41 



I had perpetual nightmares all this while. Looking back, it is 

 miraculous that my relatively frail health of that time did not 

 crack under the terrible strain, but I was possessed and sustained 

 by a curious belief that it was my lot to carry this through and that 

 I should be able to do so. Most men find learning new things 

 increasingly difficult after the age of thirty, and indeed I had 

 experienced that myself in chemistry, trying to keep up with the 

 progressive changes in theory. I started my study of fishes when 

 already past thirty, and it was astonishing to discover that my 

 brain soaked it up like a sponge, and even now it is still the same. 

 I can only suppose it must be a kind of natural affinity. At any 

 rate, before we left Knysna I had absorbed everything available 

 that had been published about Coelacanths. I certainly knew a 

 lot more than a few weeks before. 



We left Knysna on the 8th February 1939, intending to go 

 straight through to East London, but there was to be nothing easy 

 about this, for we travelled in continuous heavy rain and were 

 fortunate to reach Grahamstown, since by that time floods had 

 rendered almost all roads impassable. Drifts and slippery mud 

 made motoring in South Africa no light undertaking in those 

 days. We had to wait a whole week before the roads to East London 

 became usable, and after an awful journey reached there on the 

 1 6th February 1939. 



We went straight to the Museum. Miss Latimer was out for the 

 moment, the caretaker ushered us into the inner room and there 

 was the — Coelacanth, yes, God ! Although I had come prepared, 

 that first sight hit me like a white-hot blast and made me feel 

 shaky and queer, my body tingled. I stood as if stricken to stone. 

 Yes, there was not a shadow of doubt, scale by scale, bone by 

 bone, fin by fin, it was a true Coelacanth. It could have been one 

 of those creatures of 200 million years ago come alive again. I 

 forgot everything else and just looked and looked, and then almost 

 fearfully went close up and touched and stroked, while my wife 

 watched in silence. Miss Latimer came in and greeted us warmly. 

 It was only then that speech came back, the exact words I have 

 forgotten, but it was to tell them that it was true, it was really 

 true, it was unquestionably a Coelacanth. Not even I could doubt 

 any more. 



And now, what lay ahead ? I told Miss Latimer she could tell 



