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ture. We refuelled at Lourengo Marques and Lumbo, where we slept. 

 I asked for a 4.00 a.m. departure — they all groaned so we made it 4.30 

 and got away then. I sat and sweated in a 'Mae West' vest as we flew 

 over a blue sea and terrifying cumulus clouds that our commander 

 eyed with more apprehension than he wanted me to see. Seven o'clock 

 and the island of Mayotte appeared. Our destination was the tiny 

 islet of Pamanzi near by. Could we land there. Desperately the oper- 

 ator thumbed his keys. Suddenly the answer came over 'Yes, the 

 strip was useable*, and down we went. We landed. Eric Hunt ran up — 

 I said, 'Where's the fish?' He said, 'On my boat; it's true, don't 

 worry.' I went quickly to the car, but the Governor wished to meet me 

 so I had to go there first. Unable to accept the luscious food and drink 

 so freely offered, my mind was elsewhere. Eventually we got away, and 

 there on the deck, swathed in cotton-wool, was the fish. I could not 

 bring myself to touch it and I asked them to open it, and they did and 

 I knelt down to look, and I'm not ashamed to say that after all that 

 long strain, I wept ... for it was true ... it v/as a Coelacanth — and 

 what was more wonderful, a species diflterent from that of 1938 — 

 another Coelacanth. It was more than worth while all that long 

 strain. 



Eric Hunt told me the story — a line-fisherman, Ahmed Hussein at 

 the village of Domoni on the Island of Anjouan, was fishing in 20 

 metres of water about 200 yards from shore and caught a large fish on 

 the evening of 20th December 1952. He took it home — fortunately did 

 not clean it — thank God for native indolence — and next morning took 

 it to the market. As the fish was being sold a native came up, looked at 

 it and said urgently, 'Don't sell that — this is the fish Bwana Hunt was 

 telling us about', and showed the paper. 'There is much money.' 

 So the fish was carried that long hot day 25 miles over difficult moun- 

 tainous country right across the hills to a village called Matsamudu, 

 for they had been told that Eric Hunt's vessel was there. He first saw 

 it at 5.00 p.m. that day and recognised it immediately as a Coelacanth 

 and it was going bad fast. He had no formalin, only salt. My wife had 

 said to him, if you have no formalin for heaven's sake use salt. He 

 ordered the natives to make cuts to put in salt and most unfortunately 

 they sliced it open all along the body, but no part was lost, and then 

 they covered it with a heap of salt. Hunt set out at once for Pamanzi 

 and once there enlisted the aid of Dr. Le Coteur, Director of Medical 

 Services, and got a syringe and 5 litres of formalin which he injected 

 all over the fish. 



And so there was the fish — smelly — but the soft parts all there and 

 in good order. Hastily we completed our formalities with the French. 

 I sent cables to my wife and the Prime Minister, and we left at 10.00 



