r our home, to row back the boat, which
was meanwhile moored to a pile.

This was the most unique among my adventures with water, but by no
means the most dangerous. The most dangerous was at the same time the
most ordinary, because it recurred every time I went swimming in the
sea. Any one who knows the Baltic seaside resorts, knows the so-called
"reffs." By "reffs" are meant the sandbanks running parallel to the
beach, out a hundred or two hundred paces, and often with very little
water washing over them. Upon these the swimmers can stand and rest,
when, they have crossed the deep places lying between them and the
shore. In order that they may know exactly where these shallow places
are, little red banners are hoisted over the sandbanks. Here lay for
me a daily temptation. When the sea was calm and everything normal, my
skill as a swimmer was just sufficient to carry me safely over the
deep places to the nearest sandbank. But if the conditions were less
favorable, or if by chance I let myself down too soon, so that I had
no solid ground beneath my feet, I was frightened, sometimes almost to
death. Luckily I always managed to get out, though not by myself.
Strength and help came from some other source.

Another danger of water which I was destined to undergo had no
connection with the sea, but occurred on the river, close by the
"Bulwark," not five hundred paces from our house. I shall tell about
it later; but first I wish to insert here another little occurrence,
in which no help of an angel was needed.

I was not good at swimming, nor at steering or rowing; but one of the
things I could do well, very well indeed, was walking on stilts.
According to our family tradition we came from the region of
Montpelier, whereas I personally ought by rights to be able, in view
of my virtuosity as a stilt-walker, to trace my ancestry back to the
Landes, where the inhabitants are, so to speak, grown fast to their
stilts, and hardly take them off when they go to bed. To make a long
story short, I was a brilliant stilt-walker, and in comparison with
those of the western Garonne region, the home of the very low stilts,
I had the advantage that I could not get my buskins high enough to
suit me, for the little blocks of wood fastened on the inner side of
my stilts were some three feet high. By taking a quick start and
running the ends of the two poles slantingly into the ground I was
able to swing myself without fail upon the stilt-bl