MARIKE
BIOLOGICAL
LABORATORY

\lBRARY

WOODS HOLE, MASS.
W. H. 0. ».

THE OCEAN ISLAND

THE

OCEAN ISLAND

(Inagua)

BY

QiJMeAi G. fKimael

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
TAKEN BY THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK

^(kM, Mead & Gom^Hif

Copyright, 1940
By DODD, mead AND COMPANY, Inc.

Originally published in 1940
under the title of INAGUA

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM

WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y.

TO

Edmund B. Fladung

but for whose encouragement

the events described in this

volume might never have

happened

PREFACE

THE OCEAN ISLAND is a record of the highlights of two
expeditions to Inagua, that lonely and unfrequented island. In
a sense, it is the story of an expedition that failed of its original
purpose but which was compensated by certain unexpected and
rather full experiences which otherwise would have been lost.

The technical accounts of these sojourns have been pub-
lished in the Avierican Museum Novitiates and in the bulletins
of the Natural History Society of Maryland. In these pages
instead have been transmitted some of the non-technical, and
perhaps more human, sensations and happenings which have
no place in a biological treatise.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Editors of the Bal-
timore Sunday Sun for permission to use portions of the chap-
ters on "The Great Reef," "Creatures of the Night," and
"Quest of the Firebirds" which had previously appeared in
that publication. Also, a large portion of "The Edge of the
Edge of the World" is here republished by the kindness of the
Editor of Natural History Magazine.

Vll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

/ The Isles of the Indies i

// The Sea's Way i8

/// Shipwreck 37

IV ''Inagiia Is a Queer Little hi ctnd''' 49

V An Island Existence 74

VI Dwellers of the Surf 103

VII The Making of an Island 127

VIII The Wind 152

IX The Web of Island Life 177

X The Creatures of Darkness 207

XI The Mysterious Migration 228

XII The Quest of the Firebirds 239

XIII The Great Reef 267

XIV In Defense of Octopuses 289

XV The Marvel of a Tide 307

XVI The Incredible Sharks 328

XVII Night Beneath the Sea 349

XVIII TheEdgeof the Edge of the World. . . . 374

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Folloivijig Page jo
The Basilisk ... a hope fulfilled
In the center lay all that remained of a stout vessel
Shipwreck Camp

Cacti — speaking mutely of a scanty existence
A long low line of green — with here and there a line of palms
The spiders had long since claimed this house
A lizard paused statuesquely in front of the door
Every hermit crab thinks its neighbor's shell is bigger and better
Nesophlox lyrura, the Inaguan hummingbird
The blossoms provided sweet nectar and microscopic insects
The surf — an area of bitter struggle
Sea urchins — the original scatterbrains
Sphaerodactylus — the smallest lizards in the world
The Anolis lizards — delicately colored creatures
The Chitons — the Fundamentalists of the surf world
Near the fringe of trees a few palms were making a brave stand
An Ameiva maynardii — a Hzard of the lee, a vivid reptile
The most gargoylish, demoniacal yet human-like face

Following Page 210

A place where the ceiling had fallen away, admitting sunlight
On the very edge of the sea the nighthawk deposited its single t^^

Xll

ILLUSTRATIONS

Strange creatures with gnome-like faces

For they have become laden with eggs*

In the interior the crabs had piled up white mounds of loose sand

The sun rose on an empty stretch of lake

A streaming line of flamingos flew across the great lake

Mary Darling — a self-sufficient woman

Only a few flamingos remained

A pair of newly constructed nests containing two chalky white

Row upon row of gaunt yellow coral trees swept into the dis-
tance

Beside a great cluster of coral a school of yellow snappers swept
by

A barnacle's legs — transformed into living seines

On the slopes of the underwater hillside grew feathery mosses

The modern and the ancient. A jaw full of shark teeth

The half -beaks — silvery creatures of the dark

THE OCEAN ISLAND

CHAPTER I

The Isles of the Indies

In the cold gray light of a mid-November evening our sailing
ship lay becalmed. Evanescent wisps of fog swirled about her
masts and melted softly into the blank grayness beyond. It
was very quiet. Only the faint lap-lap of tiny waves at the
waterline and the mournful cry of a gull, far distant and muf-
fled by the mist, disturbed the silence. Close together on the
slack sheet lines long rows of glistening moisture drops hung
listlessly or dropped pattering on the sodden deck. I listened
intently, straining my ears for the sound of ship's bells or fog
horn, but heard nothing save a block at the masthead that was
creaking a trifle. Once the distant gull broke the stillness again,
but then even this plaintive sound ceased after a moment and
was lost.

For five days we had been drifting like this, moving slowly
through the empty fog, drifting from nothingness to nothing-
ness, and on into the blank grayness again, sails barely filling
or hanging limp for hours at a stretch. While I listened a faint
breeze, smelling vaguely of salt marshes and decaying seaweed,
stirred momently, straightened the drooping sheet lines, and
then died as it was bom. The spoked wheel rocked once,
groaned as though inexpressibly weary, and then became im-
movable.

Disgusted, I knocked the ashes from my pipe, shook the
water from my dripping oilskins and then opened the com-
panionway slide. A breath of warm air came rushing out
redolent of the good smell of cooking food and filled with
the muffled anthem-like strains of Sibehus' majestic "Fin-

I N A G U A

landia." Wally Coleman, my tall, blond, Nordic-looking first
mate, chief cook and companion, gave me a cheery grin as I
sUd down the ladder and dropped sleepily on a bunk. With
one hand he was balancing a frying pan filled with a mound
of sizzling brown oysters over the galley stove and with the
other preparing to lift the needle from the Sibelius record
which was spinning on a small portable phonograph tightly
bolted to a shelf near his bunk.

"No sign of wind yet?" he asked.

I shook my head and fell back on the blankets. I was a little
worried. Hour after hour this fog had hung heavily about us,
shrouding us in an unnatural gloom and retarding our progress.
I was disturbed because I had the feeling that this prolonged
quiet unbroken except for the intermittent blare of our fog
horn was the prelude to something more violent. It was then
past the middle of November and I knew that December was
coming with December's gales and I was anxious to be clear
of northern waters.

Through the portholes I could see that the light was waning
and the gloom growing deeper. There was something intan-
gible about this gloom, it had no depth or substance but pos-
sessed a certain indefinite quality that seemed unreal. This was
the fifth night the daylight had vanished in shadowy emptiness.

Coleman lit an oil lantern set in brass gimbals and in its pleas-
ant soft glow the feeling of depression vanished. Across a small
table he shoved a steaming heap of oysters and potatoes, hot
coffee and a prodigious pile of brown biscuits and yellow
butter. We fell to with gusto, talking little, for the salt air had
made us hungry. Then sated with good food we dropped
back on our bunks to smoke and relax. But first I went on deck
again, groped forward to the main stays where I found the
riding light, lit it and placed it in its fastenings. The fog was
so thick that its glow disappeared within eight feet. I then took

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 3

a sounding and dropped the anchor for the night. From the
depth of water I knew we were somewhere in the center of
the Chesapeake Bay, but exactly where I was not certain.

Below decks again, I lit my pipe, drew on it for a few min-
utes and then let my eyes stray over the ship's cabin before
me. It was a comfortable place. In it was contained everything
that tw^o men could possibly need for many months to come.
It differed from the ordinary ship's cabin in that one entire
side was taken up by a carefully constructed laboratory table
of considerable length. About this table was grouped a con-
siderable array of glittering chemical bottles of varied sizes
and hues, and an odd assortment of instruments all tightly
fastened with brackets to the wall so they would not shift
with the motion of the ship. A binocular microscope shrouded
in a watertight rubber case was bolted tightly to the table top
and near it was a rack containing a half dozen hypodermic
syringes ranging in size from a small 2 cc. glass syringe to a large
affair of gleaming nickel with a capacity of nearly a pint. Like-
wise in a rack, was a case of dissecting instruments, clamps,
hooks and chains, scalpels, needles and forceps. Below the scal-
pel rack was a dissecting board with drains leading to a shining
monel metal sink divided in two portions. One division was
free of all encumbrance but the other contained a complete set
of developing and fixing racks with rinsing apparatus for photo-
graphic use. Adjacent to this was a compact printing machine,
a timer and a number of holders for drying and processing film.
Below the table a number of drawers held a considerable as-
semblage of materials, collecting nets, small dredges, cases of
specimen bottles, unused film, guns and numerous other items.
The remainder of the table area was taken up by shelves of
reference works, mostly large volumes in dull gray or brown
covers.

The science of navigation claimed the last Hve feet of the

I N A G U A

table, that portion closest to the stern, as was evidenced by a
set of charts securely clipped in position and by a chronometer
which ticked steadily in a padded plush case. Next to the chro-
nometer was another case containing a sextant and a set of night
glasses.

Opposite the laboratory table and forward near the hold,
partitioned oif so the heat would not be oppressive, was the
galley from which Coleman had conjured up the oysters,
brown biscuits and coffee. Aft of this, one on each side of
the ship, were our bunks tucked in roomy spaces beneath the
deck beams. It was about these that we expressed our individu-
alities, the only private space we had, for all beyond was com-
mon territory.

Coleman had a comfortable rack for pipes, easily reached
by the turn of a hand. They were an amazing and considerable
collection, for he was an inveterate smoker, and close by in a
securely fastened humidor was a mound of yellow tobacco.
Above his bunk and tightly screwed to the wall were three
pictures— Franz Hals' "The Laughing Cavalier," a Japanese
print showing a delicately limned egret poised daintily on
one foot, and another more vigorous painting called "The Gulf
Stream." This last, a work by Winslow Homer, showed a dis-
masted vessel, not much smaller than ours, rolling in an angry
sea with a lone man reclining wearily on the deck, sullenly
watching a great blue shark that was slowly circling the hull.
Coleman had admired and purchased the picture long ago
when we had first contemplated this voyage. For some reason
it had struck his fancy and he had hung it in his room at home
and then later on our ship as a taunt against the sea.

I liked the picture, too, but somehow the spirit in which it
was hung stirred me to uneasiness. I felt that the sea should not
be mocked with lightness, for I had seen it in anger too many

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 5

times, but Wally had laughed at my superstition and fastened
the frame in its place.

Both our bunks were surrounded with books wherever there
was space to place a rack to hold them. A glance at the volumes
showed a wide diversity of choice, a few volumes of poems,
a treatise or two on philosophy, a number of current novels,
a dozen or so biographies of ancient Romans, a pet subject of
mine, a few choice bits of literature and some others not so
studious. On Wally's side near the galley was a watertight rack
containing dozens of phonograph records, an assemblage pooled
from our separate collections, Wagner, Grieg, Puccini— and
Sibelius, whom Wally admired inordinately, and close by, the
phonograph which was again playing the majestic chords of
"Finlandia," for at least the eighth time since supper was put
on the table.

Here in the narrow confines of our ship's'cabin were all the
necessities, both physical and mental, for an enjoyable existence
—dry bunks, a warm stove, tobacco, stores of food in the hold,
the choice of the world's most beautiful music imprisoned on
our records, good books— and an adventure looming ahead.

It was the laboratory table, however, that was the key to the
entire picture. Our ship, the cabin, all centered about its ex-
istence. It was the working heart of the ship, the reason for its
being and the entire excuse of the expedition.

All men have their dreams, their visions of affluence or even
affectation, their hopes of peace and security, of success and
ambition, some peculiar fantasy that each individual sets his
heart upon and pursues. These dreams are as varied as men
themselves and like the men that conjure them out of thin
emptiness or of need, they differ in intensity and substance.
Our entire cosmos is laid on the foundation stuff of men's
hopes and desires. So it was with our ship.

I N A G U A

As far back as I could remember I had dreamed of owning
a sailing ship, a sleek thing of tall masts, of taut gleaming can-
vas and smooth white hull. It is a dream common to many men.
But as the years passed my hope grew in intensity and was fed
by an increasing restlessness that is still with me and which I
find difficult to explain, even to myself. Some dreams come of
themselves, come unexpectedly and pass as quickly. Others
and the more enduring ones grow slowly, gaining in stature
with the years like children, spreading out, acquiring purpose
and going on to realization. It was thus with this dream. From
visions of mere adventure these fancies gave way to an object
of serious intent. But there was first an interlude that shaped
the ends of the dream so that it acquired dignity and became
more fitting.

The interlude began in the strange little Republic of Haiti
where I was engaged in biological research for the American
Museum of Natural History. Prior to this time the pressure of
financial and social obligations had forced me, like nearly every-
one else, into business; and for a few years I was submerged in
a welter of mercantile activity. My lifelong friend, Wally
Coleman, with whom I had often discussed the ship of dreams
and with whom I had planned long voyages, had drifted into
medical work and it seemed that our much planned adventures
would never mature. But then an opportunity came for a
vacation in Flaiti with the privilege of doing for the American
Museum some research which had been my hobby for several
years.

In Haiti I began to become keenly aware that I was leading
a very pleasant life. As an amateur biologist I found ample
excuse to indulge my hobby— to seek new places, new species,
new habits of those species, and above all to have an opportu-
nity to satisfy an inordinate curiosity about what lay in the next
valley, over the curve of the mountain or beyond the turn of

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 7

the coast. As the time to return home came close I became in-
terested in a research problem that made it desirable to visit a
number of the other West Indian Islands, particularly some of
the small uninhabited and less frequented ones.

It was the spell of these islands, lying low under the horizon,
that drove the dream into reality. Just beyond reach they lay,
dozens of them strewn over the blue water from the reaches
of the Bahamas to the deserty coasts of Yucatan. On many no
student of natural science had stepped, or stepped only casu-
ally, lingering for a few hours at the most. It was my desire to
remain at each until its faunal peculiarities were digested and
understood. At that moment it seemed more important to seek
these islands fully equipped to piece together the biological
puzzle which interested me more intensely than anything else
I could think of. Also, it was a splendid reason to justify the
long latent dream. I knew from previous experience that native
vessels were unseaworthy and uncomfortable, swarming with
lice and sour with bilge. To work successfully one must be
able to live in comfort, with a mind relaxed and at ease, to be
free of insects and worrisome natives and also to have with one
some of the more pleasant things, good clean food, stimulating
books, music, when the monotony of the daily task was done.
Why not give up business, seek the islands in one's own ship,
in a vessel fitted expressly for the purpose?

Why not? Well, there was the matter of money. That puz-
zled me considerably. There was the matter of some eighteen
hundred miles of open ocean between home and the islands of
the Indies. There was the matter of storms and hurricanes, the
mysteries of navigation to fathom and, above all, the problem
of finding and outfitting a ship for the task.

So fired was I by the idea that I mailed a letter to my old
friend Wally Coleman. Would he be willing to consider such
a voyage? Impatiently I waited his reply. It came soon after.

I N A G U A

"You bet," his letter said. "When do we start?" Hurriedly I
wound up my Haitian vacation and returned to the United
States.

Back in America the scheme did not seem so easy. Financing
the project was the most difficult problem. For weeks and
months we scrimped and saved, putting away a few dollars
here, a few more there, until we thought we had enough. There
were contacts to be made, arrangements with the museum to
bring to completion, endless discussion about the scientific
problems to be undertaken, how these problems had best be
approached and correlated. There were nightly scannings of
charts, mappings of itinerary, reminding us of the days long
past when we had done the same thing in imagination.

Practical consideration of the problems involved, including
those of finance, soon convinced us that ours was to be a small
expedition. We could not afford a yacht nor could we pay a
crew to man it. The needs of our research program demanded
that we should be able to slip into little coves and harbors
closed to ships of deep draught. It was essential in order to
carry out this program that we utilize the smallest vessel com-
patible with the task in hand.

Such is the driving power of dreams that in due time we
found ourselves with a snug little sailing ship, the backing of
a great museum and an appaUing sense of what we had started.
But it was not as simple as that. A year and a half slipped by
before we even found our ship. We did not just pick her up—
our boat had to fill too many specifications. We needed a ship
that would be seaworthy, staunch and sturdy. We had to have
room in which to live and work in comfort; we had to be able
to carry provisions and water for long periods so as to be inde-
pendent regardless of location; we had to have a ship that could
be sailed in any weather by one man, if necessary. Such a boat
was not easy to find. We scouted all over our home waters,

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 9

over the Chesapeake Bay. Nothing suited; all that we could
find were too old, too narrow, too flimsy, too large or small—
everything but what we wanted. Eventually, and unexpect-
edly, the search came to an end. In a small shipyard at Oxford,
Maryland, in process of construction was exactly what we de-
sired. Could we buy the vessel? We were told that we could
not, for the owner also had his dreams, but that we could have
one made like it. Within a month the contract was in the build-
er's hands.

We had chosen a famous model. In fact, we had chosen one
of most famous boat models of all time. Our ship was to be an
exact repHca, except for the cabin and fittings, of the famous
Spray of Captain Joshua Slocum who, it will be remembered,
sailed the original around the world single-handed in the late
1 890's. He set a precedent in maritime history and proved be-
yond all question that open ocean sailing in small boats was
both practical and safe. All honor to him. As time proved, if
we had searched the world over we could not have selected a
better model.

But this was only the beginning. There followed long months
of waiting— doubly weary for expeditionists anxious to be off
—long hours of planning and planning again, outlining our
scientific problems, working them out in the smallest detail.
The success of any expedition, great or small, depends largely
on the amount of beforehand planning— particularly so on an
expedition as hazardous as this one. There would be days,
weeks on end when we would be miles from the nearest settle-
ments; there would be times of storm, times of calm, terrain
of all sorts to work over and provide for; we had to be an en-
tity within ourselves. Most important, we had to be able to care
for our specimens and scientific materials when secured— all
this in the limited space of a thirty-eight foot sailing ship.

There comes a time in the fife of every individual, at least

lo I N A G U A

every individual that deviates from the usual, when he pauses
in calm moment and considers what is before him. I think there
were times when both Coleman and I quaked in our shoes.
We were not so concerned about our bodily comforts— a life-
time of canoeing, tramping and camping had hardened us to
difficulties— but there was our responsibility to the museum
whose curator had placed sufficient faith in our idea to sponsor
the expedition. He was taking a chance, too, chancing expen-
sive equipment, going to no end of trouble so that the expedi-
tion would be a success. We were anxious to prove that this
new departure in scientific expedition would be fruitful. It
was a radical departure from most sea-going expeditions,
nearly all of which had been undertaken in large schooners or
yachts, vessels with crews to man them and scientific staffs to
fulfill their special duties. But as these things were beyond the
reach of the average naturalist— most of them being poor people
at best— we were anxious to prove that two men in a small ship
could maintain themselves in the field for long periods, under
all sorts of conditions and return physically and mentally en-
riched by the experience and still produce work of value in
their special avenues of science. Could we? There were those
who thought we could not.

But a dream once started, like a snowball on a hill, grows
of its own momentum. In the rush of activity that followed we
forgot our doubts and tackled the task before us. There was
equipment to be stored, yet made ready for instant use. A year
and a half's supply of foodstuffs somehow disappeared by
magic— we shook our heads in doubt when two truckloads
arrived at the dock in Baltimore. Just how we were going
to stow two truckloads of food in a thirty-eight foot boat that
was half taken up by cabin and laboratory we did not know.
But we did it somehow, that and a lot more. And collecting
equipment, tins of preservative, nets, jars, specimen tags and all

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES ii

those things peculiar to naturalists. Guns and cases of ammuni-
tion—seemingly enough to start a private revolution— type-
writers, cameras and film in watertight cases, solution jars, and
the thousand and one things incident to an expedition. All this
and still more went into the bowels of our ship, disappeared
into carefully constructed racks and lockers, so placed that all
would be readily available.

Summer slipped into early fall, October into November, and
the day of departure was at hand. Proudly we surveyed our
vessel. We had spared no effort to make her seaworthy, spared
nothing that she should be all the dream intended. Now the
dream was reality, was a vision no longer, but a hope fulfilled
in stout hull, stately masts and billowing canvas. We would not
have exchanged places with the wealthiest banker in Wall
Street.

There was no fanfare or blowing of trumpets when we left
Baltimore, our port of registry. Our vessel, unheralded, un-
noticed except for a few dock loiterers, slipped quietly out
of her quay and headed downstream. Gently the bow turned
outward, past the soil laden piers of Baltimore, past the great
shipyards and the clouds of billowing smoke, and on into the
open bay. Slowly the blurred outlines of the tall buildings
melted into the haze, faded and passed from view. A quick
breeze sprang out of the north, fanned out the spreading sails
and pressed the hull far into the water. From down along the
keel came the surge of moving liquid, an indefinable movement
that pressed against the rudder face and transmitted itself into
a keen vibration of the wheel. A sailing ship on the move! The
white of sails and the islands of the Indies in the offing. What if
the ship was only thirty-eight feet long?

Almost immediately after leaving the port of Baltimore,
while still within sound of the bell buoys that clanged mourn-
fully at the harbor entrance, the haze deepened, thickened and

12 I N A G U A

dropped lower and lower until the atmosphere was surcharged
with cHnging moisture. The breeze died and a fog settled that
hid all signs of the shore. Hour after hour we lay motionless or
crept slowly down the bay steering by compass alone. On all
sides came the throaty whistles of invisible steamers feeHng
their way to port or the sound of their bells, strangely muffled,
while they waited for the mist to lift.

Once a tall black gull-spattered buoy loomed out of the fog,
towered high above the railing, and then passed on to vanish
almost immediately. By its legend we reset our course and then
drifted on again into space. Other than this in the whole five
days we saw nothing but the still water at the rail and the en-
circling wall of swirling mist.

Down in the cabin we talked awhile, smoked our pipes to
dead ashes, and then drifted off to sleep. Sometime after mid-
night I stirred in the blankets and awoke. Somehow I had
sensed something wrong. Coleman was awake, too. We could
hear the noise of waves slapping against the hull but they did
not seem to have a proper sound. We went on deck in our
pajamas. It was quite black, a darkness relieved only by the dull
gleam of the riding light. The fog had lifted but it was so dark
we could not see twenty feet away. We then noticed that
although the fog was gone the stars were still blotted out. We
moved up to the anchor chain, a new one untried. It hung
straight down. We hauled on it. It came up— one foot, two,
three— and then nothing. It had sheared off just under the
waterline. We were adrift somewhere in the Chesapeake.

Then the storm came. It was preceded by a rush of cold air,
a chilling breeze from out of the darkness that dropped again
into a dead calm after a brief interval. When it ceased it began
to rain and the drops sang on the water. Quickly we worked
to get the ship under three reefs. We could not afford to be
blown across the Chesapeake and on to a lee shore. That would

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 13

mean the end of the expedition then and there. We had not
quite finished our task when shrieking down from the northeast
came the wind again, bitter cold, tearing across the waters,
catching up the spray and pelting it against the house. There
was a thundering of wet canvas, a crashing of blocks and the
sing of air tearing through the taut rigging. Our vessel heeled
to the blast, rolled far to one side and, like a startled thing,
leaped into the darkness.

I caught one gUmpse of Coleman in the gleam of the riding
light— w^e had not yet had time to place the red and green
running lanterns— a glimpse of a wet figure in soaked pajamas
straining on the jib sheets. A second later darkness shut down
on everything. Then pandemonium broke loose. The mizzen
which we had not had a chance to reef had torn away, all ex-
cept one comer. It was flapping like a great flag in the gale,
flapping and thundering as only wet canvas can thunder in a
storm. We thought the mast and entire stem rigging would
go. Throwing the bow into the wind and heaving to as quickly
as we could, we leaped for the stern. One comer of the sail
caught Coleman a lashing blow on the shoulders and laid him
flat on the slippery deck. He got up and tried again. It was like
trying to fight a mad bull in the dark. The hard rope edging
beat and smashed against our bodies, battered our arms and legs.
We tried to get a line around the thrashing canvas, almost suc-
ceeded, only to lose it as an extra strong puff tore it away again.
Once more I caught a glimpse of Coleman. His pajamas were
gone, all except a portion of the trousers which were still hang-
ing on. Water was streaming off his nude body and his hair
hung limp and wet. It was bitter cold but we were perspiring
profusely. Our fingers were becoming raw, beaten by the gaff
which was still fast to the sail. Finally, by securing a line around
a portion we managed to tame the thing little by little, a few
inches at a time, until we had it firmly lashed in place. For a

14 I N A G U A

moment we rested, eased out the sheets— they were as taut as
iron bars— and tacked into the storm. We were in a nasty posi-
tion. A wind-swept shore behind us, we did not know how far,
and a maze of shoals ahead. If we could only pick up a light.
We beat on into the teeth of the gale for shelter. At last a light-
Sharp's Island at the mouth of the Choptank River. We came
about and drove for safety.

Minute by minute the storm increased in intensity until we
were the center of a blinding screaming froth of water. If the
Chesapeake Bay could act like this how would the mighty
ocean behave? We voiced a hope that we would escape any-
thing similar at sea and drove on in the darkness. We beat on
and on, barely holding our own, until a faint glimmer crept
through the clouds and showed the river mouth ahead. Vainly
we tried to tack into it. Time and time again we were beaten
back only to try once more. Noon came and passed and the
storm grew in fervor. The hour arrived when we knew we had
best give it up while there was still light to see.

We anchored that night only a few yards from shore in the
lee of a small island some miles away. We hoped the spare
anchor would hold. Three days we lay back of that island wait-
ing for the storm to break, three days of anxiety, for we had
much to do before setting out into the ocean.

If ever we should have doubted our ability to sail the isles
of the Indies we should have doubted it then. But we didn't.
The mere fact that we had weathered the gale— larger boats
than ours were disabled in its path— gave us confidence.

This was only the first of a series of happenings. We had still
half the length of the Chesapeake to go, a full hundred miles
before we would be at the ocean's edge. We had yet to repaint
our hull with copper at the shipyard in Oxford. It seemed that
everything conspired against us. When we arrived at the ship-
yard the tide was out— driven out by the gale. It was the lowest

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 15

in months and too low to approach the marine railway. While
we were waiting for it to rise another gale screamed from out
of the north, the northwest this time, and drove the tide still
further. The new anchor and chain that we had ordered to re-
place the one lost was delayed, held up for no good reason at
all. Early November passed into middle November, and still
we were not ready.

But everything comes in time, and the day arrived when
our vessel trim and newly painted slid off the railway into the
calm waters of the Tred Avon River. We named her Basilisk
after a Central American lizard that, similar to the water strid-
ers, has the power of walking on the water's surface. Like her
famous progenitor the Spray, we hoped the Basilisk would
make maritime history, a famous model put to a new use. That
day our pride was unalloyed by any doubt. For the sun shone
and all was life and activity. A gentle breeze caught our sails
and carried us down the bay. We passed a fleet of milling oyster
boats dredging on the bars and their crews waved greeting, for
the news of the voyage had spread over the bay country. There
seemed nothing to detain us then.

But there was. For that evening after the sun had set in a
great gleam of yellow and red another dense fog had settled
upon us and wrapped us up in its white mystery. Once again
from all over the Chesapeake came the doleful clanging of ship's
bells and the slow mournful whistles of the buoys. That day
passed and the next and still the mist hung close, hiding all from
sight and hushing even the sounds of the ducks that blundered
away in the fog. On we pressed, stretching every inch of can-
vas for the breeze that scarcely moved. And we became de-
pressed and blue at the never-ceasing delay.

Dark came, and light and darkness again, and still the fog
remained. Once we passed a great ship, heard first her bell toll-
ing in the gray, passed her and were swallowed in the murk.

i6 I N A G U A

A barred owl came from the land beyond and lit on our mast-
head and devoured a killdeer there. Otherwise nothing moved
except the translucent jellyfish that pulsed in the sea at the
waterline. If only the fog would lift-
When finally it raised, we beheld far ahead the gleam of the
great salt ocean and felt the roll of the long swells coming in
between the two capes with their twin lighthouses.

In Hampton, Virginia, at the ocean's edge, we received a
deluge of mail, letters and telegrams from men and boys anxious
to go along. Word of the voyage had reached the ears of the
press and while we were beating through the muck of a No-
vember fog the newspapers of the land had told the story. From
far and wide, from the little ports along the coast, from the
valleys and hills of the blue Appalachians, from the mid-west
prairies came letters, typewritten, scrawled, beautifully penned
some of them— all asking one thing. Can we go, they said? Can
we go? We will work for nothing if you will only let us go—
we will scrub decks, anything to go with you. Such is the spell
of the Indies, of white sails and trim hulls. Some of these let-
ters were pathetic. The writers wished to go so badly. Henry
David Thoreau once wrote lines to the effect that most men
lead ''lives of quiet desperation." Quiet rebellion against all the
established things, against the monotony of city life, of farm
life, against the drudgery of doing the same thing every day.
Wordsworth expressed it differently. "The world," he wrote,
"is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay
waste our powers,— little we see in Nature that is ours, we have
given our hearts away—" And so the letters came— can we go?
Of course they couldn't. We would have needed a steamer
to have taken them, even a fraction of them. But we felt sorry
for those that wrote, they were so bound to their desks and
plows and occupations. It seems that the thick fingers of organ-
ized living press heavily on the souls of men, for they long to

THE ISLES OF THE INDIES 17

be free, to move under the sky and over the sea if they have
to scrub decks and work for nothing for the privilege.

Now that we were at the ocean's edge we were even more
impatient to be gone. We realized that the longer we delayed
the greater the possibility of running into evil weather. Con-
sider again what we had started. We, two city-bred men, were
about to sail into the open ocean in a thirty-eight foot boat.
Before we could make a landfall we would have to cover a
minimum of eighteen hundred miles of open sea. Not that it
had not been done before. Old Captain Slocum had sailed the
same model vessel around the world single-handed. But Cap-
tain Slocum was a seaman of many years' experience. We were
two amateurs in every sense of the word. I had been to sea a
number of times but never in the capacity of navigator. Cole-
man had never seen the ocean before. Furthermore, on our
shoulders rested the responsibility of carrying out a scientific
program of no small magnitude. It was more or less essential
to this program that we cover a full itinerary of ten thousand
miles, back and forth from island to island. Nor were these
waters any too well charted or catalogued. Yet here was winter
upon us before we had cleared our home shores. Already ice
was forming on the decks in the morning, making them slip-
pery as glass. Impatiently we watched the weather reports,
hoping for clear skies and northwest winds. Finally the tidings
came from the weather bureau— moderate winds and clear.

CHAPTER II

The Sea's Way

We who live in the heart of great cities, who lead our entire
lives in deep straight canyons of brick and stone or on the
peaceful meadows of farms, forget in the security of our mode
of living that there is a sea, that only a short distance from our
Manhattan, Philadelphia or Boston lie miles upon miles of rest-
less water, turbulent lonely reaches that stretch away to in-
finity and beyond. In our complacency we forget that the sea
is the greatest geographical feature of the earth and that it has
endured unchanged for long ages while continents rose and
fell, came into being and disappeared.

The sea is the last wild frontier. Yet here in constant change-
ful mood, nature reveals the entire scope of her emotions. No
sunlit meadow ahght with flowers and with gauze-winged in-
sects is more peaceful than a calm ocean, nor is there a land
scene more replete with life and vigor than a teeming seascape
in the trades where the white caps curling from the tops of the
waves hurtle forward and spend themselves in white froth
against the dark blue. Then there are the times when Nature,
brooding over her wastes, sends the clouds and the fog, deep-
ens the sea tones and spreads a mournful melancholy over the
depths. And yet again, the sea is a savage place, she sends the
gale screaming from the four corners of the world to remind
men that their proper habitat is the land. When this happens
the ocean becomes the most awesome spot on earth, a turmoil
of mountainous waves, of bubbly froth and swirhng breakers.
Only those who have lived through a great storm at sea, who
have fought and battled with the ocean on its own terms, can

i8

THESEA'SWAY 19

know what this means.

We forgot all this. A deep sense of awareness, once latent but
brought to the surface by the leaving behind of land ways,
filled our minds as we made ready to go. In the pale gray of
early dawn we raised our sails and on the wings of a gentle land
breeze slipped out of Hampton Roads. It was chill that morn-
ing and very quiet save for the soft hissing of the waves at the
waterline. In the dim haze near Norfolk we could make out the
stark outlines of a large four-master, the schooner Purnell T.
White. As we watched, her sails rose, one after the other,
stretched taut and filled as she came about.

She was a beautiful thing in the early light, sails all pink with
the newly risen sun and white hull glinting against the green
water. How could we know that in the short space of eight
days this ship would be a sodden helpless wreck or that, three
years later, refitted and repaired and once again in service,
her captain and crew would all be dead men, lost off the Caro-
lina Capes?

Side by side we put to sea, the towering schooner and the
tiny yawl. Our mast hardly reached her railing, or so it seemed,
as she swept grandly past and headed for the capes and the ris-
ing sun. We watched her go with a feeling of friendly interest,
for she was built by the same hand that with such care con-
structed our tiny ship.

Fifteen miles ahead lay the capes, barely discernible in the
haze, and beyond the open sea. Thimble Shoal passed astern
and then Willoughby. Gently but swiftly, the promised north-
west wind died and left us wallowing. The tide, now at full
ebb, began to flow again, carrying us back whence we came.
It seemed we were destined to remain permanently in the
Chesapeake.

Just when we had reached the point of uttermost exaspera-
tion Providence, weary of playing a game of checkmate, re-

20 I N A G U A

lented and sent aid in the form of a low-hulled Coast Guard
vessel. This Coast Guard ship had seen us slowly drifting on
the tide and in a spirit of comradeship had come near to in-
quire where we were going. We told some uniformed figures
on her deck that our landfall was to be San Salvador in the
Bahamas, whereupon we could hear the captain say something
that sounded like "Holy smokes," could hear the engines re-
versed, saw him direct a sailor to pass a line with instructions
to make it fast. Wondering, we did as directed, and a moment
later were pleased to find ourselves being whisked along at the
grand pace of eight knots straight for the open sea. Soon we
passed the tall black and white lighthouse at Cape Henry,
passed the land's edge and went into the blue. And I suppose
those jolly Coast Guardsmen would have towed us further had
not the line parted and cast us loose.

They came on board for a few minutes, examined our papers,
found them in good order and wished us pleasant voyage. As
they departed they gave us a salvo of whistle blasts and a chorus
of good-byes. Then, as if in answer to our prayers, a gentle
breeze came up and wafted us into the broad Atlantic.

Of what took place from the moment of leaving the Coast
Guardsmen until about three o'clock the following morning
I have little recollection. Much of the events of that afternoon
and evening is blotted from my mind and has been recon-
structed from Coleman's notes and from what he has told me.
It seems that after leaving the Coast Guardsmen we set a course
east south east into the open ocean so as to be well clear of the
land should the breeze change. We watched the shore slowly
fade and in time disappear altogether. And it seems the sun set
in a great lowering bank of clouds that hung in dark masses on
the horizon. But the northwest wind remained with us and we
thought nothing of it. Night came, and the stars that gleamed
with it, stars that gleamed with a brightness we had seldom

THESEA'SWAY 21

seen before. That is, all save the portion of the sky that was
wrapped in gloom and from whence no light came except the
faint loom of the lighthouse many miles away. We stood watch
on and watch off, one man on deck while the other slept in the
cabin below. The first watch came and passed and the second,
and all this time the patch of gloom on the horizon spread, cut-
ting off the stars one by one, blotting out the milky way, and
drawing a dark cloak over the zenith. And by the time of the
third watch the entire firmament was drowned in gloom and
we moved only by the pale shine of the running Hghts and by
the faint gleam of the binnacle. All beyond the decks was
blackness, though a blackness that seemed alive if one could
judge by the myriad water sounds that came from off the sea's
surface.

A certain heaviness seemed to lie over the ocean that night,
a heaviness that oppressed though it was cold on deck and the
wind was sharp. And this feeling of heaviness increased when,
toward the end of the third watch, the wind slackened and
hauled to another quarter. Still we did not feel alarmed but
continued on our way. Coleman was on deck and he had made
the necessary wheel and sheet adjustments for the change of
wind. It was then about two in the morning. At three o'clock
he came down in the cabin and shook me.

"You had better come on deck," he said, "there is something
brewing."

And there was. Even down in the cabin we could hear a new
tenor in the sounds coming off the water, a certain restlessness
that stirred above the wave whisperings.

We glanced at the barometer. It was extremely low. The
lowest we had ever seen. Hurriedly we struggled into oilskins
and jackets and ascended to the deck. From out of the sea
were coming great smooth swells, much too large for the wind
that was blowing. We knew what that meant.

22 I N A G U A

For a moment I stood beside Coleman at the wheel.

"I think we had better take in some sail," I muttered, "while
we can."

Hardly were the words out when the thing happened. A
freak wave rushing from out of the darkness caught our stern,
lifted it high out of the water and, catching the bow as it
passed, swung our tiny ship to one side. And as the stern rose,
the great spreading mainsail with its heavy boom swept to cen-
ter and then jibed with a sickening crash. Hundreds of pounds
of heavy canvas, iron and wood driven by a strong wind caught
me a smashing blow full in the face and dropped me senseless
to the railing.

How long I lay there I do not know. Coleman groped for
my inert body in the darkness and hauled me to the wheel box
where he sat with one leg entwined about my waist to prevent
my slipping over the low railing. Then from out of the ocean
came a low moaning sound that momentarily increased in
volume, a swelling chorus of wind-lashed waves combining in
a wild medley that knows no description. Only those who have
heard it will understand. The thing we had most feared had
come.

With a surge of cold air the storm broke. Our tiny vessel,
still under full sail, heeled far to the blast, heeled until the lee
ports were under water, until it seemed that we must turn over.
And Coleman in all the welter of spray and churning water
struggled in the dark to secure my body so he would be free
to shorten sail; with one hand he spun the wheel to relieve the
strain. Soon huge waves from out of the darkness were wash-
ing our craft from stem to stern. The wonder of it is that the
sails were not blown away or torn to ribbons. But by some
miracle they held. Before leaving our native Chesapeake Bay,
the oystermen and yachtsmen had laughed at our heavy sails
and rigging, were amused at the canvas they said was thick

THESEA'SWAY 23

enough for a three-masted schooner. But this same stoutness
saved us that night and in the days to come when without our
forethought we would have been lost indeed.

A full half hour passed before I regained consciousness. At
first I was only dimly aware of what was going on, but as surge
after surge of cold water swept over me and dribbled into the
scuppers I was brought into wakefulness. My head ached ex-
cruciatingly. And I was cold. Bitterly so— drenched with water
and lashed by the icy wind. I can dimly recall Coleman's leg
pressed into my side, could feel it strain and flex as he struggled
with the wheel. I tried to remember what had happened but
could not, nor can I to this day. On one knee I rose, fell again
and then painfully and slowly struggled to a sitting position.
My neck and shoulder muscles seemed almost torn from their
fastenings. Ten more minutes passed before I was fully awake.
Then, in spite of the pain and violent headache, I began to
realize the gravity of the situation.

We must get those sails in.

As soon as Coleman saw that I was able to fend for myself
he threw the ship into the wind so that we might reduce can-
vas. Then began one of the most grueling half hours we have
ever spent. Reefing sails in normal weather is a simple enough
job, consuming on a ship as small as ours only fifteen or twenty
minutes. But in the midst of a storm, with the ship plunging
and pitching, with waves sweeping the deck from one end to
the other, it is a difficult task. As though this were not enough,
every jolt of the boom and shake of the canvas sent shooting
pains darting up and down my head. The greatest job was
getting the mainsail down. This task took the combined effort
of both of us and our utmost strength. The wind would catch
the sail and with the force of a titan belly out the slack canvas,
jamming the jaws against the mast. Only by catching it be-
tween squalls and exerting our united weights on the down-

14 1 N A G U A

haul were we able to get it down and reefed.

We saved our sails. The immediate danger was over. We
were so exhausted by our efforts we had to sit for a few mo-
ments on the deck to recover. Our hands and fingers were torn
and burned by the whipping of rope. In all the melee the jib
lazy- jacks had chafed through and were flying out from the
masthead like pieces of string. Reefing a jib in a storm with
the lazy- jacks gone is a nasty job. You must creep out along the
footropes, feeling with your heels for the next strand, and
hope that the oncoming waves do not wash you from the bow-
sprit to which you are holding with all your strength. As the
surging water sweeps up and the bowsprit dips you are plunged
over your head into icy water only to come up and be buffeted
by the wild flapping of the sail. Lazy-jacks hold a sail in an
even bundle, but with these gone the canvas becomes a batter-
ing ram that thrashes and thunders in the grip of the wind.

Even with the sails reefed we were not out of danger. We
had to continue to beat off the coast, for the wind was coming
out of the northeast and we were a bare forty miles from
shore. Forty miles is not much in a screaming northeaster that
in a few hours could pile one on the beach. Though we would
have liked to have hove-to until morning we dared not, but
beat on into the dark.

The hours of the first night passed and morning came, but
the storm did not abate. Instead, it increased in intensity and
low clouds scudded just above the water. By the hght from
the east we could see that the sea was no longer green but a
deep indigo, a dull blue that showed in intricate openwork be-
tween the froth patches. We were in the Gulf Stream. And,
in verification, a yellow, berry-floated strand of sargassum
weed drifted by and disappeared in the wake. That was a com-
fort. We knew then that we could heave-to and get some rest.
We sorely needed it. For we were wet and cold; our fingers

THE SEA'S WAY

25

were fast growing numb.

With the coming of full light, even though we thought the
wind could not increase in volume, it redoubled its vigor. With
a sudden blast it hurled out of the north and caught our little
ship in its full grip. Coleman seized a lifeline and held on to
keep from being swept overboard. The sudden surge mo-
mentarily flattened the water and whipped great blinding
sheets of spray from the surface. Over went the hull until the
deck was at such an angle that we could not stand, but sHd on
our knees. A convulsive shudder shook the boat from sprit to
rudder and, with lee decks completely hidden, she leaped
ahead.

But this was only the beginning. In a few minutes we could
barely see the bow, so dense was the spray. The din was ter-
rific. From out of the sea came a shrieking, sighing sound un-
like anything we had ever heard before. It was the sound of
wind-tortured water and the bass roar of huge breakers. Only
those who sail the sea in small ships, who tread decks a foot or
so above the surface, can hear this. It is a sound that hangs
close to the sea's surface, an indescribable medley that those
who travel on large steamers do not know. After the passing
of ten years, when civilization and city living has dulled much
of the details of the great storm, we can still hear those gale
sounds, they are so indelibly impressed on our memories. Per-
haps the most awesome moment is that in which one discerns
vaguely through the driving mist the form of a great wave ad-
vancing before the wind. Then the wave thins at the top, curls,
and in a ferocious roar sweeps all before it. It is a deep-throated
sound, sullen and powerful. And the rigging sounds— low
mournful whistles rising and falling in weird crescendos with
the speed of the gale. Only the wind about the house eaves in
a winter blizzard approaches it in tenor. Nor is this all, for
there are the ship sounds, mighty creakings of wood, the groan-

26 I N A G U A

ings of mast and boom, the twanging of taut ropes and the
noisome clatter from down below where loose objects are
battering back and forth.

That blast nearly finished us. But like the stout vessel she
was, the Basilisk bore under the strain and carried on. We
were growing weak from exhaustion and cold. We could not
stay on deck much longer, for the waves that were spilling
aboard were tremendous and bid fair to sweep us into the
sea. We had prepared for this emergency, however, and
loosened the sea anchor from its lashings on the cabin top.
Laboriously we made it fast to a heavy hawser and eased it
over the bow. Swiftly the big canvas funnel filled out as the
ship drifted back. In a moment the hawser was taut and the
bow in the wind. We could now go below and let the storm
blow itself out.

There was not much else to do. The wind was blowing so
hard that we could no longer stand on deck. Swiftly we opened
the companionway slide and slipped below, slamming it shut
before another wave came aboard. Our comfortable cabin! It
was a shambles. Much of the cargo that we had so carefully
stowed and boxed had broken loose and was strewn about.
Pots and pans, a barrel of potatoes, stove lids, notebooks, charts
and tin cans littered the floor in little piles. And with each
lurch these piles would slither from one end of the cabin to
the other. For a moment they would remain quiescent, then
with the tilt of the ship gather speed and bang into the distant
bulkhead. Then back again with a crash, intermingled with
the tinkling of glass and the duller sounds of metal. It was
inconceivable the number of articles that had come loose. Items
that we had nailed tightly in boxes and bins. How they ever
got away was difficult to understand. But they did.

The coal stove in the galley was a mess. The iron doors were
opening and banging with a clatter that sounded like the rush

THE SEA'S WAY

27

of a gang of riveters working overtime and anxious to go home.
With every wave that swept the deck a gush of salt water
came down the stove pipe and burst from between the grates
in a miniature flood. That meant another trip to the deck with
rope and canvas. We tried to salvage some of the material
drifting about on the cabin floor. It was useless. As soon as one
object was stowed another came loose. The flat stove Hds re-
placed on the range jumped off again when the ship suddenly-
plunged to one side and then back with a severe jolt. This same
jolt sent the pair of us spinning the length of the cabin to pile
in a sodden heap at the far end. It was impossible to stand.
Progress was feasible only by clinging tightly to fast objects
and waiting for a lull. The best method was crawling. Even
then the lurching and pitching would hurl us reeling into the
far wall and back again. After a time we gave it up and let
the jumble take care of itself.

Our bunks were made of canvas stretched between metal
frames. On our knees and between slitherings we slacked the
canvas until it formed a deep hollow; then we piled in. Only
thus were we able to keep our positions. As it was, we had to
maintain a constant grip on the sides to keep from being
thrown out. We could not sleep. It was diflicult even to doze.
Hour passed hour in monotonous succession. Every now and
then we could hear something give, vague sphnterings and
tearings that came to us through the howling of the wind. Time
and time again great waves would smash aboard. We could see
them coming through the ports. We thanked the gods that we
had full steamer ports of three quarter inch glass instead of the
flimsy things generally used on vessels as small as ours. We
could see these huge waves mount up and up, could see the
bow dip as if to plunge into the depths, could see the oncom-
ing mountains suddenly rise and curl and then break in a dark
blue welter of foam and solid water. When they hit it was

28 I N A G U A

as if we had run into a stone wall. How wood and iron could
hold together under such hammerings was inconceivable. Sud-
denly the cabin would be darkened as the mass swept over the
deck, burying it under several feet of indigo water. Then the
ports would become luminous green holes in which danced
hundreds of bubbles. Shuddering, the ship would lift, spilling
the water off the decks in white froth.

At about two o'clock the sea anchor tore loose from the
hawser with a dull snap. In a trice the bow swung around until
we were broadside to the wind. Then, hurling out of the sea,
came a tremendous wave that caught the cabin full amidships.
I was suddenly lifted and thrown out of my bunk across the
full width of the cabin on top of Coleman. On the return lurch
we were both spilled on the floor. We struggled to our feet
and as soon as the water had cleared, climbed on deck, slam-
ming the companionway hatch hurriedly behind us.

The scene that greeted us was awesome. All that was left
of the jib lazy- jacks were half a dozen short pieces of rope,
fuzzy frayed things only one-tenth of their original length.
The remainder had whipped away a little at a time. The bow-
sprit shrouds, steel cables, had torn loose on one side and the
attached footropes hung in a jumble. Part of the solid oak rail-
ing was in splinters and an iron boom-rest had been yanked
from its fastenings, carrying with it shredded pieces of wood
and metal. Two water casks lashed to wooden supports were
smashed and the anchor chain had been lifted out of its coil
box and was hanging straight down in the depths. A full ton
of it. Getting this last back on board nearly broke our backs.
We had unshackled it from the anchor before leaving Hamp-
ton Roads so as to have a perfectly clear deck, and now we
could not get it around to the winch to haul it in.

Hurriedly twirling the wheel we coaxed the ship around un-
til we were flying under bare poles. But we were in an ugly

THESEA'SWAY 29

position. Somewhere to the west and not too many miles away
was Hatteras with its maze of shoals and streamers of thunder-
ing surf. There was no help for it but to beat into the storm
again. Swinging about we got under four reefs and once again
breasted the gale.

By this time it was getting dark. In all these hours we had
eaten nothing, nor had we thought of food. Coleman crawled
up into the hold and brought back a tin of canned beef which
we devoured uncooked.

Captain Joshua Slocum, in telling of his voyage around the
world in the original Spray, had claimed that for hundreds of
miles his little ship had steered herself as accurately as if there
had been a man at the wheel. Provided, of course, that the wind
remained in the same quarter. The feat was accomplished by
trimming and adjusting sail and rudder so that there was a
perfect balance fore and aft. This claim has been disputed
many times, but without foundation. We owe our lives to this
one feature. For that evening, exhausted and weary, chilled to
the marrow, unable to remain longer on deck, yet afraid to let
the ship scud before the wind, we adjusted sail and rudder as
Slocum had described. And in all that wild melee of storm the
grand little ship plunged sturdily along, straight as an arrow,
for the center of the ocean.

All through that night she sailed with not a soul on deck,
tossed and beaten by the worst winter storm of 1929-30. Miles
away the great schooner Purnell T. White, in whose com-
pany we had put to sea, was also fighting the gale and waging
a losing battle. And far and wide, north and south of us that
night on the broad Atlantic, sturdy steamers were sending out
S.O.S. calls or limping into prort with smashed houses and
twisted decks. On and on we pressed, plunging through the
waves, bobbing to the top and sliding down the valleys, proof
that the old sea captain had not lied. A gallant little ship, the

30 I N A G U A

Basilisk. There should be more Hke her.

