HUMAN LIFE UNDER SEA 179 



face will work away as unconcernedly as if on 

 dry land. 



In some countries the people seem to take 

 naturally to the sea and are born divers. In 

 the South Seas the natives are wonderfully ex- 

 pert and dive and swim like fish from earliest 

 childhood, and in the West Indies the negro 

 boys are as much at home in the water as upon 

 the land. 



Whenever a steamer arrives in a West In- 

 dian port it is immediately surrounded by 

 hosts of black, brown, and yellow boys all 

 clamouring for coins to be tossed overboard 

 so they can dive for them. 



Seldom indeed is a coin missed, and, as a 

 rule, the diver clutches the coin long before it 

 reaches the bottom. Sometimes the passen- 

 gers toss coins over the opposite side of the 

 ship and the boys, diving beneath the keel, 

 catch them before they touch bottom. In 

 West Indian and other tropical seas the water 

 is marvellously transparent and the diving 

 boys may be watched as they swim and dive 

 after the coins, twisting, turning, somersault- 

 ing and even fighting among themselves under 



