Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-03-05

| This IS because you have no motion except
| the motion of the water itself; your eyes are
| fixed in crystalline medium. and nothing
can express the sense of ease, the utter luxu-
ry which the supporting fluid gives to every
| limb. You are lolling on or in an air cush-
ion without surface friction. The mere
swimmer can never feel this, nor even he
who is towed after a boat, though that is all
ideal method of taking an invigorating bath
To see the rivers inner life and to enjoy the
complete luxury resting in the water, you
must float in and with the stream, without
effort or motion, supported by the painter of
your boat.
Halfway down this lovely and lonely is
land passage we plunged in; and we had nc
sooner struck bottom than Mr.. Butler uttered
strange shout and threw up his hands. l
was startled till I looked at his face; and
then was puzzled beyond measure by his
motions and expressions. With his hands
above his head he seemed to be dancing on
the bottom of the river and with every step
he gave shout of pleasure. While looked
at him, astonished, 7 began to feel the infec-
ton of his strange conduct A thrill like
soft music ran through me, and seemed to
tingle in my and under my tongue; and
every movement I made brought repetition
of the inexpressible sound, for a sound 1t
was, like musical echo.
''What is it?' I cried at length. "This is
wonderful"
answered Sigourney. ''And I should say it
was the finest in the world" And then he
said, for by strange chance he knew some
thing about such queer thing, Il 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 fingered over that
mellifuous swim. We pushed the boats
ashore and went in for the weird sweet music
of the stream. 1t 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, [ hardly know
which, rich resonance passing through u.s.
clear and sweet the soft note of distant
COW bells. The slightest displacement of the
gravel brought it up, as if it had just es-
capped from the earth. When we had tried
it hundred and a thousand times, it
| CURED 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 I'M
der water by placing their heads on the bot
tom.
Another discovery here: You can't get
| your head to the bottom of four-foot stream
unless you catch hold of stones on the bot
| tom and pull yourself down. You can dive
| and get your hands and feet or knees down;
| but not your chin. We are both good swim
mers and we tried in vain. While under
WAGER, oh tAe ulSe, VI craving .tioHS Iiie
| bottom on hands and knees, the river was
| drear and silent sluice. At last we got our
| chlns on the bottom, each on a stone, and
| we heard it-oh! we heard such melodious
| discord, such mixture of near and remote
| eeho-like sweetness only be imagined
| in dreams. The river became full of mu
| sic as it was of water, and the inexpressibie
| fusion of notes played through senses
| like intoxication. Butler was twenty or thir-
| ty feet from me and in deeper water; but
| every sweep he gave the pebbles sounded to
me like a thousand bills melted into Ii
| quid harmony. Never, until we go to the
same spot again, shall we hear such strange
suppressed elm music.
| Now, Athens, go down and battle at the
| place where we had this intoxicating bath;
| and believe that never there siren or
naiad in the rivers springs of old Athens
| to ravish with sweeter melody than your own
beautiful Susquehanna holds for you.