60 J^POLTA ZRYLANTCA. 



fairly abundant, and 1 came across a striking-lookini? — indeed 

 vicious-looking — animal of this sort {Rhinolamhrus cuntrarius). 



To one like myself who has as long as he can remember found 

 a peculiar joy in seeing Nature from new points of view, it is pure 

 delight to make one's way along the bottom of the sea, picking up 

 shells, corals, starfish(very abundant), sea urchins,and a host of other 

 things which had always before been to one lifeless " curiosities." 



One of my chief purposes in going down was to see the divers 

 actually at work. In but a few moments from leaving the ship 

 and the world to which I had long been accustomed I reached a 

 quite new world and, as it seemed, one apart from all other 

 human beings. Then from the gloom of the distance — it was 

 easier to see upwards than for any distance along the ground — 

 some big thing came rapidly towards one ; it might have been a 

 big fish, but as it came quickly nearer it proved to be a naked 

 Arab swimming gently but rapidly towards me, his rope between 

 his toes, and his hands and arms rapidly sweeping oysters into 

 the basket which hung round his neck. I tried to speak, 

 forgetting that my head was buried in my helmet, but he glided 

 close past me without taking any more notice of me than did 

 the fish. He had perhaps thirty to forty oysters in his basket 

 by that time. But his time was up — after all he could only stay 

 down from 50 to 80 seconds, while I without inconvenience could 

 ston down for half an hour. In an instant he had changed from a 

 swimming to a standing position, and he was rapidly hauled up 

 from me towards heaven, his feet being the last part to disappear. 



As I gazed up after him something dark came down through 

 the water and nearly hit me. It was a stone at the end of a rope 

 thrown down for another diver. It was a warning that I had 

 wandered from my own ship till I was under one of the diver's 

 boats ; and I beat a hasty retreat. 



I had but to give a pull at the rope, a signal, and I felt myself 

 being pulled rapidly up through the water. I went faster than 

 the bubbles of air which had been rising from my dress, and was 

 carried up through a stream of these bright bubbles. Suddenly 

 it was very light, and some big dark broad thing covered with 

 bubbles was directly above me, and the next moment I hit 

 against it. It was the bottom of the launch, and my next task 

 was to guide myself till I came to and with difficulty succeeded in 

 getting on to the ladder. Then as I stood on the ladder, while 

 the helmet was unscrewed and taken oK and the fresh air came, 

 I knew how good fresh air is. 



While down on the first occasion or two my nose bled rather un- 

 pleasantly, but as this never happened to me afterwards I put it 



