HIS EXPERIENCE IN THE WATER.]

The writer in _The Shipwrecked Mariners' Magazine_ says, 'Ellerthorpe's
exploits in saving life date from the year 1820, and from that time to
the present it may be safely asserted that he has never _hesitated_ to
risk his own life to save that of a fellow-creature. The danger incurred
in jumping overboard to rescue a drowning person is very great. Many
expert swimmers shrink from it. Ellerthorpe has encountered this risk
under almost every variety of circumstance. He has followed the
drowning, unseen in the darkness of the night, in the depth of winter,
under rafts of timber, under vessels at anchor or in docks, from great
heights, and often to the bottom in great depths of water, and what is
very remarkable, never in vain. _Fortuna fortes favet_ (fortune favours
the brave), is an adage true in his case. He never risked his life to
save another without success.'

Even to an experienced swimmer and diver, like our friend, the task of
saving a drowning person is not easy, and the grip and grapple of some
of those whom he rescued, had well nigh proved a fatal embrace, and it
was only by the utmost coolness, skill, bravery, and self-control that
he escaped.

[Sidenote: HE CARRIES THE DROWNING IN HIS ARMS.]

But he shall tell _his own_ simple, noble tale. 'During the last
forty-eight years I have done all that lay in my power to rescue my
fellow-creatures, when in drowning circumstances. By night and by day,
in darkness or in light, in winter or in summer, I was always ready to
obey the summons when the cry, "a man overboard," fell on my ears. And I
have had to rescue the drowning in widely different ways. Sometimes I
seized them tightly by the right arm, and then, hold them at arm's
length, soon reached the land. In some instances they seized me by my
shoulder or arm, when, leaving hold of them, and, throwing both my hands
into the water, I managed to reach the shore. In other instances I found
them so exhausted that they were incapable of taking hold of me, and in
these cases, I had to carry them as a mother would carry her child. And
in two or three instances, I thought they were dead, and, with feelings
easier imagined than expressed, I bore them up in my arms; when
suddenly, and with great strength, they sprang upon my head, and oftener
than once, under these circumstances, I was on the point of being
drowned. Some of those whom I saved were much heavier and stronger than
myself, and