BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



most frightfully superficial observation. The new- 

 comer to a coral reef, the tourist diver, has, how- 

 ever, no Baedeker at hand from which to filch 

 values and ideas. To remove one's helmet spells 

 death, but in other ways the most blase observer 

 must somehow feel and show the awe which is in- 

 spired by his first few descents. 



I had dived many times in Cocos and Galapagos 

 waters and there I found myself always in a back- 

 ground of somber, purgatorial aspect, — mighty 

 masses of dark lava and volcanic outbursts setting 

 off the procession of thousands of gorgeously 

 colored fish. Here in Haiti, the surroundings were 

 of equal brilliance with the living, moving in- 

 habitants, and adventure and activity so omni- 

 present that hundreds of descents have still left 

 me with ability only to present separate vignettes, 

 individual mosaics, which future study will mould 

 into more accurate appreciation of the life of the 

 reef as a whole. 



My favorite method of going down, when the 

 bottom is only three or four fathoms away, is to 

 discard the rope or ladder and, balancing carefully, 

 to sink direct. It gives a delightfully terrifying 

 effect of falling slowly — the realization of a night- 

 mare dream which ends safely. 



My first Easter dive landed me on a large mound 

 of brain coral, cracked in the middle, not by frost 

 but very likely by an earthquake. I revolved 

 slowly, feet close together, like some weird repre- 

 sentation of the North Pole on top of the world. 



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