, and to the difficulty of reclaiming bodies from 

 the dangerous shelves at the bottom. 



" This is true glory and renown ; when God, 

 Looking on the earth, with approbation marks 

 The just man, and divulges him through heaven 

 To all His angels, who with true applause 

 Recount his praises ! " 



Milton, Paradise Begained. 



His health now hroke down. Being anxious to see his 

 daughter, who was ill at the time, he came down to Oxford 

 with the intention of staying two or three days. I was shocked 

 at the change in his appearance since I last saw him, about 

 three weeks previously. He said he was tired, and had heen 

 examining medically about a dozen persons. He stayed between 

 four and five weeks with us at Oxford, and then returned to 

 his house in London, and at our urgent solicitations he promised 

 to give his whole attention to his own health, and to put himself 

 under the care of Dr. Moxon, one of the senior physicians of 

 Guy's Hospital, whose skill in medical knowledge is only equalled 



