PRAKL PISHET^Y OF 1908. 59 



have been the case if I had gone down feet foremost, was forced 

 to the front of chest and legs and kept me kicking on my back on 

 the water. 



After leaving the ladder feet downward pure passivity is to be 

 recommended until one reaches the bottom. My first depth was 

 9 fathoms, but it certainly seemed to me to take a very long time 

 to get down those 54 feet, and on the first occasion or two the 

 pain in my ears was intense. I was told that the slower I went 

 down the less acute would this pain be, but after various experi- 

 ments I have not been able to make up my mind whether the 

 longer endured but very slightly less acute pain is preferable 

 to the quicker, sharper sensation. The most surprising thing to 

 me was that as soon as the bottom was once reached all sensation 

 of pain ceased — it was perhaps overwhelmed by the undoubted 

 delight at the novelty of one's sensations and to exasperation at the 

 small control one had at first over one's movements under that 

 pressure of water. I could not by any efi^ort keep my feet quite 

 firmly on to the ground ; and each twitch which the man who 

 played Providence to me at the other end of the rope gave — 

 doubtless in his nervous anxiety to guide me aright — had the 

 unfortunate efliect of throwing me over on to my back or my side 

 or my face. Finally I found that getting about on all fours was 

 the proceeding which gave me the greatest control over my own 

 movements. 



The light was wonderfully good, as a full green twilight, and 

 I could distinctly see the ship 9 fathoms over my head. It is 

 curious that at the same depth in difiierent parts of the sea the 

 quantity of the light varies considerably. This is probably due to 

 the greater or less quantity of matter floating in the water. 



The bottom where I first went down was a sandy, slightly un- 

 dulating plain. Here and there at distances of a foot or so apart 

 were small groups of from six to a dozen oysters, each group 

 fastened by the byssus to a stone or piece of loose coral or dead 

 shell : as far as I could see, no oysters were fastened to the actual 

 bottom. Scattered about among the oysters on the sand were 

 mushroom-shaped and other loose-growing corals, and here and 

 there was a branched coral fastened to the bottom. The fishes and 

 shrimps swam about iitterly oblivious of one's presence, especially 

 a lovely little ultramarine blue fish with a golden yellow tail. It 

 was somewhat exasperating to throw an oyster at a fish and to 

 find that the missile instead of going towards the fish dropped 

 languidly to one's feet. Of big fish I hardly saw any, and of sea 

 snakes, generally very plentiful in those parts, I saw only one, 

 and that was while I was on my way down one day. Crabs were 



