CHAPTER VII 



WITH THE SHAEKS OF NAKBOROUQH 



I ANCHORED the glass-bottoiiied diving boat as 

 close to the chffs of northern Narborough as I 

 dared, in a cove where the water was so deep that 

 the swells remained unbroken until shattered 

 against the lava itself. The rocks at this point 

 showed very clearly their division into successive 

 lava flows, some like frozen, black molasses candy 

 six feet thick, alternating with thinner strata in 

 the shape of huge bricks. The topmost layer was 

 the same old ploughed field of cinder crags and 

 snags with which we were so familiar on Albemarle. 

 This is probably the eruption of one hundred years 

 ago of which Morrell wrote so vividly.^ 



This, my seventieth descent, took me into a sub- 

 marine world as strange and as unlike that of 

 Tagus Cove (which we could still see in the distance 

 from the ship), as that differed from Tower. If 

 they were jungles and deserts this was a wheat- 

 field. Swiillowing as I went, I climbed down and 

 down and stood, at last, on a gigantic rounded 

 boulder, thirty feet below the surface. This round- 

 ness spelled a distinct difference between this and 



^GaMpagos: World's End, pp. 401-405. 



170 



