78 



territory, many natives would have seen it and be aware of the 



rich reward this fantastic fish would fetch. 



Under all the increasing weight of scientific treasure we got in 

 these seas, even in my obsessed state, the shadow of the Coelacanth 

 slowly receded, though we never ceased to talk and to show its 

 picture on the leaflet. My wife was even more persistent than my- 

 self, she always had that quest in the forefront of her mind, and 

 never let anyone forget it. We ended that series of expeditions 

 with little hope that Coelacanths lived normally anywhere in 

 Mozambique waters, for we had covered virtually every possible 

 and likely spot. Even if that native had got a true Coelacanth at 

 Bazaruto it could well have been a stray, as I believed the first at 

 East London must have been. 



Northern Mozambique was far enough from East London, 

 where the first Coelacanth was caught, but now it began to look 

 as if it must have come from somewhere even more distant. That 

 was far enough for a 'degenerate' fish to travel in all conscience, 

 without my now supposing it to have travelled still farther. From 

 a place as remote as northern Mozambique a fish of the Coelacanth 

 type meandering along the coast, even with the aid of the current, 

 would probably take several years to reach as far as East London, 

 every minute of the way beset with dangers. While there were 

 those who regarded the old Coelacanth as degenerate or 'wooden*, 

 I did not, and I had no doubt that if he wanted he could travel 

 half the globe. 



We went on ; we never ceased to hope, relying on the leafiet to 

 do our work in Madagascar, and unaware that it had not reached 

 the Comores. Whenever I planned any expedition and studied 

 charts, always my eyes and mijid would stray to the Comores, 

 those mysterious blobs in the blankness of the seas, like drops left 

 behind from a dripping Madagascar torn from the body of Africa. 



In that wild part of northern Mozambique I have described, 

 those Comores were a constant obsession. Again and again I stood 

 looking across that blue water. They lay south of that critical 

 current divide, in the southward arm. Yes, they obsessed me, and 

 they were so tantalisingly near, much nearer than Madagascar; 

 Grand Comoro was barely 200 miles away, scarcely more than a 

 day in our small vessel. We had no compass, for coastline naviga- 

 tion in our boat did not demand one. I knew how the currents ran 



