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increased so the anchored planes would first rise from the 

 ground and 'fly', held up by the wind, but when it became really 

 strong the machines were doomed, they were torn and smashed. 

 Well, there were so many worries and anxieties and uncertainties 

 in all this that another didn't matter very much. Compared with 

 this, walking in the dark in a jungle full of wild beasts was just 

 nothing ; for I had done it, so I knew. We could not do anything 

 but just go on. We hardly spoke, everyone was tensed up, this was 

 a most critical time for us all. My eyes alternated between the 

 piled-up clouds ahead and that ominous elbow whose hand plied 

 the key. Again and again it went, and my hope and disappointment 

 rose and sank in steady succession like the waves that lay so far 

 below. Suddenly Letley pointed ahead, to what appeared no more 

 than another dense cloud ; but my vision is no longer young and 

 I screwed my eyes. 'Mayotte,' he said, and my heart turned right 

 over. So it was there, somewhere there that this fish lay, this fish 

 in whose identity much of my life might be buried. Suddenly the 

 blurred mass turned into a cloud-topped island. Surely now we 

 were so near we should get a reply to our constant battery of sig- 

 nals ; but still nothing came. 



We were diving down at a steep angle when the clouds parted 

 and drifted aside, giving a clear picture of steep rolling hills and 

 conical peaks whose densely tree-clad slopes rose almost abruptly 

 from the sea. There was obviously little or no flat country here. 

 Could we ever land? We passed at about 3,000 feet over the ex- 

 tensive barrier reef that lies west of Mayotte. It was a marvellous 

 sight, a multi-coloured riot of blues and greens, which for some 

 moments diverted my thoughts. What a place for a fish, a maze of 

 channels and water of all depths, with clearly abundant coral, and 

 even at that height it was possible to see plainly many shoals of 

 fish of all sizes. Whatever the outcome of the Coelacanth, this was 

 a place where we ought to work, for if a fish as large as the Coela- 

 canth had been there all this time unknown, what other treasures 

 might not be hidden there as well ? We must come some time, and 

 I was already planning to this end when my thoughts were shat- 

 tered by a shout from Bergh, who said 'O.K.', and first jerked his 

 hand, thumb up and then down, I suddenly felt queer and shaky. 

 We were actually going to land. By this time we were circling to 

 lose height and had a panoramic view of the whole island, and 