The second day passed and the third, and when the fourth
dawned in a gloom of gray we did not think we would live to
see the evening. We were so exhausted by then that we could
scarcely crawl from the deck to the cabin and up again. The
exertion of adjusting sheets was so great that we would have
to lie on the wet deck for fifteen or twenty minutes to re-
cover. The wind was blowing as hard as ever and the waves
were sickening to behold. Up, up they towered, great sweep-
ing mountains that seemed to reach to the sky. If ever we felt
small and unimportant, it was then.

Once a wave broke over the top of the mast. Forty-two feet
five inches our mast measured, and this breaking wave topped it
by a yard. Coleman was down below when it struck and I was
crouched by the wheel box so that I would avoid the full force
of the wind. Suddenly, and without warning, a great wall of
water seemed to rise in front of the ship, rose with terrific
speed, forced up by some tremendous pressure beneath, rose
and towered above the mast. For a brief second I could see
pale light shining through it, could see a yellow strand of sar-
gassum weed high above my head. Then down it came with an
ear-splitting crash. With stunning force it hit the deck, threw
me against the aft railing and buried the ship under tons of
water. It seemed that we would never come up. All I can re-
member is choking and fighting to get to my feet as the mass
poured over the stern.

A minute later a dazed Coleman cautiously opened the com-
panionway shde a few inches. He looked groggy and a great
bruise showed on the side of his face. He had been clinging to
his bunk trying to get a few moments' rest when suddenly
the wave hit. In a brief second all Ught was blotted out and
tons of falling liquid hit the deck. Water squirted in great
streams through the seams in the hatch and companionway

THESEA'SWAY 31

slide, dousing the cabin with water. For an awful minute all
was dark and then with a sickening lurch he had been thrown
out of his bunk. He came on deck fully expecting to find me
washed away.

Three similar waves boarded us that night, straining the
woodwork and opening many of the deck seams. Then it was
that we saw the picture of the "Gulf Stream" run water. Gulf
Stream water too, the sea's turn to laugh!

And though we did not think we would last through the
night, we somehow plunged on, heading ever further into the
ocean. In all these hours we had taken no sights, had no idea of
our whereabouts other than by dead reckoning. We felt by
this time, however, that we could afford to turn tail to the
storm and run before it. As Coleman put it— "If we are going
to hell, we might as well go flying." Running before the wind
eased the strain somewhat, but was risky business. Added to
the danger of jibing was the hazard of being pooped by a
following wave. But by this time we did not particularly care.
Anything seemed better than hammering into the gale,— hour
after hour of terrific punishment and not getting anywhere
was wearing on our nerves. Due south we headed the Basilisk
and there began one of the most thrilling portions of the entire
voyage.

With the speed of an express train we tore down the massive
watery hillsides, tore on and into the south. Hour after hour
the miles reeled behind us and were lost in the foam. While
tearing thus before the wind we witnessed one of the most
magnificent sights that the sea has to offer. We had just
mounted the crest of an exceptionally large roller when from
under our bows burst a great porpoise. Another came and an-
other until the water fairly seethed with them. And at the same
moment, from out of the ocean, from the depths that just be-
fore had been lifeless, from as far as we could see on the crest

32 I N A G U A

of that gigantic wave, burst forth other porpoises leaping and
hurthng toward the ship. There must have been hundreds of
them. Sleek black things that surged and dived in effortless
gambol, all heading for our bows. There they collected in a
heavy muscled swarm, gloriously graceful, active and free.
Weary and tired as we were we could not help but feel a tingle
of pleasure at the sight. And as mysteriously as they came they
disappeared. All vanished as one, as if by given signal they
slipped into the depths at the same moment and were gone.
There was only the swirl of foam and bubbles where a minute
before was activity.

The porpoises made us feel better, helped to take away some
of the lonely feeling that had come over us in our exhaustion.
They were the first Hfe that we had seen since leaving the
land. Later the same day two petrels swept by, little black
things hardly visible through the spray. We could hear them
calling, a plaintive whistle that somehow seemed to have a cer-
tain sad timbre. How could they live in that chaos of water
hundreds of miles from land,— how could they survive days
of gale with only the spray-swept water to rest upon? But they
do. Mother Carey's chickens! Brave little things, that fly on
sickle-shaped wings close to the water's surface, feeding on
floating tid-bits, stray things that the sea gives up, subsisting
on tiny crustaceans, larval fishes and pelagic eggs. Storm and
calm, hurricane and smooth sea, it is all the same to Mother
Carey's chickens. Their niche in the scheme of things is not
an easy one.

The gale lasted nearly a week and a half. Ten days of torture
and misery. There were hours on end when we thought that
every boarding wave would be the one to split us wide open
and send us to the bottom. We had taken in hundreds of gal-
Ions of water. The cabin floor boards had come up and were
sloshing about, mixed with a jumble of wreckage. We were

THESEA'SWAY 33

weary and tired, sick of the sea and the storm. We did not
know where we were. There had been no sun to take sights
from. The chronometer had stopped, beaten into somnolence
by the terrific jolting. But it was becoming warmer. We no
longer needed coats on deck. Long ago we had discarded every
bit of useless apparel. In times of stress it is common custom to
be rid of all superfluous appurtenances. We had thrown our
shoes aside— could keep the deck better in bare feet. Our hands
were a sorry sight. Calluses, open blisters, deep red seams, raw
scale covered our fingers and palms. It seemed we had been
to sea for an eternity. Ten days. In ten days we had got down
to elementals. We were no longer concerned with a scientific
program— we would worry with that later— if we survived.

But one morning the wind dropped, the sun burst from the
clouds and nature once again smiled. Hungrily we drank in
the warmth, basked in the golden light that streamed from the
sky. We had almost forgotten there was a sun. It cheered us
immeasurably. And though from out of the north the waves
still came piling they did not break, but lifted us gently and
passed on as if to say, "There you are, we wouldn't hurt you."

From out of the sea came flying fish, gliding creatures that
skimmed from one wave crest to another. They cheered us too.
It is good to see live things around even though they are no
more than fishes. With hope renewed we set about straighten-
ing ship. It was a herculean task. As if half afraid the sea was
playing us tricks, we carefully opened the hatch and bailed
water. Gallons and gallons of it we dumped into the sea. Even
when we had it all out, the cabin was still the dampest place
imaginable, so much so that in the evening, rather than sleep
below with all the wreckage to remind us of what we had been
through, we lay on the deck beneath the stars.

We adjust ourselves quickly to new conditions. With fife
no longer a struggle for existence our thoughts once again

34

I N A G U A

turned to the program before us. Where were we? We wished
to make the island of San Salvador where Columbus first made
landfall on that memorable morning in 1492. Here we were
to check on certain faunal conditions before proceeding to
other islands to continue our investigations. As nearly as we
could estimate from dead reckoning we were about eight hun-
dred miles off the Florida Coast. With the chronometer stopped
we could not figure longitude. Latitude was an easier matter
though we had to break open the cabinet drawer to get out the
sextant, so swollen was the wood from the wetting it had re-
ceived. Noon sights showed us to be in the latitude of Nassau.
We decided to continue south until we reached the parallel of
San Salvador and then make westing on the prevaihng trade
winds.

On and on we sailed. At first we were almost afraid to shake
out full canvas, so fearful of the wind had the storm made us.
But the continued sunlight brightened our outlook and we
dipped gently on the wings of a mild breeze. A day passed and
another, and still no sight of land. Once in the early morning,
shortly after the sun had risen, a yellow-billed tropic bird had
come out of the west, circled in the blue and turned back again.
The following morning we saw a man-of-war bird and it, like
the tropic bird, circled and disappeared westward. Land was
somewhere over there. How far we did not know. The latitudes
of Eleuthra and Cat Island came and passed and still no land
showed up. We must be too far to the east. Noon sights gave
us the figures 24 degrees 3 minutes. San Salvador was due west.

As we swung the bow toward the afternoon sun the wind
shifted contrary to all rules of the trades and began blowing
briskly out of the west. Soon we were having hard going. Was
the sea never to be through playing with us? We held a con-
sultation and decided to continue south again in the hope of

THESEA'SWAY 35

sighting Crooked or Mariguana Islands, or, failing these, the
Caicos group. At any of these we could rest, clean ship and
work back to San Salvador at leisure after once establishing
our location. We must investigate these anyway and were
bound to no order. On we went again. Ever southwards. Still
no land. The wind continued beating out of the west cutting
up a choppy, but not dangerous sea. Hour after hour we sailed,
straining our eyes for a glimpse of green turf. There was noth-
ing but rolling waves, yellow patches of sargassum weed and
white caps. Several times Coleman climbed to the masthead.
He could see nothing. Crooked and Mariguana were nowhere
visible. Caicos then. Noon showed us to be exactly on the
Caicos latitude. Water, everywhere water. We had never be-
fore realized that there was so much of it in the world.

Disgusted, we busied ourselves about the ship. At least we
couldn't miss Hispaniola. We would sight it at sunrise. Cole-
man went below to tend to some duties and I became interested
in the wheel ropes that had slackened badly and needed atten-
tion. Already the sun was setting, lowering in great banks of
orange and red cloud. In a few moments it would be dark and
I wanted to have the rudder in good shape. Busily I worked on,
tightening the hne and adjusting it about the drum. Casually
I looked up.

There, strewn over the horizon, was land. Little mounds of
it stretching in isolated lumps far in both directions.

"Land," I yelled down the companionway.

Coleman came bounding out and swarmed up the mast. It was
land all right, good solid land silhouetted by the sinking sun.
We had never thought that land could look so good. With big
grins we shook hands in congratulation. Coleman went below
again and returned a moment later with a pencil and a piece
of soggy paper to make a sketch. He said it was such a pleasant

36 I N A G U A

moment he wished to remember it. As for myself, I did noth-
ing, just stood there and gazed. Now at last we could rest and
begin our work.

How little we knew!

CHAPTER III

Shipwreck

In the late afternoon of the following day we slowly climbed
a low sandy bluff. At the top we paused a moment and then
sank wearily to the ground. Before us the sand sloped away
to a wide beach on which the shadows were lengthening
rapidly. Even as we watched, little breakers slipped up the
damp soil, hissed and sighed as they passed over the sand
grains, and slid back again. As they slid they left on the beach
myriad small objects— queer-shaped things that turned and
rolled in the tide. Wreckage! Flotsam and jetsam that the sea
had done with and was giving up to the land. Bits of spars, rope,
sodden books, tin cans, instruments, bottles, boxes— and a pic-
ture of the Gulf Stream showing a man lying on the deck of a
dismasted vessel, sullenly watching a shark that was circling
by. The sea's turn to laugh. Journey's end.

Journey's end, indeed. Beyond the waves that sighed on the
beach, beyond a lagoon of pale green water, glistened a line of
seething white surf. A white frothy Hne that moved and pulsed,
and emitted a constant throaty roar. The sound of breakers
crashing on a coral reef. Squarely in the center of that seeth-
ing line lay all that remained of a stout vessel. Each wave that
rolled in lifted the hull a foot or so and with a resounding crash
dropped it heavily into the spreading branches of coral. A sad
ending for a stout vessel that had weathered a great winter
storm and had gallantly carried its crew to safety when larger
and better manned ships had gone to the bottom.

Journey's end and dream's end. There would be no sailing
the isles of the Indies. It was a bitter dose. The irony of the

37

38 I N A G U A

thing was that after going through so much, after Hving through
so much misery, so much cold and wetness, after all this, after
coming through a great winter storm we should meet disaster
on the very last stretch. And irony on top of irony; the wind
that was crashing the breakers on the reef was the usual trade
that we had expected to take us westward to San Salvador.
Too late now, too late to do us any good. The breeze that
should have carried us to safety was tearing our vessel apart
and spreading our gear on the bottom of the sea.

But worst of all was the stinging fact that we had met disaster
in a near calm. There was no excuse of storm or heavy wind
or great waves. The sea was like a millpond when Nemesis
boarded us. As flat and calm as a sea can be, save for a long
gentle swell from out of the east. Treacherous ocean! When
wind and wave had failed she had still one trick up her figura-
tive sleeve, a trick that we should have known about. The cur-
rent—the smooth gliding current that, welling up from the
cool depths, glides its invisible intangible way to the surface.
The current had caught us unawares.

In the cool long hours before the coming of new day it had
caught us, had slowly, gently pulled us from our way, had
quietly without a sound dragged us to the waiting coral. Then
in a sudden last surge the swells had caught us and dashed us
onto the cruel coral. And the sea, in a last boisterous shout of
glee, had sent the wind, the trade wind to bring the matter to
conclusion. The sea had won.

After sighting land the evening before, reaction had set in
and we had fallen into a deep sleep. With the sinking of the
sun the wind had died, leaving us to wallow in a calming ocean.
For the first time since the ending of the storm we slept below,
utterly weary, confident that with hove-to sails we would wake
in the same spot in the morning. We would then approach the
land, establish our location and proceed to the nearest port.

SHIPWRECK 39

All this while a strong current was carrying us northward
where it swept around a point of land. But just before reaching
this point it set directly into a maze of coral and reefs. On and
on we drifted, nearer, ever nearer until the roar of the breakers
must have reached the decks. But down below we slept on,
exhausted by the days just past.

With a frightening crash we hit. Both Coleman and I were
thrown to the floor. Dazed and sleepy, startled by the roar that
came from outside, we rushed frenziedly for the deck. As we
reached it another swell came from out of the ocean, lifted the
ship and with a terrific lurch threw it on one side. Coleman
grasped the railing and saved himself, but the lurch threw me
spinning the entire length of the deck, through the jib sheets
and over the bow into the foam. For a brief second I remember
hurtling through the air, could dimly see the swirling surf be-
neath, and then plunged into the water. As I went down I was
rolled over and over by the comber and into the arms of a
great coral branch that held me in a strong painful grip. For
another second I lay dazed. Off in the dark I could vaguely
make out the mound of another roller, black against the stars.
On and on it came, rose, curled and made ready to break. With
a shout of alarm I quitted my painful bed of coral and dived
headlong to one side. And as I dived the stricken ship rose on
the tide and came down on the coral I had just left. Had I
remained I would have been ground to a bloody pulp. The
wave that so nearly finished me, rolled me a few feet further
and then sucked me back to the bow. Hurriedly grasping the
sprit chain I hauled myself inboard and onto the deck.

We made one last eifort to save the ship. If we could only
get one of our small boats overboard with an anchor and
drop it behind the reef, we might still by quick action on the
winch pull ourselves clear. With a knife that Coleman dashed
into the cabin to secure we cut the lashings of the first boat

40 I N A G U A

and dropped it over the rail. Even as we did so another roller
caught us amidships, lifted us slightly and brought us down on
the skiff. It was mashed as flat as a flounder. The other boat
fared a little better but was swamped a moment later.

It was no use. We were hard and fast. Every swell that came
in carried us a foot or so further. A second later the rudder
snapped off and was washed into the lagoon beyond the reef
where it sank to the bottom. There was but one recourse— to
save as much food and equipment as possible. A wind was com-
ing up, the trade for which we had waited in vain. If we were
to get anything ashore we must do it quickly. Food and water
first. Particularly water. We knew that some of these islands
were barren— dry waterless places where one could soon die
of thirst. Quickly as we could on the careening deck we cut
the lashings of the watercasks and with mighty heaves threw
them into the surf. Disregarding everything else for the mo-
ment we jumped overboard, severely cutting ourselves on the
jagged coral, and between crashing rollers edged the casks over
the reef and into the calm waters of the lagoon. Satisfied that
they would not float out to sea or be broken by surf we battled
our way back to the ship again. Our feet and legs by now were
bleeding freely from coral cuts and we were scratches and
bruises from head to foot. Once again on the ship, we fought
our way through the foam to the cabin. It was full of water.
Somewhere underneath, the planking had torn loose and the
bitter salt was surging in in a torrent.

The floor boards had come up and were rushing back and
forth. They had the force of battering rams. The cabin was a
fright. We leaped for our prize possessions. Frantically I clawed
a cabinet apart to save my camera. It had accompanied me in
all my jaunts in Haiti, in South America and at home. I would
rather have lost a finger than that camera. Coleman dived for
his microscope and other valuables. Holding them high above

SHIPWRECK

our heads to spare them further wettings we made our way to
the deck. It was now careened at such an angle that we could
not walk on it. We slid into the water and struggled for the
lagoon.

Back again. This time for the sextant, motion picture camera,
ship papers, collecting equipment and choice books. Some we
got ashore, some we did not. It was a herculean task. The reef
was the worst of all, though swimming the eighth-mile lagoon
was not easy. By the third trip the hull had heeled so far over
that we could swim directly into the companionway. It was
heartbreaking. All our valuable instruments and materials were
being washed back and forth. Even as we tried to salvage them
great rollers would dash in the open companionway, snatch
them from our fingers and wash them out on the reef. The
white sand bottom for yards around was strewn with glitter-
ing tins, paper and brass. The cabin was a dangerous place.
Floating boards, boxes and weighty containers were being
hurled about with every entering wave. Every now and then
the ship would turn and roll on the opposite side. Then with a
mighty rush all these floating things would charge the length
of the cabin and slam into the farthest bulkhead.

Coleman had a narrow escape. He was in the cabin alone
trying to retrieve a valuable item that was packed low down
in one of the lockers. The missing object could not be found
and he had dropped on his knees holding his breath underwater
so that he could better feel with his hands. Without warning
the ship lurched far to one side, rushing all the water to his part
of the cabin, carrying with it loose boards and a floating bunk
mattress. One of these boards and the mattress wedged above
his body, pinning him tightly against the cabinet. He fought
like a madman to get free but could not budge the material.
Still fighting, he could feel the breath leave him in little bubbles,
could feel himself growing weaker and weaker, saw every-

42 I N A G U A

thing turn black. And just when he was about to lapse into
unconsciousness a roller surged into the massed wreckage and
released him. He struggled to the companionway, crawled to
the deck and lay there panting and coughing water.

Morning came and passed and by late afternoon we were
still working. All this while the wind had grown stronger until
the hour arrived when we knew it was too dangerous to return
to the wreck. Wearily we swam ashore for the last time,
plodded through the soft beach sand, climbed the bluff back
of the beach and, there, exhausted, flung ourselves on the
ground.

The sea had won.

For a time we lay inert, too tired to move. The sun mean-
while dipped lower and lower, the shadows grew longer. Rous-
ing ourselves, we looked about for a sign of humans or human
habitation. There was none. Behind, the land sloped away to a
perfectly semicircular lagoon of emerald green water edged
by a pure white beach. Beyond that was the open sea again.
About five miles away could be seen the dim outlines of a small
island. To the south the land stretched away in low ridges and
shallow valleys. We were on the extreme tip of some large
island. A hundred yards further north our ship would have
cleared the reefs and been saved.

No use crying about it. The expedition was washed up—
literally. Through a tangled mass of thatch palm, round leaf
sea grape and cacti we made our way down the slope to the
lagoon. What a beautiful anchorage it would have made. Per-
haps on the sand we would find some evidence of man. There
was. A jumble of cut sticks that had been severed from their
stalks months before, and some discarded conch shells that had
been broken open. Nothing more.

There was one thing more in store for us that evening. We
were to witness one of the most beautiful sights in nature, one

SHIPWRECK 43

of the truly stirring spectacles that come the way of those who
delight in color. We were treading our way back to the bluff
overlooking the wreck, our eyes to the ground. The sun was
setting, tinging everything with refulgent gold. From high
above, from far up in the firmament came a faint crying— plain-
tive mournful notes like those the wild geese sing on the north
wind. We looked up and froze in our tracks. From the interior
of the island was coming a great flock of scarlet flamingo, wings
ablaze in the setting sun. Like geese they were flying in V-
shaped formation, guided by a leader. There must have been
hundreds of them. As they moved, the scarlet of their wings
flashed and flared, set in vivid contrast by the velvety black
of their wing tips. Nearer and nearer they came, crying the
while, reached the land's edge, circled and returned to the dark
interior. And at the same moment the sun dipped beneath the
horizon, taking the light away and plunging land and sea into
darkness.

Under the glittering stars, with the song of the east wind in
our ears as it rustled through the grasses and rolled the sand
grains up and down the dunes, on the solid ground that smelt
of dead and dying greenery, we slept the sleep of exhaustion.
And though out on the coral that night the sea tore our vessel
to pieces, growling through the teeth of the reef as it rended the
timbers one from the other, we did not move.

Like Kim who lay on the ground and gathered new strength
we rose the next morning, refreshed and with a brighter out-
look. New days bring new problems, new tasks, new ideas. We
were done with the sea, for the present at least— the land was
our portion. What would we make of it?

The first thing that came to our minds was our whereabouts.
Where were we? We knew only that we were on one of the
Bahamas. But which one? We salvaged a chart from the rub-
bish on the beach and looked it over. Noon sights of the day

44 I N A G U A

before had placed us in the latitude of the Caicos group. I was
of the opinion that we were on Grand Caicos on the eastern-
most fringe of the Bahamas. Coleman held out for Mariguana
on the basis that the sights were in error. But the low island five
miles to the north? Were we on Grand Caicos, the next island
should have lain northwest. On Mariguana no island should
have been visible, for the nearest group was the Plana Cays
which lay more west than north and were some twenty miles
distant. The only island that had another due north was Great
Inagua, the last and second largest island of the Bahama Archi-
pelago. But this was impossible. To reach Inagua by sailing due
south we would have had to pass within a mile or so of either
Mariguana or Caicos. Certainly we would not have passed so
close to land without seeing it. We gave it up.

What to do? After a short consultation we decided that
Coleman was to remain with the wreck, salvaging what he
could, and that I would set out to find help if there was any
to be found. Half an hour later I shouldered a pack containing
some food, a canteen holding about two quarts of water and
a blanket. I was to follow the coast, wandering on until I had
located a settlement or, failing that, encircle the island.

First I went down to the beach and searched among the
wreckage for some clothes. Both Coleman and I were in rags.
Our trousers were torn and hanging in shreds and our shirts
were little better. We had seized the first things that came to
hand after getting our more valuable instruments ashore. We
particularly needed shoes, the tennis shoes that we had on were
nearly cut to pieces by the jagged coral. We located several
in the sand, washed them clean and put them on. They helped
to make us feel respectable though we were hardly objects for
a drawing-room.

Once again on top of the bluff, we bid each other good-bye
What direction to go? It did not make much difference, one

SHIPWRECK 45

way seemed as good as another. Perhaps south would be best,
particularly if we were on Grand Caicos as I thought, for
several islands down the chain there was reputed to be a
settlement. Possibly I could reach it by swimming the interven-
ing channels. I trudged off on the crest of a sand ridge that
paralleled the shore. Looking back I could see Coleman wading
into the lagoon preparatory to swimming out to the reef. The
last I saw of him he was bobbing about in the lee of the breakers,
looking for an opening that he might reach the ship without
being hammered against the coral.

Below the ridge on which I was walking stretched mile upon
mile of gorgeous beach, pure white sand melting into a subtle
green on the land's edge. Beyond the beach were the still waters
of the lagoon, intense emerald and pale green where the bot-
tom alternated from coral sand to growths of sea grass. On the
outer edge of the emerald, as if to enclose it tightly, was the
barrier reef, sweeping on and on in gentle undulations. On
the reef the great sea swells broke in brilliant foam, intensified
and brought into vivid contrast by the dark blue of the waters
beyond. Further on, the bottom dipped down and down into
the depths. Two thousand fathoms, the chart said, twelve thou-
sand feet of dark blue water.

It was good to be on land again, even though the landing
was not as we would have had it. From out of the island were
coming deep pungent smells— the scent of myriad flowers,
warm grass in the sun, of dried mud, and all those things that
go to make up the earth-odor. It was good to feel the sand
crunching under foot, good to have live things about, for even
as I walked dozens of lizards dashed from their basking places
and fled for shelter. One of these lizards excited me immensely.
It was a new species, a type not yet described to science. I tried
to capture it, missed, and ruefully watched it disappear into
the scrub. Well, what difference did it make? I did not have

46 I N A G U A

any formol to preserve it and we would probably be here for
a long time anyway. Plenty of time for that later.

But the Hzard brought me a stirring idea. This island was our
portion. The sailing of the isles of the Indies was not to be. Our
scientific program was finished— before it had even started. Yet
here at our very feet was unexplored territory. On this island
should exist a complete cosmos of living things, an entity of
moving, crawling, creeping creatures, all living in the complex
ecological web of island life. We should learn everything that
was to be known about this island, this bit of water-enclosed
earth-matter. The mere fact that it was an island, that the
creatures and animals were imprisoned, held fast by the sur-
rounding ocean, made the idea more intriguing. That is part
of the charm of islands, everything is so compact. Carried away
with the notion, I walked on. Great purple land crabs scuttled
from among the grasses and, like the lizards, dashed for shelter.
What was their niche in the scheme of island life? And those
snails hanging in clusters on the grass stems? What were they
doing and why were they on the grasses?

This was our portion, earth and sea and sky, the reef beyond
the land's edge, a world in itself, the pale green of the lagoons
—even as I looked a vaguely moving shadow showed the under-
water trail of a giant sea turtle returning from an early morn-
ing egg-laying. And the beach itself, the pulsing, moving edge
of the sea, that belongs neither to the land nor to the sea, but
alternately to one and then the other. These were our portion,
these and the soil beyond.

Then, as if in gentle retribution for the egotism of thinking
that we should learn everything^ 2. hummingbird swooped out
of a cluster of prickly-pear and hung before my face. Like an
angry bee it buzzed, humming and jerking its tail feathers. And
though the wings were an indelible blur, so swift was their
moving, every detail of the body feathering was visible. Swiftly

SHIPWRECK 47

my memory raced down the list of hummingbirds, tried to
correlate colors of gorget and ruif and nape with specie and
genera. And I failed. I did not even know its name! With a
great easy swoop the feathered mite swung to one side and
quickly glided into the cacti as if to say, "So, you would know
everything?'^

Turning landward I examined the vegetation. It was tropical
but not the exuberant, riotous vegetation of Haiti or Santo
Domingo not too many miles away. Rather it was of a more
subtle type, the type known as xerophytic, that tends to show
its beauty in the sharpness of thorns, highly colored bark,
spiny cacti and thick padded leaves. Thorns! They were the
keynote of this island vegetation. Thorns, speaking mutely of
a scanty existence, of the scorching of hot sun, of searing winds
and dry soil. Desert vegetation. Half-consciously I felt my can-
teen to make sure it was full. A few thatch palms dotted some
distant ridges and stood out starkly against the sky. There was
a certain wild character about these plants, a certain impression
that was at one and the same time forbidding and yet appeal-
ing. Perhaps this was due to their very sparseness, to their
thorns, possibly to the open sand and rock that showed be-
tween the tree boles in little patches. Yet they were not devoid
of flowers, for even on the cacti pads bloomed vivid scarlet
and yellow blossoms. A subtly pleasing scene, tropical, yet not
gaudy, the sort of thing that does not tire one too quickly.

There was one character that impressed. All the plants on
the ridge and for some distance beyond leaned to the land.
Theirs was an existence of sweeping wind, the interminable
pressing of the trade winds that forced branch and leaf to their
will. Day in and day out the bree2:e pressed its shoulders against
their intricacies. And in defense these plants had turned their
backs, had huddled close to the rocks. Here already was a chain
of island life, interlocking links starting with the wind that

48 I N A G U A

had thrown up the sand dunes, that had borne the plants, that
had provided the mineral nutrition for these plants, which in
their turn were beaten flat again by the wind.

I trudged on. After a time the ridge dipped into lowland,
dipped into a mangrove swamp. The swamp in its turn gave
way to a long narrow lake that lay like a ribbon in the sun.
Along the far edge were some of the flamingos we had seen the
evening before. They were feeding, ambling along in crane-
like strides, raising and dipping their reversed shovel bills as
they walked. I edged closer, squeezing through the mangroves,
but they took alarm and fled.

But I was wasting time. Or was I? Did it make any difference
whether I found help today or tomorrow or the day after?
But then I reflected that after all we must eat, and if I could
quickly find help we might still salvage some of the tinned food
from the debris that was lying on the bottom of the reef. After
that we should see. It was not fair to Coleman to dally like
this. On I pressed, mile succeeding mile as the hours passed.
At noon I ate some of the food in my pack and sat down to rest
on the crest of a sand dune. Then I thought I saw some figures
way down the coast. Humans, two of them. Shouting, I darted
down the sand, jumping over the grasses and waving my arms.
To my astonishment the figures gave one look and dashed into
the bushes.

CHAPTER IV

^^Inagua Is a Queer Little Island*^

I STOPPED in amazement staring at the spot where the figures
had vanished, and then smiled. No wonder! I was a wild look-
ing creature. My clothes were in tatters, torn by the coral from
the day before; a battered old hat of disreputable felt lay
draped over my head at a rakish angle and two weeks' growth
of beard obscured my features. About my neck a dirty blue
bandanna hung loosely; I had salvaged it from the sand to keep
my neck from burning; and a shredded pair of gray ducks
hung in ribbons about my knees. Until this moment I had not
been conscious how I looked, so intent had we been on salvag-
ing the necessities for our existence and in securing help in
time to prevent our equipment from becoming a total loss. I
must have looked like a renegade beachcomber. Ugly enough
in any case to frighten timid natives. For several moments I
remained where I was watching. There was no movement ex- .
cept the curve of the waves as they sHd up on the beach in
little streamers and the rippling of the beach grasses in the
trade winds.

More sedately I continued. Soon I came up with the tracks,
broad bare prints with splayed toes in the damp sand. The
tracks led into a clump of mixed palmetto and mangrove. Hesi-
tating for a moment I pondered. Idiotically, I wondered what
was the correct procedure for approaching natives on an un-
known island. Should I say, "Good morning, would you be so
kind as to inform me what island I am on?" or would "Pardon
me, but I am a shipwrecked mariner," sound better? Both
sounded utterly silly but for the moment I could think of

49

so

I N A G U A

nothing more appropriate. Feeling a little foolish I stepped up
the beach and yelled "Hey!" at the green mangroves. No an-
swer. Once again I called but received no response. "I say
there, where are you?" I called again. For a moment nothing
stirred and then with slow hesitating steps two small boys
stepped from between some palmettos where they had been
hiding.

I looked at them curiously. They were as inky black as it
was possible for two human beings to be and they were nearly
as ragged as I was. One youngster lacked pants but I soon dis-
covered that he was carrying them tucked in a small grass
basket slung to his back. The pair seemed quite frightened and
appeared ready to bolt at the slightest move.

"I won't hurt you," I told them.

This seemed to reassure them a little, for the perplexed ex-
pressions on their faces slowly eased and they began to regard
me with a little less fear. The boy minus the pants suddenly
became conscious of his condition and hurriedly put on his
trousers. I smiled at his embarrassment whereupon the pair
broke out into broad grins.

"Could you tell me what island I am on?" I asked.

Instantly the grins vanished and the boys appeared ready to
flee again. No doubt to them it was the most ridiculous ques-
tion in the world. They looked at each other and then at me as
if doubting my sanity.

"Don't run," I quickly told them. "You see, our boat was
wrecked on the reef up yonder," and I indicated the direction
from which I had come. "We were wrecked yesterday morn-
ing in the dark."

An expression of sorrow came over the two black faces and
the larger boy broke out with, "Oh, suh, I berry berry sorry
foh yo, suh, I feel berry hard foh yo."

Soon they became very voluble and told me that they had

The Basilisk ... a hope fulfilled in spreading sails and white hull

^-. ■ .^/

fe*^

r

1 i

-—rm

1

Above: in the center of the seething line lay all that remained of a

STOUT vessel

Beloiv: shipwreck camp, beyond the land sloped away to a semicircular

LAGOON OF EMERALD GREEN WATER

CACTI— SPEAKING iMUTELY OF A SCANTY EXISTENCE, OF SCORCHING SUN AND

PARCHED SOIL

EVERY HERMIT CRAB THINKS ITS NEIGHBOR S SHELL IS BIGGER AND BETTER THAN
THE ONE IT CARRIES. THEIR MIDNIGHT FIGHTS KEEP ALL BUT THE STURDIEST AWAKE

Nesophlox lynira, the inaguan hummingbird, is found nowhere else in

THE WORLD. A FEMALE

Miniiifiiiinliiiiiiiiiiitftiii

THE BLOSSOMS PROVIDED SWEET NECTAR AND MICROSCOPIC INSECTS. A MALE

NeSOphlox HUMMINGBIRD

THE SURF— AN AREA OF BITTER STRUGGLE

1

'^Wii^g^^rffff^^^^mwr-

Above: Sphaerodactylus— the smallest lizards in the world— their scur-

RYIXGS IN THE DARK REMINDED ONE OF THE MOVEMENTS OF INSECTS

Belong: the Anolis lizards— delicately colored creatures of gray tinged

WITH pale violet, SOFT YELLOW OR WARM BROWN

s-f ^

i ^-

T^

% /

Mu^

t

J

THE CHITONS— THE STANDPATTERS, THE FUNDAMENTALISTS OF THE SURF WORLD;
LIFE ROARS BY THEM, THEY MOVE NOT A SINGLE INCH

-^

h-M

AN Ameiva maynardii—A lizard of the lee, a vivid reptile of jet black,

BRIGHT YELLOW STRIPES AND A STOMACH OF ULTRAMARINE

'd ^■

THE iMOST GARGOYLISH, DEMONIACAL YET HUMAN-LIKE FACE. NONE OF THE
FROWNING STONE FIGURES ON THE HIGH PARAPETS OF NOTRE DAME ARE MORE WEIRD

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 51

been looking for turtle eggs when I had come upon them and
that they Uved on a "farm" some distance away. Here their
parents and a considerable assortment of uncles and aunts
dwelt in the summertime, but it was then winter and very cold
(about eighty in the shade) and that they had only come to the
fann to chase away the wild pigs that were rooting up the
vegetables. The island, of course, was Inagua, everyone knew
that.

So it was Inagua after all. That accounted for the small
island directly north of the point of the shipwreck. How we
ever slipped between Caicos and Mariguana on a due south
course without sighting land I do not know to this day. The
scene of our disaster was the northernmost point of the island
and the lagoon where we had seen the flamingo was called
Christophe. I asked the boys why it was named Christophe but
they did not know. They said it had always been named Chris-
tophe. It occurred to me that possibly it was named after Henri
Christophe, the Black Emperor of Haiti which was only eighty
or ninety miles to the south. Later I found this to be the case,
for a legend persisted that it was at this point that the builder of
the famous Citadel near Cape Haitian was supposed to have
constructed a summer palace. Here also in his last days before
the coming of the revolution which caused him to end his life
with a golden bullet, and which plunged Haiti into the dark
period from which it is only now emerging, he was supposed to
have cached a considerable sum of coin and bullion against a
day of need. What truth there was in the legend I do not know,
except that months later I discovered a number of cut stone
blocks and a pile of debris half hidden by overgrowing pal-
metto and lignum vitae trees a short distance back of the lagoon.

I fished the chart out of my pack and looked it over. The
map showed a very irregular island bearing the legend "flat
and wooded." There was little else to set it apart from the

52 I N A G U A

other islands of the Bahama Archipelago except its large size
and peculiar shape. On the opposite side of the island was a
settlement called A4athewtown. I asked the boys how distant
was the settlement. They replied that it was "far, far, far." The
repetition puzzled me somewhat but I found later that to re-
peat a word a number of times was a favorite Inaguan method
of emphasizing distance or quantity. The Lagoon Christophe
was only far, the farm far, far, and Mathewtown was far, far,
far.

I also discovered that there were some sailboats at the farm
and that the boys would be glad to lead me there. We headed
directly into the scrub, crossed a shallow lagoon and wound
into an almost invisible trail. It was a miserable thing at best,
beset with thorny cacti and was apparently used only by ani-
mals, for at shoulder height the branches locked together in
thorny embrace. This made it necessary to progress stoop-
shouldered, a most uncomfortable posture after a few minutes.

Occasionally the path dipped into muddy lowland or through
large patches of swamp mangrove. At times it vanished or be-
came so vague as to be scarcely discernible. The noise of our
approach flushed large flocks of birds, hordes of tiny ground
doves that fluttered ahead for a few yards, settled and flushed
again. Wild pigeons burst away amid a sudden whirring of
whistHng wings and once there was a great disturbance as a
hundred small parrots took wing at once screeching in anger.

Frequently we came upon small lakes or ponds with white
egrets and herons standing like figures from a Japanese print
along the borders. These were very tame and allowed us to
approach within a few feet before flapping away on gracefully
beating wings. The place was an ornithologist's paradise. Droves
of small sandpipers lined the edges of the ponds; myriads of
warblers slipped daintly among the branches, trilling and call-
ing in the lighthearted way of warblers— among these I recog-

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 53

nized a Maryland Yellow-throat and was thrilled at the sight;
and hummingbirds swooped dizzily between the thorn trees or
hung motionless on vibrating wings as they watched our prog-
ress.

Presently the trail broke out on the beach again, the northern
beach this time, and we continued to the west. The coast here
was quite different from the lovely sand beach that marked
the east coast. There was no fringing reef to break the force of
the sea and the surf was piling in huge masses of foam and spray
against a low bench of eroded gray stone. The bench was
pitted and cavemed out in great irregular holes and occasionally
we passed places where we could hear the water roaring in the
rock directly beneath our feet. In some spots the force of the
incoming combers had broken away the roofs of the under-
water caverns and great fountains of spray squirted up between
the openings. Once a small geyser came up between my legs,
wetting me thoroughly. The Inaguans shrieked with glee,
thinking it a great joke.

A few miles further on the beach became exceedingly dif-
ficult to walk upon. Coral rock quickly erodes with the action
of surf and spray and takes on the character and appearance of
a magnified sponge, only a sponge of needle sharp stone. Great
pits and holes, covered with a paper-thin layer of rock, await
the unwary step that treads thereon. Unless one moves care-
fully the foot will slip into such a trap and sHde down into a
needle lined pocket that cuts the flesh to ribbons. Through the
thin protection of my tennis shoes I could feel every irregu-
larity. I wondered how the black boys could walk barefooted
over such rock but when I examined the soles of their feet I
understood. They were covered with a half inch layer of heavy
callus almost of the consistency of horn. This horn extended
some distance up the foot where it thinned at the instep. They
were better protected against the rocks in bare feet than I was

54 I N A G U A

in tennis shoes.

In time we arrived at the "farm." We first saw a cluster of
four houses nestling in the shade of some short cocoanut palms.
At this point the rock bench had given place to a stretch of
gleaming beach, and a circular coral reef provided a rough but
reasonably secure anchorage. The houses were the usual thing
for that portion of the world, little one room huts of white
coral bearing brown roofs of palmetto thatching. They were
exceedingly picturesque and melted intangibly into the land-
scape. Beyond I could make out a few more huts and then a
long line of coast shimmering in the heat waves.

No one was about, but the boys said that we would find
their parents back in the woods worldng the farm. Once again
we plunged into the bushes. For some minutes we walked,
pushing aside thorn branches, struggling with vines and thread-
ing between clusters of prickly pear.

"Where's the farm?" I asked.

The black boys looked at me with queer expressions and
then with a sweep of their hands indicated the thorn scrub.
"Heah, suh."

It was my turn to register amazement, for all I could see was
a mass of tangled bushes and curling vines. But presently in all
the melee of vegetation I began to discover an isolated corn
stalk, a stand of two or three plants of some sort of grain,
guinea-grain probably, and close to the ground some sweet
potato vines. That was all. Good soil in the Bahamas is very
scarce and on certain islands is only to be found in eroded
pockets called "banana holes." Elsewhere the soil is only an
inch or so deep, much too shallow for row farming. So the
natives take advantage of every depression in which enough
dirt has collected to grow their vegetables. Some of the individ-
ual corn stalks were fifty feet apart. A garden patch that in
more prosperous parts of the world would cover fifty square

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" $5

feet must perforce in the Bahamas, or at least some of the
Bahamas, be stretched out over a multitude of acres.

Suddenly, from the interior, came a great shouting and
thrashing of branches and the sound of running feet. The noise
increased continually, intermingled with a terrified squealing
until out of the bushes there plunged a scrawny razorback hog
holding a sweet potato in its mouth. The hog saw us, swerved
careening in its flight and plunged at a tangent into the bushes.
After him, carrying stones and clubs, raced two men and a
woman who stopped when they saw us. The hog continued on
and could be heard blundering away through the vegetation.

"Dom hogs," said the elder of the two men, "dey gobble
eberyting on de place."

He came forward and extended his hand. The others came
forward too and I shook hands in turn. Like the boys they
were quite black, typically ragged, but seemed pleasant enough.
They introduced themselves as Thomas and David Daxon and
Ophelia. OpheHa was a long lanky woman clad in a dress that
was vaguely Victorian and she had a bright blue bandanna
wrapped around her head. Thomas was a small fellow with a
goatee and a round cherubic face that beamed with typical
negroid cheerfulness. The other, David Daxon, did not impress
me so favorably. He was a great hulking brute with a crafty,
almost porcine appearance.

I told them briefly of the wreck and of our situation. Thomas
shook his head sadly. "Dat's a turrible ting for a mon to lose
his boat," he said, "and in such a time as dis. I feel fob yo, suh,
I feel berry berry hard fob yo, suh. But we help yo, suh, we
salvage de wreckage, we salvage lots of boats, suh."

Somehow the remark that he had salvaged lots of boats did
not strike me so favorably, perhaps some inflection or eager-
ness in tone, and in some way I must have shown it, for al-
though I said nothing, he quickly added that he, Thomas, was

S6 I N A G U A

a very respectable person, in fact he was a minister of the Gos-
pel. I raised my eyes at this, for the Negro looked like anything
but a minister of the Gospel. He was wearing a shirt of faded
blue denim, an even more faded pair of pants with the seat and
knees sewn with off-color patches, and he possessed a huge pair
of bare horny scarred feet that appeared never to have had ac-
quaintance with a pair of shoes. The hulking David was in-
troduced as a deacon of the church. He looked the part even
less than the smaller and more kindly appearing Thomas. How-
ever, I allowed the matter to pass without comment and made
arrangements for their labor and the use of their boats which
were drawn up on the beach near by.

While the Inaguans were getting their vessels ready I drew
aside and sat down in the shade of a palm tree to rest and think.
In the meantime a number of other Negroes had made their ap-
pearance and were helping with the launchings. I noticed that
the big David had drawn a couple of these aside and was whis-
pering to them. I did not like this air of secrecy and made a
mental reservation to be on my guard. However, nothing fur-
ther occurred to cause any suspicion and in the rush of getting
the boats in the water I forgot the matter.

Nearly three hours later just as the sun was setting, tingeing
the rock with orange and yellow, we sailed into the Lagoon
Christophe. Two boatloads of us. Thomas and I in a small
sloop with a ragged sail that threatened every moment to part
from its boom, and David Daxon with some nephews and
other relatives in a larger craft that had every appearance of
disintegrating before our very eyes and plunging to the bot-
tom. We hesitated near the sparkling reef outside the lagoon,
sparred for an opening, and then with a rush slipped through
a tiny coral-bordered channel. As we entered, two large green-
back turtles swept out of the weed that lined the bottom,
circled for a moment or two and then dashed with long curling

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 57

sweeps of their flippers into the deeper water beyond the reef.

*'Dey eat de grass," Thomas informed me, indicating the
sea weed.

By this time Coleman had discovered us and came dashing
down through the palmettos.

It was a jolly reunion. He had not expected to see me again
for a number of days and had set about salvaging all he could.
Time and time again, he had gone out to the wreck and fought
his way inside to return with a load of tins and other materials.
He looked tired and weary and I noticed that his fingers were
wrinkled and drawn, like those of washerwomen, from being
in the water all day. His face and neck were burned a fiery red
from the glare and his shoulders sagged as he walked. But a con-
siderable pile on the beach showed the results of his efforts. I
introduced Thomas and David and then Ophelia who had
walked up the beach preferring the needle sharp rocks to the
boat which she said "made her stomach jumble."

By this time it was growing dark and Ophelia set about
preparing a fire on a patch of sand between two thickets of
mangroves. She asked if we cared to have her cook anything.
We gave her some cans from the beach and some flour that was
sealed in a watertight tank that we had had made for holding
specimens. She wanted the flour for bread but we were won-
dering how she was going to make it with neither utensils nor
oven. We then received our first lesson in island living.

She took a handkerchief full of the flour down to a flat rock
on the very edge of the lagoon. There she dabbled sea water
on it, kneading it the while until the dough was of the proper
consistency. We watched, fascinated. The sea water gave the
necessary salt, she said. I wondered how many isopods and
copepods, with which the water's edge was teeming, were
mixed with the dough, but said nothing. Satisfied that the mass
was in proper shape, Ophelia returned to the fire, which by this

58 I N A G U A

time was a great heaping bed of coals. With a stick she dug a
little trough in the center, lined it with hot sand and plopped
the dough in the cavity. Hot sand was poured on top and red
coals over the entirety. She then added more fuel to the fire
and sat back on her haunches.

*'Done soon," she said, and grinned.

The remainder of the meal was cooked in the tins that we
supplied her. Somehow I was reminded of the philosopher and
cynic Diogenes who lived in a tub and preached that owning
property was vanity. It is related that the learned sage elimi-
nated all his estate save the tub and one bowl which he used
for drinking. One day he observed a boy drinking at a foun-
tain with his hands. Ashamed, he returned "home" and cracked
the utensil in two pieces.

In time OpheHa stirred herself and, with pardonable pride at
our intense interest, raked away the coals and exposed a per-
fectly browned loaf. Coleman asked her how she knew it was
finished and she replied that she "jedged the time, suh." Grin-
ning from ear to ear, she handed it to us. Not a grain of sand
adhered to the crust and only a faint powdering suggested the
presence of ashes. We complimented her and she nearly rolled
into the water with pleasure. We found it to be a little flat
but a jar of jam that Coleman fished out of the sand along the
beach made it very tasty indeed. The bread inside was as white
and as pretty as that of a bakery loaf.

Further proof of the self sufficiency of these island folk was
evidenced after supper when we hauled two folding cots
which Coleman had salvaged from the wreckage down to the
lagoon. On these we prepared our blankets and made ready for
sleep. By the time we had them folded Ophelia and Thomas
were snoring on the ground and the hulking David was keep-
ing noisy accompaniment. Their only coverings were some
thin rags which they wrapped, ostrich fashion, about their

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 59

heads. The other Negroes disposed themselves Hkewise, sleep-
ing like so many crocodiles on the bare sand.

For a time Coleman and I made a brave effort at slumber, for
we both v^ere near exhaustion. But the mosquitoes and sand
flies would not have it. From out of the mangroves and from
the ground beneath they came in swarming myriads to sing
into our ears and burrow into our hides. We tried pulling the
blankets over our heads like the Inaguans but it was too hot.
We looked at the prostrate forms on the sand. The mosquitoes
and sand flies might have been in Mars for all they cared. Finally
we could stand it no longer.

"Let's get out of here," exclaimed Coleman and jumped to
his feet.

In the dark we lugged our cots to the bluff overlooking the
wreck. At last we had peace, for there the trade winds were
blowing from off the ocean in a steady cool current driving the
distracting hordes before them.

Early in the morning Ophelia came up the bluff to tell us
that breakfast was ready. She appeared as fresh as a daisy. We
asked her how she stood the mosquitoes.

She replied, "Oh, dem tings— dey don like black folk." And
she grinned, "Dey's no skeeter now, wait till de rains come."

Some days later we had all our wreckage piled in one spot on
the shore of the lagoon Christophe. It was a considerable jum-
ble. A vast pile of tins glittering in the sunlight assured us of
food for some time to come though we lost many in the heat
of the sun which caused the cans to burst. At times the burst-
ings sounded like miniature cannonades as can after can ex-
ploded, squirting jets of vegetable in the air. We remedied the
situation by covering them vv^ith the leaves of palmetto. Our
precious books, stained with water and gritty with sand, lay
in piles where we had dropped them, and under spare canvas
was the remainder of our instruments.

6o I N A G U A

Off on the reef lay all that was left of the Basilisk. We had
stripped her of her canvas, of the running rigging and of
everything that would come loose. Meanwhile the surf had
ground a great hole in her side and she was badly splintered.
Most amazing was the distance which some of the wreckage
had floated. Bits of paper, splintered pieces of wood, tins of
one sort or another were strewn up and down the beach for
ten miles in either direction. We gathered in everything that
was worthwhile and piled it with the other material at the
Lagoon Christophe.

We then loaded the wreckage in the two ramshackle boats,
piling the tins in the bottom and the more fragile material on
top. The ship's papers and sextant I wrapped carefully in a
canvas and placed under a deck beam. When we were through,
the gunwales were only a few inches above water and we
began to doubt if we could progress as far as the houses without
swamping.

