| Bathing in the sea in England a hundred
years ago was not quite the light-hearted amusement that it is today. There are
no running down from the hotel to the beach in a bath robe(长袍), no sunbathing,
or lying about on the sands in bathing-dresses after the dip. Everything had to
be done in an orderly and extremely polite manner. Mixed bathing was not allowed
anywhere. Men and women each had their separate part of the beach, and they were
not supposed to meet in the water. Bathing clothes were also closely controlled. Men usually wore simple bathing drawers and no more, but women were obliged to wear thick, cumbersome woolen garments that covered them completely from head to foot. These satisfied the demands of modesty, but they must have been extremely uncomfortable for swimming. Even thus decently covered, women were not supposed to show themselves on the beach while in bathing attire(浴衣). They had to wait their turn for a bathing machine, a sort of wooden cabin on wheels which was drawn right down to the water's edge by horses. On its seaward side a sort of hood or canopy(罩盖)stretched outwards and downwards over the water, completely hiding the bather until she was actually in the sea. There was a bathing woman in attendance, part of whose duty was to dip, in other words, to seize the bather as soon as she emerged and dip her forcibly under water two or three times. This was supposed to be for the benefit of her health, and no doubt it was all right in the hands of the gentle. But most bathing women were the reverse of gentle, and to be dipped by them must have been a strenuous form of exercise. |