The guides who attend the ladies in the water, are of
their own sex, and they and the female bathers have a dress of
flannel for the sea; nay, they are provided with other
conveniences for the support of decorum. A certain number of the
machines are fitted with tilts, that project from the sea-ward
ends of them, so as to screen the bathers from the view of all
persons whatsoever -- The beach is admirably adapted for this
practice, the descent being gently gradual, and the sand soft as
velvet; but then the machines can be used only at a certain time
of the tide, which varies every day; so that sometimes the
bathers are obliged to rise very early in the morning -- For my
part, I love swimming as an exercise, and can enjoy it at all
times of the tide, without the formality of an apparatus -- You and
I have often plunged together into the Isis; but the sea is a
much more noble bath, for health as well as pleasure. You cannot
conceive what a flow of spirits it gives, and how it braces every
sinew of the human frame. Were I to enumerate half the diseases
which are every day cured by sea-bathing, you might justly say
you had received a treatise, instead of a letter, from
Your affectionate friend
and servant,
J.
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