We set sail early the next morning shortly after the sun had
risen. I was sorry to leave the spot and with Coleman climbed
the bluff to take a last look at the wreck. For me it was an ex-
tremely bitter moment and I think Coleman felt likewise. In
the months that had passed we had become very attached to
our tiny ship. We had gone through the worst kind of misery
on her decks, we had spent sleepless sodden days in her cabin
but she was our ship and the parting came hard. Through the
dismal murk of a November fog she had carried us; through
the awful battering of a mid-winter storm she had fought with
us against the sea and we were loath to leave her lying broken
on the reef. But there was no way out of it and in the end we
quietly turned and made our way down to the lagoon. Even
the blacks felt our mood and made no remark as we cHmbed
into their boats.

On the wings of a billowing trade we swept out of the

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 6i

lagoon and turned to the west. A mile or so away we could
make out the white dress of Ophelia bobbing up and down as
she scampered goat-like over the rocks. Although we had a
strong wind behind us we were so heavily laden we did not
catch up with her until we neared the huts. There we stopped
for a few hours while everyone turned out for another spree of
hog chasing. While the Negroes were in the bushes Coleman
and I took the opportunity to examine the settlement. A total
of six tiny dwellings nestled close together a few yards behind
the beach. The hut walls were of broken coral rock plastered
together with lime and neatly whitewashed with the same
material. The lime, we learned, was extracted from the coral by
burning. Four of the dwellings were thatched with palm leaves
tied with a simple but ingenious fiber knot on a lattice frame;
the other two were covered with grass and reeds. The doors
and windows were constructed of planks that had drifted on
the beach— on some we could still see the tell-tale mark of
barnacles— and were hung with home-made, hand-carved
wooden hinges. Total cost— nothing, except labor. None con-
tained furniture other than a rickety table or two made from
driftwood. The Inaguans, like most peasants in the out-islands,
sleep on the floor on grass mats which they roll up and stow
away in the morning. Here life was on its simplest terms.

In time the crew returned, satisfied that the wild hogs had
the fear of man properly instilled in them. Once again we
raised the ragged sails and turned down the coast. As I settled
myself on the deck I could not help but marvel at the strange
shaping of events that placed us in precisely the position that
we had built the Basilisk to avoid. All our months of planning
and planning again had availed us exactly nothing; we were
again dependent on the natives and native boats. For a brief
time we discussed the possibility of continuing our voyage in
one of the native shells but when we saw that both ships had

62 I N A G U A

to pump water every twenty or thirty minutes to keep afloat
we knew it was a hopeless situation. We were stuck on the
island and there were no two ways about it. We began to
examine the coast more carefully.

Mile upon mile it stretched away, a long low line of green
that faded into infinity. Some distance in the interior a few
low hills rose slightly and then sloped away again to the gen-
eral level. Once in a great while we passed a series of palms
shooting up from the shore like vegetable rockets frozen in
mid-air. Back of these was an impenetrable jungle that lay
somnolent in the sun. But it was a pleasing scene. Against the
brown rock along the shore the incoming combers broke in
great welters of foam, mounted high in the air and slid down
again in pure white froth. We looked in vain for houses. David
Daxon informed us that there were none between his "farm"
and the "city." The "city" we deduced was Mathewtown.

At noon Daxon announced that he was going to roast some
corn. From some debris on the deck he hauled out some sticks
of wood and a box full of sand. In this he kindled a fire and
shortly had such a hearty blaze going that it nearly drove us
from the deck. Coughing and weeping from the smoke we
watched him hold the com in the fire until it was sHghtly
charred. He then wolfed it down, smacking his lips in enjoy-
ment. We tried some, but our palates, spoiled from years of
civilized living, rebelled. It was about as dry and as tasteful
as sawdust and about as easy to swallow. Coleman crawled
down in the hold and fished up a tin from which the label had
been washed but which proved to be Bartlett pears and more
to our taste.

Daxon estimated that we would reach Mathewtown in about
eight hours but at dusk all we could see was the long line of
coast stretching away mile after mile. Just as the sun was setting
a great bank of inky clouds began to form on the horizon,

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 63

piling higher and higher, adding to their bulk, until in the
gathering murk we could see the fitful brilliance of sheet light-
ning. I suggested to Daxon that we haul up on shore for the
night lest we be caught in the gathering storm. He gravely in-
dicated the barely visible line of barrier reef on which the
surf crashed and thundered in measured cadence. In an un-
broken line it extended to the west, curving and bending, but
not showing a single opening. The nearest entrance he in-
formed us was at Sheep Cay, three miles away. There if the tide
was not too low we might find a safe anchorage.

Anxiously we watched the clouds, saw them gather in vol-
ume and spread over the horizon. Soon the sound of thunder
came across the water, rolling and echoing, diminishing and
breaking out again. Presently in the flare of sheet lightning we
made out the low form of Sheep Cay, a small island lying close
to the mainland. The barrier reef swept up to the edge of the
cay, there terminated and continued on again on the far side.
Try as we might we could not see any evidence of a channel.
Daxon, however, seemed to know what he was doing and
headed straight for the reef. For long moments we could see
nothing, then in a glare of brilliance we could distinguish the
long line of swells mounting up and up and then pouring over
the coral in a halo of mist and spray.

"I hope this chap knows where he is going," whispered Cole-
man, "I've had enough coral for one week."

Closer and closer we drifted, dipping sHghtly on the swells,
mounting to their crests and dipping on again. Rain began to
patter with a singing sound as it hit the water and a chill breeze
sprang and then died as quickly as it came. By the next flash we
saw we were no more than fifty feet from the reef. Still we
could see no channel but Daxon kept on straight for the beach.
Once he swerved the tiller slightly and in the brief flash that
followed I saw that he was lining up his bow with the edge of

64 I N A G U A

the island and a grove of palms on the shore.

On we drifted, ever so slowly then, for it was dead calm.
The second flash showed us but three wave crests away from
the coral, then two, and finally just when it seemed that we
were about to crash a tiny opening appeared through which
the foam rushed in broken torrent. To each side was a fearful
welter and in the fitful light we could see the broad fans of
coral protruding through the surf. We poised high in the air
and then gently, accompanied by little windrows of froth,
slipped into the lagoon and safety.

"Phew," sighed Coleman, as we slid weakly on the deck,
"what a night! "

Momentarily, we expected the storm to break but seemingly
disappointed at our escape, the clouds dispersed. Presently the
moon shone through. But the evening's adventures were not
yet over for just as we were congratulating ourselves on the
way the weather turned out we ran hard on a sandbar and there
stuck fast. We pushed and pulled, heaved and swore but that
was all the good it did. Daxon sighed wearily, muttered some-
thing about waiting for the tide to rise and then sat down on
the deck. He was soon asleep, his limp head rolling back and
forth with the slight rocking of the boat. The relatives fol-
lowed suit, slumping on the timbers, and a chorus of snores
soon echoed across the rippling lagoon.

"I guess we might as well get some, too," I remarked to Cole-
man and sHd down in the hold out of the reach of the wind.

The sound of voices and a trampling on the deck roused me
from slumber. On the other side of the hatch I could hear Cole-
man twitching on the bed of canvas that he had made from the
crumpled sails. I felt uncomfortably warm and perspiration
oozed from every pore. It was pitch dark and from down along
the bilge came the smell of long dead fish and foul water. I
nudged Coleman, heard him grunt something about "Idiots

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 6$

that won't let people sleep," and then heard him crawl to the
hatch. Together we pulled ourselves to the deck. It was still
dark and a faint mist hung over the water hiding the shore from
which we could faintly hear the surge of surf. Daxon was at
the tiller again, but the relatives were still snoring in a tangled
heap on the deck.

"Where are we?" I asked Daxon.

"Man-of-War Bay," he grunted. "We be Mathewtown by
sunrise."

We looked bleary-eyed at the vague defines of the shore-
line and once at the star-spangled profusion of the sky above.
There was little else to be seen except the white outlines of
the little breakers as they lisped along the rail. I lay down near
the mast and Coleman slumped in a heap near the tiller. There
we must have drowsed for when I again opened my eyes it was
to see a faint glimmer of dayHght in the east.

About a hundred yards inshore I could make out a high
gray line of beetling cliff against which the surf rose and fell
in lazy fashion as though tired from the night's calm. As I
watched we gently turned a point of land and headed toward
the south. "Mathewtown," Daxon grunted and nodded in the
direction of the Southern Cross which was hanging lopsided on
the horizon. At first we could see nothing. But then through
the gray there began to loom the nearly intangible bulk of sev-
eral buildings. Presently the light grew stronger and we could
distinguish the scene more clearly. Near the beach rose a large
square building with red shutters and back of that stood several
other structures with tall flagpoles beside them looking like
the masts of some gaunt ship that had been wrecked and lost
its rigging. Dimly we could See some tall lanky trees that we
recognized by their grotesque shape as cashurinas and clus-
tered between them an assortment of other buildings grading
in size down to little one room huts with thatched roofs.

66 I N A G U A

Suddenly the morning quiet was broken by a frightful din.
From the seemingly deserted streets came the crashing of
metal, a tremendous blowing of horns and clanging of bells.
Louder it grew in volume, appeared to be moving up one
street and then another. Coleman and I sat bolt upright.

"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Coleman. "What's going on
here?"

As he spoke the noise blared in sudden crescendo and burst
from the street by the building with red shutters. Along with
the noise there issued into view a motley group of people, a mix-
ture of black and tan, a singing, cheering crowd that was wav-
ing flags, pounding on drums and kettles, rattling huge cow-
bells, strumming an assortment of stringed instruments and
yelling its lungs out. The crowd turned into a street near the
beach, marched for a block or two and turned inland.

"What is it," we asked Daxon, "a revolution?"

"No, suh," he grinned, "dey is serenading Christmas."

"Christmas!" gasped Coleman. "My gosh, I had forgotten
all about it."

And I laughed to think of other Christmases; of long gray
days in more northern lands, where the snow was drifted deep
and where somber green pines stood dark against the white; or
roaring fires and family gatherings. I thought of another Christ-
mastide, several years past, when in a lonely little Haitian town
a single white man and I had trudged miles up the mountain-
sides, past the area of royal palms and into the cool heights
above that we might find a pine tree to decorate with finery
for this man's children. I smiled again to think of how he had
substituted painted gourds and alligator pears for Christmas
balls and had cut tin foil from cigarette cartons for tinsel. And
again, of the wonderment of these tropic-born children at this
marvel of a tree brought from the heights three thousand feet
above. From far and wide the Haitian peasantry had come to

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 67

see this strange thing, this pine tree decorated with red and
blue and golden spangles. Still another Christmas came to mind
when I had deserted the family fireside, had loaded a canoe
with tent and blanket and axe and had departed in the midst
of a drifting snow storm in the heart of a great Eastern swamp.
Though the wind blew in great gusts and the snow piled deep
on the cat-tails and the leaves of the giant trees billowed to
the ground in brown mounds, that was the most peaceful
Christmas of all, for on the wings of the wind a certain content-
ment crept into my body, a satisfaction born of the beauty of
wood and meadowland, of singing flakes and the rustling of
long dead marsh grass. Once Christmas had come upon me far
out to sea in a dirty, rolling fishing trawler, and that was a
somber day when through all the hours we fought a gray cold
sea and strove to haul nets and sort sodden, sharp-scaled fish.

But this was the strangest Christmas, this day when Coleman
and I, perched on the deck of Daxon's boat, rode slowly into
Mathewtown roads. Presently the noise of the serenaders faded
into the back streets and then ceased as abruptly as it had be-
gun. Daxon told us that it was the custom thus to usher in
the Christmas season; every morning at sunrise and every eve-
ning at sunset the spirit of Christmas was serenaded for several
weeks. What a strange habit, I thought, but then recollected
that at that very moment, miles to the north, owners of depart-
ment stores and haberdasheries were hiring professional choirs
to sing carols on their door steps— mercenary hymns in the hope
of attracting trade. They, too, were serenading Christmas, the
music more sophisticated— but there came the gentle reminder
that the makers of the frightful din ashore expected nothing
more of the racket than the pleasure they had in making it.

My Christmas reveries were broken short by the swish of
oars from a rowboat approaching from the beach. Sitting in
the stern was a heavy jowled black man holding a furled um-

68 I N A G U A

brella across his knees.

Coleman, who is of a medical turn of mind, gave the Negro
a quick look, then turned and whispered, "Three head tumors,
confirmed alcoholic and bad kidneys— don't like him."

I nodded agreement although, not being medical, I had not
noticed the presence of tumors or kidney symptoms.

"Who's this? " I asked Daxon who was sitting motionless by
the anchor rope.

"Oh, suh, he berry important mon heah."

We turned again to look at this "berry important mon" and
decided after a short scrutiny that we did not like him any
better than before. In spite of the sun that was by then well
above the horizon he was wearing a heavy coat and vest, raiment
suitable for a northern winter, which was causing him to break
out in a profuse perspiration. Pompousness oozed from his very
being and was heightened by a thick linked gold watch chain
of the vintage of 1 890 which was draped ostentatiously across
his chest.

"Wonder what this chap wants," Coleman whispered again,
"or is he a sort of official greeter?"

The rowboat drew alongside and the man introduced him-
self as a Mr. Richardson. His business, he informed us, was
that of handling ship salvage. It was the custom, he explained,
for shipwrecked persons to turn over their affairs to duly ap-
pointed agents— of which he was the foremost— who handled
all details of government tax, sale of wreckage and salvage fees.
We, of course, would receive our portion— about eight per cent
of the total value of the wrecked goods, or possibly a little less
depending on the results of the auction sale which, as we no
doubt knew, would be held over our property in the near
future. When the island's commissioner permitted us to land
we would find Mr. Richardson at home in the large white
house near the government building where he would be very

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 69

happy to discuss the matter further.

With this astounding information our newly formed ac-
quaintance gave a wave of his hand and departed for the shore
under the shade of the umbrella which he had raised against
the sun. For a moment we were speechless, and then Coleman
swore— vividly and luridly.

"How did that fellow know we were shipwrecked?"

"I'm sure I don't know," I assured him, "maybe this Daxon
outfit got word to him— possibly we had better get ashore and
find out what it is all about."

"What about going ashore," I called to Daxon.

"Yas, suh, Cap'n, jus' as soon as we gets permission from de
Commissioner— he be down as soon as he eat breakfas'."

Eight o'clock came and passed, then nine. By nine-thirty
the heat on deck was becoming unbearable. By ten both Cole-
man and I were thoroughly out of patience.

"If this chap doesn't come soon I'm going ashore anyway,"
Coleman grumbled. "What does he think we are going to do,
steal his blasted island? "

He began to untie the painter of the small skiff which we
were towing astern. His designs, however, were frustrated by
the arrival of a small boat bearing two messages— one from Mr.
Richardson requesting our attendance at dinner and the other
from the Commissioner giving us permission to land. Attached
to the Commissioner's message was a note asking our presence
in the government building— the one with red shutters— to
stand trial at one o'clock.

We looked at each other nonplussed.

"What do you make of that," I asked. "Did you murder
somebody and not let me in on it? What are we supposed to
goon trial for?"

"Search me," he replied, "I haven't done anything."

A few seconds later we sHd up on the beach, jumped quickly

70 I N A G U A

before the dash of the incoming combers and then with a pull
and a heave drew the small boat out of the way of the curling
surf. Above, the sand graded into a steep slope which we
mounted quickly and then strode into the first street of the
town.

The place was a ruin!

Vacant and broken windows stared at us from tumbled and
deserted houses. Roofs careened at crazy angles and through
great gaping holes in their surfaces we could see golden splashes
of sunlight that filtered into the darkened interiors. Flattened
fragments of long deserted garden walls lay in piles where they
had fallen, dislodged by the elements, and the flowers of these
gardens had long since run riot and were strewn in hopeless
profusion in a tangle of weeds and broad padded prickly pear.

The streets reeked with an air of desolation and economic
poverty, an atmosphere that was heightened by the fact that
the settlement must have, in a time long past, experienced a
wave of prosperity, a period of affluence. For the streets were
broad and well laid out, lined with gutters, and house suc-
ceeded house in trim design. But that was long ago, for the once
painted shutters hung crazily on rusted hinges, had disinte-
grated little by little or had dropped into the weeds by the wall
edges. Some of the houses lacked shutters altogether, so long
had these fallen or crumbled into dust. Through the gaping
windows we could see the remnants of smooth floors, barren
spaces drifted thick with leaves, broken debris and shingles
slipped from the roofs above. Here and there betwixt the
ruined buildings were houses still occupied but these, too, like
their ruined neighbors, transmitted a feeling of sadness. Only
the government building with its bright red shutters gave any
hint of prosperity or soHdity.

Abashed and silent with the sheer poignancy of the ruined
village we failed to notice a barefooted mulatto who shuffled

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 71

up with a note reminding us that Mr. Richardson was waiting
and that dinner was ready. Following the servant we entered a
large house near the waterfront and ascended a flight of rickety
stairs. We were ushered into a dim Victorian parlor from
which we could look down on the beach and the blue water
beyond. Here we waited for what seemed an interminable time
before the curtains at the far end of the room parted and our
host appeared.

He led us into another room and introduced us to his wife,
a rather sweet-faced colored woman with graying hair who
wore an expression of indefinable weariness almost in keeping
with the feeling of sadness suggested by the desolate streets
outside. Her expression was heightened by vivid contrast with
the heavy features of Richardson. His lips were thick and
pendulous and the flesh hung loosely about his jaws. Alcoholic
dissipation showed plainly in deep rings under his eyes which
were bloodshot and veined. He was not a pretty creature. But
he seemed affable enough and motioned us to a table laden with
dishes of green okra, peas and rice, and a meat which he told
us was wild beef from the interior.

Dinner was not a success. Neither Coleman nor I were in
any mood for conversation and with the passing moments we
mistrusted our host more. It soon became evident that the in-
vitation was not prompted by any spirit of friendliness but for
the sole purpose of ascertaining our position and the value of
our wreckage. The picture that Richardson unfolded was any-
thing but encouraging. We were told of a long list of ships
that had come to grief on the reefs of Inagua, of how only the
year before a big f ourmaster had piled up on the rocks beyond
Man-of-War Bay and of how out of all the salvaged wreckage
the captain was only able to reahze a mere two hundred and
fifty dollars, enough to secure his passage home. The crew
were picked up and returned by passing steamers. He, Rich-

72 I N A G U A

ardson, had handled the affair— we, no doubt, were familiar
with the details of the procedure. The government required
the sale of wrecked and salvaged goods, the proceeds being
divided between the wreckers, the agent and the government,
the remainder going to the original owners. The remainder,
we gathered, was very little. In fact, we deduced that if the
captain of a ship worth several hundred thousand dollars real-
ized only two hundred and fifty out of his wreck our returns
would be so infinitesimal as to be visible only under a micro-
scope.

It was really very unfortunate, but— we were informed with
a smile— there was really no use trying to circumvent the
matter, it was the custom and the law. And furthermore— here
Richardson settled in his chair and bit oif the end of a huge
cigar— he, Richardson, owned most of the island, controlled its
affairs, the people did as he wished, all matters were referred to
him for decision. It was very unfortunate that we were ship-
wrecked but he would see that we were properly treated—

The man's condescending manner and arrogant speech were
becoming so irritating that we did not trust ourselves to speak.
But our silence did not faze the Inaguan a bit, for he swept
grandiosely on. He told us of how he started life with nothing
but his bare hands and a determination to get ahead, of how by
sheer cleverness he had overcome tremendous odds, and of
how little by little he had assumed control of the island's affairs,
until at the peak of his years he was master of it all.

It was a boastful, conceited story, baldfaced and presumptu-
ous in the details of how by one trick or another he had secured
property after property, all the island's wealth. I glanced out
the window and took in the sweep of deserted and decaying
houses and the thought crept into my mind that perhaps this
man's ambition was the cause of all this desolation.

On and on he continued until Coleman and I began to squirm

"INAGUA IS A QUEER LITTLE ISLAND" 73

in our seats. The Negro seemed to sense our helplessness, for he
grinned in evident enjoyment. Lolling back in his chair he bit
off another piece of the big cigar and grinned again.

"You know," he said, and the grin twisted into an odd smile,
"Inagua is a queer little island— in fact, you'll find it a damned
queer little island."

CHAPTER V

An Island Existence

In time we were to discover that Inagua was not only a
*'damned queer little island" but also one of those strange,
exotic and truly fascinating spots where fact borders close to
the marvelous. We were to find it a scene of almost unbeliev-
able beauty where color and movement, the wealth of natural
existence, was woven into a fretwork of intricate and absorb-
ing pattern. Yet we were, withal, to know it as a place inde-
finably sad, a peculiar, pathetic, wistful place where human
endeavor seemed to come to naught but emptiness and desola-
tion. There are times when I think of it as a place of unsof tened
newness, an island with the touch of the hard sea still upon it,
raw, a geologic experiment thrust up from the ocean by the
designing hand of nature. But paradoxically, and more often,
I think of it as a place of intense quiet, even of contentment,
a sea-born island of strange happenings where the beautiful,
the mystifying and the purely spectacular change one with the
other in kaleidoscopic variety.

But for the moment we knew none of these things and only
thought of it in the light of Richardson's words. Inagua was a
"damned queer little island." We felt there could be no doubt
of it as we thankfully emerged from his doorway, happy to
escape. It was good to be out in the open again and we wished
that we were back at the Lagoon Christophe, that we had never
come to this forsaken town. But there was no help for it so
we stepped across the street to the red-shuttered government
building. A small crowd of idlers lounging in the shade of some
cashurinas stared as we approached; I was startled by the

74

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 75

inbreeding of races, the accidents of miscegenation, which
were revealed by their features. Pale blue eyes peered out of
faces that were unmistakably negroid, blonde hair with an irre-
pressible frizzy kink betrayed countenances that were English
with thin English noses; British freckles fought for dominance
with the pigment of old Africa; African lips hung thickly from
light-hued Anglo-Saxon cheeks.

But it was not the racial mixture alone that caught the eye.
There was no laughter in the faces, a certain light seemed to
have gone out of them, some inner substance missing, leaving
them lackluster and wan. There was even an air of sullenness, a
sense of frustration expressed in the curve of eyes and the
droop of mouths.

The idlers made way and we crossed the threshold of a long
narrow room. At the far end was a small door through which
gleamed the intense blue of the ocean beyond. Even as we
looked a mound of surf curled up, broke, and slid on the beach
in a layer of gleaming foam. We turned and glanced about.
Beneath a British Colonial flag on a judicial bench sat a spot-
lessly attired colored man. His features were smooth, straight,
a not unhandsome person. About his face hovered the trace of
a half-amused, half-supercilious smile which, as the minutes
passed, rarely changed. Next to him stood a middle-aged Negro
resplendent in uniform of red and blue trimmed in gold braid.
We were waved to a seat between several Inaguans.

"Are you ready. Captain?"

I replied that I was quite ready but would like to know with
what we were charged.

We were informed that we had landed on British Colonial
Territory without proper entry and that it was necessary to
hold an inquest over the "tragedy of the shipwreck." I assured
the Negro that the "tragedy of the shipwreck" was not of our
choice and that we had not made improper entry into His

76 I N A G U A

Majesty's dominions simply for the fun of it. The smile broad-
ened perceptibly, then lapsed into its accustomed faintness.

Coleman was led from the room by the uniformed aide and
the trial began. I took a solemn oath "to tell the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, so help me," and sealed it by
kissing a huge Bible which lay on the desk. On the Commis-
sioner's request I told the entire story of the shipwreck start-
ing from the day of departure, all of which was carefully in-
scribed in a book filled with flowing handwriting. I told of how
we had put to sea, of our battle with the storm, and of how
exhausted and weary, we had at last found journey's end on
the reefs of the Lagoon Christophe. I told him the purposes of
the voyage and how we had come on the deck of Daxon's boat
to Alathewtown. But I might have been reciting "Mary had a
little lamb" for all the effect it had on the ebony-faced Com-
missioner. The smile never wavered and the words went down
in smooth sequence in the little volume.

When I was finished I was dismissed and waved to a seat
again. Coleman was brought in. Once again we left the solid
land, battled the hurricane and fought the wintry seas. One by
one the words of the recitation entered the little book, near to
overflowing with fine Spencerian script. At last we were
through, over the reefs again, the voyage done. Coleman sat
down beside me.

The Commissioner folded the little book, passed it to the
uniformed Negro and sat thoughtfully for a minute, tapping the
desk. From down on the beach through the open door we
could hear the sigh of the surf, the sound of water sliding up on
the sand and slithering back again. A full dozen times the swish
and sigh of the breakers filled the room with their noise and
subsided. At last came the decision.

"I suppose I can release you," said the Commissioner, "but I
am afraid I will find it necessary to hold all your equipment

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 77

pending the re^sults of the auction sale which, as you probably
have been told,"— the smile broadened again— "is customary
with shipwrecked goods. The government retains one third of
the proceeds, the salvoys an equal amount and the remainder
is divided between the agent and yourselves. Possibly you will
realize enough to secure passage home."

Filled with dismay at this turn of events I drew a sheaf of
papers containing some correspondence relative to the expedi-
tion between the Colonial Secretary in Nassau and the Secre-
tary of State in Washington.

"Here, do these alter the situation in any way?"

The Commissioner read them gravely and without a change
of expression handed them back.

"I'm sorry, but until I communicate with the Government
in Nassau, I will be forced to hold your materials. You are free
to go now if you wish."

We strode to the door and out into the street.

"Well, what do we do now?" asked Coleman.

I replied that I did not have the faintest idea but thought
that inasmuch as there was not much else in prospect we might
as well find a place to camp. We had to sleep somewhere and
until the Commissioner saw fit to release our equipment we had
to make the best of a bad situation.

We turned up a long straight street bordered with ruined
houses. The idlers dropped behind, that is, all except one who
followed at a rapid pace. He called to us and we stopped and
waited.

The man came closer, a sallow thin-faced fellow with bare
scarred feet who introduced himself as D'arvril. He said he had
something to show us, something very beautiful. Clutched in
his hand was a tightly bound handkerchief. Carefully he un-
wrapped the cloth. Nestling in its folds was a tiny round object,
an ovoid that shimmered with an iridescent gleam— a pink pearl.

78 I N A G U A

It was about the size of a small pea. We could have it for $35.

Coleman laughed.

"Mister," he said, "that's a very pretty bauble, but if ham-
burgers were selling for a nickel a dozen I couldn't even pay
for the steam to cook them."

D'arvril appeared mystified at the word "hamburgers"— and
disappointedly wrapped up his pearl again. It was a pretty
thing, all pink with the delicate conch hue and waves of scarlet
light moved across its roundness. He explained that they came
from the conch shells which were fished up beyond the reefs.
But we were in no position to buy pearls. I had about twenty
dollars in my pocket, Coleman had even less. All our traveler's
checks had been ruined in the wreck and there was no place
on Inagua to cash them even if they were available. We had no
idea where supper was coming from, nor where we were going
to sleep. So the Inagua pearl market went begging.

D'arvril, no longer interested, dropped behind and in a few
minutes we were free of the houses. It was a very tiny town,
a forlorn little place, sleeping out the hours in decaying somno-
lence, a desert island settlement that was rapidly returning to
the soil from which it had sprung. We were glad to be clear
of it and with quickened pace headed up the coast.

In a short time the beach gave way to a beetling wall of cliff,
a frowning mound of brown coral against which the surf splin-
tered and thundered in a thousand frothy fragments. With a
rush and a roar the great mounds of indigo water came swelling
in, rose mightily, mounted higher and higher and then with a
crash poured over the rocks. Brilliant sunUght caught the tum-
bled water, vividly lighted it and dissolved again in liquid blue,
a shimmering blueness that went down, down into the depths.
It was so ahve, so clean and free, in such contrast to the sadness
and decay of the town that we caught our breaths and sUd
prone on the rocks just out of reach of the foam.

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 79

We rested silently, watching the seething water. It was the
first time we had had in several weeks to be alone, to think a
bit. Expedition gone, property tied up, money unavailable,
greedy natives waiting to snatch our goods, we needed a few
minutes to ourselves. The picture did not look too cheerful.
What were the museum people going to think? What were
we going to write them? How to explain the fiasco?

Coleman broke into the reverie.

"You know," he said, half thoughtfully, "this is a right
pretty place, the way the surf slides up on those rocks, up there
is a break in the cliff with a bit of sand beach, and there is a lot
of cacti in back to give us privacy— why can't we locate here,
possibly we could build ourselves one of those coral houses
and save something out of this expedition after all? There is
nothing for us down there in the town, and the inhabitants
don't seem so cheerful. How about it?"

I glanced at the great mounds of swelling water, the brown
coral rock, the sunlit beach, the green vegetation behind. It was
a pretty spot. Why not? About us were tons of loose boulders
and palmetto plants in abundance. There was plenty of ma-
terial.

Why not? I jumped to my feet, hope swelling again. But
then the thought came that we had no tools, not even an axe.
Perhaps we could persuade the Commissioner to let us have a
few necessities until he heard from Nassau. It was decided that
I should return to the settlement and talk to the official while
Coleman scouted around for a good location for camp.

The ebony-faced Commissioner, still faintly smihng, heard
my request for a few necessities, hesitatingly agreed— he seemed
not nearly so cold a fellow on second sight— gave the uni-
formed aide a key and told him to allow us to secure what we
needed from our supplies which had been ferried from the
boats to a stone shed. He turned to me then, explained that he

8o I N A G U A

was very sorry that he could not help me further, but that
Richardson would probably make trouble if he turned our
property over to us— apparently the letter from the Secretary
of State and our other papers had made some impression— but
that he would do his utmost until he heard from Nassau.

When I reached the chff again, staggering under a load of
canvas, rope and tin cans, Coleman was nowhere to be found.
Dropping the load on the ground I wiped the sweat from my
eyes and shouted. Soon he came plunging out of the bushes,
face beaming. Beckoning for me to come, he turned and disap-
peared between a clump of bay lavender and some lignum
vitae. I followed. He pointed ahead. Not fifty feet away, nes-
tling between two massive cacti, was a dwelUng, a tiny coral
and thatch hut.

Somewhere from the list of books long since read and nearly
forgotten a passage hurtled out of the dim recesses of memory
and fixed itself at that moment on my mind. Homes, it said,
were not made for man but for the spiders. Man only leases
them for a while, builds them, fills their rooms with his voice,
with his laughter, with his tears, quarrels and angers, uses them
as a refuge against the elements, as a place to bear and rear his
children, to sleep in and be comfortable in— only in the end to
turn them over to their final inmates, the eight-legged spiders.
It is the fate of all houses if they are not claimed first by fire,
catastrophe or the destruction of war. Soon or late the gay
voices are stilled, gone away or forever hushed. Children like
birds leave the nest, old people die or go to greener fields, and
the spiders move in quietly to spin their webs, to draw gossa-
mer veils over the dust of things best forgotten.

The spiders had long since claimed this house.

A great yellow and black one slid silently to one side and
vanished over the lintel as we pushed open the creaking door.
Looking up I could see the faint iridescent gleam of its ocelli

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 8i

as it stared unblinking from the safety of a crevice. One of its
webs brushed stickily against my cheek. I untangled it and it
clung to my fingers. Drawing them aside the web fell away
from the door jamb and exposed some dim pencil marks spread
in half inch spans amid some scribbled dates. There were simi-
lar marks on the door jamb of my own home eighteen hundred
miles to the north. These lines marked the tops of the heads
of growing children as they sprouted year by year. The high-
est line was dated August 19 14, the month of the year when
the Great War began.

I pushed a shutter and it fell among the weeds with a crash.
Sunlight streamed through the newly opened window reveal-
ing the dusty spaces of two diminutive rooms. This had been
a very poor house, a roof and four walls, little more. But it
did boast of a wooden floor that was still solid though it creaked
mournfully in spots. The roof was almost all intact. A few
palmetto leaves would make it tight. The walls were of coral,
still faintly white with lime beneath the dust of a decade.

With a broom fashioned from a stick and a bunch of leaves
tied with a vine we cleaned the place of webs and chased the
spiders back beneath the rock walls from whence they had
originally come. Only one was allowed to remain, the big black
and yellow fellow over the lintel. We tried to coax it out but
it only drew deeper into its crevice, glaring balefully at these
trespassers on its rightful domain. Down to the sea we went
with a square of canvas, dipped it in a surf-carved pool and
returned staggering under a load of warm sea water. We
splashed it mightily over the walls and along the floors until
they ran with the flood. From one corner we kicked out the
faded body of an orange and yellow land crab that had come
there long ago to die. Its shell clattered across the floor and fell
into a dozen pieces.

When we had it all clean, though still damp from the salt

82 I N A G U A

water, we stepped back and admired our handiwork. We could
not have asked for a nicer spot. The massed cacti in the rear
broke the force of the trade winds sweeping in from the east,
and our house so fitted into the landscape that a few yards away
it was all but invisible. The weeds and prickly pear still
hemmed it in and made walking in the yard difficult but an
hour's work with the machete produced a very satisfactory
clearing. When we had finished the sun was dropping close
to the horizon sending long slanting shadows across the ground.

"Not bad," said Coleman. "If only we had something to eat."

"That's easy." I grinned and led him down to the beach
where I had dropped the tins. We opened two with a machete,
guessing at their contents, for neither had any labels— they had
been washed off in the wreck— and found they contained sal-
mon and Bartlett pears. It was an odd mixture but we wolfed
them down hungrily and threw the empty cans into the sea.

"I feel better already," said Wally. "Let's go back to the
settlement and see what's doing. It will soon be dark and we
can move around without attracting much attention."

I agreed and we slipped between the cacti back of the hut.

Mathewtown in the dark was even more sad than in the
full glare of daylight. Great splashes of moonlight filtered
through the tumbled roofs and between the garden walls. Here
and there a light gleamed from a crack in a window. The shut-
ters were all boarded tight to keep out the night breeze— and
not a soul moved in the streets. Like shadows we padded noise-
lessly by the buildings, paused a moment in front of Richard-
son's establishment and then filed into a back street. This, too,
was deserted.

"Listen," said Wally.

I stopped and turned an ear to the breeze. Somewhere off in
the maze of empty houses was a medley of voices, a singing and
tramping of feet. But it seemed muffled and some distance

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 83

away. We followed the sounds, listening intently. Presently
the chanting became louder and then very plain. It appeared
to issue from a wooden building near the back edge of town.
We moved closer and slipped quietly to the walls. Light shone
through a crack in the boards and we pressed our faces close.

Inside were David, Ophelia and Thomas of the Lagoon Chris-
tophe and a number of other Negroes. But they had undergone
a transformation. No longer were they wearing the easy rags
of a few days past. Mail order clothes adorned their bodies and
patent leather shoes concealed their horny feet. But the great-
est change was in their expressions.

The hulking David was pounding madly on a large drum
and his eyes appeared about to burst from their sockets. Big
veins stood out heavily on his forehead, sweat poured in streams
down his neck. "Hallelujah!" he shouted and came down on
the drums with a thunderous vibration. Ophelia was shaking
with the ague and little bits of froth showed on her lips. Little
Thomas was in nearly as bad a state and was shouting at the
top of his lungs, "Hallelujah!" It was a good old-time southern
Negro revival, garnished with a Bahaman flavor. I understood
then what Thomas had meant when he said he was a minister
of the Gospel. The other blacks were in like condition and they
were clapping their hands and stomping their feet in time to
the drum. The instrument increased in fervor and the entire
congregation shook with the power of it. "Hallelujah!" they
roared in one voice. "Hallelujah, praise de Lawd!" Ophelia
rose unsteadily and began writhing with the ecstasy of the
music. But soon her convolutions assumed the rhythm of the
drum, beat and sway, beat and sway, and the tempo changed—
slowly— then fast and sensuous. It was no longer religious re-
vival but African Congo such as I had seen many times in
near-by Haiti. The gentle and smiling Ophelia who had baked
our bread in the sand at the Lagoon Christophe was a woman

84 I N A G U A

gone mad. She twisted and frothed and swayed with the vi-
brations. But suddenly Thomas raised his hand and with an
abruptness that made us jump the chanting ceased. Opheha
looked startled, swayed uncertainly for a moment or two,
and then still trembling and trance-eyed took her seat.

Thomas strode to a crude pulpit and began his sermon. I do
not remember the words nor are they important but the theme
of it was "Chillun, if yo don take de blessin yo gotta take de
cussin." It was a powerful oration. He told of the children of
Israel, of their trials and tribulations, of how the spirit— 'de
blessin" he called it— came upon them and guided them out of
the wilderness. It was a marvelous story, an epic of struggle, of
defeat and of victory. There were mighty wrestlings with "de
debbil"; he related how the children of Israel fought vaHantly
and cast him out. The Negro poured his whole heart and soul
into it. His voice shook with passion and he was an orator of no
small ability. The listeners hung on every word, jumped when
he crashed his fist. "De blessin is heah foh yo," he repeated again
and again, "if yo don take de blessin yo gotta take de cussin."

We slipped away in the dark. Mounds of black masonry
splashed with bluish moonlight stood somberly against the
deep sky and high above the stars twinkled and glittered. Down
the street we could hear the swish and sigh of surf, the sound of
breakers gliding up the beach and falling back again. Once
more the thought came that this island was our portion, earth
and sea and sky, the deserted and decaying village, these people
who shared the land with us. I thought of the braggart Rich-
ardson, the smiling suave Commissioner, the Negroes back in
their primitive church— and of ourselves, islanders by accident.
Sea-girdled people, all of us, enmeshed in a circling wall of
foam and surf. And again, echoing down the empty street came
the passionate voice of little black Thomas. "Chillun, de blessin
is heah foh yo, if yo don take de blessin yo gotta take de cussin."

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 85

It was morning. Sunlight streamed through the open win-
dows, crawled slowly across the floor, crept across our bodies
and suffused the coral walls with a golden glow. Our figures,
prone and sprawling, moved slightly, stretched, yawned and
fell prone again. It was good to lie thus, soaking up the sun-
shine, drowsing away the morning hours. Reaction had set in.
Tired from the sea, tired of worrying about museums and
equipment, we were taking it easy. There was no hurry, for
the moment at least, and we closed our eyes and drowsed.
Beyond the tent, beyond a little slope of rock rose a faint mur-
muring—swish and sigh, swish and sigh again— the sound of a
gentle, almost calm sea purring against the rocks. The trade
wind had slackened and the breakers were hardly lifting-
swish and sigh, they said, swish and sigh, like a faint watery
metronome beating away the time. No hurry now, no hurry—
A lizard crept by the open door, paused statuesquely a moment,
and departed in quest of a bug. Birds began to call, vague whis-
perings of unseen wings, the gentle cooing of doves. From
the soil beneath came clean, green smells, the odor of crushed
leaves, blossoms, scent of prickly pear. It was an island morning
—sea sounds, birds, peace and quiet, the glow of sunshine. We
stirred again and opened our eyes.

Wally grinned, turned and yawned again.

*'Damn it," he said, "I feel good." And he jumped to his feet,
threw off his remaining clothes and raced down to the rocks.
With a mighty shout he flung into the air and plunged into the
depths. A tremendous splash rose skywards and he disappeared
into the blue followed by a great streaming line of bubbles.
I felt good, too, and for the first time in weeks felt relaxed.
"De blessin" was already upon us.

After the swim we loafed on the rocks, soaking up the sun-
shine, watching the surf pile up on the coral and slide back
again. A big four-masted schooner hovered far out to sea, com-

86 I N A G U A

ing north out of the Windward Passage. She was heading back
to America, probably, loaded with logwood from Haiti. "We
might catch one of them," mused Wally, but I could see that
he was not serious. No, there was no use in going home. It was
cold back there, and the sun was not shining— not like this at
least— and there was no warm blue sea to swim in. True, we
did not know where the next meal was coming from, but for
the moment it did not matter— we felt good. Down on the
rocks, and above near the hut, swarmed myriads of slithering
crabs and dashing lizards; species new to us, many of them; and
birds, honey creepers, warblers and doves; and all the host of
sea creatures. We knew nothing about them, their ways, their
habits, their places in the scheme of things. Curiosity, if noth-
ing else, would hold us fast.

But *'de blessin" was not to come so easily, for we still had
to eat and all our equipment was in the hands of the negro
Commissioner. We walked down to the settlement again, hop-
ing against hope that the government at Nassau would have
advised the Commissioner to release our materials. Mathew-
town had one modern piece of equipment, a small radio station
maintained by the British Government. By this time some
word should have come. We thanked heaven for the miracle of
wireless for without it we would have been in a sorry plight
indeed.

Later in the day a message arrived and, as we expected,
the Colonial Government issued instructions to release all
our materials and to show us every courtesy. Still faintly
smiling, the Commissioner notified us of the decision and gave
us the key to the stone shed. Other than a very slight unbending
in his manner he never changed. He was the most rigid man
I ever met. Later I understood, for he had a problem on his
hands. As a Negro, with the destiny of the island in his keeping,
as the final court of appeal, as administrator of his tiny domain,

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 87

he had to steer a devious course between bitter jealousies,
around the rancid hates of mulatto and black, and beneath the
disdain of the whites and near whites. In self defense he had
raised up a barrier, a frigid smile through which few could
break. In a larger place this would not have been necessary but
there are no jealousies more bitter nor ugly than those pro-
voked by the frustrations of insularity. It would have been
easy to have made fun of him, for he was so utterly precise in
word and manner— too easy. It is simple to jest at scars when
we have never felt a wound.

As soon as the news of the release reached the ears of Rich-
ardson, who proved to be but an empty braggart, he flew into
a rage of disappointment and chagrin. In retaliation he sent us a
huge bill for the dinner to which we had been invited. We re-
fused to pay but when we saw that our refusal was going to
result in a great deal of embarrassment for the Commissioner,
we settled without further argument for the sake of peace
though it took the remainder of our scanty cash. Richardson,
it appeared, was the island's bad boy and was the source of
trouble for everyone. Much to our rehef and the general de-
light of most of the island's population he died suddenly some
weeks after our arrival of acute alcohoHsm, heart disease and
a series of complications too numerous to mention. We
breathed easier after he was gone. The island seemed freer
without him. But I suppose he had his excuse, he was a man
with overweening ambition and no place to go with it. Inagua
ivas a queer little island and it touched the lives of all who
made it their home. Richardson it had affected adversely by
bringing all his uglier characteristics to the fore. His overbear-
ing attitude at the dinner had its inception in some injury, some
cutting remark or disdainful attitude of a white man years
before. Ever since that day he had been thirsting to return the
insult, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. To make two white

88 I N A G U A

men feel uncomfortable and to cause them to squirm in their
chairs was sweet revenge. That we were different white men
was unimportant.

The Daxons were soon disposed of, though the elder David
descended into one of the mightiest rages that I have ever seen
possess a human being when he found that he was to be de-
prived of his share of the spoils. Under Richardson's prompting
he had brought us a bill for seventy-five English pounds which
we refused to pay. His face distorted into a savage leer, his
eyes bulged and he worked himself into an insane frenzy.
Throwing out a barrel chest he pounded, gorilla-like, on its
immensity, bellowing curses at us. The island had touched him,
too. Years of grubbing in its stony soil, with poverty always
around the corner, had got the best of him and the hope of
sudden riches in the form of easily acquired wreckage had up-
set his equilibrium. He was in debt to Richardson and his hope
of canceling this debt had been dashed to the ground. We did
not blame him, rather we felt sorry for him, and in the end
he quieted down and was paid a fair amount for his services.

And thus it was that we became islanders, to dwell in a little
coral and thatch hut by the sea. Over the door on a piece of soft
driftwood which we picked up on the beach, we carved with
our penknives the quaint and amusing motto— "If yo don take
de blessin, yo gotta take de cussin." It became the essence of
our island philosophy.

Although our house had but two rooms we managed quite
nicely, for two rooms is about all the space anyone actually
needs. We turned one room into sleeping quarters and the
other into a laboratory. With two long boards that had drifted
up on the beach a mile or so away we made a laboratory table.
When we found the planks they were covered with barnacles
and algae and housed a considerable collection of toredos and
other marine organisms. But they were still solid, so we cleaned

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 89

them and put them in place. For days thereafter our laboratory
floor was littered with the bodies of tiny shrimp and copepods
which had found shelter in the crevices of the boards and
which as the wood dried crept from their hiding places to seek
the cool water that had so mysteriously vanished. Most amaz-
ing was the length of time the scent of the sea remained. At
night when I sat in the deck chair, which we had salvaged from
the ship, and closed my eyes I could transport myself a thou-
sand miles away by taking a deep breath of the aroma exuding
from these water-logged boards. It was an odor that swept me
back to the salt marshes and flats of the Chesapeake Bay, an
indefinable aura of long-dead reeds, marsh mud and decaying
fish.

There is something very basic and fundamental about the
formation of a new home; some instinct within us that traces
its genesis to a long forgotten century when a brutish two-
legged creature crawled into a cave and barred its entrance
with sticks against the elements. There comes first a sense of
relief, an innate satisfaction in the knowledge that whatever
comes, weariness, wetness, the bitter pinch of cold or scorch
of sun, there is a haven in which to retire, in which to revive
the sagging spirit, to contemplate and to prepare for the new
day. It is in the very possession of a home— or a cave— that men
are differentiated from the beasts. The first fire, kindled on the
ledge of some Neanderthal chff still casts its heat in the hearth-
glow of a streamlined fireplace. The cave-dweller, tired from
the hunt, who threw himself exhausted on an animal's skin on
the floor of his troglodytic shelter is blood brother to the man
who goes home to a bed. The quaint modern custom of eleva-
tion and the lapse of a thousand centuries is the only basic
change.

I think I know something of the feelings of the cave man,
or at least, I can claim closer kin because our house was so like

go I N A G U A

his own. Except for the wooden floor ours was not unlike the
barest cave, for only the thickness of coral walls and the thin-
ness of thatch kept us away from nature itself. No draft nor
winter's gale eddying about the mouth of a stone age refuge
gave more the sense of nearness to the elements than the un-
ceasing dirge of the trade winds that pressed at our shutters and
whistled about the palmetto leaves on the roof. At night, par-
ticularly, these wind-sounds seemed to increase in tenor; the
darkness seemed filled with a great unrelenting force that tore
ever on into the west.

But primitive as it was it soon became home. From the vast
accumulation of wreckage which we piled in a heap near the
door we sorted out those things essential to our basic comforts:
an oil lantern, two cots, blankets, the remaining books, our
instruments, writing paper and tobacco. The rest we covered
with a canvas to keep where it was. When, after a long day
exploring the jungle, plodding the gleaming beaches or observ-
ing the movements of some animal that had claimed our atten-
tion, we saw in the last rays of the afternoon sun the diminutive
white walls of our house it was always with a sigh of relief.
Here at last was surcease from weary limbs, shade from the hot
sun, food for empty stomachs and forgetful sleep. The primal
man, on marking the dark hole that was his shelter, must have
breathed an identical sigh.

As soon as we were established I sat down to one of the most
difficult tasks I have ever undertaken. It was the unpleasant
necessity of writing letters to all those who had placed faith
in us explaining that we had failed. Day after day, on the excuse
that there was no way of maihng a letter, I had put the task
aside. But one clear morning a sail hove over the horizon to
the north. It was the out-island schooner which called for a
few hours once every fortnight and then left the island again
to its solitude. This schooner, an infrequent call by a Dutch

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 91

line of steamships, and an occasional cruising yacht were Ina-
gua's only contacts with the outside world. With a sinking
feeling I settled in a chair and began tapping the keys of our
rusty typewriter.

It was difficult to admit failure, more difficult to acknowl-
edge that there was little excuse for that failure. Only the ex-
cessive weariness from the great storm could explain our not
posting a watch on deck while we lay becalmed oif an un-
known shore. What was there to say? As simply as possible I
wrote what had happened and finished the letters a little lamely.
That evening, when the schooner had gone, her sails melting
into the purplish haze, a deep feeling of despondency settled
over me, a depression that I could not shake. Even the sound
of the surf echoing against the walls filled me with a vague de-
jection.

My courage reached its lowest ebb several weeks later when
I S2iw the white clad form of Wally Coleman disappear on the
deck of a steamer that touched at the settlement for a short
while on its way north. Word had come making it imperative
for him to return home. He had been a jolly companion and I
was sorry to see him go. That night the little hut felt more
empty than ever and the trade wind increased beyond its usual
intensity, howling through the thatch and blowing out the
lantern until I sheltered it behind some canvas close to the floor.
Only on one other occasion, when I was seeking the nesting
site of the flamingo, did the feeling of utter dejection so pene-
trate my being. For hours I lay awake tossing on my cot, listen-
ing to the dead leaves scurrying across the clearing and the hol-
low monotone of surging water.

