BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



soil, and in their place developed a maze of criss- 

 crossing ropes. A few days later when I flew over 

 and, banking sharply, looked down, my vessel 

 appeared like a giant spider-web adrift in the Bay. 



It was a crazy, untried, landlubberish scheme 

 which had given my friends much cause for mirth, 

 but it actually worked, and now that we are in full 

 swing we are as comfortable and as effectively 

 equipped as we could wish. A large mess-tent 

 is at one end, the laboratoiy at the other, and 

 between are sleeping tents where one may lie under 

 one or two blankets at night and never be too 

 warm. 



On the forecastle a diminutive engine mumbles 

 to itself, and from it a wire winds in and out along 

 the roofs of the tents like a slender jungle liana, 

 only our wire-vine blossoms here and there into 

 electric lights and revolving fans, or jiggles a 

 little pump which sprays water into the aquariums. 

 And finally it disappears into a great, white enamel 

 affair and works mysteries in this tropical sunshine. 

 Scores of tiny cups of water, under its power, 

 become colder and colder and before long congeal 

 into that strange thing ice, which without man's 

 magic would never come to Haiti. 



My tent door frames the high mountains which 

 surround us, with their fringe of cocoanut and royal 

 palms and the emerald water between. At six 

 o'clock in the morning the valleys and crests turn 

 to solid gold, and at six in the evening the shadows 

 of the deepest gorges creep out and possess the 



14 



