I will mention one more instance.  In 1818, the Chevalier Mengaldo (a gentleman of Bassano), a good swimmer, wished to swim with my friend Mr. Alexander Scott and myself.  As he seemed particularly anxious on the subject, we indulged him.  We all three started from the island of the Lido and swam to Venice.  At the entrance of the Grand Canal, Scott and I were a good way ahead, and we saw no more of our foreign friend, which, however, was of no consequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes and pick him up.  Scott swam on till past the Rialto, where he got out, less from fatigue than from chill, having been four hours in the water, without rest or stay, except what is to be obtained by floating on one’s back—­this being the condition of our performance.  I continued my course on to Santa Chiara, comprising the whole of the Grand Canal (besides the distance from the Lido), and got out where the Laguna once more opens to Fusina.  I had been in the water, by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes.  To this match, and during the greater part of its performance, Mr. Hoppner, the Consul-general, was witness, and it is well known to many others.  Mr. Turner can easily verify the fact, if he thinks it worth while, by referring to Mr. Hoppner.  The distance we could not accurately ascertain; it was of course considerable.

“I crossed the Hellespont in one hour and ten minutes only.  I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution, than I was when I passed the Dardanelles, and yet two years ago I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsers, an accoutrement which by no means assists the performance.  My two companions were also four hours in the water.  Mengaldo might be about thirty years of age; Scott about six-and-twenty.

“With this experience in swimming at different periods of life, not only upon the SPOT, but elsewhere, of various persons, what is there to make me doubt that Leander’s exploit was perfectly practicable?  If three individuals did more than the passage of the Hellespont, why should he have done less?  But Mr. Turner failed, and, naturally seeking a plausible reason for his failure, lays the blame on the Asiatic side of the strait.  He tried to swim directly across, instead of going higher up to take the vantage:  he might as well have tried to fly over Mount Athos.

“That a young Greek of the heroic times, in love, and with his limbs in full vigour, might have succeeded in such an attempt is neither wonderful nor doubtful.  Whether he attempted it or not is another question, because he might have had a small boat to save him the trouble.

     “I am yours very truly,

     “BYRON.