This sense of despondency, however, could not last. Inagua
was too beautiful to be sad in and there was too much to do.
Life alone, though a trial at times, began to assume the pro-
portions of an adventure. Even without stirring beyond sight

92 I N A G U A

of the clearing there was a host of things to claim my atten-
tion. Dozens of tiny Sphaerodactylus lizards, tiny brown crea-
tures so small that they could curl comfortably within the space
of my finger ring, made the hut walls their special domain. As
their generic name implies they were equipped with almost
microscopic five-toed feet, neatly furnished with cleverly
formed adhesive pads that made it possible for them to cling
upside down Hke flies to the smoothest ceilings. They were
nocturnal, and in the dark of the evening it was a common sight
to see their scampering forms darting all over the masonry.
They were so tiny that I often mistook their shadowy scurry-
ings for the movements of insects. These lizards were the sub-
ject of the first important discovery I made on Inagua, for
when I examined their anatomy I found it differed from that
of any Sphaerodactylus Hzard yet described. They were a type
new to science, and, as we proved, found nowhere else in the
world except on this lonely island. I spent long hours watching
their activities trying to glean something of their habits. I
pulled the house eaves apart in an effort to discover where they
hid when the brilliant sunlight sent them hurrying to cover.
One little fellow, or rather lady, took up residence in the crev-
ice of the laboratory table and there laid a single smooth, hard-
shelled egg. Most amazing was the fact that this egg was as
great in diameter as the lizard itself, a full quarter of an inch.
How a lizard with a waist measurement of a quarter of an inch
could lay an egg of equal dimension remained a mystery until
I raised an entire family of them and attended the birth rites
of several of the mothers. As obstetrician-in-chief to a jar full
of lying-in-waiting lizards I made the interesting discovery
that the eggs were quite soft when extruded, almost leathery in
texture, and that after a quarter of an hour they assumed a
smooth rounded shape and hardened to a beautiful, delicate,
calcareous pink shell. I put these diminutive eggs in a safe spot

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 93

and watched them each evening for two months before the
first quivering baby cut itself a neat lid from the end of its
prison, crawled out and went scampering forth to its fate fully
equipped to meet the complex problems of adult lizard-hood.
Consider what a marvelous provision this is. For these, the
smallest reptiles in the world, there is no responsibility of par-
ent to offspring, no weary hours of training and education.
On the day of mating there is planted in the waiting ova all
that is ever required for the baby Sphaerodactylus to know. It
seems a divine attention is given to even the least of nature's
children.

A family of scorpions lived in the interstices of the roof
thatching and immediately under the ridge pole was the nest
of a common house mouse. Like myself, it was an intruder, a
foreigner, islander by adoption, having escaped probably by
proxy of an ancestor several generations removed from the
hold of some visiting schooner. I did not disturb it, nor did I
make any further attempt to remove the black and yellow
spider that was still occupying the crack over the lintel. I knew
they were really harmless and I was well repaid for my for-
bearance by many hours of entertainment.

The most thrilling times of all were the evenings. Then the
hermit crabs came out of their hiding places and began their
nocturnal wanderings. Hermit crabs occur on Inagua literally
in the hundreds of thousands, every hole and crevice shelters
them, and night is their period of activity. These crabs are
remarkable in that nature has taken away the hard chitinous
covering on their tails, leaving these members soft, white and
vulnerable. In order to protect these delicate appendages they
thrust them in abandoned seashells which they carry wherever
they go. The clattering and banging of these shells over the
rocks made the night hideous. Every hermit crab thought its
neighbor's shell was bigger and better than the one it carried

94 I N A G U A

and their midnight fights kept any but the sturdiest sleepers
awake. Vague rustlings and creepings surrounded one every-
where; inside it sounded as though a vast army of prowlers
were marching on the house.

But the greatest annoyance of the evenings was the herds of
wild donkeys and cattle. During the day they disappeared into
the bushes, into quiet retreats in the interior. But at night they
came down to the water's edge and prowled about the beach.
I did not mind them at first but finally they became so numer-
ous I could not go out after dark without being charged by an
angry cow. I determined to get rid of them once and for all.
Among my equipment was a .410 gauge shotgun and a num-
ber of cartridges. I emptied a shell of its shot and replaced it
with crystals of salt that I gathered from the rocks by the shore.

The next evening the cows were on hand as usual. Fully
a dozen of them. They prowled about the yard, kicking over
specimen cages and uprooting the piled tin cans. Quietly I
opened a crack in the door and thrust out the muzzle. Not ten
feet away was a big steer. I aimed for its rump. There was a
frightful roar, a sudden blaze of powder, and a moment's
silence followed by the most prolonged moo I have ever heard.
The moo was followed by a whole series of snorts as the herd
got into action. The yard became a melee of milling bawling
forms. That is, all except one. Tlie big steer had lit out at
express train speed for the interior. With a mighty bellow
it plunged through a wall of bristly cacti making a neat hole
through a stone fence and over a wall six feet high, which it
cleared by a foot. I had no idea a steer could jump so high. For
almost fifteen minutes I could hear the animal tearing down
trees and rooting up bushes in its path.

The next night, however, the cows were back as usual ac-
companied by a half dozen wild donkeys. This time I rigged up
something different in the way of entertainment. From the

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 95

wreckage I had salvaged a quarter ounce bottle of flash powder
which I had brought for photographic use. A quarter ounce is
a lot of flash powder, for it is a powerful explosive. I fitted it
with an electric photo fuse and connected the fuse with a flash-
light battery. I planted the powder in the ground in the middle
of the clearing.

At eight o'clock, as usual, the yard was full of cattle. I
touched the wires. There was a blinding flash of light followed
by a thunderous boom and a hail of rocks and small boulders.
A few came hurtling through the roof and bounced on the
floor.

To have gone out in the yard in the next few seconds would
have been suicide. Cows hurtled against cows and donkeys
plunged over the lot. In a wild, screaming frantic horde they
burst through a stone fence, knocking it asunder and went
bounding into the bushes. After that evening I was never dis-
turbed by another animal.

But the most amazing feature of my dwelling was the utter
tameness of the birds. They came in the windows, perched on
the table, hopped across the floor and bounced out again. The
yard was the favorite resorting place of a half dozen ground
doves not much bigger than good sized sparrows. These were
so tame they allowed me to approach within a few inches. They
belonged to a subspecies noteworthy for the paleness of its
coloration and the excessive length of its scientific name which
contained no less than twenty-nine letters. Oddly enough, the
subspecies has been recorded from only two islands, Inagua
and distant Mona w^hich hes between Hispaniola and Porto
Rico more than three hundred miles away. Yet on Mariguana
only a short day's sail to the north is another variety of the same
species. I captured one of these delicate brown doves and
placed it in a cage. But it was so restless, flying against the bars,
pacing ceaselessly up and down, never resting, ignoring the

96 I N A G U A

grain which I gave it, so obviously unhappy that I allowed it
to escape.

Most fearless were the mockingbirds. These were much
lighter in plumage than our northern mockingbirds and it was
not at all uncommon to have them perch on the windowsills
while I was busy working and sing out their hearts quite oblivi-
ous of my presence. There was one individual in particular
that used the ridgepole for its nocturnal musings. In the quiet
hours just before the coming of new day, when the trade winds
had slackened almost to a calm, when all other sounds were
hushed, this lone mockingbird would pour out its whole reper-
toire in the still air, note after note in liquid melody. It was
the most entrancing hour of the island's day.

For sheer fascination and entertainment, however, none ex-
ceeded the hummingbirds. They were everywhere. Extremely
tame, darting with Hghtning speed through the needle-lined
passages of the prickly pear, feeding on the cactus blossoms,
chirping in odd notes, hovering on invisible wings, they were
irrepressible. The doors and windows were continually filled
with their flashing forms and the rafters echoed with the buzz
of their activity. In one corner of the yard near the stone wall
was a remnant of what once had been a considerable bed of
bitter aloe plants. When I first arrived these were in full bloom,
tall composite blossoms of rich chrome yellow hung with long
deep rows of tubular chalices. Their brilliant hue attracted the
hummingbirds for acres around and I once counted as many as
thirty hovering over the stalks at one time. They were com-
pletely without fear and permitted me to approach to within
a few feet. Perfect confidence born of their marvelous powers
of flight and years of living undisturbed by man made them
indifferent to my presence. I have photographs in my collec-
tion showing them sound asleep on tiny twigs quite oblivious to
my maneuverings with the camera. The supreme evidence of

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE

97

their assurance was shown one day when a hummer fluttered
on vibrating wings no more than a foot from my nose, ex-
amined me carefully and then settled gently as a feather on the
protruding lens of my graflex. I remained as still as possible
and fully two minutes crept by before the tiny mite bestirred
itself and then calmly, without paying me the slightest atten-
tion, opened its wings and melted into the green vegetation.

They were all of one type, a species found nowhere else in
the world but on this one island. Their nearest generic relatives
live today in the distant mountains of western Panama and in
Costa Rica. How the Inaguan species arrived on the island
is something of a mystery. One theory suggests that it is a
remnant of a once abundant group distributed throughout
the West Indies and which as the centuries slipped away be-
came less and less numerous as its numbers were eliminated
from island to island, gradually becoming extinct by accident,
disease, capture by enemies, lack of food or whatever ill fate
is peculiar to hummingbirds, leaving only the Inaguan species
and one other type as testimony of their existence. The other
theory, and the more dramatic one, is that the ancestors of the
Inaguan hummingbirds were caught up in some great tropical
storm of many centuries ago and flung the hundreds of miles
across the seething waters of the Caribbean Sea to a safe haven
on the level rocks of Inagua. The first theory is scientifically
more plausible but I prefer to picture in my mind the scene
that might have occurred if the second were correct.

There would have been a succession of calm, clear days, bril-
liant and clear in the tropical sunshine along the coast of Costa
Rica, the usual prelude to hurricane weather. Undisturbed, the
ancestors of my Inaguan species would have passed lightly
from blossom to blossom as they had been accustomed to do
from time immemorial. Doubtless not a breath of air was stir-
ring to relieve the hot sun and in the unusual calm the hummers

98 I N A G U A

took to the higher branches of the trees to do their feeding.
Then in the space of a few hours the clouds descended lower
and lower until they scudded just above the tree tops. Still near
to the ground there was no wind and the atmosphere was close
and sweltering. But only for a short time. Roaring out of the
expanses of the restless Caribbean came the hurricane, suddenly
shrieking across the coast, snatching the leaves from the tree
tops, breaking the branches and throwing the jungle giants to
the ground in a gargantuan tangle of vines and twisted creep-
ers. As the trees fell, the hummingbirds that took refuge in their
branches were suddenly caught up by the great suction of the
wind and in a few seconds tossed skywards toward the black
racing clouds. Close together, a pair that had sought shelter
on the same branch, were swirled heavenwards and, fighting
valiantly with the gusts, sought futilely to reach the shelter of
the forest. Their efforts were in vain. Their small bodies,
weighing less than an ounce, were but chaff before the wind,
they possessed neither the bulk nor the force to combat the
howHng gale. Then in rapid succession came great pelting
sheets of rain, huge stinging drops that beat against their tiny
bodies and soaked through their straining feathers. There was
only one hope, to soar above the deluge. Side by side these
hummingbirds permitted themselves to be swirled away on the
updraft of the hurricane's funnel hundreds of feet above the
ground. Then as quickly as it had come, the revolving, twist-
ing demon shrieked away from the coast, leaving behind a
scene of utter desolation. On and on into the limitless wastes
of the blue ocean the monster howled, on past Cuba, on through
the Windward Passage and out into the broad Atlantic. Prob-
ably hours passed and in all the roar of the hurricane two pairs
of tiny wings beat at the swirling air; forty to fifty wing strokes
to the second, tossed skywards one moment, down to the crests
of the waves the next, on through the evening and into the

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE 99

horrible darkness of the night. But as the monster moved into
the open ocean and on into oblivion, the hummingbirds were
flung by sheer centrifugal force to the outer rim of the vortex.
Weary, cold, hungry, the harassed pair saw the gray dawn
come. Beneath was a seething expanse of angry ocean; huge
waves, black from the great depths and white with foam, met
the eye on all sides. No land anywhere. On and on the weary
birds vibrated, scudding with the wind. All direction was
lost; to keep aloft away from the waves was their only purpose.
Somehow they were still together; only by sheer determination
and the gift of marvelous powers of flight did they survive.
The wind then died rapidly but the waves still mounted to the
skies. Their wings moved slower, the grueling hours had taken
their toll of reserve energy. Off in the distance they sighted a
thin line of brown tinged with subtle green. An island! With
a last burst of energy the hummingbirds moved straight as
arrows to the land. It was low, flat, barely carpeted with vege-
tation, but land. Scarcely able to move, the mites sank ex-
hausted on a plant. Their heads drooped, wings sagged loosely,
they slept.

An hour or two passed. The regenerated birds moved again,
chittering and calling to each other. After the hurricane all was
quiet, the air so still, the roaring had ceased. A blossom nodded
gaily on a slender fingered cactus plant, deep red with a yellow
circle of stamens. One of the hummers settled on its lip and
thrust its bill deep. It was joined by its companion. Tiny in-
sects were snared on their wire-thin tongues. Another blossom
provided sweet nectar and more insects, microscopic spiders
and gnats. Presently the two slept again, side by side on a
prickly pear spine. All through the night they rested, assimilat-
ing the energy of flower-haunting insects. Days passed and
they hunted together, the dreary hours of the storm forgotten.
Then came a day when, unlike all the others, the male felt

loo I N A G U A

bursting with energy; and as I have seen his grandsons do, it
whirled round and round its placid, more neutral colored mate.
At first she paid little attention but as his attentions increased,
she could not disregard their manifestations. He began swing-
ing back and forth on invisible wings, twisting, turning, going
into a frenzy of activity; he moved as though suspended by an
invisible pendulum, more and more swiftly; the dead leaves
underfoot rustled with the blast of air from his wings; they
emitted an angry buzzing as he reached the climax of his love
dance. She could not ignore him any longer and they drifted
away through the cacti to culminate their courtship on the
bristly spines of a cactus pad. In a tiny cup of soft fibers from
the silk-cotton tree decorated with gay lichens and minute
fragments of dead plants the female laid the fertiHzed eggs of
this first island mating. It was thus, I like to think, that the race
of Inaguan hummingbirds was begun.

One breezy afternoon I was seated in the hut banging away
at my typewriter when an angry humming at the door at-
tracted my attention. One of the descendants, a thousand gen-
erations removed, of the first Inaguan hummingbird had en-
tered the open door and was vainly trying to penetrate the
transparent screening of mosquito netting that I had tacked
across the windows. I picked it off the mesh, placed it in a
near-by lizard cage and continued writing. It was a male. I had
hardly started when another began buzzing at the screen. I cap-
tured it too. For a few moments I admired the gorgeous pair
preening their ruffled feathers in the cage. Although I had
handled them as gently as possible my clumsy fingers had
pushed their plumage all out of arrangement. This did not
seem to disturb them, however, and they went about their
feather cleaning quite methodically, chirping the while in
thin trilling notes, and paying me not the slightest bit of
attention. Even when I picked them up again they did not

AN ISLAND EXISTENCE loi

struggle but lay quietly in my hand. This sort of behavior
was a new experience in my ornithology; never before had I
seen wild creatures so confident of good will. After a bit I
opened the cage door and permitted them to escape. They
flew up in the rafters and began darting back and forth. As I
settled in my chair they seemed to have forgotten my presence.
I lay back and watched.

One was perched on a rafter, readjusting a microscopic
feather, when the other backed the entire length of the hut
and rushed headlong at the sitting bird. The impact knocked it
off its perch but it recovered before it had fallen far and retal-
iated with a rush. They seemed ablaze with hatred, the hut
walls hummed with the sound of their fury. Back and forth
they swept, wings ablur, squeaking and calling in trilling cre-
scendos. Then to my utter amazement they suddenly declared
a truce and sat side by side on a convenient rafter and began
carefully preening their plumage. The open door and I were
ignored. The battle, if battle it was, started again. The impacts
of their meetings were terrific; they drove headlong at each
other from opposite sides of the building meeting in a swirl of
feathers and beating wings. Again the birds rested.

Half an hour they were still at it, bristling with energy. My
neck was tired from staring up at them; a task called me out-
side. Carefully, I propped the door open so they could escape.
On my return I looked in vain among the rafters for the birds.
They were not there. My glance fell on the cot. In the center
was a tiny fluff of bedraggled feathers. It was one of the hum-
mers. The creature was still alive but very weak. Its feet
twitched convulsively, its tongue hung drooping from the end
of its long bill. I could find no blood and I pulled out its wings
to see if they were broken; they seemed undamaged and I
folded them closed again. Presently it drew in its tongue and
began sending up series after series of faint discordant squeaks.

102 I N A G U A

No sound that I have ever heard, except possibly the voices of
tiny meadow mice, was exactly like it. I stroked the bird for a
moment then took it out in the sunlight to a large prickly pear
plant. Turning the little thing right side up I placed its feet on
the edge of a big yellow blossom and steadied it. It teetered
drunkenly and then began to acquire its equilibrium. Plung-
ing its bill to the base of the blossom the bird drank once,
twice, rested, drank again and then very weakly spread its
wings and flew between two cacti and out of sight.

CHAPTER VI

Dwellers of the Surf

There was one thing on Inagua that was inescapable. When
all other memories of the island will have faded, merging indis-
tinctly with a horde of other recollections, and when the shape
of all the birds, animals and people with whom I had contact
will have become but hazy shadows and dim evanescent figures,
I shall need only to close my eyes in a quiet place to bring it all
back once more. Then rushing through the darkness will come a
sound, a roaring sighing sound, low, sibilant, or at times throaty
and powerful, increasing and falling in tone, on and on in end-
less reiteration. It is the sound of the surf as I heard it day after
day against the rocks near my dwelling, swirling, surging, boil-
ing, boisterous, angry, or gentle and murmuring, week after
week, hour after hour until its cadences were etched in indelible
gravings on the cells of my brain. Day and night it set the tempo
and the mood of the island; calm and soothing when the wind
was low; deep and fretful when the trades grew angry and
topped the waters with white caps.

The surf was the tone background of island existence. The
mere sound of breaking waves is all that is necessary to bring
back to memory the long succession of tropical days steeped in
dazzling sunlight, the recollections of the hot still bush and the
shimmering, dancing heat waves, of bending palms leaning
seaward over pure white beaches, of curving sand dunes, barren
and white in the glare, of stark fingers of cacti, mounds of
prickly pear and gaunt thorn trees, the pale ghostly hue of
sedge and sea grape, the darker verdure of lignum vitae and bay
lavender. It was the theme music to the velvety atmosphere

103

I04 I N A G U A

of the warm dark nights, to the steely blue shine of moonhght
glowing on ruined walls splashed with leaf patterns, leaves
themselves fretted black against the stars, dark sweeping clouds,
the glittering zenith spangled with a billion flashing lights. In-
escapable. The sound of the sea was always present, growling
against the reefs, swishing over the sand grains and slipping
back again.

The longer I dwelt on Inagua the more certain it became
that the day's activities would terminate within sound or reach
of the surf. When the inner jungle became too hot to be toler-
ated and seemed devoid of any life; when the interior plains
and the ponds of bitter salt sweltered barren and motionless
under the heat of the midday sun; when the white sand dunes
were silent except for the rustle of the wind-blown grains; and
when the lizards had crept out of sight in their burrows and the
birds had gone to other places, seemingly vanished, it was in
sheer relief that I turned to the edge of the sea. Here always
was life and movement, cool air and activity. Magnetism, or
perhaps the same instinct that draws a convict to his bars, im-
pelled me to gravitate at one hour or another to the island's
borders. My feet, sore and burning from the hot sand of the
interior, automatically led first to home to dispose of the day's
notes and specimens, then to the sea for a swim and an hour of
contemplation on the warm rocks. Surf loitering, first casual,
became frequent, then habit.

This habit partly began because of the scarcity of drinking
water which made washing in the surf a necessity. Inagua is
a vast flat island of barren rock, dry loose sand and salty mud.
There are no springs or streams, the only source of fresh water
is the infrequent rainfalls. Even rainwater becomes salty after
it has lain on the ground for a few hours. There are a few wells
in the settlement but these produce a brackish liquid that is
quite unpalatable. Most of the Inaguans depend on rainwater

DWELLERS OF THE SURF

105

which they collect in stone basins and wooden casks. I had
one keg of good clean, northern spring water which had been
saved from the ship, which I propped up outside the house and
used as sparingly as possible. Until it rained again I knew it
would be a considerable task to replace it.

To save water I washed everything in the surf. Soap would
not lather in salt water but by pounding and diligent scrubbing
I kept things reasonably clean. Pots and pans were most difficult
but were not as bad as they might have been, for I had no grease.
The Daxons had made away with the lot of it. Coleman had
personally lugged ashore from the wreck three cases of tinned
shortening but they had mysteriously disappeared somewhere
between the Lagoon Christophe and iMathewtown.

Fortunately the vast pile of tin cans under the canvas in the
yard made the use of water for cooking largely unnecessary
though eating out of tin cans which had no identification made
meals always a matter of surprise. The labels had all been
washed off in the wreck and though I tried segregating the
containers by shape and size I never quite succeeded in telling
them apart. The most dismal meal was served late one afternoon
when after returning ravenously hungry from an all day trip
in the field, I opened four cans in a row and found they con-
tained no less than four varieties of lima beans. It was the third
consecutive day that I had inadvertently opened lima beans
but I knew I could not waste food so I resignedly gulped them
down. I had some very weird combinations. Opened cans soon
spoiled in the tropical heat and I had to eat whatever came to
light. Salmon, siruped cherries and canned pumpkin were per-
haps the worst.

For my personal use I had the privilege of a magnificent
bathtub. This was no modern one with gleaming metal and
delicate porcelain but was a pool hollowed out of the rocks
by the action of the surf. It was about four feet deep and was

io6 I N A G U A

kept continually filled with fresh water by the spray which
dashed over the rocks. The sun, beaming on it all day, kept it
heated to a perfect temperature, neither too hot nor too cold,
exactly at blood heat or slightly cooler. It was such a pleasure
to use this natural pool that I found all sorts of excuses to swim
in its crystal depths. I seldom used soap in it, however, because
it seemed to irritate the hundreds of small fish which made it
their home. These fish were all the colors of the rainbow, blues
and golds, gleaming silver, reds and purples, and there were
even a number of little fellows with vivid black and yellow
stripes. These last were very friendly and nibbled at my bare
back and toes. In this activity they were joined by a host of
pale brown fish the exact color of the rocks. Like ghosts they
slithered along close to the bottom, squirming beneath the
shadows of my legs, tickling with their fins.

When I first found the pool it contained four beautiful sea
anemones which looked for all the world like big pink carna-
tions. I pried them from their resting places and placed them all
together in one corner where they seemed to thrive quite con-
tentedly, a living bouquet. There was one resident, however,
that I had to dispose of, a big black velvety sea urchin with
needle-sharp spines six inches long. I pried it loose, too, and
moved it to another pool where it seemed to do very nicely.
Perhaps the most marvelous thing about this seaside bathtub
was the constant change of inhabitants. With every high tide
fish came and went, though how they got in and out was some-
thing of a mystery, for only the thinnest sheets of spray lapped
over the rock edges. Along with the fish there were always
appearing and disappearing an incredible assortment of inverte-
brates, ghostly shrimp and prawn with sides so transparent and
clear that one could see their anatomies working and what they
had for lunch; hermit crabs carrying sea shells festooned with
moss and algae, a few bristly worms that lurked in the crevices

DWELLERS OF THE SURF

I07

and even at times a half dozen or so thimble jellies, pinkish
lavender wraiths that floated with no visible movement other
than a slight pulsation of their umbrellas.

When I tired of the still waters of the tub I could change its
comforts for the more invigorating waters of the ocean simply
by walking ten feet and plunging in. From the edge of my bath
the coral rock sloped gently down to a vivid yellow moss-
covered shelf overhanging twenty feet of the bluest water in the
world. The surf crashed on this ledge and then poured back
again exposing the under surface of a fantastically adorned
submarine cliff. I had to be careful, however, in coming to
shore again, for the waves hit with stunning force. The trick
was to catch the exact moment, to slide in on the tip of the
advancing comber, then land feet first on the moss-protected
shelf and quickly grasp the rock to keep from being swept out
again. It was glorious fun but I gave it up for a time when a
monstrous green moray measuring six feet or more swam lei-
surely under my thrashing toes when I passed too close to its
hole in the cliff. The beast gave me one of the nastiest scares I
have ever had. I did not suspect its presence until I saw its long
sinuous green form with a row of stiletto-like teeth out of the.
corner of my eye as I was coming in to a landing on the shelf. I
descended with a thump, quickly grasped the rock and scram-
bled up to safety. Morays are among the most savage fish that
dwell in the sea and it is their custom to lie hidden in shadowy
crevices and holes waiting for some luckless fish to pass. They
belong to the family of eels and although apparently sluggish
they can move with amazing rapidity. That this one did not
take a piece out of my anatomy can only be attributed to the
fact that it probably was not particularly interested; my white
body only excited its curiosity. But the adventure shook me
somewhat and several weeks went by before I got up nerve
enough to go swimming off the rocks again.

o8 I N A G U A

By lying on the very edge of a boulder close to the water
and catching glimpses between swells when the water smoothed
out, I could make out its den about twelve feet down. During
the middle of the day the creature was generally out of sight but
as the afternoon wore on it usually came to the opening and
protruded it head. I determined to capture it if possible and rid
the neighborhood of its presence. From the pile under the
canvas I extracted a length of quarter inch line of Manila origi-
nally intended for jib lazy jacks. For a hook I bent a steel rod
that was used as a small spreader on the ship and filed one end
to a point. There was no way of making a barb but I felt that
if I could keep a taut line I could prevent the moray from slip-
ping off.

Late the same afternoon when the tide had dropped I clam-
bered out to the farthest boulder overlooking its den, captured
one of the fish frequenting the pool, and thrust the hook
through its back. With a penknife I slit the sides to make them
bleed freely and then dropped it over. The moray was not in
sight but I thought perhaps it might be a foot or two back in
its crevice. The bait swirled back and forth but by a little jug-
gling I managed to hold it exactly over the opening. A number
of small fish came darting close, swimming excitedly about the
morsel. Because of the motion of the surf it was difficult to
see but in about ten minutes the ugly green head slowly began
to project. Never have I witnessed more cautious action. A bare
fraction of an inch at a time my intended victim slid forward,
creeping sinuously between the algae. The smaller fish hung
at a respectful distance, interested but not daring to approach.
Deliberately the mouth opened, exposing a row of straight
ivory teeth. The head sUd forward again; anxiously I moved the
bait closer until it was almost touching the moray's snout. The
inner lining of the exposed throat was clean and white. The
jaws closed carefully over the dead fish, exasperatingly slow.

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 109

The beast gulped and then gUded backward. With all my
strength I pulled on the line. There was a sudden swirl of blue
water and the cord whipped out through my fingers, burning
them as it passed. Quickly I caught a turn on a knob of rock
and hung on. The line was as rigid as a bar of iron. Down it went
and curved back under the cliff. Catching a hitch on the rock
I seized the taut portion and heaved with all the weight of my
190 pounds. The line did not budge. I tried again but the big
eel had backed into its den and had wedged itself tightly in place.

For ten minutes I heaved and pulled, then sat down on a rock
exhausted. The line had not come forward an inch; the moray
could not retreat. We were checkmated. Rushing back to the
house I grasped a small block and tackle left from the rigging
and dashed down to the surf again. The line was still rigidly
taut. As rapidly as possible I made a seizing about the portion
closest to the water. The other end of the tackle was fastened
to the knob that held the line. Once again I heaved but without
result. The tackle gave me the strength of several men but 1
could not move the moray out of its hole. What prevented its
throat from being torn away I do not know. Stretching the
tackle tight again I made the loose end fast to a point of coral
and then threw my weight against it. It seemed to budge a little.
Once again I tried. Dashing up to the house I retrieved another
short piece of rope and made it fast to the piece I was pushing,
catching the loose end around another corner so as to retain
whatever advantage I won. Inch by inch I dragged the moray
out of its crevice. It fought stubbornly, twisting its body
violently, gained a little and then suddenly gave way. In a
frenzy of hate and pain it flung itself into the surf and attacked
the line. With a rush I pulled it up on the moss-covered shelf
and then turned to free the tackle so that I could drag it out
of reach of the water.

But I did not reckon with the blind hatred of the gasping eel.

no I N A G U A

In a series of flapping dashes it threw itself across the algae,
striving to reach me. I scrambled out of the way, dropping the
line and bounding toward the upper rocks. Its teeth snapped
savagely, making a noise like castanets; its mouth was dripping
with blood. I knew that one bite of its teeth might result in a
festering wound that would take months to heal; I also knew
that the blood pouring from the mangled throat mixed with an
open cut might very likely prove dangerous, for the blood of
most eels is highly poisonous, so much so that a few cubic centi-
meters would be enough to cause an agonizing death similar
to that produced by a rattlesnake wound. Vividly I remembered
a laboratory experiment I had once seen when a rabbit was
injected with the substance derived from the blood of the com-
mon eel, ichthyotoxin it is called; the poor bunny died in con-
vulsions. Also, I have seen the hands of fishermen swollen and
infected from cutting eels for crab bait when the substance had
seeped into open splits on their fingers.

The beast slid into the water again and strove to get away.
This time I grasped the line well out of its range and dragged it
high out of the reach of the surf where it lay gasping and thrash-
ing. It took quite some time to die; almost four hours passed be-
fore I ventured to examine it closely. Several times when I had
thought it dead and prodded it with a stick, it suddenly turned
and snapped at the wood. One piece, nearly an inch in thickness,
was ground into slivers. The hook was well down into its
stomach and had to be extracted with a knife. The skin of the
creature was thick and leathery with no visible scales and was
covered with a heavy layer of slime. This mucus had been
scraped away where the skin had dragged over the rocks and
showed a bright blue integument beneath. The slime itself was
brilliant and translucent; the combination of blue skin and yel-
low mucus made the animal appear green. Altogether it was a
very unsavory looking beast. Its eyes were small and evil;

DWELLERS OF THE SURF in

ferocity was etched in every line of its narrow ugly head. When
it was dead I cut it in two pieces and threw them into the sea.
Its stomach contained the remains of several squirrel-fish and
the ground up fragments of a crab.

The moray, however, was only an incident although a
memorable one. The real marvel of the surf and the cliff by the
sea did not become apparent at once or in one evening. Like
some of the more intricate passages of Wagner or Beethoven,
it had to be assimilated little by little, becoming more under-
standable, more wonderful with repetition. At first glance the
cliff seemed a lifeless place except for the magnificent action
afforded by the sweeping roll of the surf, but I soon came to
know the twenty feet from the top of the rocks to the level of
the sea as one of the most complex organizations, of animal life
in existence.

My seaside bathtub served a dual purpose. It not only pro-
vided a place to swim and relax; it also enabled me to sink
gently out of sight and observe, without being observed, the
host of animals that made the surf their dwelling place. Few of
the birds and beasts that came to the chff seemed to associate
my bobbing head with the anatomy of a human being; hence I
was not an object of suspicion. Also my submersion made it
possible to look at existence from a snail's-eye view for the
edge of the pool was exactly on a line with the uppermost swirl
of the advancing combers. By sinking up to my eyes and re-
clining sideways, like some ill-proportioned manatee, I could
place myself on an equal plane with the mussels and anemones,
slightly above that of the fish and just below the stratum oc-
cupied by the dashing Grapsus crabs. Poised midway between
land and sea I commanded a view of both, belonging to neither;
by merely shifting my eyes, I could look straight down to the
shadowy depths or up at the racing clouds.

Discovery is largely a matter of point of view. I have often

112 I N A G U A

walked down a street without being aware of its existence.
The same avenue from a thirty-story window or from the
sanctuary of a manhole between the car tracks belongs to two
different worlds; people assume the proportions of scurrying
ants or conversely loom skyward like Brobdingnagian monsters.
From a thirty-story window a man appears but a mote in a
horde of swirling insects, from a manhole he dwarfs the street
in which he walks. My submerged position in the pool placed
me in the manhole category and put a new value on everything
I saw. Only when I have begged, borrowed or stolen an airplane
and gazed at the Inaguan surf from the height of a thousand feet
will I feel that I have begun to exhaust its potentialities.

I do not know if snails and other gastropods are conscious
of color; certainly my assumption of a snail's viewpoint placed
me in a world in which pure brilliancy of hue was the domi-
nating factor. I was surrounded by a weird cosmos of yellow in
which great scarlet carpets spread crazily between corridors
of mauve and lavender. Emerald green towers, splotched with
iridescent pink, stood out boldly against lacy draperies of
orange and warm Van Dyke brown. Behind all this was a vast
heaving horizon of deep indigo, an azure space that oddly was
never quiet but advanced and rose to the clear blue sky, where
it rapidly altered to pale green and then sheer molten gold,
which in its turn changed to dazzling white, pure and glittering,
edged with shimmering halos of rainbows. Then the horizon
receded and the world was tinged with yellow again amid great
floods of cerulean blue and glitterings of royal purple; there
were protruding spaces of leaf green, islands of dark saffron and
deep shadows of russet.

It was a world studded with volcanoes, perfect symmetrical
cones like that of Fujiyama, each with a crater at the top, only
unlike Fujiyama, these volcanoes were of pale green daubed
with large splotches of rose pink. On all sides and alternately

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 113

smothered by rivulets of bubbly water, were a number of huge
pincushions with barbarous needles, grotesque affairs of the
most intense purple, almost black, but which showed thou-
sands of tiny facets of scarlet and lavender iridescence. The
needles themselves were graven with deUcately etched lines
like the blades of old Damascus steel; the tips were fretted with
cruel hooks. Beside these were a number of armor plated tanks
with the armor set in parallel rows overlapping to give utmost
protection. These rows were banded with a flexible rim that
extended to the ground and which was studded with closely set
jewels, emeralds and sapphires, a sprinkling of garnets and
amethysts, crystals of beryl and zircon. These were set in com-
binations, emeralds and garnets in wavy bands so as to give an
impression of studied but unsuccessful camouflage.

Nothing was in proper proportion. The volcanoes were
dwarfed by the gigantic pincushion, the armored tank was
nearly as large as the emerald towers and the scarlet carpets
stretched away for acres and acres. Only by raising my head
and adjusting the focus of my eyes did creation come back to
normal. Then the yellow world resolved itself to a slope of
leathery algae, the carpets of scarlet became encrusting sponges,
the volcanoes assumed the dimensions of limpets; the jeweled
tank turned into the back of a chiton; the monstrous pincushion,
the prickly body of a purple sea urchin; the heaving horizon,
but the summit of an advancing wave.

The armored tank, however, gave the clue to the entire
scene. This was a world of warfare, a place of continual strife
where only those creatures equipped with heavy armor plating,
cases of rigid shell, steel sharp spikes or other armament were
able to survive. Nowhere in all the realm of nature is there a
more bitter struggle for existence than that which takes place
by the edge of the sea. The region bounded by high and low
water is an area of instability, of alternate dry and wet, a place

114 I N A G U A

of cold and intense heat, of smashing waves and thunderous
boiling surf. Only the most hardy can persist. Yet in the area
between tide lines have occurred some of the most profound
events in the history of our globe. In comparison the doings
of the Caesars, the Alexanders, the Napoleons, pale into in-
significance. The measurable results of the victories of the great
generals extend at most over a few centuries, then fade into the
background of things past and over with. This cannot be said
to be true of tide lines, for here there developed a vast array of
creatures which because of their success in this maelstrom
between tide lines were able to conquer new worlds on
land.

There is a law of nature, somewhat disputed in its exact de-
tails, but generally agreed upon by scientists, which states that
those creatures subjected to constantly changing conditions and
environments are more prone to physical change or adaptation
than those organisms which live a sheltered existence. Crinoids,
for example, ancient marine forms which dwell in the still quiet
depths of the sea where each decade is like the one that went
before, exist today nearly as they did millions of years ago
because the conditions under which they live are precisely
what they were in that remote age when they reached their opti-
mum. For them there was no need for alteration. On the other
hand our own distant relatives the ancient Amphibia evolved
from giant fresh water fish caught in drying Devonian swamps.
Nowhere more than in the area swept by the rise and fall of
the tide do more varied, difficult or changing conditions exist.
Hence it is not surprising that various dwellers of the sea in
crossing this barrier have become changed to land creatures.

I had only to drop again in the warm waters of my pool to
understand what a tumultuous life these surf creatures must
lead and to marvel at the wonderful variety of methods which
they used to combat their first strongest enemy, the surf itself.

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 115

Day in and day out great walls of surging water flung them-
selves at the cliffs, dashed high in the air and fell back again,
roarinor. The tumult never ceased, the air echoed to its thunder:
high on the tops of the cliff great blocks of coral and sandstone
weighing many tons were piled in a long rampart where they
had been deposited by the ocean during storms. Some of these
blocks were more than a foot thick and several yards in cir-
cumference. Yet they had been tossed more than thirty feet as
though they had been but cordwood. But just before my eyes
was a cluster of delicate hydroids, flower-like animals with
tentacles so diaphanous and translucent as to be illusory. Near
by hung long tendrils of filmy algae, looking like the finest
Castilian lace, tiny interwoven threads that parted at the touch.
How could they survive the tons of surf that poured on them
every few seconds? Simply by giving way before it, by swaying
in the direction of the water, a passive resistance created eons
before Mahatma Gandhi was ever thought of. The water can
secure no hold on them.

People can be divided into castes or groups, convenient classi-
fications by which we describe their modes of existence. We are
liberals or conservatives, fundamentalists or free thinkers, in-
dependents or stand-patters. Even yes-men have their place and
survive in a world of rugged individualists. This is true no less
of the denizens of the surf. The anemones and lacy algaes be-
long to the yes-men society; they persisted because they eter-
nally agreed with the superior force confronting them. To
resist or argue was unthinkable. The chitons, limpets and
gastropods were the fundamentalists and stand-patters; the
world changed and roared by them; they moved not a single
inch; clad in impenetrable armor, imprisoned behind walls of
ivory or unyielding calcium, they sat immobile; neither force
of wave, heat of sun or attack of enemy caused them to change
their mode of living one iota. Nor did this simile seem so un-

ii6 I N A G U A

reasonable when one day I made an extensive collection of a
species of limpet from an area both above and below the line
of the surf and found that those individuals which lived at the
places of the most violent action had the thickest shells. How
like the fundamentalists were these mollusks; the more variable
the world, the more case hardened they become.

The mussels, those purple-black bivalves that grow together
in thickly crowded clumps, used a system of resistance unlike
any other creatures of the surf. By some marvelous chemistry
they derived a substance from the sea water which they spun in
long silken ropes which they cast out in all directions, like the
warp lines of a schooner, anchoring them firmly to the rocks.
The number of lines which they put out seemed to be in inverse
ratio to the safety of their position. These anchor lines are
known as byssus, and it was from their substance that the tough
but silky garments known as tarentum were manufactured
which graced the bodies of the lords and ladies of medieval
Europe. Because the mussels were so unusual I was hard put to
think of what human category they might be linked with; then
it occurred to me that they were not unlike those sedentary
people who go in for life insurance policies and annuities, who
buy gilt-edged securities and low interest bonds; forever throw-
ing out lines to windward against the vicissitudes of life. And
like these people, when the surf overcame them they always
went down in masses, the entangled strands of byssus giving
way all at once, precipitating them into the depths to be gob-
bled up by hungry fish.

Exactly opposite to these were the Grapsus crabs. They
lived about the pool in the dozens; their sizes varied from little
fellows a half inch in width to massive individuals measuring
eight inches from claw to claw. They wore brown suits of
wavy strips and mottled checks exactly the hue of the rocks.

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 117

They reminded me of the racetrack touts who also wore check-
ered raiment and who, Hke these surf crabs, subsisted by grab-
bing things on the run. Theirs was a Kfe of dash and abandon,
a series of intermittent scuttHngs between the breakings of the
waves. These crabs were the most nervous creatures I have
ever seen. Only by lying utterly motionless could I induce them
to approach me at all. Then they would creep close, eyeing me
narrowly with glistening eyes mounted on a pair of stalks,
watching timidly for the slightest movement, sidling forward
cautiously, dashing back a few feet and then inching forward
again, ever on the alert. Once I allowed a full dozen to collect
about the borders of the pool where they began feeding on
microscopic tid-bits which they lifted daintily to their mouths,
which, by the way, worked sideways instead of up and down.
Suddenly I raised my head. Instantly the rocks became alive
with racing streaking forms. They moved so fast that their legs
were barely visible and some of those near the top of the cliff
threw themselves heedlessly into the open air and into the roar-
ing surface of an incoming comber. There was no thought or
consideration of what lay beneath, their only reaction was to
be away.

For a long twenty minutes the rocks were empty of life,
then from between the crevices they cautiously began to
emerge once more. Those that had flung themselves into the
foam came sidling out of the surf, dripping and unharmed by
the experience. They resisted the deluge by grasping the seamed
rocks tightly in their sharp claws and dropping close to the
boulders so the water could not get underneath them and tear
them away. Their stalked eyes made it possible for them to see
in an arc of almost 360 degrees- the waves never caught them
napping. At the precise moment when the water struck they
flattened out until it was passed, then raised again and moved

ii8 I N A G U A

forward until another wave came in. Their zone of existence
was bounded by the cHff tops on one side and by the roaring
surf on the other. They were found nowhere else on the island;
here they mated and deposited their eggs, found their food,
kept an eternal watch for their enemies, lived and died. The
very spirit of the surf itself, their lives were a vivid illustration
of how the dry barren land came first to be peopled with crawl-
ing animals. Where the limpets, anemones and sea urchins were
still completely bound to the ocean, perishing miserably of
heat and dryness when it left them for long, the Grapsoid crabs
were able to forsake it for hours at a time. Strictly speaking they
were still creatures of the sea, but they were also land animals
in process of transition. While still restricted to the twenty
feet bordering the area of the water's edge, they had advanced
further toward a life on dry land than had any of their com-
panions. Only an incomplete anatomical transformation from
gill to air-breathing lung requiring frequent wettings in the salt
ocean held them in place. Laboratory experiments have shown
that they can survive with gills completely dissected out in
dry air for several hours, an operation that would kill any nor-
mal sea-dwelling crab.

Centipedes are noted for the amazing number of their feet.
But they are amateurs in the art of pedal dexterity compared
with the sea urchins. Sea urchins are the porcupines of marine
life; only a person with cast iron fingers would dare pick one
up, for every inch of their bodies is protected with long pointed
spines which are mounted in cleverly designed ball and socket
joints. They lived by the pool and along the cliff in great scat-
tered masses, giving the rocks the appearance of being festooned
with giant cockleburs. To fall on one would be a painful and
dangerous experience, for their spines are frequently very
poisonous, being covered with germ-filled mucus that produces

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 119

festering wounds difficult to sterilize. Often the spines are
barbed and very brittle, breaking off where they enter the
flesh. One such injury in the fleshy part of my leg gave me no
end of trouble until I dissected it out with a scalpel; even then it
required more than a week to heal. The under sides of their
barbed and pointed bodies are literally a mass of feet, strange
sucker-like affairs arranged in symmetrical rows radiating from
the round centrally located mouth. By means of these they
progress slowly from place to place, advancing by a series of
wavy rhythms. These tube-feet are capable of considerable
contraction and expansion and no matter how uneven the sur-
face on which they rest, they have a firm grip on the ground at
every point. Thus they are able to cope with the surf, staying
firmly in place while the water bubbles and roars over them.
Sea urchins are considered to be but stupid automatons, head-
less creatures without a thought or flicker of intelligence. This
is literally true, for they are the original scatterbrains. The only
nervous system they enjoy is distributed in a series of ganglia
in a circle about their spherical bodies. Thus the sea urchin
functions because its gangUa are stimulated by its moving parts.
One moving part generates activity in its neighbor; the animal is
managed by its own activity. It might be said that the essential
difference between an animal with a brain and one without, as
for example, a dog and a sea urchin, lies in the fact that a dog
moves the legs, in a sea urchin the legs move the animal. But
be this as it may I could not help admiring the manner in which
these living cockleburs had carved a niche for themselves in
the face of terrific odds. Any animal that can survive in a
world of crashing surf while managing several hundred separate
feet at once, brainless or not, is a creature of no small attain-
ments. Most of us have trouble enough at times managing two.
How very wonderful these sea urchins were I did not know

I20 I N A G U A

until I had watched them for a long time from the sanctuary
of my bath. One of the things that always astonished me was the
immaculate appearance of their bodies. Although the surf at
times piled loose carpets of torn seaweed over the boulders and
cast up gritty piles of loose gravel and coarse sand, and although
all the other animals, the snails, mussels and chitons, had a
rubbed worn look, or were covered with parasitic barnacles,
the sea urchins were always spotless; no grains of sand, strands
of algae or blotches of parasites marred their jet black coats.
This was particularly remarkable when one considered that
their spines should have been catch-alls for all manner of debris.
They had a very clever system of keeping themselves clean.
When a fragment of sand or dirt fell between the needles, it
was grasped by a tiny clamp or pincers equipped with a triple
set of jaws, like those of certain types of dredges; these wxre
mounted on a flexible shaft of muscle and skin which trans-
ported the debris to the next claw which carried it to another,
or to one of the tube feet which were also scattered over por-
tions of the creature's upper surface, and so on until the offend-
ing fragment was dropped into the water. Small parasites that
sHpped between the barrier of spines were not treated so gently.
The moment they touched the urchin's side the claws began
snapping, opening and shutting until they seized on some por-
tion of the animal's anatomy. Once a pincers secured a grip it
held on tenaciously and then if a struggle ensued, other claws
came to its rescue until the captive was held rigid by myriads
of tiny clamps. Only death of the parasite caused the grip to be
relaxed; the corpse was then passed from claw to claw, foot to
foot until it reached the urchin's mouth and was devoured.

The hundreds of tube feet were not the only method these
animal cacti utilized in retaining their position in life. Great
numbers of them lived in cavities in the rocks; their bodies were

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 121

larger than the entrances to their caves. These cave-dwelling
individuals were about as safe as it is possible to be, for they
were guarded by their spines and could not be approached from
any direction except directly in front. They paid a penalty,
however, for their security for they were hopeless prisoners.
Early in life when they had stationed themselves at some favor-
able spot they secreted a powerful corrosive which crumbled
the soft coral rock beneath them. Soon they were well out of
the way of the driving water, safe in their holes. But then as
they grew it became necessary to expand their quarters; the
acid and the surf etched away the walls until they fitted com-
fortably but the openings remained comparatively small. They
reminded me of those human beings who spend a lifetime carv-
ing niches for themselves only to find that in the end they are
completely enmeshed by the fruits and habits of their ambi-
tions. All about the pool were dozens of these imprisoned
urchins. They seemed as healthy and as fully formed as their
freer relatives. The free individuals, however, probably found
food more abundant, for they lived on seaweed and algae which
they ground up in their peculiar five -sided jaws; the prisoners
had to be content with whatever the passing waters brought
them— the inner surfaces of their dens were eaten quite clean
and barren.

The sea urchins were not the only surf inhabitants who re-
lied on their ability to bore into the rock to protect themselves
from the shock of thundering waves. By lowering myself
slightly over the edge of the pool and into the aura of mist
that hung just above the tops of the bubbles I could see that
the coral at this point was pitted with numberless small holes.
Similar holes also were to be found in the shells of many of the
gastropods that dwelt in the area. At first scrutiny, there seemed
to be no life in the cavities but with a dissecting needle it was

122 I N A G U A

possible to tease out small pieces of brown matter which proved
on more thorough examination to be the life substance of
sponges. Like the urchins, these sponges drilled into the rock
with acid. Some of the holes were as neatly formed as if shaped
with an auger bit.

The last word in hole drilling, though, came to light when
I took a piece of rock containing a number of these cave-
dwelling sponges up to the house and examined their structure
under the microscope. Inside the sponge, which itself was not
more than a quarter of an inch in total diameter, was the fairy-
like form of the young of some indeterminate crustacean. The
early stages of so many of the crustaceans are so totally unlike
the adults that I found it impossible to discover its identity; its
structure was long and angular, and apparently it spent its
earlier stages ensconced in the interstices of the sponge, gather-
ing substance and strength before venturing out into the violent
and dangerous world of the surf. I would have given much to
have been able to visualize its life history, to have seen the
hour when it burst from its egg case, to have known how it
swam its way into its darksome abode in the entrails of a boring
sponge.

Where certain of the surf -residents survived by making stick-
ing plasters of themselves like the chitons, holding so tightly
to the rock that they could be moved only with a heavy screw-
driver, and where others hid in holes or crevices lil^e the boring
sponges, or dashed rapidly about like the Grapsus crabs, or like
the snails and gastropods crouched in thick houses of shell, the
anemones resisted the elements by virtue of their sheer versa-
tility. There were several species scattered over the rocks; the
most numerous were the large pink variety similar to the ones
which I found in the pool, and which I moved to one side to
prevent their being crushed, and a delicate brown species which

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 123

lived in swarms about the edges. These last were so utterly
beautiful, so translucent and frail in their structure as to be
almost unbelievable. From the tips of their tentacles to the base
of their cylindrical bodies they were soft mouse color, a neu-
tral tone that derived its beauty from the shine of golden sun-
light through clear tissue. The larger pink anemones were
somewhat garish in their aspect, but these smaller ones were
loveliness in monotone. They belonged to the peculiar group
that believed in passive resistance, and with every motion of the
water their long filamentous tentacles swayed back and forth,
quivering and swirling. Although they were completely re-
siHent, so perfectly designed was their anatomy that never at
any moment did they assume an awkward position; complete
gracefulness was their most conspicuous characteristic.

