224 



wanted to see a good many more before that was certain. I sud- 

 denly wondered what would have happened if old Malania had 

 wandered away to East London instead of Latimeria. That would 

 have been a poser ! 



I left that meeting feeling, as a scientist, a solid satisfaction at 

 the prospect of extensive oceanographical investigations in so 

 interesting and virgin an area of the seas. But against my Coela- 

 canth-hunting obsession, as a method of finding soon where 

 Coelacanths lived and of catching numbers quickly, it had very 

 much the flavour of an English fox-hunt, in which the formalities 

 are of more account than the quarry. Left to myself I felt I could 

 do it more expeditiously and at far less cost. (Although it was 

 their own idea to stop individual expeditions by suggesting the 

 international project, it would almost appear as if the French soon 

 came to be as sceptical about its early practicability as myself, for 

 only a month or two after our meeting in Nairobi the French 

 research vessel Calypso^ Cousteau's famous ship, set out on a six- 

 months' cruise and covered a wide area of the tropical western 

 Indian Ocean where Coelacanths might be expected to live, 

 including the Seychelles and the islands and banks over the 

 thousand-mile-long arc from there to Aldabra, where they spent 

 some time, and then to the Comores. There, under the direction 

 of Professor Millot, they carried out extensive submarine elec- 

 tronic flash photography in areas v/here Coelacanths were likely 

 to be found, using for this purpose a special camera designed by 

 an American scientist. In that part of the Indian Ocean, outside 

 French waters, they covered almost the exact field which I had 

 informed the C.S.I.R., and later the press, was to be the area of 

 operations for my 1954 Seychelles expedition. This French 

 expedition had left Seychelles not very long before I arrived, and 

 we heard a good deal about their operations. They were apparently 

 greatly taken by Aldabra ; which is not surprising, for not only did 

 it prove to be the richest virgin area for fishes I have ever seen, 

 but I confidently expect that Coelacanths will be found there or 

 at other islands not far off, such as Astove. This French project 

 was apparently accorded unusually little publicity from any 

 source, since few people have heard of it.) 



Although every due moment was given to Coelacanth matters, 

 Nairobi, at that time in the throes of racial conflict and crisis, was 



