THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 327 



enemies, limited above by the boiling surf, and twice daily 

 forced to battle, or sustain, an almost irresistible deluge of 

 flooding water. I was reminded of the people of Flanders, or 

 of Alsace, who are periodically overwhelmed by floods of 

 conquest or counter conquest, who bravely or hopefully con- 

 tinue living there, building new homes to replace those de- 

 stroyed by shells or gutted by flames, and who after a time see 

 them destroyed once more and are faced with the necessity of 

 doing it all over again. Yet the comparison is not a completely 

 true one, for a sea-tide is a river of life, not of death, a manifes- 

 tation of nature which is a normal state of affairs for millions of 

 creatures all over the world. 



It was fitting that, as I returned to the dry earth again to 

 avoid the rush of water rapidly welUng to its climax, the last 

 creatures I saw before my helmet broke the surface were the 

 Aurelias, the moon- jellies. They were the first and only moon- 

 jellies that I saw near Inagua. Their appearance at this oppor- 

 tune moment was significant. More than any other living crea- 

 tures could have done, they expressed in their filmy iridescent 

 tissues the symbolism of a flowing tide. There were six of them 

 slowly drifting with slight pulsations of their hemispherical, 

 umbrellas on the bosom of the current towards the open sea. 

 Pale and glowing they resembled the moon after which they 

 are named; in a translucent shining galaxy they floated aim- 

 lessly off into watery space. Like the currents of the ocean they 

 were giving themselves completely and passively to the pull 

 of the invisible moon; the responsive tide was their life, their 

 complete world and their means of conveyance. 