When I first became interested in them the tide was hi^h

o

and their bodies were being constantly bathed in the upper-
most ripples of the breakers; when I again looked for them the
water had dropped several feet, leaving them dry and helpless.
Their forms were nowhere to be found but in their places were
a number of disks of dark fleshy matter hardly one-fifth the
bulk of the original animals. When I ran my finger over them,
they felt thick and rubbery. It seemed, impossible that these
shapeless masses could be the beautiful creations of several
hours past. I prodded one with a knife and it split open and
oozed a mass of turgid Hquid. Later when I again examined
them they had shrunk still further. The hot sun beamed down
and all life appeared to have gone out of them.

Yet when the tide came in again at four in the afternoon
they were all out in flower again, as delicate and wraith-like
as ever. This was a very wonderful thing; for nearly six hours
these ocean-born creatures had been subjected to the dry air
and blistering heat, conditions for which they had never been

124 I N A G U A

designed. It seemed they must be devoid of all sensitivity to
endure such extremes and to prove it I reached out and gently
touched one. Instantly it snapped shut, the graceful tentacles
contracted and disappeared, the anemone once more became a
shapeless blob of dark flesh. Interested, I let it alone and settled
in the water to watch. For a long time it did not stir, but, then
when my patience was about exhausted, it began to pulsate and
quiver. The top unfolded slowly reveaHng a radially sym-
metrical surface, the color lightened perceptibly, light began to
penetrate the loosening tissue, the tentacles emerged, remind-
ing one of the slow motion pictures of the opening of a blos-
som, the flesh became translucent and filmy. Relaxed, the animal
once again swirled and flowed with the current.

At that moment my attention was attracted by the frantic
rowing of a small crustacean which was darting across the pool
apparently trying to reach some haven of safety before one of
the gaudy fishes became aware of its efforts and gobbled it up.
I turned to inspect it and my shadow cut across its path causing
it to turn violently to one side. This action was its undoing,
for it blundered squarely into the expanded tentacles of a neigh-
bor of the anemone I had just been watching. Then, in a small
sort of way, I saw a very horrible thing happen. The creature
ceased its motion as if it had been hit by a miniature bolt of
lightning, as indeed it was, for the tentacles at the moment of
contact shot hundreds of poisoned nematocysts into its flesh.
The paralysis that seized it was complete. Other than a spas-
modic jerk or two it did not so much as quiver; the creature
never knew what happened. The long sinuous tentacles folded
Medusa-like about its helpless body, then slowly curled inwards
toward the mouth at the center of the anemone. Through the
transparent flesh I could see the crumpled corpse of the victim
as it began to dissolve under the strong digestive juices that
poured on to it from all sides.

DWELLERS OF THE SURF 125

The anemones are most wonderful in the deHghtful versa-
tility of their modes of reproduction. They can quite casually
split themselves in two, either crossways or vertically, and be-
come in a short time a pair of identical twins; or perhaps not
desiring to lead a dual existence they can assume the character-
istics of the flowers which they so much resemble and sprout
buds on their stems. Unlike flowers, however, these buds are
not allowed to come to fruition but are pinched off by a con-
striction near the base and are dropped near by on the rocks.
Righting themselves these buds grasp the boulders and begin
their individual lives by expanding their newly formed tenta-
cles for whatever fate or the currents may bring them. If neither
of these methods will suffice the anemones have still another
system; the eggs may be cast forth to be fertilized at the will
of the water or they may be retained in the cavity of the body
until they become full-sized embryos. This versatility is their
insurance that the race of anemones will never die.

I thought I had exhausted the potentialities of these organisms
when I picked a boulder out of the bottom of the pool and
cast it over the edge. It slipped from my hand and as it fell
it rolled heavily through a cluster that was growing like a small
suburb near a larger city of anemones. The suburb was all but
wiped out. Many were terribly crushed and mangled, tentacles
were torn off and split, several individuals were cut in two.
Certainly, I thought, this would be the end of the little colony.
But it was not. In a few days the missing tentacles were re-
generated; the split individuals became two animals instead of
one, each half burgeoning out fully formed and complete; the
mangled sections were all healed and repaired. This was their
ace in the hole. When every other method of resistance to their
stormy environment failed them and when the force of the
waves tore them to shreds or they were ground against wave-
cast boulders, even when their tentacular arms with which they

126 I N A G U A

secured their food were destroyed, they were still not without
hope. By some remarkable magic hidden deep within the com-
plex workings of their body cells, they were able to re-create
the damaged tissues and continue life as before.

CHAPTER VII

The Making of an Island

It is almost an accepted routine for shipwrecked sailors on
tropical islands to make a circuit of their respective domains,
if for no other reason than to satisfy themselves of what they
already know or suspect— that they are on an island. This cus-
tom was originated by no less a person than that doughty and
personable character Robinson Crusoe himself. As a full-fledged
castaway I felt bound to follow the established tradition al-
though I had as an excuse the more logical purpose of deter-
mining the essential topographical and ecological character-
istics of Inagua in order to proceed intelligently with a study
of the island's inhabitants. The brief glimpse of the wild bush
as Coleman and I saw it from the deck of Daxon's boat was
enough to convince me of a considerable diversity of environ-
ment and the coast was sufliciently beautiful and intriguing to
provide the additional incentive of pure curiosity which, after
all, is the driving force behind most scientific endeavor.

There was, also, another and more personal reason for the
trip. Word had reached me through the medium of a small
sailing boat that touched at Mathewtown that the hulk of the
Basilisk had been lifted out of its grave and cast over the reef
by the strong gale that came up the evening after Coleman had
departed. The surf had thrown it high and dry on the beach.
I also heard that the Daxons and other natives were cutting
the remaining timbers apart to secure the bronze and galvanized
fastenings. These tidings disturbed me considerably. There was
no earthly reason, perhaps, why the Inaguans should not be
free to despoil the wreck, but the sentiment which I attached

127

128 I N A G U A

to my ship made the fact irritating. That the sea should tear
the vessel apart was reasonable and acceptable, that the Daxons
should hack at her with axes was a form of sacrilege.

Robinson Crusoe was happy in that he could survey his total
kingdom from one hilltop. I was not so fortunate. Inagua
stretches away, headland succeeding headland, for fifty miles
or more! Except for the few acres surrounding the settlement
it is as wild and desolate as on that memorable day in mid-
October over four centuries ago when Columbus first sighted
the Bahamas. It is a strange piece of irony that the islands which
were the first land trod by Europeans in the new world should
remain to the very last the most forsaken. Without any of the
side excursions which were necessary to accomplish my pur-
pose the very minimum distance to be covered would be a
hundred and fifty miles. I knew that this was going to be a
tough trip, all of it on foot, in a place where water was scarce
or only to be found in far distant waterholes. No rain had fallen
since the light shower the evening we ran aground off Sheep
Cay, nearly two months before.

At most, with the other equipment which I must take to care
for my specimens, all the water I could comfortably carry
would be about three or four quarts. Even this would be an
intolerable load. I eliminated every possible bit of luggage.
There was no need to take a tent, rain was very unlikely, day
after day the hot sun glared in a clear blue sky unmarred except
for a few racing clouds; the tropical heat made blankets un-
necessary; the air grew cool at night but by making some sort
of crude shelter from the wind I knew I could sleep undis-
turbed. In a light but cleverly woven native grass bag with a
shoulder thong I thrust a vial of formaldehyde and a small
hypodermic syringe with a roll of gauze for wrapping and
preserving specimens. I decided to restrict my collecting to the
lizards and other reptiles, as the biological problem with which

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 129

we were originally concerned dealt with these creatures. Along
with this equipment I placed a wide-mouthed jar for keeping
specimens once they were secured. A box of matches, a knife
and a small bar of soap completed the pack. In the other grass
bag I placed as many tins of corned beef as it would hold. I
selected this meat as it seemed about as light and as nutritious
as anything I had at hand; for other nourishment I had to de-
pend on the .22/410 gauge game-getter which I demounted
from its stock and slung at my side as a large sort of pistol.
The .22 shells which were loaded with dust shot would serve
for my specimens, the .410's would do for doves and sandpipers
and other small game. A single shirt, a clean pair of strong white
ducks, socks and a new pair of canvas shoes were all the cloth-
ing I needed.

When I closed the doors of my dwelling before dawn the
next morning, sending my friend, the spider, scurrying back
into his crack in the lintel, the air was Hght and cool. The trade
wind had slackened and was whispering faintly through the
grasses; in the east the sun had not yet risen, pale shafts of gray
light were just stealing above the horizon; a pair of tiny fly-
catchers was bubbling prettily somewhere off in the dark; the
stars were still glittering in the heavens although they had paled
slightly; the surf purred listlessly on the rocks below. A sense
of expectancy permeated the air; it was that magic moment
which exists briefly before the creatures of the day have be-
gun their activity and when the dwellers of the night have de-
parted for their hiding places, leaving the world momentarily
hushed and still. Caught with the elation of the hour, fresh
from a good night's sleep, I lifted the grass baskets, adjusted
them on my shoulders and stepped lightly into the path which
I had worn through the cacti down to the village.

It was quite deserted. My footsteps echoed emptily between
the ruined houses, only the muffled sound of snoring coming

I30

I N A G U A

from between a few black doorways gave any hint of habita-
tion. The same deep sense of poignancy that overwhelmed me
when I first stepped ashore in the town swept over me again.
In the gray light Mathewtown appeared more desolate than
ever. There seemed little hope that it could survive more than
a few years. The island's one industry, the harvesting of sea
salt from a saltpond in back of the town, had ceased to exist,
the laboriously built pans were becoming filled with silt and
mud, the crude wooden windmills that sluiced the sea water
into the drying basins were falling to pieces, their timbers de-
caying from dry rot and neglect. Near the waterfront a huge
pile of grayish salt lay waiting for the steamer that would never
call. Unless the "salt," as the Inaguans termed the industry,
returned the town was finished.

I followed the road to the saltpond and reached it just as the
sun came above the horizon. The pond was about two miles
long and the shores were piled three or four feet deep with a
thick layer of white foam which the wind had whipped off the
water during the night. The bubbles held their form tena-
ciously, layer piling on layer until it seemed as though some
playful giant had used the lake as a washbasin and daubed the
edges with prodigious quantities of shaving cream. I waded
through some of this bubbly froth and it clung to my clothing
where it dried in little crystals. Wiping some off with my finger
I tasted it. It was saturated with salt.

Turning away from the lake I found a worn path leading
to the north toward Man-of-War Bay. This bay cuts a deep
groove in the coast before it swings to the east. A magnificent
coral reef protects it from the sweep of the rollers and this
barrier was the scene of the first event in the history of the island
of which there is any accurate record. The chronicle is dated
in the year 1800 and is from the report of an English naval
officer. It contains only three short paragraphs which state

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 131

simply in terse official style that "the British Man-of-War,
Loioenstoffe, and eight Jamaica ships, her convoy, were un-
fortunately cast away on the reefs and destroyed. . . . The
crews perished in attempting to land . . . and were swallowed
in the breakers." As an added footnote is the cheerful informa-
tion that even if the survivors had succeeded in reaching shore
they could have expected "but little hospitality as the island
was inhabited by one man— a fugitive outlaw accused of evil
and wanton murder." Thus, in tragedy and death did the writ-
ten history of Inagua begin.

The trail was ill-defined and wound between thick clumps
of tangled thorn trees and stunted bushes. In a few seconds
after leaving the saltpond the soil underfoot changed from
shifting sand to a hard floor of smooth gray rock. Scattered
helter-skelter over its surface were dozens of slabs of loose
flat stone. These varied in thickness and in size from small
dinner plates to irregular sheets seven or eight feet in circum-
ference. The rock floor seemed hollow and boomed cavernously
even under the soft tread of my canvas shoes. Whenever I
stepped on one of the loose slabs it rang with the resonance
of a bell, the tone varying through several octaves depending
on the width and thickness of the plates. The sound was clear
and metallic; the effect was startHng. For a half mile around
my presence could be detected by the clang of rock on rock.
I felt as though I were walking on the keys of some gigantic
piano or harpsichord, strangely off tune and prolonged as
though an invisible player had his foot on the sustaining pedal.
Once, far off in the distance a wild medley of discords came
jangling through the thorn bush. The sounds came nearer, in-
creasing in volume, until a small herd of wild donkeys burst
through a glade in front of me and went clattering away again.
The noise of their going sounded like a carnival of mad bell
players. Some of the plates had a light tinkling sound, others

132 I N A G U A

gave off a deep ecclesiastical tone somewhat like the reso-
nance of an organ in the shadowy lofts of a cathedral. By way
of experimentation I tried ranging a series in a row to see if I
could play a tune. With a big stick and by dint of much dash-
ing to and fro, for some of the pieces were too large to haul
conveniently, I managed to bang out the first five notes of
"My Country 'Tis of Thee" but I got stuck on the "sweet land
of liberty" part and could go no further. The slabs needed
tuning badly and the music sounded horribly flat, but it had
possibilities.

The land beneath the surface must be honey-combed with
holes and caverns, for this hollow sound is common to many
parts of the island. Inagua, like many of the Bahamas, can be
compared to a gigantic stone sponge. In places the sea pene-
trates far underground. Ocean holes, clear blue ponds of salt
sea water which rise and fall with the tide, frequently occur
a dozen miles from the coast. They are quite different from
the shallow lakes of dull green or pinkish water which abound
everywhere. I found one of these holes several days later about
four miles from the beach on the north side of the island. It
was roughly sixty feet in diameter and was filled with the same
liquid blue water that washes the reefs. The sides were crusted
with red sponges and deep down below the surface I could
discern a few anemones and the white marks of barnacles. There
was no bottom. Although the water was so clear that the walls
were visible for a hundred feet the hole disappeared into in-
finity. Somewhere down in the dark a tunnel pierced its way
out to the ocean. I would have given much to have been able
to explore its fastnesses. Did it emerge beyond the reefs along
the edge of some towering submarine cliff or did it lead for
thousands of feet down into the black depths of the ocean?
What fantastic creatures lived in its dark passages; ghostly
white anemones, possibly, forever shut off from the light of

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 133

day, giant morays similar to the one that frequented the hole
near my bathing pool. Such a trip would require a brave heart,
and diving equipment of a type as yet undeveloped. It would
be a weird dangerous excursion down into the wet bowels of
an island; a jaunt that might lead anywhere. The age of ex-
ploration is by no means completed.

The sun was now high and the trade wind had resumed its
daily vigor. But down in the glades between the trees, the air
was still; the temperature climbed steadily. Presently I was
bathed in perspiration, my shirt hung clammily to my skin.
Soon the heat was unbearable. Even the Uzards, which normally
basked in the sun in the more open places, lay prone under the
slabs of stone waiting patiently for whirling insects to come
within convenient reach. The bare rocks were hot to the touch,
so much so that to sit on them was uncomfortable. The heat
began to assume the proportions of a blast furnace. I was be-
ginning to get thirsty. Stopping at a small pool in a hollow of
a rock I tasted it. Like the foam from the lake it was steeped
in sodium chloride. A mile further on I tried another; it was
like the first. I wet my mouth with the canteen, sparingly; there
was a long way to go. Everywhere the ground was saturated
with salt. Even the roots of the trees growing in the hollows
of the rocks were encrusted with the crystals. How they sur-
vived was a puzzle. At home a sure method of destroying a
plant and ruining the ground for a long time was to pour salt
around the roots. Yet these trees thrived in it. By way of ex-
periment I broke a thick padded leaf and chewed it. The tissue
was full of moisture, unpleasant to the taste, but the moisture
was not salty. In some way the vegetables of this saline land
filtered out the chemical before it entered their tissues. Even
the earth itself was impregnated although some of the deeper
holes filled with a reddish brown earth derived from the decay
of drifted and dead leaves were quite fresh. In compensation,

34 I N A G U A

the trees which grew in these holes were a shade greener than
their brothers. But even these were dull and ghostly in hue.
For a tropical land Inagua is remarkably drab. In Haiti and
Cuba, but a day's sail away, the vegetation is lush and brilliant;
on Inagua grays, silvery whites and pale greens predominate.
Only the flowers are vivid.

With a sigh of relief, I saw that the trees were commencing
to thin, permitting the wind to steal through. The breeze cooled
my hot body and allayed the feeling of fatigue that was start-
ing to steal over me. The musical rocks became scarce, the
ground began to be covered with a thin layer of light silt
which was slippery and wet. Obviously the soil was only a
fraction of an inch or so above sea level; there was no place
for the water to drain. The crystals of salt became more com-
mon; the trees were smaller and more stunted; only one species
resembling the quivering aspens of northern countries still
grew to any height, about twenty feet. Even these were sparse
and straggly. The leaves of these trees were pure silver, touched
only lightly with a suggestion of chlorophyll; they had a bur-
nished look which caused them to glint metallicly as they
danced in the wind.

A burst of air hit me in the face as I rounded the last cop-
pet of trees; the landscape had suddenly become empty. As
far as I could see there was not a sign of life nor any evidence
of vegetation other than a sparse layer of yellow grass growing
between puddles of stagnant water. Near the fringe of trees
from which I had just emerged a half dozen tall thatch palms
were making a brave stand against the elements; beyond these
was utter desolation. Mile upon mile a level plain stretched
away into the heat waves. Far in the distance the glint of sun
on a large body of water loomed in a bronze flare above the
horizon. This would be the great inland lake which the natives
had told me covered the entire central portion of the island.

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 135

The wind whistled across this plain with a violence that was
amazing after the quiet of the hot forest. But it was cool.
Bending against its pressure I followed the trail which wound
sinuously toward the northeast. At noon I found myself well
out in the middle, and seeking a dry spot I sat down to rest and
eat a little lunch. The corned beef did not help my thirst so
I washed it down with another swig^ from the canteen. While
I rested I examined the soil. It was derived almost entirely from
living matter; there was no sand mixed in it. Only an inch or
two beneath the surface was a layer of solid rock; thousands
upon thousands of fragments of tiny ceritheum shells made up
its substance, diminutive spiral mollusks hardly more than a
quarter inch in length. This soil had its origin largely in the
decayed material of these animals, and in the accumulated
residue of millions of their droppings which were derived from
countless billions of feedings upon equally diminutive algaes.
How many hundreds of years and trillions of lives had been
necessary to produce this skim of earth I could not guess. Some
of the skim had been lost, no doubt, whirled into the sky as
dust on the wings of the trades. Equal amounts had probably
been dissolved by the rains to drain back into the sea again.
A few other creatures had added their quota to the sum total
of this inch of earth, but not many; a few stray feathers and
the crushed carapaces of land crabs were the only other evi-
dences except the sparse straws of the struggling grass. The
grasses appeared to be newcomers, for they were not numerous
and were scattered in distant clumps. Around the grass clumps
were some mounds of whitened sand brought up from cre-
vasses in the base rock by great yellow land crabs with unbe-
lievably monstrous claws. But these crabs were hidden in their
holes; their existence was only indicated by a number of the
shells of their dead bodies scattered over the plain where they
were bleaching in the sun.

36 I N A G U A

After an hour or two in the open savannah I was as happy
to leave it as I was to find it. The wind allowed no peace and
the plain was so utterly desolate as to be depressing. The place
gave the same feeling as I imagined one would have if suddenly
transported back to the early morning of the fifth day of crea-
tion. The earth and firmament were there and the grasses of
the third and fourth days were waving in the wind, but in the
early hours only the crabs and mollusks had been devised. The
remainder of creative existence was yet to come.

The trail turned sharply toward the coast again and as I
entered the outposts of vegetation, life began to be apparent
once more. A black crowned night heron rose from an amber
pool where it had been standing pensively thinking of the min-
nows it had for supper the night before or of whatever it is
herons dream about; the liquid trilling of the little flycatchers
rose from between the thorn trees— it was the same sound I had
heard at dawn. These flycatchers, called Tom-fools by the na-
tives, are exceedingly curious. Their lives are a continuous burst
of song; happiness is their specialty. From branch to branch
they followed as I moved along.

Before long I heard a famihar sound through the trees. It
was the surf again. The rocky soil disappeared and was replaced
by white shifting sand. Defiling from the trees I emerged on
the beach. It was Man-of-War Bay where the British squadron
was destroyed and where so many men gave up their lives.
But there was no hint of violence then; instead the sea was
calm and blue; a short distance from shore a sextette of pelicans
was gliding and flapping above a school of fish; even the reefs
were barely visible. The Bay was gorgeous. For several miles
a long row of tall cocoanut palms overhung the beach; it was
much more colorful than any portion of the island I had yet
seen. Beneath the palms were a long row of white houses. These,
like the dwellings in Mathewtown, were in ruins. A few still

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 137

possessed roofs but the majority had long since crumbled into
dust. I passed one after the other. They were of coral, simple
creations like my own house. Fully a half thousand people
must have dwelt along the shores of the bay. There was even
a church; it, also, was vacant though some of the pews and a
portion of the pulpit were still in place. It seemed that all man's
endeavors on Inagua were foredoomed to failure.

A slight spiral of smoke from between a row of palms at-
tracted my attention. I strode down the beach toward the point
where it was curling between the palms, topped the ridge back
of the beach and found two diminutive houses still in good
state of repair. Beside one of them was an old man. He turned
slowly as I approached, then bade me welcome. His hair was
white and a long beard fell down on his chest. Pale blue eyes
looked at me from between wrinkled brows; I guessed his age
at between seventy-five and eighty; although he was bent with
the years, he was not feeble. A battered old straw hat covered
a matting of thick white hair; ragged shirt and trousers hung
loosely on his frame; his feet were bare and thickly calloused.

I spent the afternoon and evening with the old fellow. Over
a supper of fish, dried com and conch meat he told me his story.
As a very young man he had come from one of the more north-
ern islands and settled on Inagua. His ancestors were English
and they had come to the Bahamas shortly before he was born.
With some other venturesome souls he had established himself
at Man-of-War Bay and had lived there ever since. He had a
number of children but they had left home and had either de-
parted from the island or were living in Mathewtown. From his
description I recalled a daughter I had seen about the settle-
ment. She had married a man of mixed blood. Years later I
saw her daughter married to a coal black Negro; there was not
much choice in Mathewtown. One by one the famiHes about
Man-of-War Bay had moved away until only the old man

138 I N A G U A

remained. There were only a few years left; he could see no
reason to follow. The sea and the forest behind provided all
the necessities of life, thatch for the roof, fish and conchs to
eat, the clearing grew a little grain, enough for his few needs.

In my turn I explained how I came to Inagua, how our ship
was wrecked and why I was heading out into the bush. When
I described the Basilisk to him he became quite interested. Mov-
ing over to an old cupboard he extracted from some papers a
faded and creased photograph. I turned it over and looked at
the picture on its face. It was a photo of the Spray! Captain
Slocum had stopped at Inagua on one of his famous voyages
and had given a lecture at the tumbled down church. As a
memento of his visit he had left this photograph of his ship.

In the morning I refilled the canteen from the rain barrel
beneath the eaves, ate a few pieces of conch meat and once
again went into the bush. Until I reached the houses near the
Lagoon Christophe there would be no more water unless I
could find the waterholes which the old man described to me.
This was unlikely since he had not visited them for over twenty
years.

By evening I had walked about twenty miles zigzagging
back and forth between the coast and the barren plains near
the inland lake. As I went I shot a series of the lizards and in-
jected them with the syringe and formol, packing them in the
jar with little strips of paper beneath their gauze wrapping
describing the localities where they were captured. When I
reached the beach again late in the afternoon as the shadows
were lengthening, I was very weary; my shirt and ducks were
smeared with dirt, and I was sticky with perspiration. Thorns
had scratched and torn at my arms and legs. I had tried to be
as sparing of water as possible but the canteen was half empty.
Another day like this and it would be gone. The heat had been
intolerable. I sat down on the sand and opened a tin of beef.

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 139

It disappeared rapidly and I was hungry enough to devour an-
other but refrained as there were not too many left. In a day
or two they, too, would be gone and I would have to depend
on the gun. After a short rest I stripped and swam for a few
minutes in the surf, then came to shore and donned my clothes
again. By this time the sun had set and the moon was coming up.

I slept on the bare ground that night and dreamed that a vast
army of crabs was coming out of the sea to surround me. In
my slumber I could hear their armored bodies clicking over
the rocks, their large yellow claws were raised menacingly
and they crept closer and closer. Soon I could see the facets
of their eyes raised grotesquely on bulbous stalks. Their bodies
were yellow in color and they waded in deep furrows of sea
shells, long spiral turrets shaped like those of ceritheums. They
were ceritheums, and strangely they began to multiply, piUng
deeply, hundreds, thousands of them, appearing out of no-
where. Even the crabs had trouble combating them but they
pushed them aside with their yellow claws and steadily moved
closer. Suddenly the great pile of ceritheums vanished, dis-
solving liquidly into a brown slime. The slime ran between the
legs of the crabs and then solidified into a crust exactly an inch
thick. Then just as the crabs were about to reach me the ground
became warm and the air thick and heavy.

I awoke, damp with perspiration. My head was buried in the
crotch of my arm and a pile of loose sand had worked under
my shirt. The moon was out, nearly full, and in its blue glare
I could see the shapes of a dozen hermit crabs crawling through
the grasses. It was their clacking that I heard in my sleep. For
the rest of the night I slept fitfully, alternately dozing and then
waking. The sun beaming in my face aroused me in the morn-
ing. I felt stifF and dirty and went down to the surf again to
wash. The cool clean water made me feel better and I shoul-
dered the grass baskets and set out once more up the coast.

40 I N A G U A

About noon I reached the lagoon opposite Sheep Cay. The
cay lay about one half mile from shore and was separated by
a channel of shallow water about the color of emeralds. In the
hope that the islet might contain some types of lizards unlike
those on the mainland I decided to try and reach it by swim-
ming the portion that I could not wade. A4ost of the way the
water appeared to reach about to my armpits, the portion over
my head was not more than an eighth of a mile wide. The tide
was low; in about an hour the channel would be impassable.
Quickly I stripped and deposited my shirt and ducks on the
rocks to air and sun. I then loaded the chamber of the gun with
dust shot and with the thong of the grass basket tied it to my
hat to keep it out of the water. In the band I placed some
extra shot.

The first quarter mile was easy; the bottom was composed
of fine hard sand and the water was so clear as to make it easily
visible. As I came closer I could see a long row of cocoanut
palms along one shore of the cay, the central portion appeared
to be covered with a large clump of vegetation covering a low
hill. The channel was wider than I expected. I eased into it,
striving with my toes to touch bottom. It was too deep. A
strong current was sweeping through, bearing to the west and
toward the coral reef on the outer edge of the cay. Holding
my head high I breast-stroked toward the palms. In the center
of the channel the bottom shoaled again and by stretching my
toes I could just keep my head out of the water.

This gave me a chance to rest and like a submerged toe-
dancer I edged forward, fighting against the current to prevent
being swept toward the reef. I had just reached the outer rim
of the shoal and was preparing to swim again when a sudden
commotion to the left attracted my attention. There was a
loud splash and a large black tail fin rose above the water and
came down with a smack. The spray flew skywards and a mo-

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 141

ment later a dark dorsal fin cut the water. It was a large shark.
A cold wave of apprehension swept over me. The beast ap-
parently had not yet seen me and was playing in the shallows
where it possibly was feeding on small fish or mollusks. Quickly
I looked about and gauged my distances. The cay was closest,
the channel terminated about fifty yards beyond the bar on
which I was standing, from its edge the water shoaled within
a few yards to about a foot in depth. If I could make this I
would be safe.

As quietly as possible I slipped into the channel again and
shoved hard for the shallows. I did not dare use the crawl for
fear the noise would attract the creature's attention. Out of
one eye I watched the fin rising and disappearing above the
ripples. Then my blood ran cold; it turned and came straight
for me. The hair at the base of my scalp began to creep, and
for a moment I almost gave way to panic. About fifty feet
away it veered again, swept back of me around the shoal in
the center of the channel. Then it began to approach from the
right. I trod water waiting for the attack. But it did not come.
Instead the shark began circling, slowly and leisurely, describ-
ing a circle about thirty feet in diameter. Once it swept toward
me and I tore the gun from my hat and thrust it under the
water in its path. I knew it would be of no use but I thought
the explosion might scare the fish away. As nearly as I could
estimate, the shark was about nine feet long. When the beast
circled back of me I turned to keep it in view. Fortunately it
stayed near the surface and I could make out its every move-
ment. The current was momentarily becoming stronger and
the edge of the channel was slowly shpping backwards as I
was swept toward the reef. In another two hundred yards the
shallows would be out of reach. Throwing caution to the winds,
but still not daring to make too much of a commotion lest the
beast think I was frightened, I slipped into a side stroke and

142 I N A G U A

strove hard. The circle grew narrower; soon I could see flashes
of a white belly as the shark turned and rolled. I was thoroughly
frightened and I was growing a little tired. The twenty-mile
hike of the day before was beginning to tell on me. The beast
stopped and idled. Thinking it was going to make an attack,
I grasped the gun from my teeth where I had been holding it
and sank beneath the surface. The salt water stung my eyes
but I could see clearly. Only ten or fifteen feet away the shark
was gliding again through the water, circling. Then it turned
sharply and slid by to my left and disappeared behind my back.
With a sudden surge I lunged to the surface and frenziedly
swam with every bit of remaining strength to the edge of the
channel. As soon as I hit the sand I struggled up the slope and
dashed for the shore, tripping several times amid great fountains
of spray. When I reached the beach I dropped panting on the
sand, shaking in every muscle. It was one of the most terrifying
experiences I have ever had.

Until that time I had had no personal experiences with sharks.
Later, in the light of calm reflection and with the accumulated
knowledge of several years of working with diving equipment,
I am convinced that my fright was somewhat unreasonable. In
fact, from recollections of the anatomical features of the in-
dividual that swam around me that day at Sheep Cay, I am now
certain that it was one of the nurse sharks, a perfectly harm-
less group that assails nothing more vigorous than the mollusks
and crustaceans on which its members feed. The attentions of
this particular one were probably due to plain inquisitiveness.
Certainly if it had desired to attack me it would have done so
for I was completely at its mercy.

As might be expected, the Hzards of Sheep Cay did not differ
sufficiently to cause them to be classified apart from those on
the mainland. There was only one type, a member of the genus
Anolis, beautifully tinted reptiles varying in hue from pale

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 143

gray suffused with a suggestion of lavender to a rich chocolate
brown. These were capable of rapid color change and within
a few minutes could assume a complete alteration of tone,
blushing yellow, pinkish or green-gray as their mood dictated.
I collected quite a series, shooting them with the dust shot after
shaking the water out of the gun and laying it in the sun to
dry. By some strange accident my hat remained with me and
provided me with sufficient shells. But I was hardly an example
of what the well-dressed herpetologist should wear roaming
about the island stark naked except for a wet hat which flopped
loosely about my ears.

Sheep Cay was truly a remarkable place. It was occupied
by two species of trees, a few small bushes, three genera of
crabs, a large variety of mollusks, one kind of lizard and one
mammal— myself. This was the island's total population with
the exception of a little green heron which screeched in alarm
and fled when I arrived and a host of stinging mosquitoes and
sand fleas. The trees were the most obvious living organisms,
thirteen in all. Twelve of the thirteen were cocoanut palms
and they were distributed along the shores of a little cove which
penetrated the island near the middle. The other tree spread
over all the remainder of Sheep Cay and was the most mag-
nificent individual of its species I have ever seen. There is a
possibility that it was composed originally of more than one
plant but these had so coalesced as to be indistinguishable. This
tree possessed no less than several hundred separate yet united
trunks and perhaps three or four thousand upraised roots which
supported these trunks on a raised platform well above the
level of the salt water. The roots were intermingled and en-
twined in an indescribable maze; the branches twisted and
wove their way upwards, fusing in countless places, locking
arms, bracing one joint against another, until an impenetrable
fretwork of timber supported a canopy of dark green leaves.

144

I N A G U A

Only the strongest light rays filtered through this screen; the
upper reaches of this gigantic vegtable mesh-work gave the
appearance of a great gloomy cavern. The green cavern was
filled with a low humming as of the whirring of countless
insects; as indeed I discovered it was when a horde of mos-
quitoes settled on my bare flesh and busily sank their probes.
Scrambling outside I brushed off the pests and walked around
this monstrous tree. It covered at least half an acre. In Kingston,
Jamaica, there is a renowned banyan tree that is large enough
to fill a small plaza; this great mangrove, for such it was, would
have swallowed the banyan and left room for another.

This tree was the center and the axis of existence for all
the creatures of the islet. The Anolis lizards, being arboreal,
were restricted to its branches; the barrier of leaves protected
them from the sweeping force of the trade winds and pro-
vided the quiet atmosphere essential for the maintenance of
the mosquitoes and other small insects on which they stuffed
themselves until their bellies were distended like small balloons.
Even the crabs, a land species of yellow and purple, depended
on the mud and debris about the bases of the roots to furnish
them with the microscopic bits which they gleaned between
the dead leaves; outside in the hot sun these crabs were not to
be found. Life on the island existed because of the tree; or more
exactly the tree was the foundation of the island itself. But for
this arboreal giant Sheep Cay would be nothing more than a
bar of white gleaming sand, forever shifting, drifting at the
mercy of the wind and currents. Only under the branches was
there any hint of solidity: here the calcareous sand, held tightly
by the binding roots, had settled and metamorphosed into gray
carbonate of Hme.

Sheep Cay had, no doubt, first appeared above the rushing
surf when a portion of the fringing reef became too interlaced
to permit the free passage of water and had bogged down with

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 145

sand. As time progressed this sand had crept upwards, filling
up the coral branches until it reached the surface. At the sur-
face the waves and currents tore at the shifting grains, tossing
them about, piling them up and tearing them apart, forming
and re-forming the bar with every change of tide. I walked up
to the outer edge of the cay and found just this sort of action
going on. The magnificent curve of foaming coral reef swept
up to the extreme tip of the island where it terminated in a
great pile of white sand. The rollers coming in from the sea
swirled over this area, churning it into a milky silt which surged
back and forth with each ebb and flow of the waves.

Returning to the little cove and dropping on the sand pre-
paratory to getting ready for the swim back to the mainland
again I saw the second phase in the drama of the building of
an island enacted before my eyes. The tide had reached its
lowest ebb and was beginning to flow again. Inch by inch the
water crept up the slope of the sand, sending tiny ripples lap-
ping gently on the beach. Rolling in these ripples was a long
spear-like shaft of reddish wood about a foot in length. The
lower end of it was shaped like a javelin, tapering to a smooth
point; the upper was peculiarly sheathed with a circle of shriv-
eled and torn fibers. The javelin was the radicel of a mangrove
seedling, and it had drifted from somewhere on the mainland.

Mangrove trees live in an area of ever-changing surface,
marshes of soft mud, in the treacherous space of the tide lines
washed by strong currents and still stronger waves. Their seeds
if distributed like those of other trees would soon be washed
away, drowned by salt water or smothered in piled up silt. To
compensate for this insecurity nature has provided a method
of propagation ensuring a firm anchorage in whatever shifting
element the tree is to grow. Instead of casting the mature seed
to fall and be washed away or buried, the mother tree retains
the product of its blossoms until it has produced a long stiff

46 I N A G U A

radicel or spear-like root which hangs downwards from the
branch. This is held intact until one of two events occurs.
Either the spear will reach the ground and attach itself by
rootlets and begin its growth as a separate tree, breaking loose
from the parent; or it will suddenly part its top fibers and
plunge straight downwards like a javelin and bury itself in the
soft ground. By its own weight it fixes itself upright until the
roots can take hold and consolidate their position.

Something had gone awry with this seed-root. It had fallen
on its side, deflected by a branch and floated away on the re-
ceding tide; or it had struck some hard object beneath the mud,
a shell or buried log, and failed to secure a purchase. The tide
and the trade wind had brought it to Sheep Cay. Whether it
would survive after having arrived was a moot question. But
not twenty feet away was another radicel half buried in the
sand. From the top of this was emerging a pair of green tissues,
dark and lanceolate, the first leaves. Beneath the soil long fi-
brous roots had anchored themselves firmly entwining the
wreck of a long buried conch.

In just such a way did the great tree in the center of the
island secure a hold. Its early existence must have been a ter-
rific struggle, a battle with salt spray, sticky foam, with the
shifting of sand grains and the swirhng waves. But it had tri-
umphed. The first rootlet had become two, then four, then
sixteen, a hundred and a hundred thousand. The newly sprouted
leaves drank in the brilliant sunlight and by the magic of their
green chlorophyll transmuted its energy to tissue of trunk, and
tendril and blossom. Branches dropped additional rootlets, these
pierced the sand and raised new shoots, from these came other
branches, other leaves, more blossoms, seeds and the pointed
fingers of seed radicles. These in their turn had dropped off
and sprouted, fusing with the parent, until for yards around the
shifting sand bar had become stabilized and assumed the status

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 147

of a permanent island.

The cocoanut palms had arrived the same way, drifting on
the beach as ripe and fertiUzed nuts. They had come long after
the mangrove and by some trick of the beach had lined them-
selves in a straight rov^ just out of reach of the tide. In the
debris and jetsam of the tide Hnes were the decayed shells of
a number of other cocoanuts which just drifted in; these nuts
could not have belonged to the trees already on the island, for
the bar had enlarged since the trees had reached maturity and
the first comers were a number of yards inland.

The cocoanut shells gave an indication of how the lizards
came to Sheep Cay. They could not have arrived on a man-
grove radicel; they would have been quickly chilled and
drowned. On a cocoanut shell, however, a lizard would have
had an excellent chance of survival; the casings are buoyant
and ride high out of the water. If the weather were calm and
the tides set right an agile lizard or even two would have had
no difficulty in navigating the half mile from the mainland.
There is even another possibility. An entire bush may have
been torn from its fastenings and been blown out to sea by
a storm with a whole family of arboreal Anolis ensconced in its
branches. This seemed more logical as none of the ground-
living species which abounded on the mainland had as yet made
their appearance on Sheep Cay.

So far, the flying insects, the Anolis lizards, the few bushes
and the two species of trees were the only dry-land organisms
which had survived. The crabs and mollusks could hardly be
included, for although they were terrestrial in their habits they
were, strictly speaking, marine, being forced to return to the
ocean sooner or later to breed or wet their gills. How many
years had been needed to reach this stage of population I could
not guess. Sheep Cay, very likely, was not more than a century
or two old. The oldest map which I can find is dated i860 and

148 I N A G U A

shows the island as an unnamed point. Presuming that it is a
hundred years old this would give a rough average of approxi-
mately only one new permanent resident each quarter of a
century. This is probably a very high figure, yet, on this basis
each millennium would see only forty additions divided equally
between the animals and plants.

Therefore, I felt exceedingly fortunate in being present at
the introduction of two new inhabitants, one of which was
animal, the other vegetable, a full half -century's quota! As a
matter of fact I was directly responsible, for when I reached
in my water-soaked hatband for another dust shot with which
to secure a supplement to my series of Anolis I was surprised
to see emerge from the wet cloth the gaudy body of a spider.
It was a very small spider and it appeared to be damp and be-
draggled though it moved quickly on its eight legs. Attached
to its body was a spherical sac which contained several dozens
of diminutive eggs. Carefully I carried the mite up to the
shelter of a fallen palm leaf and deposited it on the dried fibers.
It sat quiescent for a few seconds and then retired into a crevice
lugging the sac with it. There I am confident a new race of
spiders was begun.

The sixth resident I was not so sure about. Neither was I
certain of its identity. In the hope of finding another spider
as mate for the first I turned the hatband inside out and ex-
amined it carefully. There were no more arthropods but nestled
in a fold of the felt was a very small pecuHarly shaped seed. It
was formed somewhat like the head of a lance except that the
butt end was twisted and curved in the fashion of a lyre. Mi-
croscopic engravings were etched over its surface and it was
cleft lengthwise with a deep fissure. Several weeks later I ran
a net through a number of the grasses thinking I might find a
duplicate but nothing I secured even remotely resembled it.
Possibly the seed had fallen into my hatband while I slept;

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 149

again it might have come all the way from North America, for
the hat was an old one. In the shelter of one of the palms I
scraped together a little soil, planted the seed and ringed it about
with a circle of conchs to mark the spot. It was a bare hope,
for even if it sprouted, unless the plant were one of those re-
markable creations which fertilized itself or reproduced freely,
it was foredoomed to failure. Nearly ten years later when I
returned to Sheep Cay for another purpose I remembered and
looked for it in vain. The circle of conchs had vanished and
even the cocoanut had died and fallen to the ground where it
was rapidly becoming a portion of the beach.

While I was musing over the plant I thought the island was
to add still another resident to its tiny quota, for the flickering
yellow body of a Catopsila butterfly floated by on the wings
of the wind. But the insect made no attempt to reach the cay
and drifted over the foam of the reef and was blown further
out to sea. It reminded me of the mystery of a late September
afternoon in 1927 when I saw a great horde of Tieris butter-
flies, tiny creatures with wings of yellow and orange edged
with black, gather together on the hot sands of the beach mid-
way between Lewes and Rehobeth in Delaware and then sud-
denly rise on a gentle west wind and drift out in a great
streaming ragged line into the darkening wastes of the Atlantic
Ocean. They went to a certain death. One by one their fragile
bodies fell to the waters to flap dismally for a few moments,
to float quietly on the waves for a while and then, waterlogged,
to slip down into the cold green depths. Thousands of them.
A few have been known to reach Bermuda where they have
been reported on rare occasions only to disappear as mysteri-
ously as they came. The Catopsila butterflies, which belong
to the same great family, have been seen doing the same thing
along the coasts of northern South America, setting out in
great swarms into the Caribbean from which there is no re-

150

I N A G U A

turn. It is the same form of madness which at times mysteri-
ously seizes the migrating lemmings of Norway and causes
them to plunge in hordes over the fjord walls into the sea where
they drown in the hundreds, an insanity which seems to be
due to an epidemic disease resulting from overcrowding. Per-
haps the same urge which causes the land-living butterflies to
gather suddenly and permit themselves to be swirled to a death
on the ocean and which causes the lemmings to depart on their
seemingly hopeless migrations has the same biological root as
the unexplainable urge or "will-to-follow" which afflicts as
a kind of disease normally peaceful and sedentary humans,
catches up their emotions and coalesces them into war-mad
nations intent on self destruction. The sudden burst of energy
that centered about the person of Genghis Khan and swept
like a whirlwind over the steppes of Asia, and the similar
unaccountable flare of power which hurled the force of the
Crusades out of a Medieval Europe on an unsuspecting Jeru-
salem, the great swirl of human emotion which brought down
on Rome the restless hordes of barbarians from northern Eu-
rope, or the more modern will-to-power of a Fiihrer-f ollowing
Germany have a deeper significance than the leadership of one
man, or group of men, however magnetic they may be. The
leader is but the spark that sets the energy in motion. Men or
mice or butterflies are all subject to their madnesses; these differ
only in effect and potentialities.

The making of an island is a long and tedious process. I can
plow up my back yard, turn under all vegetation, burn off the
residue, plow it again until the soil is seemingly barren of all
life, a patch of yellow brown dirt. Unless I persist, however,
this patch in the short space of two or three weeks will become
a carpet of green weeds, plantains, daisies, morning-glories, Jim-
son weed, phlox, violets, grass, moss, curling vines, small sap-
lings, stems of blackberry and bramble. The small six acres of

THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 151

my Maryland farm, woodland and cleared space, dry soil and
wet, probably contains more different species of animals and
plants than all of Inagua Island, though, of course, not the
numbers of each. An oceanic island achieves its fauna and flora
by long methods of trial and error; a dozen creatures arriving
by wind or wave or on the bodies of animals or birds perish
to every one that survives. A single storm on an islet as small
as Sheep Cay can destroy in one night the accumulated contri-
butions of a hundred years of favorable circumstance.

I patted the soil about the newly planted seed, adjusted the
conchs once more, gathered up the gun and my limp hat, and
then with my heart thumping with apprehension waded out
to the edge of the shoals and slipped quietly into the water.

CHAPTER VIII

The Wind

It was well that I did not tarry much longer, for the current
was swinging through the channel at a quickened pace and was
pouring swiftly toward the open reef. Only by swimming with
my utmost strength did I succeed in reaching the last bar a
few feet from the place where it terminated. Beyond this bar
the lagoon opened up into a wide expanse of water where it
deepened considerably; if I had not made this point as soon
as I did I would have had a long struggle before reaching shore
again. As it was I arrived nearly exhausted. Constantly glancing
over my shoulder I kept a watch for the shark but the beast
did not put in an appearance. I was much reHeved when I
waded wearily ashore and slumped on the sand near my clothes
to rest.

While I relaxed I got out the vial of formol and the syringe
and injected the group of Anolis and placed their corpses in
the jar for safe keeping. I was thus engaged when a series of
strange croaking calls attracted my attention. Looking up I
saw a long wedge-shaped formation of roseate spoonbills flying
between the mainland and the cay. Like geese they were in
military formation, each bird flapping a little to one side and
close behind the individual preceding so as to take advantage
of the aerial waves pushed aside by the advancing flock. Their
wing beats were slow and graceful and occasionally the leader
set his wings and ghded, each spoonbill in succession doing
likewise in perfectly timed sequence until the entire flock
skimmed motionless just above the water's surface. Then the
birds would resume their flappings, starting at the front end

152

T H E W I N D 153

and taking up the motion one after the other for the length of
the Hne. The precision of this movement reminded me of the
evolutions of chorus girls.

No chorus girls, however, were ever arrayed like these spoon-
bills. With the possible exception of the flamingo I have never
beheld a more gorgeous sight. Spoonbills are dressed in a plum-
age of lovely pink, of a hue that is quite unnameable. To say
simply that they are pink is like stating that the sky is blue.
Spoonbill pink is a color that contains something of the iri-
descence of pearls, a little of the crimson of the sunset, the bril-
liance of flame and much that is completely evanescent. This
pink is a living tone which flares and dims with the Hght,
becomes in turn delicate and pale, or dark and carmine. A twist
of wing, flash of sunlight, shade of cloud and the dress of
spoonbills reflect vivid scarlet, old rose, deep salmon or the
color of Mediterranean coral. Contrast this raiment against a
seascape of deep indigo, the lucid green of a coral lagoon, the
heavy olive of mangrove trees, a sky of cerulean blue and the
golden yellow of a sun-drenched tropical beach and you have
a faint approximation of spoonbills in their natural haunts.

The hour is rapidly approaching, unless something is done
for their protection, when the last roseate spoonbill in this
quarter of the globe will build its last nest and lay the last
spoonbill egg. Great flocks of these birds once occurred in the
southern regions of Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico and in
the West Indies. The Florida colonies are all but decimated,
and in the West Indies the only remaining breeding flocks are
those in Cuba and Hispaniola where they are on the verge of
extinction, and on Great Inagua Island. When these are gone
there will have perished forever one of the loveUest and most
peculiar of our native birds.

A spoonbill appears to be a cross between a stork and a duck.
Actually it is neither of these but is most closely related to the

154

I N A G U A

ibises with which some students of ornithology consider it to
be classed although at present it stands aloof in a family all its
own. Its unusual bill sets it apart from all other birds and gives
it a truly amazing appearance. This organ is not pink like the
remainder of the animal but is dull greenish-blue, shading to
gray at the base. The lower end is flat and spoon-shaped and
looks like the business end of a spatula. The creature's head
and nose are bare and the effect when seen head on is that of
a bald-headed Cyrano de Bergerac with a monstrous nose.

Hastily gathering my pack and donning my clothes I hur-
ried up the coast after the flock. The flying wedge followed
the shoreline for a half mile and then turned inland between
some large clusters of mangroves. When I reached the spot
the birds had disappeared and I saw that they had entered the
mouth of a large creek which penetrated the country for some
distance. The waterway was Hned with hundreds of mangroves
which crowded together in an impenetrable barrier, denying
access to the shore. Somewhere in this mangrove swamp there
should be a nesting colony of spoonbills. It was then the fif-
teenth of February and from what I remembered about their
breeding dates the season was about due.

To go chasing spoonbills was not an altogether reasonable
thing. There was still more than three quarters of the island to
circuit, my water was half used up and in a few days I would
have to start living off the country. While spoonbills were an
interesting feature of the landscape, they were nevertheless a
definite digression from the problem at hand. But the possi-
bility of seeing these rare and rapidly vanishing birds on their
breeding grounds was too good an opportunity to miss.

The waters of the creek appeared to be shallow, not much
over knee depth, and I estimated that I could follow its course
back into the interior, gaining solid ground beyond the man-
groves and then cutting diagonally back to the coast again. On

T H E W I N D 155

the way I could collect a series of lizards and examine the
topography. By this casuistry I salved my conscience although
I knew that I could accomplish that result in one quarter the
time by crossing the creek at its mouth and passing the barrier
of mangroves. But then the spoonbills would have been lost
to me.

In a small boat the exploration of this lonely creek would
have been but a matter of a few hours, nor would there have
been any difficulty if there had been a shore to walk along.
Instead the tangled roots of the mangroves thrust out every-
where, forcing me to keep well out in the center. At first the
bottom was smooth white sand, hard and firm under foot; pres-
ently this became soft and fine, oozy and then mucky. I should
have turned back then, and would have done so, giving up
the quest as hopeless, but just as I was about to retrace my steps
I caught sight of the spoonbills again. They were wading in
the shallows, feeding with queer graceful lateral motions of
their bills. These were thrust into the water and passed rapidly
back and forth as the birds scooped up the small shells, tiny
minnows and small fry on which they feed. Leisurely they took
to the wing again and flew up the river.

