314 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
port to another, a job for which speed was unnecessary, but she 
was now commissioned under the wartime transport control, and 
had to proceed where ordered to do so. Her engines were now 
chugging wearily as we steamed almost due east across the Indian 
Ocean to the Seychelles Islands about a thousand miles from 
Mombasa. The only compensation was that it allowed me to see a 
group of islands I had never seen before and would be unlikely to 
visit again. 
We anchored two miles off Victoria, the port serving Mahé, the 
principal island of the group. Here we took three thousand tons 
of copra, or dried coconut, aboard, an operation which extended 
over eleven days. 
The island of Mahé, with its plantations of coconut palms, 
lovely sandy beaches, and mountainous scenery, is one of the most 
beautiful places imaginable. However, the wild-life is very poor 
indeed, and so there was tremendous excitement among the 
islanders, the children especially, when our boat arrived and they 
were given an opportunity of seeing our floating zoo and of gaz- 
ing for the first time in their lives on such things as giraffes, lions, 
and especially chimpanzees, with their human ways and comic 
antics. Although, owing to shallow water, we were anchored some 
way out, numbers of people—including the Governor of the 
Seychelles—came out to visit us. 
While the Governor was on board I had to fulfil an engagement 
ashore doing a broadcast at the local radio station. This was trans- 
lated and rebroadcast in the local tongue immediately afterwards 
for the benefit of the non-English-speaking community. The Sey- 
chelles, like Mauritius, are populated largely by Creoles whose 
language is based on old French, and as I listened to my own 
broadcast I did not understand a word, although fairly well up in 
modern French. 
Although our visit to the Seychelles meant such a long delay 
and therefore a lot of extra work and anxiety—as well as extra 
foodstuffs for the animals—we were more than compensated by 
the knowledge that our stay had meant so much to these lonely 
islanders. 
We had plenty of time to become familiar with the ways of our 
