The bathing is delightful,
but wholly unlike anything to be found elsewhere. The wonderfully
clear water is cool and exhilarating, but to swim in it is impossible,
it is so heavy from its large percentage of salt. So every one floats,
but not at all as one floats in other waters. We lie upon our backs,
of course--at least we think we do--but our feet are always out of the
water, and our heads straight up, with large straw hats upon them.
They have a way of forming human chains on the water that often
startles one at first. They are made by hooking one's arms close to
the shoulder over the ankles of another person, still another body
hooking on to you, and so on. Then each one will stretch his or her
arms out and paddle backward, and in this way we can go about without
much effort, and can see all the funny things going on around us. As I
am rather tall, second position in a chain is almost always given to
me, and my first acquaintance with masculine toes close to my face
came very near being disastrous. The feet stood straight up, and the
toes looked so very funny, with now and then a twitch back or front,
that soon I wanted to laugh, and the more I tried not to the more
hysterical I became. My shoulders were shaking, and the owner of the
toes--a pompous man--began to suspect that I was laughing and probably
at the toes.
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