Late afternoon found me well up into the labyrinths of the
swamp. Seven or eight times I had been on the point of turn-
ing back but always the hope of finding the nests urged me on.
The spoonbills kept tantahzingly out of reach. The mangroves
were literally alive with waterbirds. Great droves of migrant
plover and sandpipers trooped in regiments about the mud
flats. Several flocks of pelicans alternately glided and flapped
above the green water or dived with great splashes after fish.
Little green herons were legion; they swarmed everywhere,
under the mangroves, between the shallows; the air was filled
with their guttural clacking; dozens burst into the air with
frightened squawks, flying a few yards and then settling again

S6 I N A G U A

to flush once more. The great lank forms of Louisiana and
great Blue Herons were poised motionless on single legs wait-
ing for luckless minnows to pass, then rose and flapped heavily
away, looking like ancient pterodactyls against the sky; several
pairs of Black-necked Stilts raised a terrific hubbub when I
startled them away from their feeding grounds; their notes
reminded me of the yapping of ill-tempered dogs. There were
dozens of herons' nests, all deserted, and in the shallows in
carefully hidden places, the half floating platforms of the Do-
minican Grebes. These too were empty and were in the process
of decay though their owners were swimming and diving all
over the creek. These grebes are the smallest of their race,
resembling small ducks except that their bills are compressed
vertically, and their legs are placed so far back that they can
progress on the ground only at a slow drunken shuffle. They
seldom fly, but in the water are marvels of seaworthiness; as
submarines they reach their peak of efficiency, underwater they
can swim for long distances, forcing themselves rapidly along
with the broad lobes of their aquatic feet. The life of a Do-
minican Grebe is spent wholly in the water, either above or
below it.

I was a long way from the coast when the last rays of the
sun caught up with me. The spoonbills had disappeared, losing
themselves in the tangled growth of the mangroves. The white,
chalky mud was exceedingly thick, it clung to my canvas shoes
and my trousers and dragged at my feet. Suddenly I began to
realize how tired I was. The two grass bags felt as though they
were loaded with granite, the thongs cut my shoulders, the
sun had burned my neck and face until they smarted at the
touch, my eyes were heavy from the glare of the sun, the salt
water had cracked the skin of my legs and wrinkled the flesh.
I looked for a place to sit down. There was none. The man-
groves hedged in any solid ground. Even the mud bars offered

T H E W I N D 157

no resting place.

To break through the trees was impossible, their tangled
roots formed an impassable barrier through which only the
slim bodies of herons and sandpipers could have slipped. The
sun dipped lower and lower, dropped behind the somber trees,
tinting the clouds with pink and crimson. The gloom deepened;
a star appeared, glinting palely at first; the sky altered swiftly
from blue to blue gray, then became dark. A low singing sound
came to my ears, the hum of mosquitoes. In vast multitudes they
poured out of the shadowy mangroves and settled on my face
and arms. Frantically I tried to brush them off. Dozens were
crushed; my arms became smeared with broken wings and
blood— my own blood extracted by the mosquitoes. The crushed
insects were immediately replaced with newcomers; they flew
into my eyes; my ears were full of their beating wings; my lips,
already sore from the sun, swelled to negroid proportions;
even my nostrils became clogged with mosquito bodies. I could
feel the flesh of my exposed forehead become turgid with
bumps; I tore out a handkerchief and draped it below my eyes,
bandit fashion, but the pests flew up underneath and were
worse than before. My shirt was no protection, the mosquitoes
pierced the thin cloth as though it did not exist. In desperation
I tried wetting it, thinking this might discourage the insects,
but it made no difference, the fabric only clung stickily. I even
tried caking my face and neck with mud but the slime would
not cling; it ran down my shirt and across my body in little
rivulets. I cursed the spoonbills, cursed my own stupidity,
cursed the predicament in which I found myself.

In a sense I was not altogether to blame, even though I had
gone into the swamp against my better judgment, for since
the evening when Ophelia had baked our bread in the sand
at the Lagoon Christophe there had not been a sign of a mos-
quito. Somehow in spite of the salt water, the mangrove swamp

158 I N A G U A

provided breeding places for them and after dark they came
to Hfe in the countless thousands. I have spent evenings in the
Jersey sw^amps and in the cypress marshes of southern Georgia
where the numbers of these insects have produced a sound like
that of a dozen droning airplanes, but never had I encountered
anything like the myriads that came upon me that night in the
spoonbill swamp.

I had to do something and do it quickly. The pain of the
accumulated bites was beginning to drive me frantic; the hum-
ming was worse; my ear drums vibrated noisily to the high-
pitched din. There is no sound more nerve-destroying than the
hum of mosquitoes. I came nearer to panic than I have ever in
all my life. Only by grim determination did I fail to give way
to temptation and throw away the heavy pack and run as fast
as my legs could carry me to the coast. There was nothing to
do but retrace my steps and do it carefully lest in the dark I
take a wrong passage and walk up a blind waterway. Doggedly
I plunged through the mud, trying not to slap the mosquitoes.
Fighting them only served to set them buzzing more wildly
than ever and excited my already overwrought nerves. Minute
after minute I slugged through the tepid water, falling into
holes and tripping on buried sticks, rising and falling again and
again. By concentration I tried to obliviate the sensation of pain
and soreness that was stealing through every fiber. Vaguely I
recalled reading of the Hindu ascetics who rendered them-
selves insensible to suffering by focusing their attention on
beautiful thoughts or abstruse philosophical themes. Resolutely
I set my mind on a familiar poem, repeating it aloud as I strug-
gled through the dark. It was the strangely mournful and stately
"Thanatopsis."

To him njoho in the love of Nature hold comjnunion with her
visible forms, my voice echoed wearily through the mangrove
trees, she speaks a various language; for his gayer hours she has a

T H E W I N D 159

voice of gladiiess— how utterly silly the usually beautiful words
sounded then, Bryant could have known nothing of mosquitoes
—a7id a S777ile and eloquence of beauty-cmstd spoonbills, I
thought,— ^72^ she glides into his darker musings with a mild
and healing syinpathy that steals avjay their sharpness ere he is
aware. I fell into the water with a loud splash. Rising again,
and brushing the mosquitoes from my eyes, I continued. When
thoughts of the last bitter hour came like a blight over thy
spirit, and sad i777ages of the stern ago72y, and shroud, and pall,
—my eyes were beginning to swell shut— and, and— breathless
darkness— 777ake thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,— wh^t
a poem to have picked-G<9 forth, under the open sky, and list
to Nature's teachings, while fro?n all around— Earth and her
waters, and the depths of air—co7nes a still voice. The word
trailed off in a whisper, for a dozen mosquitoes had settled on
my lips and were probing all at once.

Yet in a few days and thee— and thee— the all beholding sun
shall see 7io i7iore in all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
—I was not cold but hot; perspiration ran out of every pore—
cold groimd, where thy pale forjn was laid, with many tears,
nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist thy i7nage—

A soft light stealing across the water distracted me momen-
tarily; it was the moon creeping blood red above the trees;
through the stinging hordes before my swelled eyes I could
just see the coppery hue lighting the edges of the leaves. Grimly
I began again. Earth that nourished thee shall claim thy growth,
to be resolved to earth again, and, lost each human trace,— No
one would ever find me if I became lost and collapsed in the
s-\N2im^.— Surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go
to mix,— the wild clatter of a heron echoed across the water—
forever with the ele772e72ts, to be a brother to the i72se72sible rock
and to the sluggish clod— The words slipped from my mind
and for a few moments I gave way to a frantic clawing at the

i6o I N A G U A

halo of mosquitoes about my hair. My face seemed puffed to
twice its normal size, the skin of my lips was stretched and hard,
the poison of hundreds of bites was seeping into the tissues of
my arms, making them stiff— once more I gained control and
began repeating the words again,— ;f/;e sluggish clod which the
rude swain turns with his share and treads up072. The oak shall
send his roots abroad ajid pierce thy jnoidd. Yet not to thine
eternal resting place— I would have given anything for a place
to shep—shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish couch
more magnificeiit.

I was only deceiving myself, the pain and annoyance was
maddening; "Thanatopsis" helped only for brief seconds at
a time. I was finding difficulty in remembering the words al-
though I knew the poem by heart. Blindly I sloshed on, trying
to repeat the familiar cadences. The gay will laugh when thou
art gone, the solemn brood of care plod on, and each one as
before will chase— will chase his favorite— favorite phanto7n;
yet all these shall leave their ?nirth—and — and— their eifiploy-

ments — and shall come, and make their bed with thee.

Numbly I resisted crying out at the mosquitoes.

The events of the remainder of that evening stay with me as
a miserable dream. Utterly weary, too tired to go much further,
half frantic with insect bites, I eventually emerged about two
in the morning and limped down to the beach. Here the trade
winds brought relief and drove away the swarming myriads.
I dimly remember slumping down on the sand in the shelter of
a mound of rock and slipping off into unconsciousness. I may
have been still muttering the lines of "Thanatopsis"; I do not
recall.

In the morning I roused myself sufficiently to strip and wash
in the surf, laying my muddy clothes in the sun to dry. My face
was still badly swollen and puffed and big lumps stood out all
over my body. I was burning up with fever; I thought it was

T H E W I N D i6i

malaria but it was only the resistance heat of millions of cor-
puscles combating the acids of the mosquitoes' bites. Extreme
lethargy pervaded my being and for hours I lay still and
drowsed, stirring only to put on my dry clothes again and to
eat a tin of corned beef. The fever made me consume large
quantities of water; by late afternoon there was less than a pint.
Before the sun set I gathered up my two bags and walked a
short distance up the coast to a place where a bench of soHd rock
came down to the water's edge and where I was sure there
would be no mosquitoes if the wind failed.

I slept most of the night on the hard rock and wakened
several hours before dawn to find that I no longer burned within
and that the swelling had all but disappeared. I also felt re-
freshed and physically able once more; my muscles were a little
sore from the unaccustomed rock but with action this stiffness
would pass. Best of all I felt more mentally alert than at any
time since the wreck; the slim diet of the past several days and
the distress of the night in the swamp together with the utter
weariness of two long days' marches in the heat had apparently
induced a compensating sharpness of nerve reaction. I am firmly
convinced from this experience and from two somewhat similar
episodes that the ancient religious customs of fasting and self-
induced privation have a sound physical basis for their origin.
The brain, normally moving in a smooth course, becomes stulti-
fied and requires a deeply disconcerting physical hardship to
burgeon it into full activity. Many of the truly brilliant de-
cisions of the old prophets came after periods of physical dis-
comfort and days of fasting; lest we consider this gross medieval
fantasy it should be remembered that even a certain man of
Nazareth subscribed to this theory and spent forty mysterious
days in the wilderness.

No brilliant decisions, of course, came my way as I lay that
early morning under the stars but I did find myself more than

i62 I N A G U A

usually sensitive to and keenly aware of the forces encom-
passing me on all sides. The moon was still high in the heavens
and was flooding the world with cold blue light. The Pleiades
flared in a scattered mass low on the horizon; the planet Jupiter
stared unwinkingly out of the dark background of infinite
space; in the north the pole star glittered faintly, half hidden
in the sea haze; around it revolved the tremendous galaxy of a
million solar systems. The great somber ocean stretched darkly
away into the night, suggested rather than revealed by the soft
loom of the moonlight on its surface; it gave the sensation of
a great sleeping monster whose rhythmic breathing was audible
as low deep thunder. The waves rumbling against the island's
barrier were not visible but they filled the air with guttural
sobbing, a subdued moaning that began heavily and then faded
into an audible sigh. The earth seemed divided between two
great and tremendous powers, one which was firm and stable,
the other surging and fluid. Swelling behind these forces was
the sound of another, and seemingly all-pervading, energy.

This third force seemed to come out of the emptiness of
outer space; the wail of its pressure dominated the whole of
existence. It did not rise and fall in rhythmical sequence like the
surf but maintained a constant tenor, a deep organ-like lamenta-
tion that swept on and on in constant reiteration, never ceasing.
The sound was the howl of the trade winds as they poured
over the earth in a continuous stream. I had never noticed it
quite like that before. The entire firmament seemed alive and
on the move; the slight pocket of still air behind the mound of
boulders where I lay accentuated, by contrast, the sense of
power flowing by on all sides. The earth was being washed by
a vast river of rushing gas— intangible, invisible but nonetheless
potent.

By listening intently I could separate the hundred com-
ponents that combined to make up the majestic sound. There

T H E W I N D 163

were weird soft whistles, countless hundreds of them, so low as
to be barely audible, ranging in scale as the pressure fluctuated
slightly, the rending of air as it was torn in fragments over
needle-sharp spires of hard stone, over the sponge-like en-
crustations of weather-decayed coral; close upon these low flute
notes was a faint pattering that at first was indefinable. It was
composed of billions of mote-proportioned explosions, Lilli-
putian particles of sound that broke in swelling crescendos of
rhythm through the medley of other tones. I lay listening a long
time before I was able to place them; then suddenly recollection
came to me; I heard this once before in a golden wheat field just
before the August harvest; the sound was the tapping of millions
of grass plants in the wind, the tiny clatter of blade against blade,
of stem against stem, bending and straightening, nodding one
blade to another. Turning I verified it immediately. In the
moonlight were the shadowy patches of beach grass, swirling,
alternately lightening and darkening as they were pressed close
to the earth and released again.

From higher in the air came a sweet tuneful whispering,
that before this night I had associated with only one scene.
By half closing my eyes I found myself transported thousands
of miles away; the tropical vegetation melted away and I was
lying in a forest of great green pines, the whisperings were the
breeze sounds filtering between the needles, the sighing that
with increase of wind becomes great roaring moans and then
subsides again to gentle singings. It was the voice of evergreens
talking one to the other, confiding secrets of the good rich earth,
of the dry carpets of smooth brown needles, of sky-topping
clouds and of warm rain. Then presently, and at first all but
unnoticeable, came another rustling, impinging slowly on the
ear, becoming perceptible only after it made itself known. Even
more vividly than the pine-whispering, this new sound brought
memories of the north country flooding back to mind. It was

i64 I N A G U A

a murmur akin to the swishing of old silk and taffeta, and,
briefly, I thought of Victorian ladies clad in multi-hued petti-
coats moving in old-fashioned parlors. But this memory van-
ished swiftly and once again the green pines dominated the
scene. Except this time the air was not warm but was frosty
and cold. Down through the interstices of the somber needles
were drifting swirling clouds of tiny white motes, the falling of
new snow. The gyrating horde of six-shaped crystals danced
across the clearings and fell on the carpet of dead leaves. Their
falling and bumping against the dried vegetation combined in a
mysterious murmuring that ran up and down between the
aisles of the trees.

I opened my eyes once more. The same trade wind that was
bringing the rollers in was drifting the beach sand, rolling the
countless grains up and down the beach, tumbling them into one
another, piling them into drifts and sweeping them on again.
The sound was not snow but the movement of tropical beach
sand that was causing this whispering, billions of infinitesimal
sounds accumulating one upon the other, the noise of grain
against grain, of lime rasping against lime. The wind was blow-
ing the sand, tearing the island apart, building it up, scouring the
slopes of the dunes, etching graven lines in the soft rock.

Gaunt and stark in the moonlight the ghostly silhouettes
of a thousand thorn trees crouched blackly against the luminous
sky. From these came the tones that I had mistaken for the
whisperings of the pines. These trees had all grown to an equal
height, stretching supplicating fingers to the heavens and then
like old men had all become bowed— curtsying evenly in one
direction— pointing to the west. They seemed to suggest that
in that direction moved the stream of life. Vainly their branches
had sought to resist the current, growing in normal tree fashion
until the uppermost twigs emerged from the still zone close to
the earth and felt for the first time the ceaseless pressure of the

T H E W I N D 165

moving river. Then slowly they had turned, bent by a force
greater than themselves, turned and followed the lines of least
resistance. Life flowed all in one direction. A series of whisper-
ings higher in tone than those given off by the trees near by
called my attention to a whitened corpse of a nearly dead lig-
num vitae. Through the years its gnarled trunk had resisted the
surge of air, but age and unrelenting struggle had got the best
of it. One by one the leaves had curled into brown crisps and
fallen off, the bark had whitened, even the iron hard wood had
become etched and graven, glistening palely in the moonlight.
The foliage had slipped from limb after limb, leaving them bare
and lifeless until only a small cluster of green remained on the
very last and most western twig. Life had literally flowed from
this plant, was pushed by the force of the wind from fiber after
fiber and from twig to twig.

I rose from my shelter and stepped out into the stream. Its
force was surprising. While I had slept the trades had increased
in intensity until they were blowing half a gale; the loose fabric
of my shirt and trousers fluttered in the breeze; the temperature
was slightly cool and I shivered. Striding down to the water I
stopped at the edge and listened. Here, too, the air was alive
with sound, with the Hquid splash of wave on wave, the sing of
salt spray. But these sounds were mostly further out, and I
remembered that I was still in the lee and that the full power of
the wind would not become apparent until I passed a headland
called Pollacca Point a few miles up the coast. Returning to
the shelter I gathered together the contents of my two bags,
ate another tin of beef, and set out again determined to cover
a few miles before the heat of day.

From that hour early in the morning the wind became a
personal enemy, a hostile and relentless antagonist which gave
no peace, chilling my body when I slept at night huddled behind
a rock, catching up the shimmering heat waves during the day,

i66 I N A G U A

blasting them against my face and forehead, singing, howHng,
whistKng. I could escape the sun by hiding beneath the trees
or crawling in the shade of boulders; the wind granted no
amnesty. Eddying, swirling, it worried me endlessly; drifting
sand covered my bags when I set them down, the tiny grains
filtered into my food, making it gritty; my clothes flapped cease-
lessly, breaking my rest, irritating me during the day. Not for
an hour, not for so much as a minute, did it slacken. In my hut
back in Mathewtown I had been conscious of the trades in a
vague sort of way: they whistled through the palmettos, and
rustled the grasses in the clearing, but behind the snug walls of
my home the wind did not exist; I could sleep, eat and live un-
molested. The clearing was in a semi-vacuum, its position in the
lee of the island sheltered it from all but the most violent gusts.
The trades roared overhead and then passed on out to sea again.

Inagua lies squarely in the path of the trades. These winds
at times blow incessantly for weeks, at others fall to near calm
or gentle zephyrs, more often they are vigorous and galelike.
Usually they increase and decrease in intensity, slowly building
up velocity over several days, holding it for long or short periods
and then gradually waning again. My exploration of the island
was in a period of increasing intensity.

About dawn I passed the last of the lee. From Polacca Point
the coast swings southwards in a long sweeping bay known as
the Bight of Ocean. Somewhere in the center of this was a
fabulous place known as Babylon which I had been told I could
not pass. I was curious to see it. Polacca Point was visible long
before I reached it by the curtain of white spray surging up
from the windward side. There was no sheltering reef to guard
the coast from the onslaughts of the huge swells that were
running; the bottom dropped straight down for fifty or sixty
feet; the water hit the blank wall with nothing to slow its im-
pact; white sheets of dazzling foam shot skywards and were

T H E W I N D 167

whipped into long streamers by the wind. The roar could be
heard for miles.

The spray drenched my clothing when I passed. Even though
I crawled far back into the tangled vegetation, the wind carried
the moisture yards inland. The land here was very low to the
water's surface, seven or eight feet at most. The waves appeared
ready to overflow at any moment. In some time long past this
very thing had happened when a hurricane had burst on this
section of coast, for although time had smoothed out the evi-
dences of violence, the fury of the long distant storm was still
visible everywhere. Back of the level bench of gray stone which
fronted the beach was piled a huge rampart of monstrous boul-
ders which had been wrenched from the sea's edge. Mixed with
these were huge masses of brain coral and yard-thick branching
trunks of madrepores which could have come only from the
bottom of the sea. Some of these lay half buried a hundred
yards from the breakers; a hundred feet down were the living
counterparts of the dead masses on dry land. It did not seem
within the bounds of possibility that any wave could have ac-
complished this feat. The wind on that terrible day must have
screamed at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. For miles around
the land must have been awash; the waves that came pounding
in must have hit the cKff at the island's edge with the roar of a
dozen cannon, must have spouted a hundred feet into the air,
to be caught and flung by the shrieking wind in a tearing, blind-
ing deluge of hundreds of tons of water. In this maelstrom
the surge of the moving mountains must have swept down to
the ocean bottom, scouring the sea floor and tearing loose the
living coral. These had been flung high above the rampart and
then rolled by the wash into the drowned valley behind.

The rampart provided some little shelter from the wind.
A short distance down the coast the tangled vegetation melted
away and there opened up a long narrow valley which ran

i68 I N A G U A

parallel to the beach. This valley was filled with a deep desposit
of loose white sand. The sand was pitted with hundreds of long
depressions, oval hollows of almost equal length. Thousands of
tracks crisscrossed back and forth between these and the wall
of vegetation on the far side of the valley. Their identity eluded
me for a long time; the sand was too loose to make clear impres-
sions, but the mystery was solved when I rounded a clump of
bushes and came upon a nest full of baby pigs. I almost stepped
upon them and they dashed madly about squealing with fright,
bumping into one another. Dropping the pack I ran after them
in circles thinking I might secure one for supper but they were
too quick for me. Stopping, I loaded the .410 and prepared to
shoot but the mother hog came running up and they dashed to
her for safety. She looked mean and angry and advanced with
her head lowered menacingly. The .410 would hardly have
stopped her if she had charged and I decided that there was no
sense in having an angry sow on my hands, so I edged cautiously
away, leaving her with her brood. They turned and trotted
away into the bushes.

For the next mile or two I moved quietly, hoping to find some
more young pork and was so intent on watching the ground
that I failed to notice until I came close the towering hull of a
great schooner piled high upon the rampart. It was the four-
master that Richardson had told us about durinof the dismal
dinner on our first day in Mathewtown. She had been a magnifi-
cent vessel. Two of her masts were still standing and the rem-
nants of her rigging were strewn in long piles along her decks
and over the sides. She had hit the rampart head on and the
impact had lifted her nose high out of the water until the great
bowsprit rose heavenward in a tangled mass of foot-ropes and
cordage. The hull was stove in in a dozen places and the water
rushed in and out in foaming torrents. I tried to climb up to
her decks but her sides were too steep and the few lines that

T H E W I N D 169

were draped over the rail parted with rot and decay when I
pulled on them. Great beams and planks were strewn for yards
around and her woodwork was bleaching to a silvery white
from the sun and salt spray. There is something infinitely sad
about the wreckage of a beautiful ship.

The ruins of the schooner reminded me of my own errand.
It also called to mind the distance I had yet to go. The sun was
growing hot again and the wind was gushing down the sand
valley with the intensity of a volcano. The water bottle was
practically empty and the mysterious land of Babylon had yet
to be crossed. There was nothing even faintly resembling a
waterhole. Beyond the valley the interminable limestone
stretched away into the center of the island. Somewhere in the
interior there must be water; the pigs had to drink. The idea of
utilizing a sow's drinking cup was not enchanting but the water
could be boiled. Caching the pack in an interstice of the ram-
part I headed inland, taking only the canteen, the gun and some
dust shot in the event I saw some interesting lizards.

The wall of vegetation proved to be well-nigh impenetrable.
There were few lizards, fewer birds, great mazes of green tree
cactus, acres and acres of gray limestone, more musical rocks
and billions of needle-sharp thorns. Little else. Low pig trails
ran everywhere. I crept along several of the more used ones,
hoping they might take me to water. They led nowhere. The
vegetation sprang out of crevices and holes in the rocks. I dug
the dirt out of a number but the soil was dry down to the ends.
No rain had fallen for several months. I did find one small hole
with a few drops in the bottom but it was too narrow to admit
my hand and there was no way of withdrawing the liquid. It
was probably salt anyway.

After an hovir I gave up the search and returned to the cache
in the rampart. I could do without water for a while, at least
until I reached the huts near the lagoon. In the meantime the

170 I N A G U A

country might change character. This did not seem likely but
there was always the possibility.

Instead the thorn scrub became more wild than ever. A maze
of tough prickly branches denied entry in a solid front all along
the edge of the valley. Gradually the inner wall became steeper
and eventually developed into a concave recessed cliff that
stretched out mile after mile in the heat waves. There was a
peculiar character to this wall that excited my curiosity. In some
manner it had a vaguely familiar look, some idiosyncrasy of
construction that set it apart from all other rock ledges that
I had seen. I searched my memory for a long time before a
recollection flashed into mind. This wall was exactly like the
cliff wall which towered over my bathing pool at Mathewtown.
The odd construction was caused by the scooping action of
surf; the signs were unmistakable. It was as hard as flint.

The wall itself offered further proof. Half cemented to its
base and frozen by the chemical action of decaying lime were
the remnants of dozens of varieties of sea creatures; the shells of
ancient whelks, faded to chalk white; crushed and broken
conchs; pieces of old coral, bleached by the sun and half melted
by the elements; the curved pieces of the armor plates of chitons;
broken fragments of mussels, piled deep; the calcareous remains
of echinoderms and the worn spirals of a dozen varieties of
gastropods. This was an old sea cliff where the surf once
thundered and foamed. I looked out to the present sea front.
It was about fourteen feet lower down and nearly four hundred
feet distant. At no very remote period, geologically speaking,
Inagua had been a dozen feet lower down in the sea. Much of
what is now dry land must have been shallow lagoon and rolling
water. The Bahamas are considered to be in a period of geologi-
cal submergence, they are slowly slipping into the ocean from
which they came; there is much evidence, however, of local
uplift; mother earth breathes deeply at times; a mile down in the

T H E W I N D 17

depths the sand-heaped granite platform on which Inagua rests
must have pulsed upwards, suddenly thrusting the old beach
out of reach of the ocean and forming a new one out of what
had been a submarine cliff.

The geological history of the Bahama Islands is very complex.
For countless centuries they have been isolated by great deeps
from all other land; they have fallen and risen rhythmically into
the depths; whole islands and archipelagos have emerged and
disappeared, have been connected and disconnected; the waves
have built them up and torn them apart again, scattering their
sands over the floor of the blue ocean. They have always been
islands of the sea. Never at any period of their history, even dur-
ing the glacial era when the level of the waters dropped three
or four hundred feet, sucked up by evaporation and deposited
as ice at the Poles, did they join or connect with any continental
mass. Much of the evidence of this struggle between the sea
and the land is obscured, drifted away on the wind and tides
or lost forever in the abyss of the ocean. Yet in this valley wall
in one breathless sweep was the last page of the story. Inagua
was a relatively new island; the sparse soil of the great inland
plain, covered only with the thin skim of decayed ceritheum
shells and with the grasses,— the figure of speech linking these
grasses to the third day of creation was nearer the truth than
I imagined— gave added credence to the evidence of the wall.

The wall terminated abruptly in the first outlying crags
of the place called Babylon. I reached these crags just before
sunset. A more forbidding vista would be difficult to imagine.
Were it not for the fact that I knew that the Bahamas are en-
tirely sedimentary in their structure, I would have believed
that this was the brim of an active volcano which had just
finished erupting, belching out great masses of lava and scoria.
The crimson rays of the setting sun cast a flame-colored hue
over a maelstrom of violently tumbled rocks, slag-like ridges

172

I N A G U A

of razor-edge cinder and cavernous pits of deep maroon. In the
half-light it appeared weird, unworldly, almost Martian. Baby-
lon is a magnified sponge acres in extent, a sponge which has
for its tissues the needle-edge spires of flinty stone. It is a gigan-
tic fiber of pitted and decayed lime, sharpened by the elements
into sword-thin blades of carved and jagged mineral.

Babylon was the end of travel for the day and I withdrew
to the shelter of the concave cliff where I lit a fire of drift-
wood. Immediately beyond the aura of light cast by the flames,
the ancient sea cliff plunged directly into a wall of sheer stone
that formed an angular shelter from the wind. This was myste-
rious in itself. The valley and the cliff ended too abruptly and
gave the feehng that under the vast pile of eroded limestone that
was called Babylon they continued on and on, smothered under
an eighty foot thick blanket of rock.

The wind that night howled louder than I had yet heard it.
The fire flickered and flared and weird shadows slid across
the ledges. Deep organ-like notes came out of the darkness,
different from the low whistlings and whisperings of the night
before; the rushing air pouring through the miUion holes and
crevices of the spongy rock assumed an ecclesiastical tone, a
low harmonious medley common to the vaulted naves of great
cathedrals. The sound disturbed me deeply; it was so utterly
mournful, penetrating; not to listen was difficult, there was
little else to do except tend to the fire.

I roused myself before dawn, devoured another tin of beef—
this food was beginning to get monotonous— and in the light
of the waning moon climbed out of the valley floor. In the
moonlight the world was more strange than ever; pale blue light
edged the jagged rocks; the shadows appeared as empty black
holes that seemed to pierce the center of the earth. The valley
glistened as a long narrow ribbon between the dark rocks on
shore and the old sea wall. Eighty feet below a seething line

T H E W I N D 173

of pale blue marked the waves breaking against the blank cliff.

Once years before in the dazzling white glass-sand quarries
of the Ordovician in West Virginia I climbed two hundred
feet from the bottom over sheets of loose shale and fragile sand-
stone to reach an almost perfect fossil of a crinoid which I had
seen through my field glasses and, having secured it, hung help-
less for several hours, too frightened by the treacherous char-
acter of the rocks to descend, expecting at any moment to be
precipitated to the quarry floor; and, once I spent a miserable
half hour clambering over steep projections on a narrow ledge
high above the Susquehanna River in upper Pennsylvania where
I had gone seeking the nest of a Duck Hawk, cautiously hoist-
ing myself from stone to stone, scraping the flesh from my
knees and fingers as I hugged the cliff wall, and lowering myself
between sharp crevasses. On the latter occasion a portion of the
ledge had crumbled behind me, shutting off all means of retreat
and forcing me to drop from ledge to ledge, some of which
were hardly more than eight or nine inches wide, until I reached
the valley floor a hundred and fifty feet below. These experi-
ences led me to believe that I had some knowledge of the tech-
nique of climbing over rock. I had not then seen the crags of
Babylon.

There was no danger of falling any great distance but a drop
of a few inches in this amazing place would have meant fright-
fully lacerated limbs and mangled flesh. Hundreds of thousands
of stone needles and curved knife blades of razor-edge limestone
thrust up everywhere. Every crevice and hole was lined with
them; deep fissures were barbed with recurved hooks; there was
scarcely a spot level enough or large enough to place a foot.
Thin sheets of sharp stone covered deep spiked pits and crum-
bled at the weight of a body. The thin soles of my tennis shoes
afforded no protection. Frequently I had to stop and rest my
feet. Sitting was a problem, solved only by perching on top of

174 I N A G U A

the grass bags.

Daylight revealed a strange and wild vista. Curving along
the sweep of the Bight of Ocean was a great line of magnificent
stone cliffs rising and falling into the distance. Against these
the brilHant blue of the ocean beat in a frothy white line, throw-
ing spray high into the air, pulsing and roaring. The water was
unbelievably clear and the bottom was easily visible a hundred
feet down. It was strewn with gigantic boulders and crags ap-
parently crumbled from the cliff walls. Between these were
moving a number of dark shadowy forms, the bodies of large
sharks and slow lumbering groupers. In one spot a group of
immense blue parrotfish hovered about an algae-covered boul-
der, revealed by flashes of deep indigo as they twisted to munch
the filmy covering. About a mile away a bright scar showed
where a small landsHde had sHpped from the cliff and tumbled
into the sea. On the land side the jagged rocks swept away in a
series of rolling hills toward the interior where they were
covered with an impenetrable scrub.

The sun was well above the horizon when I reached the
new gash on the upper rim of the cliff's face. Cautiously I
edged my way down until I was on a level with the center. A
great chunk had fallen away, undercut by the waves. The
stone underneath was white and filled with sand, slightly soft
but firm, and resistant to the fingers. A small object imbedded
in the rock attracted my attention. With a penknife I extracted
it carefully and rolled it between my fingers, crushing off the
loose grains. It was the shell of a land snail, a long curved spiral
of delicate form, exactly like those which covered the grasses
of the valley and which occurred elsewhere on the island, cling-
ing to vegetation in great multitudes. The place where I found
the fossil was at least thirty feet from the crest of the cliff.

These snails are not creatures of the sea; their entire lives
are spent on dry land far from the sound of salt water. This

T H E W I N D 175

shell could only have dropped centuries ago from the frond
of some plant, a blade of grass or leaf of some sea grape; im-
mediately after drifting sand must have covered it over, pro-
tecting it against the elements. Drifting sand! This was the
answer to the mystery of the disappearance of the ancient sea
wall into the heavy blanket of solid rock. Drifting sand— once
more I bent close and examined the new exposure. Not far
below the matrix impression of the snail I found a long brown
streak unlike any other discoloration in the cliff. Excitedly I
dug it to its source— the crushed and stained mold of the base
of a frond of palmetto palm. There was no tissue remaining but
there was enough impression to identify it beyond all doubt.
Drifting sand— this was truly the land of the wind. Centuries
before on this spot a great series of dazzling white sand dunes
had been rolled up from the ocean, grain after grain sweeping
with the wind, piling in long rows, making ripple marks, long
curving lines like those in the sea when the tide is out. On and
on, higher and higher the wind carried the fleeting sand, bury-
ing the ancient sea wall, marching inland, sloping and gradual
on the windward face, steep and abrupt in the lee. Dune grasses
sprang up momentarily, bore families of snails; these lived their
lives and died, dropping in dozens to the shifting floor; the
wind sprang up again covering these shells and obscuring the
grasses beneath tons of tiny particles. Palmettos grew and were
buried in their turn. Month in and month out the wind never
ceased; night and day, the dunes shifted and re-formed. In a
continuous stream the particles came billowing out of the ocean,
tossed up by the crashing waves. Ground up fragments of sea
creatures, the drifting dust of pulverized shells, the delicate
houses of microscopic foraminifera, the silica spicules of
sponges, the broken and powdery carapaces of giant crayfish,
the wave -rolled residue of coral, all went drifting away on the
gales. In great mounds a hundred feet high this vast pile of the

176 I N A G U A

wrecks of a hundred million living creatures lay in large yellow
hills. I crumbled some of the buried particles between my
fingers and looked at them closely. They were all formed of the
corpses of once living matter. These hills were hills of death.

Truly the land of the wind; the record was there to see,
preserved by remarkable chance. The dunes had formed, grown
to full dimension— and then frozen. Literally frozen; not by
chill of temperature, nor snow, nor blanket of ice but congealed
by the slow corrosive chemistry of grain against grain, of lime
against lime. The fresh seeping water of downpouring rain
had melted the sand, fused it together in one hard flinty mass.
One sees this story repeated everywhere in the Bahama Islands.
The blue ocean casts up its tons of dead sea creatures and the
winds and the rains soHdify the dunes into enduring stone be-
fore they have marched far. There are places where series after
series of frozen hills line up opposite windy shores like regi-
ments of marching soldiers; the outermost still soft and yielding,
fresh with the marks of the sea; the innermost hard and flinty,
pitted and scored with the scars of slow dissolution. Even hills
have their youth and old age; their flexible years and their set
and hardened decline. To be born; to grow and reach maturity;
to exist awhile and then crumble to dust again is the fate of all
substance; mineral and animal, the animate and inanimate, all
must pass this cycle.

This is a universal picture.

CHAPTER IX

The Web of Island Life

Every event in nature has its inception in the alteration of sub-
stance or change of action that preceded it. Spring is bom of
autumn; today's roses are nourished by the fragments of last
year's leaves; the liquid burble of a wren outside your door is
only the energy of yesterday's insects whose crushed and di-
gested bodies are transmuted into song and joy, into flight and
avian activity. Living comes of dying; a fallen tree is home
for myriads of boring beetles which would never have existed
but for the toppling of the trunk; the comforting chirp of
crickets, the haunting calls of whip-poor-wills, the mellow
droning of bees hurrying from flower to flower, flowers them-
selves, are only possible because last night, or last week or last
year something passed its time of usefulness and fell to earth,
or was devoured, or was dissolved into the elements from which
it came. Every flash of bright color from fur, scale, or feather,
the graceful movements of living things, the vibrant darting of
hummingbirds, the impelling sweep of migration, the slow ma-
jestic soaring of an eagle or albatross, the thud of pounding
hoofs, the curve of rippling fins, all these are made possible by
the perishing of some creature or plant, or because of the modi-
fication of some mineral or action of the elements.

Living might be considered a chain, or, better yet, a mesh of
chain links, like the chain mail of the knights of long ago. Only
the simile is not quite complete for the mesh of the knights was
composed of a single metal, of bronze or silver or gold, accord-
ing to the station of the wearer. The chain mesh of organic
existence instead is of variegated mesh; a tangled web in which

177

178 I N A G U A

one strand is brightly illumined with the glow of day, in con-
trast to and unlike its neighbor which is dark with the shadows
of night. It is an enjoined tissue in which one coil is life and the
next is death; and, there is a great intermingling of patterns, as
of design shuttling between one portion of the mesh and an-
other.

All individual creation has its beginning and its ending.
Stars wing their way into existence in a burst of flame and then
die as cold, blackened spheroids; birds begin as eggs and com-
plete their course as smudges of brown earth or heaps of be-
draggled feathers; the winged seeds that drift over the spring
meadows become in the fall clumps of charred and frayed tis-
sue; continents rise and disappear as geologic time overwhelms
them; even epochs start with hope and promise; the new year
pushes out the old and in its turn makes room for another.

On Inagua nearly the whole of existence began and ended
with the wind. To be able to compute with exactness the po-
tency of the wind in the lives of the creatures of the island
would require the services of a super-statistician and the com-
bined efforts of a complete university of technicians, miles of
graphs and years of patient research. Even then the picture
would be clouded with uncertainties. Yet the factor of the
wind is everywhere present and everywhere obvious. Even the
most undiscerning soon discover that the birds pay allegiance
to its force when they sleep at night; their bodies are all oriented
to the east, facing the breeze. Herons, flamingos, sandpipers,
doves, warblers, hawks, perching in branches or crouching on
the ground, singly or in flocks of hundreds, all turn and face the
direction of the sunrise. I adopted this habit myself, except
when in the shelter of a boulder, snuggling low to avoid the cur-
rent. Even the lizards which burrowed underground delayed
the hour of their morning appearances when the wind was
strong. I kept a careful record of the times of their emergence

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 179

and of the velocity of the wind and found as much variation as
two hours between slack days and times of semi-gale. The
humans, too, were affected by the wind. When the saltponds
near the settlement were reopened ten years later I recall the
exasperation of the operators when the wind went unaccount-
ably slack for an unusual period; with no wind there was no
evaporation of brine, hence no salt, reduced earnings and no
work for the laborers, unrest and discontent. The scorching
sun was not enough to evaporate the sea water; without the
wind the entire economy of the island was disrupted.

These were the more obvious evidences; Inagua itself was
wind-created, born like the dunes out of the sea. It would not
be altogether an untruth, nor an overstatement, to say that
hummingbirds exist on Inagua because over the American
mainland, in Central America, in Colombia and in Venezuela
great columns of hot air are arising, creating a vast semi-vacuum
as they mount skywards which the trades rush in to fill; nor to
declare that the cactus blooms from which these hummingbirds
glean their meals of nectar and insects have their being because
a thousand or a hundred thousand years ago the wind picked
up newly dried fragments of surf -ground dead sea creatures and
whirled them into the air to place them within reach of the
fresh warm rain. Sea and clouds, wind and hot sun, the bodies
of tiny f oraminif era, living coralines, drifted barren sand dunes,
a tinge of green vegetation, flower blooms, blossom-dwelling in-
sects, insect-feeding hummingbirds; these are a chain of events,
a mesh of existence, a transportation of inanimate and animate,
a death for a life, a fiber of existence beginning with the wind.

The cycle of birth and death was nearly complete at Babylon.
Life had come and gone. Snails and palms and hummingbirds,
grasses and seeds had their brief hour and had been cast aside by
the breeze to be buried and dissolved. The same wind that
brought the dunes into existence was etching away the solid

8o I N A G U A

rock, stealing it a particle at a time, hollowing away the weak
spots, boring holes, leaving sharp ridges and spines. The sea,
too, had advanced and was gnawing steadily at the cHff face,
breaking up the boulders and crushing them into sand again;
into whitened grains to be drifted once more. The task was
half done, the hills were carved neatly in twain. In a few years,
or a few centuries, Babylon would be returned to the Mother
Ocean which gave it birth.

The trip over the chff s occupied the better portion of a day
and cut the bottoms of my inexpensive sneakers off my feet.
The bladed stone swiftly sliced the crepe rubber to ribbons,
tore out the crinkled latex bit by bit, stripping the soles and heels
away. In linear distance the ancient dunes did not extend more
than six or seven miles; but for every foot of forward progress
I climbed or descended two or three; each inch had to be negoti-
ated carefully, painstakingly. These shoes had been adequate
for the yielding sand of the beaches and for the flat rock of the
interior but three hours on the razor rocks of Babylon ruined
them forever.

Modem living has unfitted us; we are too dependent on
the habiliments of civilization. Without shoes I was as helpless
as a day-old rabbit. We take our foot coverings for granted,
giving them scant attention except to polish them daily; to
groan temporarily, perhaps, when they are new and stiff; or,
perhaps, to make certain we are clad in the most proper and
latest styles. Like handkerchiefs, or knives, or forks, or napkins,
we become acutely aware of their existence only when they are
absent. Within the short space of three hours my thoughts al-
tered from the problems of Aeolian geology and the ecological
relationships of lizards to shoes; the lack of shoes changed me
instantly from a student of natural science to a limping autom-
aton intent only on the problems of feet. The sudden demand
for footgear dominated my universe, canceled all other con-

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE i8i

siderations. Even the dryness of a growing thirst and the threat
of an empty water bottle failed to penetrate the shell of my
shoe-consciousness.

Never again shall I laugh at the Haitian peasants who, once
having attained the social and financial status of shoe-proprie-
torship, carry these precious belongings perched precariously
on their heads to the edge of town where they don them before
entering. Their shoes are too valuable to waste on dusty country
roads; the possession of footgear is their badge of dignity. Only
the very poor and the primitive have the misfortune— or the
good sense— to do without them.

I sat down in the midst of the wilderness of Babylon and
pondered. What to do? I tried swathing my feet in lizard wrap-
pings, donning the canvas uppers to retain the gauze, but the
soft cotton quickly shredded to ragged lint. By walking bow-
legged on the edges of my soles where the rubber had not worn
through I managed to creep down to the water's edge near a
low spot in the cliffs. There I found a fragment of a water-
soaked plank and with my penknife whittled out two inner-
soles and forced them into the wrecks of my sneakers. These
made flexion impossible and forced me to walk flatfooted like
a duck.

However, as though in compensation for the soreness of
my feet, the chffs ended as abruptly as they began in a smooth
stretch of level sand that curved northward as far as the eye
could see. The ancient sea wall did not reappear and presum-
ably vanished beneath the sea or terminated under the blanket
of rock. Instead a stately row of cocoanut palms lined the shore
for miles. These all leaned gracefully seaward and were laden
with nuts. Gratefully I twisted off several and sliced the tops.
The liquid was sweet and cool, and so intense was my thirst I
drank the contents of three in quick succession. Their juice was
the first liquid in over twenty-four hours. To make certain I

i82 I N A G U A

would not be dry again I drained several into the canteen al-
though I suspected that the milk would quickly go rancid in
the hot sun.

The glades back of the palms swarmed with lizards. Instantly
I forgot my feet; these lizards were of a new type. I shot several
and examined them carefully. They obviously belonged to the
genus Anieiva, 2l group characterized by exceeding nervousness
and by the rapidity with which its members are able to run.
When alarmed, these lizards fling themselves across the ground
with an abandon that has to be seen to be believed; their legs
move so quickly as to become invisible blurs; occasionally they
stop and dash suddenly off in a new direction, vanishing from
sight because the eye, unable to adjust itself so quickly, follows
their original course and loses them in so doing.

I was greatly interested in this genus because I once spent
several months working out the life history of a related Haitian
species, Ameiva chrysolema, and had discovered that the fe-
males of this Hzard congregated when pregnant and deposited
their eggs in a communal burrow; each clutch in a separate
compartment; a type of reptiUan maternity ward, as it were; a
most unorthodox proceeding, for most lizards deposit their eggs
singly and apart from one another. The new Ameiva in my
hand was colored unlike any other that I had ever seen. On
the far side of Babylon another species, Ameiva maynardii, was
common wherever there were sandglades as far as the settle-
ment. But this new hzard was totally unlike maynardii in that
it was uniformly colored a soft olive tan which faded into a
light blue on the creature's stomach and undersides. Maynardii,
in contrast, is an intensely vivid lizard of jet black marked with
two brilliant yellow stripes traversing the length of its body.
Its undersides are ultramarine; an altogether gorgeous creature.
As nearly as I could discern the anatomy of the two lizards was
identical, scale for scale, plate for plate. This later proved to

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 183

be the case when a large series were compared in the laboratory;
for this reason the new lizard did not merit the status of a new
species but was relegated to the position of subspecies.

The classification of the new lizard did not interest me so
much as the fact that the rocks of Babylon were the dividing
line of the spheres of influence of the two types, so alike in
everything except color. They were obviously derived from the
same parent stock; and, although in the weeks that followed I
traversed every inch of the island, their ranges did not overlap
except in the last few miles of the circuit before reaching
Mathewtown. At the points of overlap I collected a number
of intergrading forms, specimens that were half maynardii and
half maynardii uni^onms^ as the new subspecies came to be
called. A line drawn from the rocks of Babylon to the last oc-
currence of the new lizard would divide Inagua exactly in half
at right angles to the "wind! Maynardii was a lizard of the lee,
uniformis a denizen of the windward side of the island. The
same line also divided Inagua in relation to its vegetation. The
lee vegetation was thick and tangled, at places completely im-
penetrable; the plants on the opposite half crouched low to
the rocks, were sparse and in places missing altogether. This is
a curious circumstance. It is, also, a yawning trap for a scientific
misstatement.

Henry David Thoreau once declared that a trout in the
milk was circumstantial evidence. On the basis of circumstantial
evidence it is easy to jump to the conclusion that this new
lizard was a direct result of its windy environment. Because the
vegetation was stunted and because the scouring wind had
blasted life out of all but the most hardy, it would seem reason-
able to assume that these lizards had appropriated their drab
color because of some relationship to the wind, because perhaps
their food was different from that of their neighbors, or be-
cause they had suited their hue to a condition with which their

84 I N A G U A

relatives in the lee did not have to contend.

Such a conclusion would be reasonable except for the fact
that new species or subspecies do not happen that way, except
possibly under very rare circumstances. Animals fit themselves
marvelously to all sorts of environments, adapting themselves
in a thousand ways to meet the incidents of life; but as recent
research has shown, they become new types because of some
mutation, some pecuhar alteration of energy deep within their
egg cells that sends individuals off in new directions. Animals
become new species or types because they cannot help them-
selves; the change is beyond their control. If the alteration does
not combat the environment they live and flourish; if not, they
struggle as best they may or eventually perish.

Somewhere in the island's past, if the evidence of modern re-
search is correct, a family of dull brown Ameiva suddenly made
its appearance, either all at once or over a number of genera-
tions, and bred true. The wind had nothing to do with the muta-
tion except that it altered the topography of the newly risen
island so as to separate permanently the two forms, permitting
them to breed unmolested. The sand hills of Babylon suddenly
sweeping out of the sea may have been the original separation,
or Inagua may have been two or more islands which later con-
nected. The possibilities are legion.

The finding of the new lizard put a new spring into my hob-
bling gait and I decided to press on. Naturalists are queer people;
it takes surprisingly little to please them. The Lagoon Chris-
tophe was at least fifteen miles away but so elated was I that I
determined to sleep that night by the wreck.

By sunset I passed a cluster of coral and thatch huts where I
replenished my water supply from a barrel set beneath the
eaves to catch the rain. The water was dark brown, almost
coffee color from the thatch drippings and from the soot which
had accumulated during the years. Mosquito larvae swarmed in

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 185

the liquid and it had a bad taste. But it was better than nothing
so I filled the canteen to the top. There were about thirty houses
in all, most of them little more than rude shelters from the wind,
all with dirt floors and all deserted. They were arranged near
the beach in clusters, the group belonging to the Daxons
farthest up the coast. When I passed these I was limping badly
though I had long since taken out the board inner soles and
substituted palm fiber which was more flexible but which
chafed miserably. How I was going to navigate the remainder
of the island without shoes I could not guess.

I stopped for an hour to eat a tin of corned beef and to bathe
my feet in a tidepool. By this time I was feehng considerably
tired and somewhat dejected. The elation of finding a new
lizard had worn off and the exertion of crossing the rocks of
Babylon and the miles of soft sand had wearied my muscles.
Once again, as in the spoonbill swamp, I marveled at the pre-
dicament in which I found myself, and wondered what was so
important about the distribution of the Lacertilia that I should
subject myself to mosquito bites, hot sun, dirty water and a few
ounces of corned beef daily for food. I recalled lecturing before
a class of college students and glibly stating that no well-planned
expedition was subject to adventures. Yet there I was half a
hundred miles from base with no shoes, no food and a quart of
chocolate colored water. I grinned a little ruefully.

