86 THE KINGDOM OF THE HELMET 



excitedly if I had not been fighting for my Hfe. Conserva- 

 tive a reporter of facts as he is, this is the impression he got 

 as an onlooker, or rather I should say, a downlooker. To 

 an outsider, all appeared honest material for full-sized 

 head-lines; from below, the fact that the moray, barra- 

 cuda, and the bevy of sharks were merely other and more 

 fish, was true simply because long experience had taught 

 us their harmlessness, at least to a diver in a helmet. The 

 sharks had come, were interested in me and everything 

 I did, but only as vultures are drawn together at the sound 

 of a hunter's gun, by the hope of a feast. 



It was a bully series of dives for one afternoon. 



Instead of gazing down through water buckets and 

 glass-bottomed boats, in addition to watching the fish mill- 

 ing about in aquariums, get a helmet and make all the 

 shallows of the world your own. Start an exploration 

 which has no superior in jungle or mountain; insure your 

 present life and future memories from any possibility of 

 ennui or boredom, and provide yourself with tales of sights 

 and adventures which no listener will believe — until he 

 too has gone and seen, and in turn has become an active 

 member of the Society of Wonderers under-sea. 



