174 



speechless at me and almost dropped his load. He obviously 

 thought I was a ghost. It could not possibly be me, in the flesh, 

 for the last he had heard was that I was careering about somewhere 

 off Madagascar. 



When we got off the ship we discovered that our car had 

 vanished, so we had to find a taxi, no light task in that area, and 

 eventually discovered one, far from new, with a coloured driver, 

 also an older model. I told him to go to Ysterplaats, and as our 

 speed did not satisfy my haste, after a while asked him to hurry 

 as a plane was waiting. A second or two later the car swerved 

 alarmingly as he jerked round to look, and he said, 'My God, 

 sir, you aren't the genilman with the fish are you ?' I said, 'Yes, 

 I am.' He said, *0h, what a honour, what a honour for me and my 

 taxi.' There was silence for a while, then with agony in his voice; 

 'But the only trouble is, sir, no one will believe me. Can't you 

 give me something to prove it, sir ?' I found all my cards had gone, 

 but my wife had hers so I autographed one of those and he left 

 a very happy man. 



We took off at 8.30 a.m. First we went north, low over the 

 Dunnottar at the docks to see Captain Smythe waving his arms 

 from the bridge. Then we circled and cut across the Cape Flats 

 to the Strand, where I got Blaauw to circle the Malans' house 

 twice low down. Judging by the effect on the hastily emerging 

 populace, they also expected bombs, but we saw the Malans come 

 out on the lawn and wave. We 'bombed' them with several copies 

 of the early morning papers, then turned east and up, over the 

 high escarpment that soon blotted out the line of surf where their 

 house lay. 



There was more bad weather with low cloud-ceiling all along 

 the coast; once again there was grave doubt as to whether we 

 should be able to land at Grahamstown. But Blaauw was equal 

 to the emergency, and we got in to find Mayor McGahey and 

 numerous citizens there to meet us. It was a great joy to see Miss 

 Latimer there, too, with G. G. Smith, the present Chairman of the 

 Board of Trustees of the East London Museum, who had come 

 over from East London to welcome our return. Her presence 

 brought back poignant memories of the first Coelacanth. Then 

 she was a young girl, finding her feet. Now she was a mature 

 woman of established position, her Museum famous, her Chair- 