The moon had been up scarcely an hour when I limped onto
the curved beach of the Lagoon Christophe and climbed the
bluff back of the wreck. High out of the reach of the waves the
hull of my once beautiful ship lay on her side in the sand. The
moonglow lighted her timbers softly and for a brief moment
she looked almost undamaged. A lump came in my throat and
I sHd down the steep bank bringing a pile of loose sand with me.
Then I saw what had happened. Great gashes had been sheared
out of her sides, the decking was stove in and masses of spHnters

86 I N A G U A

hung everywhere. The mast was broken off just above the deck
and the bowsprit hung loosely at a peculiar angle. On one side
a great hole had been ground through the massive oak and a
large piece of branching coral was tightly wedged in this space.
I crawled through the open deck and found the interior a mass
of tangled timber and loose boards. There was nothing left of
the table, of our book racks or the bunks. Dimly in the half
light I could see the marks of axes around the bronze fittings of
the ports and elsewhere wherever there was any visible metal.

Crawling out again I retrieved my bags and returned with
a box of matches. I piled a mass of small strips and splinters
at one end of the ruined cabin and another in the hold. Waiting
until the flames caught I moved forward in the flickering light
and set fire to the second heap. The heat soon drove me out
and I stood on the beach and watched the flames mount sky-
wards. The sun-dried wood caught quickly and turned the in-
terior into a brilliant mass of light. The beach was crimson for
yards around; in the glare the squat bodies of the ghost crabs,
surprised in their nocturnal wanderings, cast long flickering
shadows as they retreated or dived in their holes.

On top of the bluff I solemnly watched my ship go up in
flames. The plankings burst one by one as the spikes charred
loose, casting showers of sparks, and fell smoking on the sand.
The deck boards caught all at once and crumbled together,
leaving only the stark outhnes of the ribs and beams. The tough
oak burned fiercely, crackling and exploding; the stout stem
and samson post were wrapped in sheets of flame, the massive
stern roared with the pressure of the wind and with the heat;
presently it collapsed and fell on the beach. The floor pieces
melted soon afterwards, dropping the ribs to the ground where
they lay in curved arcs of flame in a bed of glowing coals.
Gradually they dissolved into the general mass; the glare sub-
sided, grew faint; became dull cherry red and then a dim scat-

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 187

tering of glowing sparks.

Snuggled behind the rise of a small dune I dropped off to
sleep with a feeling of intense satisfaction. My ship was beyond
the reach of despoilers. To have her go up in flames was a more
fitting end than to lie splintered and crushed on the desolate
beach to dissolve slowly of dry rot and decay. The act re-
moved the last regret I might have had; from that evening the
affair of the wreck became a past event.

I awakened in the morning feeling better than I had all week;
my appetite was enormous and I looked about for something
to eat. There was no more corned beef and, although there was
nothing else in sight, I was glad of it. Strangely, too, the feeling
of loneliness which had begun to creep over me was pushed
into the background of my consciousness; the dejection of the
night before was all gone. In several ways the burning of the
Basilisk marked a turn of events. Most important, the evening's
happenings were the climax of physical discomfort occasioned
by the misery of the spoonbill swamp and the unaccustomed
hardness of a bed on solid ground with no protection from
wind and sand, from the glare of sun and the monotony of a
slim diet. The days just past served as a conditioning rendered
unpleasant by fresh comparison with the comforts and protec-
tions of my coral and thatch home.

The inference of the events leading up to the attainment of
the goal of the wreck and the long miles to the Lagoon Chris-
tophe is that I would stagger half starved and thirsty, crippled
and with swollen feet back to the settlement. Nothincr would
be further from the truth. Too many volumes are written pic-
turing the islands of the West Indies as savage jungles out of
which the explorer staggers half mad. There are few actual
jungles anywhere on these islands and there is no excuse for
anyone's becoming involved in a near fatal episode. Inagua is
by far the wildest island of the entire series and the most deso-

i88 I N A G U A

late. The only very serious problem is that of water. Food is
abundant provided one is willing to cast aside prejudices and
go on a diet of wild ducks, doves and conch meat and is willing
to eat these unseasoned and cooked over a fire of brush. There
are even a number of herbs which produce excellent tea, some
of these are very sweet and refreshing.

The shoe problem was my first concern and I solved it by
throwing away the useless uppers which were chafing my feet
and by making a set of moccasins from a scrap of canvas which
I found buried in the sand near the pile of ashes. This canvas
I recognized as a portion of our hatch cover; it was heavy, well
waterproofed, and yet was soft and yielding to the flesh. With
a little experimentation I cut a shape that folded satisfactorily
and tied it with a strip peeled from a green thatch palm. When
the moccasins were finished I was quite proud of them; they
were very comfortable and gave the pleasant feeling of walk-
ing barefooted. At the same time I cut an extra pair and stuffed
them into the grass bag along with the preserved Hzards.

For breakfast I shot six tobacco doves and two sandpipers.
The doves proved to be sweet but slightly tough. The first
mouthfuls were dreadfully flat but a few crumbs of sea salt
gathered from a tidepool supplied the necessary condiment.
They were infinitely better than corned beef but when skinned
and cleaned were hardly larger than sparrows. The sandpipers,
however, were a disappointment, for they tasted fishy and were
as unyielding as seasoned leather.

The breakfast of fresh meat served to ease my mind about
the food problem; I felt I could proceed, checking the ter-
rain carefully without danger of going hungry. After eating I
walked down to the beach, washed my greasy hands and took
a swim in the laoroon. The sun and wind soon dried me and I
put on my soiled shirt and ragged ducks. I was amazed how
refreshed I felt after the dejection of the evening before; the

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 189

miles ahead did not seem so appalling.

Only the wind remained to tantalize. While I was cooking
the doves it swirled the smoke into my face, scattered the ashes
and ruffled my hair. The tatters of my shirt vibrated noisily;
my trousers flapped and clung about my ankles. I plodded down
the beach in the same direction I had taken the day we were
wrecked. Fortunately there had not been much wind then, for
had it approached the intensity of this latter date we would
have been lucky to escape with our lives. The surf on the out-
lying reefs was tremendous; the wind had free sweep all the
way from Portugal over two thousand miles away.

Soon I reached the lake where I had seen the flamingos. Curi-
ous, I eased down the rampart dune and through the border-
ing mangroves. The lake was quite deserted except for a few
gallinules which disappeared between the roots. Behind the far
shore was a low matting of vegetation, grass and thatch palms
which covered a low hill and which continued into the valley
beyond. These palms were very small, not over four feet in
height. In other portions of the island the same species reached
twenty or more feet; here the rush of air had stunted their
growth. All the other plants were in proportion; sea grape,
usually head high, scarcely reached the knees. The effect was
startling. I felt as though I were gazing at a tall mountain side
instead of a sand dune not more than thirty feet high.

While crossing the lake to examine these dunes I made a
momentous discovery. The smooth silt underfoot suddenly be-
came hard and jagged; irregularly so. Reaching down I prodded
with my fingers in the chalky mud. I came up with a piece of
coral in my hand. It was reef coral, the uppermost branches of
staghorn. Digging deeply I shoved aside the clinging muck;
as far as I could go were other branches, still in perfect condi-
tion. This was the line of the old reef! By walking down the
center of the lake and criss-crossing I verified my fact. The site

ipo

I N A G U A

of this shallow pond was once the outermost sea barrier, and
at no greatly distant period the surf crashed and thundered over
its intricacies.

Walking back again to the nearly barren rampart dune I
surveyed the scene. Mile upon mile the existing reef curved
away into the distance. Behind this was a shallow lagoon, then
the rampart dunes, the parallel lake and a series of low hills
roUing into the interior, becoming more covered with vegeta-
tion and obscure. Inagua was growing into the wind. The reef
was most luxuriant where the surf was the most violent; ever
outward the tentacled polyps were reaching, seeking the swirl-
ing water with its billions of micro-organisms, striving to escape
the bogging sand of the lagoon behind. There were even a few
spots where at low tide one could almost walk dry shod to the
very edge of the reef. The story of the buried reef in the pond
would soon be repeated; before long a new reef would be
formed further out, growing up from the clean water and bury-
ing the reef behind. Then the wind would take up its task and
drift the sands into another rampart, possibly forming another
shallow pond and covering up the existing lake in turn.

The present pond was filled with diminutive shells of cerith-
eum, those tiny mollusks on which the flamingos depend for
their sustenance. Flamingos and ceritheums are synonymous;
without ceritheums flamingos would probably cease to exist,
their anatomy is specialized for the sifting of these shells from
the silt of the lake bottoms. The occurrence of ceritheums in
this newly formed lake was interesting. How did they get
there? Certainly not overland, the nearest pond was several
miles away. Not by the ocean, for these particular snails do
not thrive under marine conditions. There was only one answer.
By air; these mollusks probably arrived on the feet or bills of
birds from other ponds.

This was interesting speculation. How many other organisms

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 191

had arrived on Inagua in similar manner? After I returned from
the trip around the island I spent several days shooting any birds
I saw in prolonged and direct flight and examined their bills,
feet and stomachs for organisms. From the feet and legs of
sixteen spotted sandpipers which arrived from the direction of
Mariguana I rinsed and scrubbed into a dish of sterile water
enough mud to cover an area the size of my little fingernail;
from this earth I separated exactly eleven seeds visible to the
naked eye; two species of beautifully geometric desmids, mi-
croscopic green algaes which probably had come from a pond
much fresher in content than the bitter sahne lakes of Inagua,
since most of these were so laden with chemical as to inhibit the
growth of these primitive plants; and a number of amoeba-like
organisms which my limited protozoology prevented me from
identifying. I tried to sprout the eleven seeds but they all failed
to grow except one which perished in birth, so to speak, for
as soon as it gave signs of life it gave up the ghost and died.
The amoeba, however, did very well in an infusion and the
desmids flourished in a glass of water from the contents of
my diminishing barrel. When one considers the vast number
of sandpipers and other birds which each year sweep down
through the Bahamas on the winter migration from North
America, and considers the tremendous number of seeds, spores,
microscopic algaes and one-celled animals that must be carried
on their feet, tucked in crevices between their claws, under
scales or clinging to their bills, the wonder is not that there
are so many animals and plants on Inagua but that there are
so few.

I do not believe the average of eleven seeds, two algaes and
one amoeba per sixteen birds across the water is exceptionally
high, for from the corpse of one little green heron whose legs
were caked with mud I took 78 separate seeds provided with
downy strands of whitish silk similar to the fluff of the cat-tails.

192 I N A G U A

This heron had walked through them with its sticky feet and
collected them as it brushed against the pod.

The web of island life had been spun a little way. Also, like
the nets of certain spiders, some of it had been retracted. A
death for a life; the corals and anemones had to live and breed
and grow that there should follow ceritheums and flamingos;
whole hosts of fishes and crustaceans had disappeared with the
corals; gallinules and clapper rails splashed and waded where
the surf had thundered; mangroves and beach grass existed be-
cause gorgonians and sea fans had perished; the wind was the
binding thread, the warp and woof of island existence. De-
pendence upon dependence, a thread on a thread; coral polyps
fed upon microscopic sea-animals which were brought by the
wind; these polyps manufactured forests of rigid stone, im-
movable calcium trees which strangely bore no leaves and
which, even more amazingly, reached their barren branches
towards the wind which, paradoxically, did not exist for them.
This has the sound of an old fashioned riddle but is nothing more
than the plain statement of truth; the trees of coral thrust their
fingers towards the direction of greatest current, towards the
path of the incoming waves, which is the direction of the rush-
ing trades. Here the polyps find the most abundant food; an-
chored to their stony homes they cannot pursue their prey;
it must be brought to them; that is why coral reefs are always
most abundant and spectacular on the windward side of an
island. The stone trees in their turn shelter the lagoons; the
lagoons capture the drifting sand; the sand provides footing for
beach grass; these plants supply shelter and sustenance for in-
sects; birds feed upon these; except for my breakfast of doves
I would have gone hungry and would not have been sufficiently
interested to note these happenings; the editor and the proof-
reader would not have been bothered and this chapter of this
volume would not have been written.

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 193

The relationship between coralines and flamingos is not as
fantastic as it might seem. Darwin long ago proved the con-
nection between cats and clover. Field mice destroy the combs
and nests of humble bees, the red clover depends upon humble
bees for its fertihzation. Over two thirds of the humble bees
in England are destroyed yearly by these mice; near towns and
villages the nests of humble bees are more common than else-
where, a fact that must be attributed to the number of cats that
destroy the mice. No cats, lots of mice, fewer humble bees, less
clover seeds. Therefore clover depends upon cats; or to carry
the illustration further it is the old maids of England who keep
the clover going; for without old maids there would be a dearth
of cats.

The concept of life as an intricate web puts a new aspect
on our biological approach. There is no such thing as isola-
tion; nature is a vast system of interlinking and ramifying co-
ordinations. If one thread is pulled a hundred are shaken or
loosened; the vibration is transmitted to the whole. There are
webs which are concerned only with the maintenance of life,
with the provision of sustenance in which the capture of one
creature provides food for another, and which on its demise
provides a similar bounty. Other webs are concerned with the
functions of creation. Any person who is father to children is
a link in a chain which has been forging since the beginning of
time. The Chinese long ago grasped this idea and have made
it an integral part of their philosophy; the grandfather and
grandson are separate and successive molecules in a stream of
life. Evolution, too, is only a woven fabric of complex pattern
in which the design is controlled by time. Even emotions foster
a chain of events; even after the lapse of two millenniums, the
kindly hand of Jesus of Nazareth is visible in the halls and cor-
ridors of dozens of orphanages and hospitals; conversely the
sequence of hatreds which had their genesis in the sorry tur-

94

I N A G U A

moil of 1 914 are indirectly slaying thousands of men on the
battlefields of Europe though a quarter of a century has passed.

In a great city, or on a continent, the separate threads of life
are not readily discernible. They are submerged in a tangled
mass of fabrics superimposed one upon the other with connec-
tions so intricate that they are difficult to separate and follow.
This is one of the joys of a tropical oceanic island. Life is tightly
enclosed in a wall of surf, the strands begin and end within
narrow borders. Because of this they may readily be traced to
their conclusions or their general patterns are discernible.

An island might be compared to a prison. It is a prison with-
out bars or cells, the only walls are the lines of gleaming surf,
molten and shining as silver; the warden is circumstance. To be
born on an island is to be a prisoner, few escape. The very fact
of insularity sets the creatures of an island apart. The Hzards
that frequented the clearing of my hut often dashed down
to the parapet of rocks overlooking the sea and there stopped
as though they sensed that this was the edge of their world.
They never ventured beyond this prescribed limit. Even the
hummingbirds, which should have been free, terminated their
whirling flights at the borders of the vegetation. There was
nothing to hold them back; yet I never saw one venture be-
yond. That their close family relatives, the Ruby Throats of
North America, would unhesitatingly fling their diminutive
bodies across the whole five hundred miles of the turbulent
width of the Gulf of Mexico is one of the wonders of the
world; the Inaguan species never went beyond the surf. The
impelling tide of migration passes them by; the whole sphere
of their existence is bound, delimited by a wall of water.

How very wonderful and intricate this web of island life
could be I had yet to learn. But the thought persisted. In the
evening when I had camped in the shelter of a sand dune and
devoured my scanty meal of doves and one wild duck shot dur-

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 195

ing the day and roasted over a fire of driftwood, I pondered
the idea and resolved to experiment by seizing on the first
tangible event and following it through to its conclusion.

The event arrived sooner than I surmised and, as might be
expected, arrived on the wings of the wind. Somewhere, out
of the maze of low vegetation came a strong pungent odor. It
was a sweet heavy smell, reminiscent of the fragrance of locust
blossoms, or even of the cloying scent of sweet peas or lily of
the valley. I knew it could be none of these and my curiosity
was aroused. Here was an aural beginning for an adventure
that might lead anywhere. The moon had risen and the soft
sand was suffused with a dehcate blue light that cast deep pur-
plish shadows. Standing up I sniffed expectantly. The odor
was gone, swept away on the gale. The only means of tracing
it to its source was to creep close to the ground, trailing it in
the manner of a hound following a rabbit.

For a few moments I was tempted to give it up, for to go
crawling over the ground in the moonlight seemed sheer idiocy.
So I laughed a little at my fancy, hesitated, and then decided
to persist. The trail led down the slope of the dune and into
a sandy valley. The scent was hard to trace, for it was shielded
and disguised by a horde of other odors, by the rich hay smell
of beach grass, the dry parched aroma of sun-caked earth, the
musty reek of dead leaves and rotten wood. There were hun-
dreds of similar fragrances, strange perfumes that I did not
know existed until I concentrated on them. This was adven-
ture in a new world.

The sense of smell is a neglected faculty. We may admire
our friends' possessions, touch them, feel them and exclaim
at their beauty or oddness, yet we dare not smell them. Only
posies and perfumes are exempt; and even perfumes are to be
sensed rather than remarked. This is a mistaken custom. Few
sensations, for example, are more delectable than the clean smell

196 I N A G U A

of well-tanned leather, or the pleasant aroma of an old library.
Yet to sniff a book frankly is unthinkable.

No sense is so apt to arouse memories as that of smell. The
odor of tar, no matter where encountered, places me instantly
in the center of a shipyard amid the busy tapping of adzes and
the sonorous whine of band saws; the pecuhar pungency of
iodoform brings back the anxious evening in the hospital where
my wife lay ill, and a vista of a long hall down which white
clad interns and nurses scurried on seemingly interminable er-
rands. The fragrance of maple immediately conjures up visions
of crisp brown waffles and cups of steaming tea; asafoetida and
an old-fashioned drug store which I used to visit are inseparable.
The smell of new-mown hay is more potent than the sight of
it; and there is no more stimulating experience then the re-
leased fragrances of damp earth after a summer thunder shower.

The odors that came pouring out of the thombush were
strongly reminiscent. A leaf that I crushed gave forth the spici-
ness of sassafras and I unconsciously fingered it to see if it was,
though I knew that the nearest sassafras bush was nearly a
thousand miles away! A beetle blundered into my face and I
slapped it, crushing it between my fingers. Immediately they
reeked of musk, a vile, unpleasant stench. Although I rubbed
my fingers in the sand I could not get rid of it; it almost nau-
seated me. The musk attracted other beetles of the same species;
they whirred and zoomed about my head; seemingly the pur-
pose of the scent was for attraction.

The beetle smell nearly drowned the odor I was pursuing;
only by diligent effort was I able to trace it to its source, a
stunted tree from which hung thousands of tiny blossoms.
These gleamed faintly white and when I shook the branches a
cloud of filmy pollen went drifting off in the moonlight. The
wind again; this plant depended on the currents of air for its
propagation. What a squandering of pollen cells there must be!

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 197

Literally millions of powder-fine sperm-molecules went to
waste that a few would chance on a receptive flower and com-
plete their function. I struck a match and examined a blossom.
It was very small and its stigmas were much enlarged and
branched, almost plume-like, a thoughtful provision providing
greater sticking surface for the drifting grains.

I settled back in the sand at the base of the bush. Seemingly
I had reached the end of the trail. I had followed the strand
of the web and it had led me nowhere. Instead I was faced
with a mystery. Why, if this plant depended on the wind for
its fertilization, did it exhale such a strong perfume? Certainly
not to attract insects. Unlike the flowers of the prickly pear and
the cactus it had no use for insects. Why then? I had to con-
fess I did not know, and seeing nothing further I turned and
started back to camp.

I had not taken three steps before a voice at my elbow said
very softly— WHY? And I jumped and turned in the direction
of the sound, and again it said— WHY?— or maybe it was just
OH!— and then again and very softly— oh!

Perched on the ground beneath the bush I had just left was
a small dark shadow. It was bobbing up and down rapidly as
though immensely excited, and in a second began chattering
in a low voice. Once again I struck a match, shielded it until
it caught, and reached the flame out at arm's length. It flickered
faintly and then revealed the rounded form of a small Speotyto
burrowing owl. Just beneath its body was the dark shadow of
its underground home carved out of the soft soil beneath the
roots of the tree. I caught a brief glimpse of a pair of gleaming
eyes staring fixedly at me before the match spluttered out.
Dropping to the ground and crawHng closer I lit another. The
owl backed up a foot or so but did not flee. It was quite the
smallest owl I had ever seen and in the yellow light it was
mottled and barred with a pale earthy brown fading to cream

,98 I N A G U A

and pale umber. Its plumage was smooth and rounded, and it
was devoid of ear tufts or other appendages, which gave it
the appearance of a soft sleek ball.

Its antics were ludicrous. It cooed and jabbered to itself,
uttering chorus after chorus of droll notes, at times plaintive,
then vociferous, or soft and pleading. Its tameness was amaz-
ing. Even when I stretched out my hand it did not fly but
merely bobbed faster and shuffled to one side. When I reached
my fingers towards its hole it went into a perfect frenzy of
motion.

A sudden blast of air coming over the top of the ridge blew
out the second match and left me in darkness. By the time I
had adjusted my vision the owl was gone and even though I
reached my arm full length into its burrow I could not grasp
it, presuming it had disappeared there.

Returning to camp I dug a hole in the sand for my hips,
curled into a knot, and drifted off into a deep slumber. Before
dawn I awoke, chilled from the cool morning air; off in the
dark the owl was calling again; the notes were more placid then,
the low cadences flooded the dunes with their complaining. As
soon as there was light enough to see I rose and walked over
to the burrow. The owl was perched on the exact spot where
I had seen it the night before. When it saw me it stopped chat-
tering and sat motionless. With a feeling of regret I raised the
.410 and fired. The poor creature dropped in its tracks, quivered
once or twice, and was still.

With a knife I slit its abdomen, extracted the stomach and
laid it on a palmetto leaf. It was full and I squeezed its contents
on the green tissue. The stomach contained the partly digested
remains of a small anolis lizard, the disjointed segments of a
scorpion, and most amazing, the nearly complete, if crushed,
carapace of a Panopeus crab. Fanopeus are tiny crustaceans,
scarcely more than an inch in width, and they are clad in drab

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 199

mud-colored hues. The lizard and the scorpion were not sur-
prising, for these are normal articles of burrowing owl diet;
the occurrence of the crab shell was beyond all expectation.
My single strand had now become three; two threads led land-
ward, the third towards the sea. Discarding the Hzard and the
scorpion, I cleaned off the remains of the crab, tucked it in a
vial, and shouldered the bag.

Sometime durinor the night the burrowinop owl had ventured

DO O

somewhere along the coast and snatched the body of the crab
in passing. Just where was a puzzle. I searched along the beach
closely. There were no mud crabs in evidence. Still more puz-
zling was the fact that mud crabs seldom if ever venture in
open air; their bodies are not equipped for prolonged exposure.
The chain of events had led me from the why of the perfumed
bush to the hozo of the owl, two queries that confront the
naturalist constantly. How and why; the how is sometimes
answerable; the why almost never.

I did not solve the question of how until a day later when I
swam across the beautiful green channel of Lantern Head more
than thirty miles from the place where I had seen the owl. In
the meantime the strand of the scorpion forced itself on my
attention. I was busy stripping the bark from some fallen palm
trunks looking for lizard eggs and for new lizards when I care-
lessly thrust my fingers into a crevice. Several unseen scorpions
occupied the crack and resented my interference. One an-
tagonistic individual nabbed me in the end of my index finger
with its tail and then scampered away to the shelter of some
undisturbed bark. With an exclamation of pain I hung on to the
injured member and gritted my teeth. The finger throbbed
violently and stung virulently. Momentarily I expected to see
my hand swell as the poison took effect. My first thought was
to get back to the settlement as quickly as possible, but then
I reflected that a much more sane course would be to take

200 I N A G U A

things easy. Still gritting my teeth I sat down on the sand and
tried to relax for a few moments. In ten minutes the finger had
not shown signs of swelling and the pain had subsided slightly.
In twenty minutes it stung no worse than if a bee had pierced
it; ten minutes later the pain was completely gone, the only
evidence of the injury being a tiny red dot where the barb
had entered. Like nearly everyone not fully acquainted with
scorpions, I had believed scorpion sting a serious poison. Since
then I have been bitten several times and the result has always
been the same, a painful half hour with no further infection.

Lantern Head is a deep indentation in the Inaguan coast, a
landlocked shallow natural harbor with a peculiar rock forma-
tion at its mouth from w^hich it derives its name. In places the
shore is lined with mangroves; clinging to the roots of these
was a thick culture of small oysters and mussels, many of which
were raised well out of water when the tide was low. The
oysters were a welcome addition to my diet of doves which was
beginning to pall. I pulled several bunches off the outermost
arched roots and found a half dozen Panopeus crabs stowed in
the crevices. These scampered away and sought new shelters.
No doubt my burrowing owl had lit somewhere on a man-
grove root and spied the moving form of a mud crab and de-
voured it on the spot.

The third link of this zoological chain was forged quickly.
One of the Panopeus crabs fell on the smooth mud beneath the
mangrove roots and was immediately seized by a larger man-
grove crab, a brilliantly colored crustacean with scarlet claws
and legs which rushed up and down with a quick motion and
tore out the Panopeus' pincers, rendering it helpless. The man-
grove crab then did a brutally cruel and savage thing. Holding
the helpless mud crab in its claws it deliberately pulled off its
victim's legs a joint at a time and let the fragments fall on
the silt where they lay with tiny bits of shredded muscle quiv-

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 201

ering at the ends. The bestial action was heightened by the
sardonic, never-changing face of the crab with its bulbous
stalked eyes which appeared to regard the proceeding with
diabolical calm. The seemingly quiet world of the mangrove
roots was a place of deceit; life there was merciless; to relax for
a moment was to court sudden and painful death. Everywhere
existence was the same: the animals of the pool near my hut
spent their lives pitting their talents and forces against the ele-
ments and against a horde of hungry carnivores; the owl lived
because a lizard and a scorpion relaxed once too often and too
well.

Struggle, bitter, unrelenting, never-ceasing strife is the por-
tion of all earth's creatures. Conflict is as much a part of heritage
as is form and instinct. Those creatures that do not go forward
fall back; the weak are eliminated, only the strong survive; the
defenseless must develop swiftness, the slow acquire armor,
spines like the sea urchins or other means of resistance. There
is no mercy for the swift that do not run, nor for the slow
that do not use their protection— nor for men that do not cul-
tivate their brains, the only weapon nature has given them.
Crabs or lizards, men or nations are all actuated by the same
basic principles: the Panopeus was dismembered because it
failed to watch; likewise the civilization of Ancient Rome
crumbled for much the same reason, the three hundred year
peace that followed the Augustan Age brought with it security
and ease— and carelessness and disintegration. The cruelty of
crab to crab and man to man can probably be matched incident
for incident. I have a very vivid recollection of a day in the
small town of Samana in the Dominican Republic when on the
orders of a high official a prisoner was forced by the police to
lay his hands on the stump of a tree, and bayonets were driven
through them and twisted in order to secure information in
regard to a thievery. I also recall the finding of a man's mutilated

202 I N A G U A

body on a small island in the harbor of the same town literally
hacked to pieces by machete blows— because the man belonged
to the wrong political party. The Samanas of the world can be
counted in the hundreds, they are the mangrove swamps of
human existence.

The trail from perfume to bestiality was only a matter of
three links, so it was not surprising that the fourth should carry
me back to beauty again. Life is like that— a cosmos of con-
trasts. Unpleasantness and kindness exist side by side; loves and
dislikes sometimes abound in the same household; the well-fed
and the hungry live within a few blocks; donkey carts creak
along the same roads that bear streamlined automobiles; jazz
and symphonies are produced from identical instruments.

To my surprise, the mangrove crab did not eat the dismem-
bered carcass of its smaller relative, so it was, at least, saved
from the stigma of cannibalism. Instead it dropped the crushed
body on the sand and stepped daintily away, no longer inter-
ested. This action, which was wholly unexpected, rendered the
proceeding utterly futile. Why did the mangrove crab fail to
make use of the food it had earned? What strange dictate of
instinct urged it to commit wanton brutal murder? Did it
derive joy in the sheer pleasure of killing? The eternal why
again; there must be a reason— or need there? So many events
in nature seem beyond explanation, completely wasteful and
directionless. The spectacle of migrating robins perishing mis-
erably in blizzards into which they prematurely blunder is a
common example. Is the force which drives them out of the
warm southland directionless or purposely extravagant? Here
natural history approaches the realm of metaphysics.

The fourth link arrived in the body of an American egret,
readily identified by its vivid yellow bill and black legs and
feet. It did not see me, for after the incident of the Panopeus

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 203

I retired to a small bluff overlooking the waterway and sank
out of sight on the sand to rest between two ghostly green sea-
lavender bushes. The egret was sheer beauty. Dressed in plum-
age of spotless white, the bird gracefully floated down to
landing on the edge of the water and poised expectantly, then
slowly and elegantly stalked along the edge of the mangroves.
Egrets are among the most artistic of living birds; they suggest
purity and chasteness, both in hue and line; their lives are a
succession of beautiful poses.

The egret earned a brief place in the chain of existence I
was pursuing when with a lightning jab of its beak it im-
paled a mangrove crab, either the one that barbarously tore the
Panopeus to pieces or one of its cousins several times removed,
and devoured it. The bird was as merciless as the crab had been
but its hunger was understandable; it did not indulge in any
unnecessary tortures. And, having satisfied its appetite, it passed
from the sphere of my observation by springing lightly into
the air and flapping away on snowy pinions.

The departure of the egret put an end for the moment to
my little game of what-comes-next. It also set the stage for
the interweaving of the next strand. Because, but for the going
of the bird, I would not have become acquainted with the
blenny, nor would the great philosophical principle which the
blenny illustrated have entered the course of the web which
was being woven thread by thread. Thinking that the flight
ended the search I walked over to the point where the egret
had last stood and looked at its broad triangular tracks thread-
ing along the edge of the roots. They were evenly spaced until
they reached the point where the mangrove crab had met its
Nemesis. Here they left the silty mud and continued into a
shallow pool of water between a clump of mangroves where
they terminated abruptly under water at the place where the

204 I N A G U A

egret had taken its exit. Near the last print was a claw of the
devoured crab which had become detached and fallen in the
water.

The claw was the excited center of attention of a host of
tiny fishlets which were crowding around the manna which
had literally dropped from heaven. Here at one swoop were a
hundred divisions to the main thread; strands that went off at
a tangent. The fishes were accidental beneficiaries from the
hunger of a creature which to them was purely nebulous, ex-
cept possibly for the sight of a thin leg or long black claws
reaching from the bottom of their world to its very top. An
egret to a fish is a pair of feet and a vague shadow. Occa-
sionally it is the shadow of death, when a long bill lashes out
and with a slight splash snatches a minnow to the world of
upper air from which it never returns.

The wave of excitement of the small fishes spread out in a
widening circle as the innermost scrambled to the feast. Some
came streaking hurriedly, thrusting aside smaller minnows and
in their turn being thrust aside by still larger ones. The claw
rocked and swirled at the pushing and shoving; once it started
off on a straight line as a larger fish seized hold, but it was torn
away again and mobbed by a fresh horde of hungry creatures.

Then I saw a very interesting thing. On the very edge of
the melee of food-crazed animals was the algae-covered remains
of a long dead razor-clam. Once this moUusk had stood upright
in the sand but then it lay on its side in the water with the valves
half open. Peering out of this shell was the head of a dark
brown fish with a face so old and gnome-like as to have be-
longed to a book of fairy tales. Strange little tufts of fringed
tissue took the place of hair and the eyes were soft and golden.
There was almost an expression of amazed good humor, a look
half of surprise and half of doltishness; yet an appearance of
stolidity. It was a hairy blenny, a fish that was common in

THE WEB OF ISLAND LIFE 205

shallow places all around the island.

The blenny stared fixedly in its comical way at the surging
minnows and did not move so much as a muscle. Even when
the struggling multitude swept over my bare toes and within
a few inches of its door it did not stir except to open and shut
its mouth rhythmically as though it were chewing a wad of
gum. When the crab claw was disposed of and the schools of
feasting fishes had gone I stooped and very gently thrust my
fingers toward the shell. The blenny stood its ground and it
was not until I actually touched its body that it consented to
retire into its den. Softly closing the valves I lifted the clam
out of water and withdrew to the beach.

The bivalve contained a mass of fifty or more eggs all glued
tightly together on the bottom half of the shell. Closely curled
about these was the blenny. When I tried to pick it up it
wriggled loose and once again curled about the spawn. I even
held the opened shell in the water but the blenny would not
leave; the eggs were its charge and it was guarding them to
the last.

My experimental chain had reached the final link, for I re-
turned the blenny and its eggs to the water to whatever fate
the mangrove lagoon might have for them. The blossoms and
their mysterious perfume, symbolizing the beginning of life,
had started me on a trail in which death and beauty and primi-
tive savagery were separate stations; the blenny and its eggs
pointed out a truth that I had very nearly missed. Nature is
cruel; she is wasteful; but she is also provident and kind and
prodigal. Like the blennies which guard their eggs when they
most need guarding, the young of the earth are protected in
their hours of need, or are provided with a sum of guiding
instinct, like those of the Sphaerodactylus lizards of my hut
which went their way fully equipped to meet the ways of lizard
life. Similarly, we are born with a mother's protecting arms

2o6 I N A G U A

ready to receive us. Strife and brutalities and lost causes hem
us about and edge us in on all sides; but in compensation, the
force of love or of creation, if only evidenced in the blind
maternal instinct of blennies, which functions without reason,
is as potent as the powers of destruction. This is an old idea
which even the non-scientific ancients recognized, and forms
the basis of much of religion.

The evil and the good, the bountiful and the scarce, the hard
and the easy, struggle and peace, ugliness and beauty are only
successive links in the chain of life. Success for one is failure
for another, the price of living is dying; every action is trans-
mitted equally and exactly, though perhaps in altered form, to
its next component. Between these extremes is beauty, sweet
perfumes and impelling experience. Had it been possible to
follow the chain of circumstance which began with the per-
fume and ended with the blenny to its ultimate and nethermost
ramification, there would have been evolved the entire scheme
of island life. The completed fabric would contain all there is
of living, the sum total of experience, of philosophy and of
science.

An island imposes restrictions on its inhabitants, places on
them limits which they cannot overbound; yet existence on an
island is not greatly different from that elsewhere. It is only
more visible and tangible. There is beginning and ending, frus-
tration and compensation, ebb and flow; the essential diver-
gences are only those of quantity; the quality is the same.

CHAPTER X

The Creatures of Darkness

Once, I remember seeing in an art gallery a masterful painting
depicting the death of the philosopher and poet, Goethe. The
dying man was portrayed lying on a massive bed in a somber
room with paneled walls. Through the closely drawn shades
a fine pencil of golden sunlight was streaming, catching up the
dust beams, and focusing on the invahd's lined face. One hand
was outstretched, as if in supplication; the features wore an
agonized expression and the lips were half opened, as though
a word had just escaped.

Tacked on the frame was a tiny gold plaque, such as is
universal in art galleries, giving the name of the artist, a few
pertinent facts about the work and in larger letters the title.
This was the expression— "Light, more light!" beheved to be
Goethe's last words, a cry interpreted to signify the yearning
of a great mind, slipping helplessly into oblivion, for greater
knowledge, larger understanding, for intellectual brightness
in the darkness of his time.

It is a pretty story, and one that is worthy of the death of
a man such as Goethe, but it is more probable that the cry for
"Light, more light! " was really the agonized complaint of a very
human person whose optic nerves, paralyzed by the approach-
ing hand of death, no longer functioned and who was being
enveloped in an increasing world of darkness.

A man is a creature of day and sunlight; in the dark, unless,
like the blind, he has developed special senses, he is helpless
and confused. The time of his activity is during the bright
hours; without candles, electric bulbs or the benefit of the moon,

207

2o8 I N A G U A

his evenings are curtailed and rendered useless.

Nature has divided the animals of the earth into two spheres,
the hordes of the day and the equal swarms of the evening.
Large multitudes of creatures prefer the evening hours, some
because of the protection it gives them from their enemies,
some because their food is about at this time, and some because
of the restful quality of velvety darkness. Yet most of these see
well as is testified by the high development of their optic
systems. Thousands of species of moths feed upon nocturnal
flowers, many of which are beautifully colored; and these same
moths hide in the shadow of leaves and under pieces of bark
at the approach of the glaring, too obvious daylight.

Consider, for example, the owls. In the dead of night when
human eyes are ineffectual, they go hunting. Flying low over
the meadows they seek tiny prey, mere meadow mice, brown
shadows in a black world— and find them. Compared to the per-
ceptions of an owl our own vision is a dull thing, susceptible
only to the most blatant colors. To an owl the shadows of a
deep woods or the starlight over a marsh must be as daylight
is to us. Can we say with any degree of certainty that an owl
does not find the night-light as full of tone as we find the sun-
shine? And, may it not be a more restful coloring? Temperate
climate people who live long in the tropics soon tire of the
gaudy colors of that region and yearn for the softer, more
pastel greens and browns of northern zones.

Shortly after my return from the trip around the island,
which was completed two days after the passing of Lantern
Head, I had an interesting experience. I arrived home hungry,
inexpressibly tired, and unbelievably ragged. As soon as I had
taken care of my specimens and had jotted down the observa-
tions I did not want to forget, I cast thoughts of work aside and
spent the next few days relaxing, catching up on lost sleep, and
indulging in the luxury of doing nothing. I loafed in the pool

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 209

by the cliff and spent long hours on the beach watching the
surf and the pelicans fishing near the reef.

One day I strayed further than usual up the coast to a point
where the stone cliffs disappeared and were replaced by a long
ribbon of gleaming white sand that stretched endlessly away
as far as Lantern Head. Back of the beach were a number of
old cocoanut palms, some of which had fallen and were decay-
ing on the ground. Among these I found some fragments of
lizard eggs of a type I had not seen before. Becoming engrossed
in locating other clutches or perhaps the lizard that laid them
I stayed quite late. Then, when I caught a fleeting glimpse of
a sleek brown body that scrambled away under the bark leaving
a wriggling tail in my hand as proof of its existence, I became
very much interested and finally succeeded in capturing the
owner, a dark brown, soft looking lizard with great liquid eyes
which had golden yellow vertical pupils. It had no eyeHds and
the eyes moved under a crystal-clear cap somewhat like the
crystal of a watch. Its skin was coated with tiny granular scales
which gave it the appearance of fine velvet. Under each of its
toes was a broad adhesive pad which enabled it to climb vertical
tree trunks and even run rapidly upside down under branches.
It was a gecko, and as subsequent examination proved, a new
genus and a new species.

Although I had been over the same area many times I had
failed to discover it before although the palms swarmed with
Anolis and Sphaerodactylus, and the ground with Ameiva and
Letocephalus lizards. The vertical, cat-like pupils showed me
the reason. This lizard, like the tiny insect Sphaerodactylus
which was much more common, was nocturnal; its round of
movement began when I, and all the other creatures of the day,
had gone to sleep.

The next half hour's search failed to locate any more speci-
mens and I decided to give it up and return another day with

2IO I N A G U A

more equipment. Winding down to the beach again I sat down
on the sand to watch the setting of the sun. The trade winds
had slackened and a great mound of clouds were piled high in
the direction of Cuba. They were rain cumulus and I hoped
they would spread, because it had not rained for many weeks
and my water supply was getting low. Presently the light be-
gan to turn yellow, then orange and a deep hush settled over
the world. The pelicans stopped their fishing, the wind fell
almost to a calm, the grasshoppers ceased their chirping, only
the lapping of the waves broke the quiet.

The tide had fallen and near the top of the beach lay a long
pile of seaweed that had been washed ashore and was strewn
in narrow arcs as far as the eye could see. The sun turned
cherry red, then became elliptical, and in an angry blaze settled
behind the clouds, sending a momentary flash of green light
before it disappeared. This green luminescence was almost a
nightly occurrence and lasted for fifty or sixty seconds at the
exact moment of the sun's sinking. Shortly after the sky became
gray and then purplish.

Then in the darkness, from the piles of seaweed at my side
came a faint rustling, like the swishing of fine silk. As I listened
the sound became stronger, reached its maximum and con-
tinued steadily. I lit a match and looked downwards. There on
the beach were hundreds upon hundreds of beach hoppers,
little translucent crustaceans a half inch or so in length. They
were hopping and jumping over the sand in a frenzy. It was
the combined scrapings and bumpings of millions of these crea-
tures that blended to make the rustling. Where were they a
bare fifteen minutes ago? What brought these myriads of crus-
taceans climbing upwards through the damp clinging sand at
the exact moment of nightfall? What invisible crustacean time
signal told them their hour of activity was at hand down in
the wet and the dark? Yet there they were, swarming where

A PLACE WHERE THE CEILING HAD FALLEN AWAY ADMITTING GREAT SPLASHES OF
SUNLIGHT. HERE THE BATS CAME FLEEING FROM THE DAY

ON THE VERY EDGE OF THE SEA THE NIGHTHAWK DEPOSITED ITS SINGLE EGG.
DURING THE DAY IT DROWSED AND WENT FORTH IN THE EVENING TO FEED— WITH

THE BATS AND THE OWLS

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CREATURES OF DARKNESS 211

all day had been only blank sand and swirling water. Then,
even as I watched, a number, disapproving of my presence,
dug themselves in again, sinking smoothly and evenly as though
let down by an invisible elevator.

The coming of nightfall was the signal for the coming of
other nocturnal animals. The bushes and grasses began rustling
with the movements of the hermit crabs; whirring moths swept
past my ear and went on into the dark; beetles droned across
the glades and blundered into my hair; a few mosquitoes sang
busily, taking the places of the flies that had buzzed all day and
were then asleep on the under surfaces of leaves. Back in the
interior the low notes of a pair of night herons echoed across
the surface of the saltpond and faintly I could hear them splash-
ing in the shallows. High in the zenith the faint geese-like notes
of a flock of flamingos came filtering down; every evening after
dusk they circled the beach and then settled on the far side
of the lake back of the settlement. Here they spent the night
gabbling to each other; their tones were reminiscent of the
chatter of old ladies at a sewing circle.

There were, however, few of the cheerful night noises of
home. Inagua has no frogs. There are no shrillings and liquid
callings of these joyous beings. There are no crickets, and no
hearths for them to sing upon. There is none of the vast chorus
of stridulating katydids such as fills any northern woods in
mid-summer. The Inagua night sounds are all mournful and
sad; or weird and plaintive. In some portions of the island, in
the barren savannahs and in some of the dried salinas, there is
only utter silence, unbroken except by the howl of the wind.
The great interior lake was an exception; there the air was
filled with a vast roar of screams and calls, with wails and com-
plaints; the tone of sadness was still present but it was fortissimo.

Later in the evening, after I had deposited my newly found
lizard in a safe cage, I went dow^n to the rocks and sat for a

212 I N A G U A

while, listening to the noises and trying to identify them. Pres-
ently, out of the darkness came a sound that could only be
described as wop. The ivop was followed by a whistling sound
and a long silence, then wop again. Straining my eyes I tried
to see some form of movement; then, against the stars was the
shape of a rapidly moving body which plummeted to earth.
Sliding back to the house I seized a flashlight and went in the
direction of the noise. The rays of the flash lighted the eroded
coral, throwing the worn spires into gaunt fantastic shapes;
on the very edge of the cHff was a pair of gleaming yellow eyes.
The eyes did not move. Walking quietly in my tennis shoes,
I crept nearer.

Suddenly the orbs disappeared and I caught a brief glimpse
of a flash of brown feather and the curve of a long sickle-shaped
wing. I thought the creature had gone but a sudden wop as
it hit the ground directly in front of me announced its return.
The brown feathers resolved into a long sleek body surmounted
with a round head with a tiny bill. It was a nighthawk. Instead
of flying away it shuflled across the rocks and then very delib-
erately sat down near a pile of seaweed. I walked over and
crouched beside it. Accustomed as I was to the tameness of
the birds of this lonely island, this did not seem reasonable. I
thrust the flash in its face. It closed its eyes as if intensely an-
noyed, as no doubt it was, and remained in place.

The nighthawk was a perfect example of a nocturnal crea-
ture. The eyes were large and sensitive and their brilhant gleam
was direct evidence of night living habits. Its plumage was drab
and well camouflaged; among the open glades and gravel beds
where it rested during the daylight hours it was all but in-
visible. The seemingly tiny mouth was deceptive; I knew that
it was capable of tremendous extension, and acted as a highly
effective net or scoop. The strong recurved wings gave it the
darting flight with which it captures the insects on which it

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 213

lives. These are snared in flight in a series of swift aerial evolu-
tions.

With my hand I very gently shoved the nighthawk to one
side, and as I suspected, disclosed an egg which was laid on the
barren rock without benefit of padding or nest. At the touch
of my fingers the bird flew into the air but was back again in
a second and again shuffled over the precious shell. In the morn-
ing I returned and took a series of pictures with an ordinary
folding kodak, and so willing to pose was this amiable creature
that I was able to shove the camera in its face and even turn
it slightly around so the light would strike it more favorably.
In all my years of nature photography I have never had a more
agreeable subject.

Soon the wind began to pick up again and I returned to the
cliff near the hut where there was more shelter. The bare stone
was still warm from the heat of the day and I spread out to
rest and listen. The warmth crept into my body and before I
knew what was happening I was asleep. For nearly an hour
I dozed and when I awoke I became conscious of some vague
sounds that I had not heard before. There were queer squeak-
ings and clickings, the fluttering of wings and the rustle of
branches. I rolled over and listened. The noises were very dis-
tinct. They seemed to come from the shadowy outlines of a
tamarind tree just back of the beach. I moved up to the dark
branches. There was a rush of wings, a sudden crescendo of
shrill squeakings and a horde of bats swept from the tree. I
could feel the air from their wings as they fluttered by my
head. For a time they whirled in the sky, silhouetted by the
stars, and then one by one disappeared into the blackness.

In the morning I went again to the tamarind tree. It was
in full fruit. Light brown seed pods looking like fat, shortened
lima beans hung on the branches in profusion. I plucked one
and tasted it. It was mildly sweet, partly gummy in texture and

214 I N A G U A

contained two round seeds about the size of cherry pits. Num-
bers of the fruit had been chewed, and on some was the imprint
of tiny sharp teeth. The bats had been feeding on the tamarind.

It was not this fact that intrigued me, for I knew that many
tropical bats fed upon fruit, but the size of the creatures. In
the starhght they seemed huge; besides I knew they might be
a new species, or at least a form pecuHar to the island. Inquiry
amono- the Inaguans brought the information that back in the
interior were a number of caves where the bats went in the
daytime between their nocturnal excursions for insects and
tamarinds. Here they were supposed to hang from the walls
in the countless thousands. Knowing the native tendency for
exaggeration I discounted the tales by about fifty per cent but
thought the place would be worth exploring.

In order that I might reach the caves in some degree of com-
fort I traded a few odd articles of ship salvage for a donkey to
carry my water and food, which is to say I traded my good
possessions for one of the most cantankerous, puzzling, obsti-
nate bull-headed beasts in all creation. I should have known
better, for I saw the smirk in the eyes of the Inaguan who traded
with me, and I should have seen the leer in the eye of the
donkey. But I did not. In fact so elated was I at my acquisition
that I felt almost like Shylock for driving a hard bargain, and
when the animal patiently trotted after me up to the hut and
permitted itself to be loaded with a vast bag of tinned meats
and water I was certain I had a jewel. Even the faint brown
stripe that reached from shoulder to belly escaped my attention
and, in my ignorance, I did not realize that this was the mark
of a wild ass only recently tamed from the interior.

The Inaguan who was the animal's owner neglected to tell
the creature's name, so I christened it Griselda, the patient one.
Patient indeed was this donkey. I finished the pack, strapped
it tight, made sure I had a jar of formol to preserve any unusual

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 215

specimens that came my way, and set out once more to explore.
I was feeling very good that morning and for the first time in
months found myself singing. It was "de blessin" again. The
tangy smell of highly fragrant leaves filled the morning air;
the trade whispered softly in the tree tops; its cool pressure
fanned against my chest. A sense of well-being permeated my
body. It was good to be alone with the sun and wind for com-
pany. The song finished, I began to whistle. Tales fro?n the
Vienna Woods, Humor es que, snatches from Veer Gyjit, the
Meditation from Thais went echoing down the glades. Amaryl-
lis, minor notes from Puccini's Butterfly, Old Man River, Or-
pheus, the Fledermaus; I had no idea my repertoire was so
varied. I was whirling to a climax on the dulcet notes of De-
bussy's Afternoon of a Faun, intent on the proper scaling of
the music, when suddenly I was yanked unceremoniously from
my feet and flung lengthwise on the ground. Dazedly, I looked
up. Griselda was heading full tilt for the thorn jungle. She
reached the edge of the bushes, turned, brayed demoniacally
and then disappeared between the trees. I jumped to my feet
and ran after her. She was nowhere in sight; food, water, every-
thing had vanished. In the distance I could hear her clattering
between the cacti.

