Deep^Sea Swarms 21 1 



rise in the temperature of the water outside their 

 usual hmits, so that I have caught them north of the 

 forty degree line and almost as far south as the Cape 

 of Good Hope. In the great, wide areas of loneliness 

 to be found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, they 

 are, as might be expected from their habits, very 

 plentiful, but I think that the largest number of them 

 I have ever seen at one time was in the South Atlantic, 

 well east of St. Helena and Ascension, in that vast 

 and almost unvisited stretch of abysmal ocean known 

 to geographers as the ' West African Basin,' where 

 the depth varies from sixteen to eighteen thousand 

 feet, and the sea literally swarms with life. 



On the eastern verge of this immense depression 

 the south-east Trades, affected by the proximity of 

 the African land, fail and falter, falling almost to a 

 calm. Then the belated ship, alone in the centre of 

 a vast expanse, becomes a point of interest to the 

 wandering population of the sea who visit her and ex- 

 hibit themselves in many a curious evolution. 



Here, where no sailing-ship ever ought to be found, 

 I have seen, as mentioned in the opening lines of this 

 chapter, the Bonito so plentiful that I was unable 

 to look in any given direction without being aware 

 of thousands of them leaping after their ever-abundant 

 food. And at night, when the sea was lit up by its 

 natural fires of phosphorescence, the scene was ineffably 

 grand, the mild effulgence being stirred continually 

 into bright mazy patterns of glowing light, while 

 the happy fish, apparently contemptuous of rest, 

 came and went on their ceaseless errands. 



Here, too, we witnessed a scene that impressed 

 itself upon the minds of everybody on board, as being 

 past all their experience. It was at high noon, with 

 but a light upper air stirring the sails, and wafting 



