Downstream

somebody ‘for a wager’.
If Byron sounded boastful
in his letter to Pigot, he would
soon have reason to be and
today his epic swims are
almost as enduring as his
poetry. Three years after his
swim from Lambeth he
crossed the Hellespont, on his
second attempt, inspired by
the Greek myth of Hero and
Leander, covering four miles
in one hour ten minutes.
Leander drowned one