Ill 



position. He could not afford to antagonise the French, since his 

 trading would almost certainly depend on their good-will. 



The French 'authorities' mentioned in Hunt's cable must 

 themselves also be in a difficult position. Willy-nilly, Hunt's 

 excitement and actions and all the circumstances of his relations 

 with me must have forced upon them the importance of the issue. 

 It was true that this fish had been found by no fundamental efforts 

 or ideas of their own, and ethically it belonged to the man whose 

 leaflets they had not only accepted but distributed without any 

 indication that there would be the slightest doubt about his 

 rights of ownership if any fish were found. Now that one had 

 been found, however, it had suddenly been revealed as something 

 of tremendous importance, fantastically more than they had 

 ever supposed. They would naturally be in a quandary as to 

 whether it would be wise to let it go into foreign hands, ethics or 

 no ethics. The cable indicated that they were prepared to concede 

 me certain rights of ownership. That might mean that they really 

 were prepared to concede at least some recognition of my claims, 

 but it might also mean that the fish was in so precarious a stage 

 of preservation, that there might be so much doubt about its 

 being preserved at all, that they were unwilling to take the 

 responsibility for its preservation unless they could say they had 

 been compelled to do so because I would not come. This all left 

 so many uncertainties. If I did not go, nobody could ever question 

 the French authorities taking it from a layman, no matter how 

 interested he might be. I kept on coming back to my uncertainty 

 that they might not know how to preserve it properly ? They might 

 not have enough formalin to do it. Like fierce tides all these many 

 complications surged back and forth through my mind, and there 

 emerged from all the obscurity and uncertainty only one clear 

 thought, one certain course — it was like a light that encased my 

 mind and my soul and drove me on. I must go myself, I must go 

 and see that it really was a Coelacanth, and make quite certain 

 that it was properly preserved. Looking back, I realise now that I 

 was in a state of mind that is termed Tossessed'. 



In my half-distracted mind I could see the French standing 

 there over my fish, waiting to seize it unless I came in person, as 

 if they knew that I was beating out my life against an immovable 

 mass of holiday inertia, perhaps of official indifference. This new 



