en at Devonshire Terrace,
though I do not remember my father ever playing it elsewhere. The
American game of bowls pleased him, and rounders found him more than
expert. Croquet he disliked, but cricket he enjoyed intensely as a
spectator, always keeping one of the scores during the matches at "Gad's
Hill."

He was a firm believer in the hygiene of bathing, and cold baths, sea
baths and shower baths were among his most constant practices. In those
days scientific ablution was not very generally practised, and I am sure
that in many places during his travels my father was looked upon as an
amiable maniac with a penchant for washing.

During his first visit to America, while he was making some journey in a
rather rough and uncomfortable canal boat, he wrote: "I am considered
very hardy in the morning, for I run up barenecked and plunge my head
into the half-frozen water by half-past five o'clock. I am respected for
my activity, inasmuch as I jump from the boat to the towing path, and
walk five or six miles before breakfast, keeping up with the horses all
the time." And from Broadstairs: "In a bay window sits, from nine
o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who
writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny, indeed. At one
o'clock he disappears, presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may
be seen a kind of salmon-colored porpoise, splashing about in the ocean.
After that, he may be viewed in another bay window on the ground floor,
eating a good lunch; and after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or
lying on his back on the sand reading. Nobody bothers him, unless they
know he is disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is very
comfortable, indeed."

During the hottest summer months of our year's residence in Italy, we
lived at a little seaport of the Mediterranean called Albaro. The
bathing here was of the most primitive kind, one division of the clear,
dark-blue pools among the rocks being reserved for women, the other for
men, and as we children were as much at home in the water as any known
variety of fish, we used to look with wonder at the so-called bathing of
the Italian women. They would come in swarms, beautifully dressed, and
with most elaborately arranged heads of hair, but the slightest of
wettings with them was the equivalent of a bath. In the open bay at
Albaro the current was very strong, and the bathing most dangerous to
even an experienced swimmer. I