At 2 a.m. George Symons came in with the negatives, which 

 were a real thrill, for they were perfect. Mrs. Roberts begged 

 hard for one, and I told her what had happened in the matter of 

 the pictures of the first Coelacanth; but eventually relented to 

 her persistence and handed over one negative with the condition 

 that the scientific name Malania anjouanae had to be printed with 

 it, and that it remained my copyright. Within twenty-four hours 

 that photograph had appeared in every newspaper of any rank in 

 South Africa, and within forty-eight hours in most others through- 

 out the world. 



We took oflF at 4.50 a.m., and for once it was nice and clear; 

 but above East London we ran into low cloud, and Blaauw 

 doubted if we should be able to land at Grahamstown. It was 

 only by flying below the cloud in a long valley from near the sea 

 that we managed it, and we were mighty close to the trees much 

 of the way. We touched down at 7.05 a.m. Aided by Mrs. Hester 

 Locke, one of our earlier 'Book' artists, my wife, a sleepless 

 night's ravages skilfully concealed, served coffee and food, and 

 we all got aboard and were off at 7.40 a.m., emerging from the 

 clouds only west of Port Elizabeth. 



My eldest son was on holiday at Knysna, where I have a river- 

 side house and a laboratory. On the piece of board I had asked my 

 wife to bring I wrote a message, and attached this to the cloth 

 shaped to a parachute and asked Blaauw to fly down over the place, 

 which I pointed out to him the first time we passed. Then we 

 made a long circle out to sea to lose height and zoomed down low 

 over the house, and Blaauw dropped the 'bomb', with perfect 

 judgment, for we heard later that it fell only a few yards from the 

 fence and safely reached my son; but the huge Dakota coming 

 back to pass so low down caused a near panic among the coloured 

 folk who live in the valley behind. They expected bombs. 



Over Bredasdorp I was in front with Blaauw and Letley, dis- 

 cussing our possible return flight for that day. Letley suddenly 

 interrupted by pointing to his earphones and wrote down a 

 message which he showed to Blaauw, then handed to me, 'Message 

 from Dr. Malan, he thanks you very much for having taken the 

 trouble to come so far, but he does not wish to see the fish and 

 wishes you a safe return to Grahamstown.' This was a shock. 

 Was it the old business of evolution ? There was continual trouble 



