rare among the fair sex. Much of the enjoyment of the sea-bath is lost by a lady being reduced to undress. and dress in a confined bathing-machine, and then to be driven out to sea in a manner calculated to create terror and dismay. Any person can learn swimming in a short time by taking a lesson from a frog or a dog that may be floating about in the water. A little observation will show that our arms and legs should be moved in the same way, and practice will prove how easy and delightful are such movements. One rule is enough-never to raise the hands above the ear, and there will be no dread of sinking. What greatly retards a woman in such exercise is the description of bathing-dress generally adopted in our country, viz., that of common thick blue or grey flannel, which in the space of a few minutes becomes so saturated with water as to weigh down the body and impede progress greatly. We would, therefore, advise all ladies who are inclined to learn swimming to adopt the dress worn by Frenchwomen for this purpose, consisting of drawers and a short dress over, made of grey or brown serge, and, after practice has rendered our fair friends perfect, we are sure they will liberate themselves from such trammels as bathing-machines, and freely enjoy the element God has given for our use.

After undressing, the body, as quickly as possible, should be thoroughly wrapped in a large dry flannel gown, which should not be laid aside till the very moment previously to going into the water. By this means the shock of immersion will be avoided, and that salutary glow which ought always to succeed bathing may in general be insured. Before bathing in the sea it is an excellent precaution in the young and delicate gradually to prepare themselves by previously using the tepid bath, at a temperature commencing at 90°, lowering 5o each time, and terminating at 65°.

We should never begin to bathe in the sea until two or three days after having arrived on the seacoast. Sea-bathing should not be taken after great fatigue, as

coming from a long journey-nor after the body has been long exposed to great exertion, and has experienced lassitude, debility, or chilliness-nor if there is any inward determination of the fluids to the head or the lungs. It is hardly necessary to add that to rush into cold water if at all unwell, or on the day that medicine may have been taken, is dangerous in the extreme.

Persons of delicate or feeble constitution should bathe (if allowed by a medical practitioner to take sea-baths) on alternate days, rather than for many days consecutively. Daily bathing is frequently found productive of lassitude, accompanied by a manifest wasting of the body.

Attention should be paid to the nature of the bathingplace. A bottom of clear sand is to be preferred. Seaweeds are to be avoided, for they frequently contain a species of pointed shell, which is apt to inflict painful wounds if trodden upon.

Upon coming out of the water the body should be wiped dry with a somewhat rough cloth, and the ordinary dress quickly resumed. It is more necessary to replace the usual vestments quickly than to be extremely anxious to have the surface of the body completely dry, as any wetness from salt water is not likely to be prejudicial.

After Bathing use Moderate Exercise, to promote the return of the heat of the body, taking care that it should neither be violent nor too long continued.

If chilliness occasionally ensues, breakfast soon after bathing in the morning; or, in the forenoon, some warm soup or broth may be taken. Indeed, if immersion, instead of being succeeded by a glow on the surface of the skin, is followed by chilliness, languor, or headache, bathing in the sea should by no means be persisted in.

During a course of sea-bathing, and even when the warm sea-water bath is used, friction with a hair-brush or coarse woollen gloves ought not to be omitted. It may enable a patient to continue the course, when otherwise he must have given it up.

A few more words on Swimming may be useful here. Those who have acquired this healthy art should never fail to practise it while they are in the water, for, besides the uninterrupted immersion of the body, the muscular exertion required in swimming tends greatly to keep up the balance of temperature, which is lost by placing the body in a medium so much colder than itself.

It should be a constant rule, however, even to the most expert swimmer, never to bathe in the sea, in a lake, or in a river, without having a boat near him, or taking another person with him who knows how to swim. It is certainly a weakening exercise, and many who have remained too long in the water have been so much enfeebled by it as to be scarcely able to stand when they came ashore; and if this weakness or a more fatal cramp comes on at sea, or even in fresh water, the consequences must be dangerous in the

extreme.

CHAPTER III.

DIET.

"What, and how great the virtue and the art
To live on little with a cheerful heart,
(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine,)
Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine;
Not when the gilt buffet's reflected pride
Turns you from sound philosophy aside;
Not when from plate to plate the eyeballs roll,
And the brain dances to the mantling bowl.

Now hear what blessings Temperance can bring:
(Thus said my friend, and what he said I sing)
First HEALTH; the stomach cramm'd with every dish,
A tomb of boil'd and roast, and flesh and fish,
Where bile and wind, and phlegm and acid jar,
And all the man is one intestine war.
Remember oft the scholar's simple fare,
The temperate sleep, and spirits light as air.
How pale each worshipful and reverend guest
Rise from a clergy or a civic feast!
What life in all that simple body? say,
What heavenly particle inspires the clay?
The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines
To seem but mortal, e'en in sound divines.
On morning wings how active springs the mind
That leaves the load of yesterday behind!"

THE STUDY OF DIET has been a matter of grave importance amongst all nations and at every epoch. Hippocrates, the great father of physic, says, "Health depends chiefly on the choice of food," and that the "physicians before his time were to be blamed for not prescribing rules of diet;" and "that he who would skilfully treat the subject of aliment must consider the

EVILS OF LUXURIOUS LIVING.

27

nature of man, the nature of aliments, and the constitution of the person who takes them." Herodotus observes of the Egyptians, that, having remarked that the greatest number of diseases proceeded from the abuse of food, they took care every month to consecrate three successive days to pursue and seize health.

The present state of luxurious living, the refinements of cookery, and the delicacy of taste which prevail among our prosperous countrymen, are the most fertile sources of disease that could be found. Hence the

calendar of fatal disorders is much increased of late years, and many complaints unknown to our sturdier and less fastidious ancestors are now rife among us. Indeed, when we consider the immense exercise of art employed in refining our food at the sacrifice of nourishment and vigour, we are surprised that death is not more frequent among us, for we manifestly hasten his approach when we set at defiance, in many cases habitually, the laws that should govern our appetites. We reverse the maxim that we must eat to live by living to eat, or wasting the precious moments of our life in pampering our vitiated bodies.

By the term digestion, in the more perfect animal, is generally understood that process by which certain substances called nutritive or alimentary are converted into a homogeneous semi-fluid mass, from the cavity containing which white vessels drink up the more elaborated portion, and convey it into other larger ones containing blood, with which it is mixed and carried to the heart. The simplest kind of digestion is that performed by presenting a watery fluid to a moist surface, which converts it into its own nature. Examples of this are seen in the lower orders of animals, the individuals of which consist almost entirely of a closed sack or pouch, on the external surface of which the above change is accomplished. On nearly the same line may be put the spongy extremities of the roots of plants, which absorb or drink up the nutrimental fluid from the soil. In others not quite so simple in their organi