Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/308

Rh chance he knew something about such a queer thing, "I believe there are only two or three 'singing beaches' known in the whole world; and this certainly must be the best."

You may be sure we lingered over that mellifluous swim. We pushed the boats ashore, and went in for the weird, sweet music of the stream. It was enough to make one howl with sheer sensuous enjoyment. As we pushed or scraped the pebbly bottom with our feet we felt or heard, I hardly know which, a rich resonance passing through us, clear and sweet as the soft note of distant cow-bells. The slightest displacement of the gravel brought it up, as if it had just escaped from the earth.

When we had tried it a hundred and a thousand times, it occurred to us that neither could hear the note caused by the other,—we only heard the sound of our own feet. Again the tenacious memory of my friend found an explanation. He remembered that divers can only talk under water by placing their heads on the bottom.

Another discovery here: you can't get your 'head to the bottom of a four-foot stream, unless you catch hold of a stone on the bottom and pull yourself down. You can dive, and get your hands or feet or knees down; but not your chin. We are both good swimmers, and we tried in