the lark. Towards six o'clock is the most
fashionable hour for our metropolitan Pactolus; and, as it is some miles
distant from what can, by any stretch of courtesy, be called the West
End, and as there are no workmen's trains on a Sunday morning, a long
walk or cab drive is inevitable for all who would witness the disporting
of our amphibious Orientals. Rising thus betimes on a recent "Sunday
morning before the bells did ring," I sped me to the bathing pond,
judiciously screened off by shrubs from the main path. It was between
the appointed hours that I arrived; and, long before I saw anything, the
ringing laughter of the young East reached me through the shrubs.
Threading the path which led to the lake, I found the water literally
alive with men, boys, and hobbledehoys, revelling in the water like
young hippopotami on the Nile. Boys were largely in the ascendant--boys
from ten to fifteen years of age swam like young Leanders, and sunned
themselves on the bank, in the absence of towels, as the preparative to
dressing, or smoked their pipes in a state of nature. It is only just to
say that while I remained, I heard little if any language that could be
called "foul." Very free and easy, of course, were the remarks, and
largely illustrative of the vulgar tongue; not without a share of light
chaff directed against myself, whose presence by the lake-side puzzled
my young friends. I received numerous invitations to "peel" and have a
dip; and one young urchin assured me in the most patronizing way
possible that he "wouldn't laugh at me" if I could not get on. The
language may not have been quite so refined as that which I heard a few
days before from the young gentlemen with tall hats and blue ties at
Lord's; but I do say advisedly that it would more than bear comparison
with that of the bathers in the Serpentine, where my ears have often
been assailed with something far worse than anything I heard in East
London. In the matter of clothes, too, the apparel of our young friends
was indeed Eastern in its simplicity; yet they left it unprotected on
the bank with a confidence that did honour to our common humanity in
general, and to the regulations of Victoria Park in particular. Swimming
in some sort was almost universal among the bathers, showing that their
visit to the water was not an isolated event in their existence, but a
constant as it is a wholesome habit. The Oriental population were for
the most part apparently well fed