Fully half an hour elapsed before I caught up with her. She
was wound up in a lignum tree, snared hopelessly with the
lead rope. Both her heels let fly as I approached, my camera
and equipment were strewn all over the ground. Angry at being
so rudely snatched out of the blandishments of Debussy and
sore from the thump on the ground, I retaliated with a stout
club. For a moment we had it hot and heavy, then Griselda
quieted down and I reloaded her pack. I started out with the
lead line; abruptly reached the end of the tether and came to
a sudden halt. Griselda refused to budge. I beat her, I pushed,
I yanked. She was adamant. In the depths of despair I even

ii6 1 N A G U A

built a fire under her. She only moved a few feet to one side
and stood still again.

I had about given up hope when for no good reason Griselda
trotted ahead as quietly as a lamb. She was to have her fun in
another way. Each large tree that was passed was used to dis-
lodge the pack and crush its contents. Then she would turn
her head and grin— I could almost swear it. Eventually I shoved
her ahead until we emerged into a semi-open plain where there
were no large trees. Here, I thought, I would have no trouble.
But Griselda slowed down to a queer waltzing gait, almost a
snail's pace. She would go no faster, certainly no slower. For
the remainder of the day she acted miserably. When evening
came we had progressed only ten miles— a very poor day's
travel.

In a vile humor I unloaded the pack, tethered the donkey
to a bush and spread a blanket. I felt hot, dirty and out of sorts.
From the heights of elation I was plunged into the depths of
dejection. Instead of Griselda I renamed her Timonias, after
Timon of Athens, the famed Greek misanthrope who passed
his days cursing all mankind.

That night will long be remembered as one of the most weird
I have ever spent. I had hardly settled in my blankets when a
horrible scream burst through the air. It was followed by an-
other and still another. I sat bolt upright, seized a small pistol,
and sprang to my feet. It was pitch dark and all around I could
hear the scratching sounds of myriad crabs crawling over the
rocks. Once more the high-pitched scream pierced the gloom.
It was answered by another some distance away. Close by,
Timonias was thrashing at her tether. I walked over and was
met by a flail of thudding hoofs. They missed me by inches.
She came at me with bare teeth; only the tether kept her back.

The loud ringing of hoofs on the bare rock soon told me
the cause of her actions. She had caught the smell of her wild

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 217

brethren and was anxious to join their company. In the dark
I felt around for a club. There was none available. I had no
idea what was the proper thing to do, my experience with
donkeys was limited.

Through the dark I could hear the hoofs pattering as the herd
circled the camp. The night became hideous with the sound
of their braying. No African veldt with lions, baboons and
hyenas resounded more violently to the howls of wild animals
than the Inaguan bush did that night. I sat down, sweat pouring
from my back. There was nothing I could do. Between the
intervals of howling, giant land crabs with yellow claws crept
all about, keeping me alert with their clatter. The din died
down about an hour before dawn and I dozed into a fitful
slumber.

When I awoke the sun was high above the horizon and the
heat waves were dancing, making wavy images. My eyes were
heavy from lack of sleep. Even Timonias drooped wearily. I
cursed the day I acquired her. In a brackish pool, brown with
the steeping of tamarind roots, I washed my face and doused
my hair. It refreshed me considerably but dried with a sticky
feeling. Sleepily I reloaded the pack, and turned again toward
the center of the island.

Everywhere the ground was covered with tracks, long sinu-
ous trails with double lines that marked the trails of the yellow
crabs, scores of prints of Httle round hoofs and the cleft ones
of wild cattle. There must have been hundreds prowHng about,
their imprints were everywhere. Once a splendid horse burst
from a glade, snorted and plunged away again. The interior
of Inagua must contain several thousand of these wild animals.

I found one of the caves later in the day. Its entrance was
obscured by vines and was partly obstructed by rocks. After
tying Timonias to a tree, I unloaded the flashlight and camera
and stepped inside. The sudden change from glaring daylight

2i8 I N A G U A

to darkness blinded me and some time passed before I could
see. Presently in the light of the flash I could discern a low
winding tunnel that vanished in the distance.

iMoving forward, I found the ceiling becoming lower and
lower until I had to drop on my knees and crawl. The floor
was covered with a brownish, half-moist loam which smelled
hke ammonia. It was guano, the decomposed droppings of
thousands of bats accumulated through the centuries. The loam
was several feet thick. The fumes were stifling and the air
seemed dank and heavy. There was a sudden clatter at my side
and I swung the flash in time to see an orange colored land
crab scuttle into a hole in the rocks. Presently the walls began
to widen again and I emerged into a big dark open space. The
floor at my feet dropped away for six or seven feet, and in the
dim light I could see a large pool of black water. The pool was
bitter salt. Everything on this island was steeped in salt, even
the caves. The reflections of the flash cast eerie lights over the
stained walls. Fifteen or twenty feet above my head the ceiling
soared away into the distance, supported by tall limestone pil-
lars covered with green mineral. Ghostly stalactites hung from
the roof and great shadowy holes went off in all directions.

I turned the flash into one of these recesses. Far up near the
top hung a living portiere of bats. They stirred restlessly, opened
their wings and shut them again with a noise that sounded like
the swishing of cloth. The air became suddenly filled with a
chorus of high-pitched voices, shrill falsetto squeakings and
rustlings. These echoed back and forth under the vaulted arches,
rising and falling in waves of sound that diminished eerily in
the distance. Feeling around the floor I picked up a stone and
flung it against the walls. It clattered back and forth, echoing
hollowly, and fell with a loud splash into the water. Instantly
the cave became alive. With a thunderous throbbing a thousand
wings beat the air at once as the bats poured out of their hiding

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 219

places. In great bunches they swept the length of the cavern;
the vibrations of their wings pulsed through the arched ceilings.
They milled about the flashlight by the dozens. The glare
seemed to confuse them for they swooped close to my body.
I could feel the cool gusts of air created by their fluttering
wings and several times the leathery tissues brushed against my
face and arms.

I hurled another stone. This threw the creatures into a panic
and they rushed madly from one end of the cavern to another.
Giving them time to subside, I unloaded the camera and flash
gun. Propping the camera on a little ledge, I focused it on
a hole full of bats. I then filled the flash gun and stepped around
a corner of the cave, first opening the shutter. I pressed the
trigger. There was a blinding flash of light, a thunderous boom
and choking smoke. Coughing, I went back and closed the
camera shutter. Then I noticed that not a bat was flying, though
a number were twitching restlessly, no doubt disturbed by the
smoke. I turned on the light again. The bats were all hanging
in their holes where they had gone when they first quieted
down. The flash powder had made a report like a cannon but
not a bat stirred. I picked up another stone and tossed it against
the walls. Instantly the cave was alive with fluttering forms.
Another discharge of the flash powder produced the same re-
sult. They did not seem to hear the artillery-hke report of the
ignited chemical; it was too heavy a sound for their finely
adjusted ears. Their hearing was attuned to faint scratchings,
the sing of insect wings, the rustle of leaves. For them the
thunder of the flash powder did not exist.

With a net I scooped a half dozen from a recess in the roof
and placed them in a bag. They made a terrific racket, fighting
and squealing, struggling to get free. Laying the flashUght
against a stone I pulled one out, carefully avoiding the needle-
like teeth. It stretched and pulled, shrilling in high notes, angrily

220 I N A G U A

striving to bite my fingers. The great tissue wings wrapped
about my hands, clawed to get free. I held the creature close
to the light. It had the most gargoylish, yet human looking, face
I have ever seen. None of the frowning stone figures on the
high parapets of Notre Dame in Paris are more weird. And it
had a most peculiar nose. A leathery tissue resembling a fleur-
de-lis stood up stiffly on the end of it. The tissue must have been
highly sensitive, for when I touched it the bat went into a
perfect frenzy of squeaking. Its rage went beyond the bounds
of mere anger; it vibrated from the end of its ludicrous nose
to the tips of its recurved toes; its face twisted into unbelievable
contortions; the teeth chattered like castanets. The eyes were
malevolent, with an evil glint that belied their true character.
For these bats— and most bats— are really harmless creatures,
mammals which ask no more than to be let alone.

From its peculiar nose I identified it as a leaf -nosed bat be-
longing to the genus Artibeus— one of a tropical family related
to the blood-sucking vampires. It is by means of their strangely
convoluted noses and their ears, which are equipped with long
delicate lobes and tissues, that the bats are able to find their
way about in the dark. The wing tissues are also extremely
sensitive. These are richly supplied with blood vessels and
nerve endings; a bat may be said to be alive to its finger tips.
I was reminded of the now classic experiment of that inde-
fatigable Eighteenth Century naturalist, Lazaro Spallanzani.
This incurably curious person filled a dark room with an in-
tricate maze of threads and wires extending in all directions,
and so arranged them that there was just enough space for a
bat to pass between the obstructions. He then operated on a
number of bats so they could not see or smell. Although the
creatures flew back and forth for several hours in the room,
at no time did they so much as touch a wire. The wing tissues
and the nose and ear appendages are attuned to minute vibra-

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 221

tions too fine for human perception. Thus a bat is able to cap-
ture insects in mid-air or find its way on a dark night through
a forest of entwining twigs.

A bat is the very essence of nocturnaHsm. It is also one of
the most remarkable animals in existence. The western world
regards the bat as sinister, fit company for witches, a denizen
of graveyards, companion of ghouls. The Chinese have the
good sense— and the felicitation— to judge the creature in its
proper light; to them it is a symbol of happiness, and is so
pictured on their exquisite silks and embroideries. The fact
that these people have recognized the animal's good qualities
is an indication of their fine sensitivity and powers of observa-
tion. When nature produced the bat she succeeded in creat-
ing a very finely tuned mechanism, and accorded it a place
which no other animal of creation can fill as well.

Bats have the distinction of being the only mammals which
are endowed with true powers of flight. All the others which
make pretense at the art are but clumsy performers, novices
on a road which the bats traveled centuries ago. Flying squir-
rels, phalangers and similar mammals are but parachutists; they
can glide or plane; only the bats can truly fly. Few of the birds
can approach them in aerial dexterity; hummingbirds, swifts
and petrels are, perhaps, their closest rivals; even these must
acknowledge inferiority in control. A bat is capable of revers-
ing its direction in its own length or of turning a complete
right angle within a few inches while in full speed, feats at-
tained by it alone.

Also, the bat is the only animal in the world which flies
with its fingers, although a few hundred million years ago the
reptiles went it one better when they produced the Pterodactyls
which flew with the Httle finger alone! Some of these Ptero-
dactyls attained a wing spread of twenty-five feet; the bats
reached a maximum of five— but are still in existence while the

222 I N A G U A

reptilian digiti-aeroplanists have been out of circulation for an
eon or two.

The bat uses all its fingers except the thumb, which is free
and which functions as a grasping claw; the third, fourth and
fifth digits are longer than the remainder of the arm. If an
average man's fingers were produced in proportion they
would reach from his shoulders to the ground and would be
about the thickness of a lead pencil tapering to the thickness
of a knitting needle at the ends. These finger bones are un-
believably elastic and may be bent almost double before they
break. Yet they are so perfectly designed that they support
the wing tissues rigidly while in flight.

The marvelous wing membrane, which is a very fine flexible
tissue, is kept well lubricated with a special grease which oc-
curs in the region of the nose and eyes. The care which is
given to the wings is as great as the attention the birds give to
their feathers; and a bat's wing is capable of a great many more
uses than the pinions of a bird. Its actual lifting surface in pro-
portion to bulk is much greater and is extended over a greater
area. Even the space between the hind legs is utilized and most
bats are equipped with peculiar spurs which are attached to
the heels to help support this inter-femoral membrane, as it
is termed.

This membrane, stretching from leg to leg, and further
supported in some species by a flexible tail, serves a dual pur-
pose. It is, first of all, used as a baby-basket, for the newly
born young have been observed resting in its curved surface
as in a pouch until the parent is able to transfer them to a more
permanent place near her breasts. The membrane is also used
by certain species as a retainer for food while devouring an
extra large insect, such as a beetle. This in itself proves what
wonderful aerialists bats are, for the action of eating the beetle
is performed in full flight high in the evening sky. The diffi-

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 223

culty lies in crunching the insect without losing the grip of
the jaws or wasting precious fragments. The bat solves this
problem by suddenly lowering its head to its skin basket where
it chews its prey without danger of losing it. While this action
is progressing the animal tumbles wildly in the air, plummet-
ing downwards, but it is so perfectly adjusted to such acro-
batics that it recovers in an instant and continues its flight.

Searching about on the floor of the cave beneath the holes
where they slept, I found great piles of tamarind seeds. Ap-
parently these Artibeus bats carried the fruits to the caves and
chewed them at leisure or swallowed them whole at the tree.
With a net I filled the bag to overflowing— a quarreling,
squeaking mass of fur and leathery wings— and crawled outside
into the sunlight. One by one I examined the creatures and
permitted them to escape. Of the fifty-three that I captured
only four were females. All the remainder were full-grown
males. Lady Artibeus must be at a premium; the competition
between males must be keen.

One of the females was carrying a baby, a queer little mite
with a face that looked at least eighty years old. It was cHng-
ing tightly to her breasts, snuggled close into her fur. The
mother tried to protect it and folded one of her wings over
its body. I let her go and she soared into the sunlight. Between
wing strokes I could see the huddled form of the infant hang-
ing upside down clutching its mother. Until they are able to
fly these baby bats must ride along with the parent as she
wings her way in search of insects or tamarinds. They do not
know how to fly at birth but must undergo a slow period of
maturation. Unlike birds, baby bats have no nests in which to
rest, and as the mother spends all her hours either flying or
hanging from a cave wall suspended upside down by her feet,
the babies must grasp from the day they are born.

It is a strange and paradoxical thing that the closest relatives

224 I N A G U A

of the bats are the insectivorous shrews and the moles. The
shrews are almost all nocturnal, the moles irrevocably so. It
seems a far cry from a mole burrowing in its damp tunnel of
earth, down among the beetle grubs and the garden worms, to
a bat with its tissue wings high among the stars. Yet in their
general anatomy and particularly in their dentition there is a
very marked affinity. Somewhere along the long road of evo-
lution, marked with the milestones of failure and success, with
the coming and going of a hundred species and genera, is a
forked trail, one side leading into the airy spaces of the sky,
the other into the depths of the clinging soil. The bats took
one path, the moles the other.

Few accomplishments are attained without sacrifice; the
bats have paid their penalty to nature. For the privilege of
flight under the glowing lights of the evening sky and for the
advantage of being able to pursue their insect prey or seek the
fruit they subsist upon instead of crawling through the mud
and leaves like their relatives, they have relinquished the ability
to walk. A bat on the ground is a caricature of the creature
that dodges among the clouds. In order to perfect the mecha-
nism of flight they have been forced to reverse the position of
their knees which are turned outwards and backwards Hke our
elbows. Hence the best most bats can do is an awkward shuffle,
although a few such as the Vampire still retain a mouse-like
quality. They have also paid another penalty, for the reversal
of the knees has made it impracticable for them to stand up-
right. From birth to death they must hang head downwards,
forever suspended between heaven and earth.

Once I kept a number of little brown bats in a cage through
a northern winter. From the first cold days of November to
the warmth of early April they hung immobile, head down-
wards. At times their huddled bodies were covered with a coat-
ing of hoarfrost until they looked like rows of suspended

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 225

snowballs. To the touch they were as cold as marble and as
stiff as though rigor mortis had set in. There were times when
I was certain they were dead; but deep inside their bodies,
that wonderful gift called life still persisted, and in the spring
on the first warm day they relaxed and began squirming and
chattering. The total number of days they had hung suspended
was one hundred and twenty-seven; in all those hours the feet
never relaxed, nor did they change their position. That is a
long time to hang in one place. An equivalent action would be
for a man to pass the winter asleep on his feet, though, no
doubt, many business men would be willing to swear they
have witnessed a comparable display among their employees.
How very tenacious this suspension is, however, I did not
realize until I found the second cave.

This cave turned out to be a magnificent place of dome-like
arches and fretted ceiling. In places the roof had fallen in,
leaving jagged holes through which the sunlight streamed in
long fingers. The light gave the cave a soft unearthly glow
which faded in the distance to utter blackness. I had difficulty
finding the cave and only vague direction to guide me. If it had
not been for the bats I probably would not have found it at
all. With Timonias tied safely to a tree, I was making camp,
chopping some wood for a fire and preparing a scanty supper.
The sun had gone down and the sky was becoming tinged
with deep purple. To my surprise I saw what I thought was
smoke issuing from a distant hillside. I knew there was no one
within miles and the geology of Inagua was not volcanic. The
wisplike smoke grew thicker and I dropped what I was doing
and dashed over. When I came closer I saw it was not smoke
but a horde of bats coming out of one of the holes in the roof.
The twilight had deceived me. Hundreds were pouring out
of the cavern; in a steady stream they rose out of the ground
and disappeared in the velvety dusk.

226 I N A G U A

Early the next morning before the sun had risen I found the
entrance of the cave with a flashHght and went inside. I
wanted to see what happened when the bats returned. The
cave was very dark and mysterious, a feehng helped, no doubt,
by the fact that I was alone. Only a few bats were visible.
Why these had not gone out with the others I could not guess.
In one place there were three hanging close together. I reached
out and touched one. It was dead. Only its skin held it to-
gether, for inside it was dry and powdery. My fingers dis-
lodged the mummy and it went fluttering to the floor. The
others had died similarly. Old age, disease, or whatever causes
the demise of bats had come upon them in their slumber. But
although their flesh and tissue had become dried and mummi-
fied, though the life had gone out of them, their tiny claws
still held them in place just as they do when they are in dreams.
Even death could not relax their hold upon the rocks.

I made myself comfortable in one corner of the cavern and
waited. Presently I dozed, for when I wakened a faint radiance
was streaming through the opening in the roof. The bats were
returning. Vaguely against the sky I could see their forms
flutterincr above the hole and could hear the vibrations of their
wings as they entered. More and more came to the hole and
fluttered into the cavern. Soon the place was filled with their
chirping and mice-like squeaking. They must have brought
back some tamarinds with them because I could hear them
munching the fruit and dropping the seeds on the floor. I sat
very quietly so as not to disturb them. Some even hung them-
selves near my head. I could feel the air pulse as they swept
by, and could hear the soft thuds as they swooped upwards
and caught the rocks. Presently the gray began to turn pink.
A great mass of them was pouring in the hole then and the
vibrations of their wings filled the air. At times the sky was
completely darkened as they swept across the opening.

CREATURES OF DARKNESS 227

They were fleeing from the Hght. Into the darkest portions
of the cave they went, far into the shadowy corners. Little by
Httle the chirpings and the squeaking ceased, the flutterings and
the shufflings became still. One by one the bats suspended
themselves in the crevices— living portieres of brown fur and
wrinkled wing, row upon row, tier upon tier— and went to
sleep. The pink glow around the hole turned red and very
gently a ray of sunlight stole into the cavern. The day had
come, with its activity for half of nature, and its complete
stillness for the bats.

CHAPTER XI

The Mysterious Migration

Because of a wedding party in which I had neither part nor
interest, I happened to see a very wonderful thing. Like so
many tropical weddings, these nuptials began some months
too late and ended quite a few hours too early. They cele-
brated the climax of a romance, somewhat gone stale, between
a mulatto girl whose name I cannot remember and a black
boy called George. The fact that the bride was about to be
delivered of a child, and was already the mother of several
children by virtue of previous adventures, did not dampen
the ardor of the wedding guests, but served to increase their
joy, helped, no doubt, by copious quantities of rum purchased
from a tiny Hquor shop in the settlement. The noise of the
celebration, augmented by a pair of monstrous drums and
several guitars, by some queer trick of acoustics carried across
the glades and flooded my clearing with clashing sound until
the small hours of the morning. Finally I could stand the din
no longer and, weary from hours of tossing to and fro listening
to the hundredth repetition of a chorus which stated over
and over again that the singers wanted "no peas no rice nor
cocoanut oil," I dragged irritably out of bed, donned shoes and
shorts and went out into the moonlight.

For a time I wandered aimlessly about and then turned into
a donkey trail that wound down to the seashore. Presently
I emerged from a great bed of cactus and prickly pear near a
huge mound of rocks on the very edge of the beach. Here the
surf was sliding up very gently, slithering in long creeping
fingers between the rocks, etched in vivid highlight by the

MYSTERIOUS MIGRATION 229

gleam of the moon. Far away the pulsations and shouts from
the belated wedding still throbbed in the night air but these
sounds were no longer of any importance. Instead the roar and
sigh of the gently rising surf occupied my half -conscious hear-
ing. The air was warm and heavy with perfume; the trade
winds had slackened to an unusual calm. For the first time that
evening I felt soothed and dropped on the smooth sand where
I drifted into a heavy sleep.

On and on I dozed and did not stir for nearly an hour. But
then into my half conscious senses there crept a multitude of
little sounds that I had not heard before— faint scratchings and
clatterings, queer little noises barely audible above the surf.
Once a mockingbird in the bay lavender back of the beach
broke into liquid melody, trilled half-heartedly, and then
lapsed into silence. But the scratchings continued.

Presently they became more frequent, more pronounced.
I raised my head. Up on the white beach, gleaming silver in
the moonlight, were moving small shadowy forms. In long
windrows they were gliding out of the dark bushes and
creeping down to the surf. Faintly I could see the glisten of
the salt water as it reached their bodies and drenched them
with its coolness. For a second their forms showed half smoth-
ered in foam and then they disappeared. It was their clattering
over the seashells that had awakened me.

Some moments passed before I realized the full significance
of what I was watching. The shadowy forms were crabs— not
the checkered Grapsus crabs of the surf nor the crustaceans
of the dark blue water, nor yet the ghost crabs that flitted like
shadows along the sand just back of the beach, but land crabs-
queer round-bodied creatures that lived in holes far back in
the interior. They did not belong on the seashore, but had
their being in those dry portions of the island where big cacti
reared their heads above the soil. There were two kinds of

230 I N A G U A

land crabs on Inagua, in addition to the ubiquitous hermit
crabs— small purple crustaceans about as big in body as a
clenched fist and big yellow fellows with tremendous saffron
claws. I had seen them miles from the seashore, as far back as
the borders of the great central lake where they rambled about
the tangled thorn glades and the barren savannahs seeking the
twigs and bits of green vegetation on which they feed. But
they had not been visible for a long time— ever since the period
of high wind when I burned the wreck of the Basilisk. No rain
had fallen for weeks in succession and the crabs wxre keeping
close to their holes, sleeping away the hours in drowsy somno-
lence. Back in the interior it had become very dry and the
mud had split in jagged cracks and the dust rose as one walked.

Strange that they should be there on the beach. I looked
again. In a continual stream they were pouring out of the
bushes and sliding down to the sea. There must have been
hundreds of them; and there was an air about them of some-
thing very important; something that would not be brooked.
Even when I jumped to my feet and strode up the sand they
did not pause but merely scrambled to one side and continued
down to the surf.

Then I remembered.

Far back in the hinterland of the island, miles away, it had
rained that day, a downpouring drenching tropical rain that
filled the dry salinas to overflowing and flooded the hollows.
The rain had lasted for several hours and had turned the
feathery dust into slimy slippery mud. The drops had not
ceased until just before sunset and the slanting rays of the
sinking sun had flared into the sky, making a long arched rain-
bow which stood out vividly against the dark mass of clouds
behind. This rain then was what the crabs had been waiting
for, hidden deep in the cavities of their holes. And when the
precious water came down, wetting their bodies and turning

MYSTERIOUS MIGRATION 231

the land into a miniature sea, these crabs knew in some unex-
plainable way that their hour had come. In the countless thou-
sands they deserted their underground houses and ventured
forth into the open air. A sudden urge had taken hold of them,
all at once, an urge that with magnetic power turned them all
in one direction.

The time had come to return to the sea.

Many hours had passed, a full year had gone since they
left their mother ocean and it was time to return. But not as
they came. The beaches and bush trails had swarmed with
them that day a year gone, so thick that one could scarcely walk
without crushing their bodies. They were very tiny then,
barely an inch in length, and the larger birds had held joyous
revel and had stuffed themselves with young crabs until they
could hardly fly. They had seemingly come out of nowhere;
for a few days they had swarmed and then little by little they
disappeared into the jungle, into their lonely retreats in the
interior. Creeping over boulders and stones, threading between
the lignum vitae, struggling under the tangled masses of the
prickly pear, they had made their way, meeting death and dis-
aster in a thousand forms, growing the while— some of them—
until the inland country had swallowed them up.

In the moonlight I cornered one of the advancing crabs, a
purple one with yellow spots, and picked it up. Beneath its
body was a great purplish mass tucked under the shelter of the
apron. The crab was female and the purple mass was her eggs.
She struggled to get free, bit at me with her claws. I dropped
her to the sand and tried to make her go back into the bushes.
But an instinct stronger than fear possessed her that night.
Stepping daintily sidewise, moving each of her legs in con-
secutive precision, she menaced me with her claws and ran
to pass between my feet. I let her go and she dashed the re-
maining distance to the surf and was swallowed in the bubbles.

232 I N A G U A

There, I knew, though I could not see it, for this is the way
of these crabs, a wonderful thing would happen. In the cool
depths, in the shelter of some dark crevice safe from hungry
fishes the weary mother would shake off her burden of purple
eggs. Just below the area of the surf where the bubbles
churned the water into silvery spray the eggs would hatch,
casting forth their spawn. And the female, exhausted by her
long journey, by the vicissitudes of her life on dry land, would
try to struggle back to the interior again. Some succeed to
live a short while before they leave their whitened bodies in
the rocks to bleach in the sun; others fall easy prey to ravenous
carnivores, perishing before they are out of the surf; but it
does not matter, for their hour of labor is finished, their destiny
fulfilled. And I also knew that if the life history follows the
pattern of most other crabs in a few hours or days the sea
near shore would be afloat with vast swarms of micro-crea-
tures, the spawn from the purple-colored eggs— queer, gargoyl-
ish, outlandish looking spawn that in no way could be con-
ceived to be crabs.

Scientists call these spawn zoea, which is a word meaning
life. Smaller than the head of the smallest pin these transparent
apparitions float through the water, looking like Martian mos-
quitoes, unbelievable creatures invisible save under a strong
lens. For days their function would be little more than to drift,
kicking vigorously with feather-like legs, peering into the
water with big black eyes, seeking the light, and devouring
everything that came within reach. Hundreds would disap-
pear down the craws of other creatures, larger than themselves
and equally voracious. Some would perish in the folds of the
stinging tentacles of the coral polyps; other hundreds would
be cast ashore to desiccate miserably on the dry sand; still
others would be carried out to sea and would be lost. But in
the end there would still remain many thousands to moult

MYSTERIOUS MIGRATION 233

their skins and change to a new form.

In the new form, retaining none of their original character-
istics, they would be known as megalops, which is to say,
they would still be outlandish looking creatures. But in this
new shape they would bear some faint resemblance to a crab,
although a horrible misshapen sort of crab with a wriggly tail
and a pair of claws in proportion to nothing except its appetite.
In this megalops stage the crab-to-be turns cannibal and greed-
ily devours its younger brothers and sisters which, not so
fortunate as itself, have not yet attained full megalops-hood.
Nor does it satisfy itself with young zoea, but munches its
grotesque way through Hfe devouring everything in sight,
shedding its skin, and growing the while until it moults for
the last time and emerges, wet and ever so tiny, on the beach
as a perfect crab.

But not yet is this midget a land crab, for that is a matter
of training. Its ancestors, back in the remote centuries, took a
few hundreds of thousands of years to accomplish the transi-
tion from sea to land, at first clambering on the rocks of some
ancient sea, poking their heads into the air and then dashing
back again. So this baby crab recapitulates the history of its
ancient relatives. In the dark of the evening, for it becomes
nocturnal and no longer seeks the light, it creeps up on the
pure sand of the beach. But not very far. The sea is still its
mother and like a chick with a hen it dashes back to her for
protection. And it needs protection, for death stalks the beach
in a thousand forms.

The greatest danger is that of drying up. Tucked away
under its eighth-inch body is a set of diminutive gills, tiny
little fringed tissues hidden ingeniously away where the gritty
sand may not reach and injure them. In the deeps of the water
these gills had served it well, gathering the oxygen from the
brine, distributing it through the tissues, and in all its baby-

234 I N A G U A

hood these gills had been comfortably wet. But when the epic
moment arrived when the baby crab, drawn by some unac-
countable instinct, struggled its way through the last inch of
foam and stood wet and dripping in the open air, it must have
felt a surge of wxU being. The gills, which before had labo-
riously separated the water-clinging oxygen, must have drunk
in the free air, soaking it up in quantities.

It is a cosmic thing to step suddenly from one world into
another. However, it is probable that the baby crab did not
think it cosmic at all, for baby crabs function chiefly by blind
instinct. Instinct coupled with activity caused the crablet to
struggle further up on dry land, fully six inches out of the surf.
It must have been a terrific struggle, for, remember, the infant
is probably an eighth of an inch in length. Tiny sand grains
must have been as great as boulders; a half-buried sea shell a
veritable mountain.

Presently, back in what serves the creature for a mind,
comes a feeling that all is not well. There is a tight feeling
around the gills, a dry, uncomfortable, oppressive sensation.
Panic-stricken it dashes back to the sea. But only for a time.
Soon there is a desire for the air again, for the warm wind that
glides over the beach, rustling the leaves back of the sand.

And so for a period, the tiny creature repeats the story of
its ancestry, the stepping on dry land and the returning to
Mother Sea again. Little by little, the dry land gains ascend-
ancy of the instincts of the tiny mite; only it is not so tiny
now, for it has moulted a number of times, casting aside its
shell and increasing in stature. The gills have become accus-
tomed to the air, though they must still be kept moist. To aid
them the body has become equipped with an air chamber
which takes over the duties of breathing, relieving the tender
gills.

In time there comes a day when in a vast horde the swarm-

MYSTERIOUS MIGRATION 235

ing beach crabs desert the shore and step back into the dark
mystery of the island. It is the crossing of their Rubicon. For
a full year they will not see the ocean again, and when they
return their life's purpose will have been accomplished. Many
will never see it again. But dauntless they move ahead. Go in-
land, their instinct says, go inland to the very center of the
island.

Hundreds fall by the way. Some are killed by birds, some
perish by accident, falling into deep holes from which there
is no escape. The latter die of starvation and thirst, for the
islands are places of httle water. Only by nibbling on little
twigs and on green vegetation can they secure the water they
need so badly. The gills still must be kept moist. Should they
dry, even slightly, death will quickly follow.

Above all they avoid the sun. Ten minutes' full exposure
in the sun means certain disaster. Crabs have no sweat glands
to keep them cool and, when the tropical rays beat down on
their purplish backs, their shells become so hot they can
scarcely be touched. But the crabs do not live that long. With
the first sudden rise in temperature they become drowsy, their
legs fold wearily under them, and they fall to the ground,
Once fallen they never rise again.

I discovered this quite by accident one day when I cornered
a crab in an open glade. Frantically it tried to reach the shade.
It even lost all fear of me and tried to scramble between my
legs. But I did not know the reason for its panic and kept it
in the open. Hardly three minutes had passed before its claws
fell weakly to the ground and it toppled on its face. A mo-
ment later it was dead.

Out of the thousands that die by the way a certain number
reach the appointed place and distribute themselves over the
land. In the shade of the bushes and around the roots of the
trees they excavate deep holes, long curving cavities in the soil.

236 I N A G U A

With their claws they dig out the loam, roll it into little balls,
and carry them, one at a time, to their doorways. In the warm
tropic nights they go forth to feed, clipping the succulent
jungle twigs and carrying them back to their dens.

In the months that follow they grow, casting aside their
shells, becoming more and more amazing in appearance. By
November they are fully adult— purplish creatures with gro-
tesque gnome-like faces. And to make them even more weird
their eyes are set on stalks and their mouths open not up and
down but sideways.

The rainy season passes and afterwards the sun shines with
tropical fierceness. The ground dries out to powdery softness
and great cakes of hard mud take the place of lakes and ponds.
The vegetation withers, loses its succulent greenness, and be-
comes dry and dull. And these are the gray days for the land
crabs, for they dare not venture forth to feed. Only in the
cool of their holes is there moisture enough to keep them
alive. February ghdes into March and March into April. The
sun becomes more intense and only the cacti appear to remain
green and fresh.

Particularly do the females need the dampness, for they
have become laden with eggs. In great purple masses they hang
beneath their aprons. There are hundreds of these eggs, each
about the size of a pin head, all glued together in a viscid mass.
It is time to go— if only the rains would come.

A female stirs in her burrow. There is a feeling in the air.
Off in the distance somber gray clouds are forming, gathering
in sullen masses. Thunder rolls fitfully and dies away. The
trade wind is gone and the air is still— very quiet and heavy.
It is terribly hot. Across the dry salinas the heat waves are
dancing, making queer images. The clouds pile up, higher and
higher, jet black in the middle. Thunder rolls again. The sun
drops towards the horizon, tinging the world with refulgent

MYSTERIOUS MIGRATION 237

gold. From the direction of the clouds a new odor drifts across
the jungle. It smells fresh and green and cool. Suddenly from
the gathering darkness there comes a rush of cold rain and in
a pouring, drowning deluge the water beats into the soil.

Down in their burrows the crabs are frantically removing
the walls of their dens. Hastily they roll aside the little pellets
of brown soil and carry them away. Through the newly
formed openings the water seeps in in an ever growing stream.
It soaks into the soil, turning the round pellets into oozy mud.
The time has come at last.

In vast hordes, from far and near, the crabs break out of
their dens and creep through the rain-soaked vegetation. Their
shells glisten with the moisture and the Hghtning throws their
bodies into high relief. It is the hour for which they have been
waiting, day after day, week after week. Nothing turns them
aside. Over rocks and vegetation, through slimy mud and
tangled vines they come. In some unaccountable manner each
purplish body has become polarized towards the ocean. Fresh
water does not deceive them, nor the brackish pools left by
the rain. It is sea water they want, the bitter salt ocean and the
crashing surf. Possibly they recall in some unknown way the
scenes of their grotesque babyhood, when as zoea and mega-
lops they had their being in the blue ocean. Hour after hour
they move onwards without stopping to feed. The eggs must
be spawned before the ground dries up again, the eggs that
carry the whole hope of the race.

I stirred on the rocks and looked up again. Far in the east
was a faint glimmer of gray and I noticed that the moon was
very low. For nearly four hours I had sat watching the crabs
pouring out of the interior. Wave after wave had marched
out of the bushes and had flung itself joyously into the foam.
In a few days a new horde of crabs would be born to go
through the same cycle again. What strange power did the

238 I N A G U A

ocean hold over these errant children of hers that she should
call them forth that they might give life again? And by what
means did she guide them the v^eary miles out of the interior?
Was it the roar of the surf, the swish and sigh of the breakers
that beckoned them on, or some vibration too fine for human
ears?

I listened intently, straining for some hint. Even as I heark-
ened, the east began to turn pink. For the first time I became
aware that the drums from the wedding party had ceased.

CHAPTER XII

The Quest of the Firebirds

After the migration of the land crabs a change seemed to
come over the round of hfe on the island. The continual howl
of the trade wind slackened; frequent gusts of pattering rain
fell, dried in a few hours and fell again. There was not enough
moisture to fill the salinas but enough each day to make the
air heavy and humid. Mosquitoes began to make their ap-
pearance in the evenings, breeding in holes in the rocks where
a little water had collected. It was no longer pleasant to go
prowling at night in the moonlight or to sit on the rocks by
the sea. The great saltpond back of the settlement, which
every day had been filled with companies of flamingos and
sandpipers, became a great empty space glittering in the glare
of the sun. The heat increased and the glare on the white
salt was almost intolerable. The sandpipers had gone north on
their long migration, disappearing during the night; the fla-
mingos had filtered away in twos and threes, heading in small
groups for the very center of the island.

It was then the first of May. A deadly spirit of monotony
seemed to pervade the atmosphere. This was particularly
noticeable in the settlement. There the only relief was the
nightly rehgious orgies of the Daxons; the pulsations of their
drums throbbed endlessly through the saddened streets. Be-
fore and after these celebrations a few gangs of blacks and
mulattoes hung in groups on the deserted corners. There was
little gaiety. The groups hushed when I approached, then
resumed talking in low tones when I had faded out of sight
in the dark. They did not laugh and joke, or play pranks as a

239

240 I N A G U A

similar gathering would have done in Haiti. The general air
of hopelessness and shiftlessness was apparent everywhere.
The world of these surf-encircled people was crumbling to
pieces around them; instead of bending their energies to re-
creating it they were allowing themselves to be swept along
with the tide of easy dissolution. Even doorsteps which could
have been repaired in ten minutes with a few strips of wood
or fragments of stone were permitted to fall of dry rot; it
was simpler to do without them than to rebuild.

There was no leadership on the island. The one family of
mulattoes which might have, by force of example or unselfish-
ness, contributed to the welfare of the settlement was passing
the days in careless somnolence, or exploiting the little remain-
ing resources of the island for its individual benefit. The black
commissioner was helpless. He was doing his level best, but
like the others he was enmeshed in a web of circumstance.

Monotony and frustration were written on every face, in
the very deportment of the inhabitants. I cannot be sure I
blame them too much. For all my interest in natural phenomena
and my fresh background of the outer world I was beginning
to slow down. The heat had something to do with it, the com-
plete sense of isolation fostered the condition; lack of outside
stimulation, of literature and music, gay companionship, caused
a slackening of activity. Birds and beasts, as wonderful as they
are, pall at times. I began finding excuses to sit and loaf. Yet
I had been on the island scarcely half a year; these people had
been born here, had been faced with insularity from the mo-
ment of their genesis. Even this, in many cases, was not under
very happy circumstances. Illegitimacy was common, blacks
bred with mulattoes, mulattoes with whites— as white as these
were— and these with the blacks again. The moral code was
low, a status to be expected in a colony that for long years had
fostered slavery and had promoted promiscuous breeding to

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 241

increase the working stock.

So, I was not altogether unhappy when I received a letter
from the Museum requesting me to go to Santo Domingo and
collect a series of He?mdactylus lizards for experimental pur-
poses. Several weeks later I gathered together all my materials
and engaged passage on one of the rare passing steamers for
Port au Prince, Haiti. I closed the door of my little hut, saw
my friend the spider emerge after I was out of its short sight
and begin to weave its web across the lintel. I wondered if
I would ever see the hut where I had spent so many quiet
hours again. And, as the lumbering old Dutch freighter passed
the rocks of rny cliff I caught a brief glimpse of its brown roof
nestling between the leaves. It seemed very tiny across the ex-
panse of blue water.

I asked the captain if I might climb the mast for a last look
at the island. From the height of the crow's nest I could see
the full extent of the saltpond a mile inland glittering in the
sunlight. A bright pink mass in one corner showed the posi-
tion of the last remaining group of flamingos still in the lake.
All the others which for weeks had stalked in its shallows had
gone inland. Even as I looked the pink mass began to pulse,
then broke into a scattering of scarlet motes. The flock climbed
high in the sky, turned toward the beach, circled above the
hut, and then with a faint crying noise, scarcely audible above
the swish of the water, turned inland. In a few minutes they
were gone and as the distance increased the island became a
long thin line of green that faded into the haze and disap-
peared from the face of the earth.

Of what befell me on the Island of Hispaniola, of how I
languished in a Dominican jail because a stupid official could
not read my permit to carry a collecting revolver, and of how
I quite inadvertently started a small inquisition, and in turn
had the revenge of seeing half a town incarcerated in the same

242 I N A G U A

hoosegow, and of how I collected the necessary He77ndactyius
is a long story and one that has no place in this volume. It is
sufficient to relate that I returned home in time to witness the
collapse of the era of inflation and the beginning of the Ameri-
can depression. The island of Inagua was frequently on my
mind; but as a year slipped into two, two into four, and four
into eight, I saw no possibility of returning to complete the
tasks I had begun. The sight of the flock of flamingos leaving
the coast for the interior particularly haunted me, and I re-
solved to return some day and make a series of photographs
of these magnificent birds on their nesting grounds. I also in-
tended to take a diving suit with me to continue my explora-
tions where I had left off on the edge of the cliff by the sea.

The years of the depression were not altogether unfruitful
ones. In co-operation with the Chesapeake Biological Labora-
tory at Solomons, Maryland, I engaged in some research prob-
lems dealing with the Chesapeake Bay and in order to further
this program invented a steel diving cylinder in which, with
my colleagues, I was able to spend long hours beneath the
surface making observations of the sea life that came to our
big plate glass window. The sights that we saw in the Chesa-
peake began an interest in the world of undersea that has
never been satiated, and the possibiHty of exploring the reefs
of Inagua loomed ever larger in my mind.

Desired accomplishments, however, frequently require a
spark to cause them to crystallize into reality. The spark that
returned me to Inagua was quite accidental. I had been to a
musical show with some friends, and after the performance,
stopped in a restaurant for late sandwiches and coffee. A news-
paper lay crumpled on a chair and, the conversation lagging,
I idly reached over and picked it up. The paper contained the
usual round of daily happenings and I was about to lay it down

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 243

again when a small headline caught my eye. Instantly I was all
attention.

REVOLUTION ON TROPICAL ISLAND

Eight Americans and Twenty Employees Flee
Uprising on Island of Inagua— Settlement in Flames

There was a brief and uninformative report of a riot and
a battle between two factions. Little more. The article had
apparently been inserted to fill space and the editor had
clipped the story to its barest essentials. What Americans?
What had happened to Inagua? The editor's office could give
me little additional information. Unsatisfied, I was left to
wonder.

After that I was unable to get the island out of my thoughts.
I remembered the air of sullenness and despair, the whispering
groups that loitered on the darkened corners. But more
strongly I remembered the scattering flamingos that swept
into the sky the evening I left. If I could get to the island in
four weeks I would arrive on the exact date I departed. I
could continue where I left off.

The first time I landed on Inagua I came like Neptune,
striding out of the sea dripping with seaweed and with salt
foam running between my fingers. The second, I arrived in
the manner of Icarus, also of mythology, who for a time
soared dizzily through space only to be hurtled to earth again.
Only, unlike Icarus, I did not land with a bump but so gently
that the impact scarcely disturbed the precarious balance of
the baggage clutched between my legs. It was such an un-
orthodox way to land on a tropical island and was so startling
that it was some seconds before I could recover sufficient
composure to thank the almost naked but bronze and smiling

244 I N A G U A

gentlemen responsible for my temporary flight to heaven.

Actually I was delighted at what had happened. Not every-
one has the good fortune to land on a tropical island in the
mode of two Greek deities. It had all been very surprising.
My steamer, a small freight and passenger vessel, filled to over-
flowing with vacationing shopkeepers and vacuous tourists off
on a West Indies cruise, dropped her anchor off the island a
little after midnight. There was no moon, nor could I see the
shore, but out of the east came the familiar nostalgic smell of
jasmine and lavender that is so characteristic of the island.
And with it came the roar of the breakers pulsing over the
rocks, bringing a flood of memories.

I was glad to be back and impatiently waiting for a boat
to take me ashore. After a half hour, in which the captain
cursed and swore in voluble Dutch at the delay, for the only
excuse for stopping at Inagua was my getting off, a motor
boat came bouncing out of the dark bearing a stern-faced
white man and a younger chap who spoke with an unmistak-
able Georgia accent. They disappeared into the captain's cabin,
performed mysterious rites over the ship's papers and then
took me, after a brief inquiry as to my designs on the island,
down to the launch. I was reminded of the trial when I first
landed on Inagua. We had scarcely reached its deck when the
steamer, tourists and all, signaled full speed ahead, scarcely
waiting to pull up the anchor, and surged off leaving us in a
world of darkness.

We rolled in close to shore and backwatered near the break-
ers. Suddenly to my amazement there was a fierce blaze of
electric lights and a whirr of machinery as a wooden platform
hung on rope slings plummeted out of the sky and slowed to a
halt beside the boat. Above my head towered an immense steel
crane which supported the sling. Hurriedly we clambered
aboard and clung to the ropes.

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 245

The platform swooped skywards, reached a zenith, swayed
dizzily over the surf and then rocketed to earth on the top of
the stone cHff. Somewhat flabbergasted, I stepped off and
stared about. Six nearly naked young men, clad only in tennis
shoes and shorts, stood draped in various queer attitudes about
some boxes of machinery, while another crouched over a
whining puffing winch. Above, a whole cluster of electric
bulbs brilliantly lighted the scene. There had been no electric
lights eight years before, no crane to hoist one, Icarus-like, out
of the reach of the surf— nor were these nearly nude young
men native islanders.

One even addressed me in a Harvard accent— and I realized
what had happened. The ''salt"— the island's one hope— had
returned.

A tall slim chap— he with the Harvard accent— grinned wel-
come. He was coated, as were all the others, with a gorgeous
coat of sunburn, a deep reddish brown almost of copper hue.
Dabs of grease streaked his legs and arms and when I shook
hands I felt a palm that was worn and callused. Obviously,
this was not a man afraid to dirty his fingers. Somehow it was
startling to hear this Harvard accent coming from a man who
looked the color of an Indian.

Remarkable changes had taken place. Beyond the glare of
the lights I could see some new buildings, all aglitter with
steel and aluminum paint. The old ruins with gaping windows
and holes in the roof were still there— looking like ghosts, as
indeed they were— but the settlement carried a new air. A
desert island was waking from a long sleep. In a moment I
sensed that in the hands of these keen-faced, bronzed, athletic
figures rested the fate and future of an island.

The story of these men and their industry is a dramatic and
creditable one. They are the brothers Erickson, a trio of New
Englanders, and their enterprise is a chemical business having

246 I N A G U A

the harvesting of sea salt as its basis. Inagua was chosen because
of its highly saline sea water and because of the brilliant year-
round sunlight and sweeping trade winds which are necessary
for the evaporation of the brine. From the very beginning
they were faced with tremendous obstacles. The old salt beds
had to be completely reconditioned, ruined houses had to be
repaired and made livable, a machine shop had to be installed
—one of their expensive loading trucks fell into the sea while
being transported from ship to shore and had to be salvaged
from the depths— laborers had to be trained and educated to
the new scheme of things, and a power station created out of
thin air— a considerable task for seven pairs of hands even as
hardworking as those of the Ericksons and their colleagues.
The mechanical difficulties were conquered step by step but
the Ericksons reckoned without one condition— the accumu-
lated poisons of years of monotonous insularity.

The Inaguans, some of them, had slipped too far down the
scale of decay and degeneration. In spite of the revivifying
and clean energy of the Ericksons, the smouldering tide of dis-
content and frustrations swelled into dangerous proportions
and burst into flame, first against the island's newly appointed
commissioner who was wounded with a shotgun and then
against the Ericksons who came to his rescue. They were be-
sieged in their home and their new machine shop and several
other buildings were burned. One employee was killed and
Jim Erickson was shot. They made a break for the boats to
stop a passing ship and drifted all the way to Cuba when their
engine broke down. In one brief hour all their efforts went
up in smoke.

Undaunted they began all over again and a new order has
come to Inagua. The old resentments are fairly well burned
out and a new cheerfulness is beginning to make itself ap-
parent. If the Ericksons are given half a chance Mathewtown

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 247

will be transformed over the course of years from a place of
creeping desolation to a pleasant peaceful tropical village. For
these brothers are putting something more than mere hours
of labor into their industry and their island; they are installing
a sense of pride and, I believe, a portion of affection into their
speck of sea-girdled earth. I should like to write more about
the events leading to the uprising and the causes in back of it,
for they are an intricate and absorbing story, but Jim Erick-
son has asked me not to. He says there is no sense in reviving
old hurts or recalling events that had best be forgotten. I re-
spect his wishes and admire his forbearance.

There was one disappointment. Aiy old hut had completely
crumbled to pieces and could no longer be used. Instead I took
up residence on the outer edge of the settlement where I ac-
quired a two-room house in fair state of repair for the magnifi-
cent sum of 1 3. 00 a month. For an additional $3.00 I acquired
the services of Celestina, a middle-aged black woman who did
my wash and prepared my meals but whose most interesting
accompHshment was singing "La Cucaracha," a result of sev-
eral amazing years in Mexico. She did this with such great
spirit and inflection of tone that I would have willingly have
retained her for the sake of hearing her sing.

Although she did her best in the culinary arts, her meals
were distinctly Inaguan and, as such, highly indigestible. For-
tunately I received a reprieve now and then from her kindly
attentions by dinner invitations from the Ericksons and a
number from the commissioner. The Erickson dinners were
always a riot of fun and the evenings spent with the commis-
sioner in the tiny residency will long remain with me as
among the most pleasant I can remember. Over our cups of
English tea we swapped yams and compared notes late into
the night while outside in the dark the land crabs clattered
and banged over the residency yard. England produces, in

248 I N A G U A

certain of her colonials, a very high type and Mr. J. V. Malone,
appointed administrator of Inagua after the uprising, was
typical of the men that make England's far-flung empire pos-
sible. Like the Ericksons he placed a considerable amount of
affection into the affairs of his island.

There was another surprise. My old acquaintances the
Daxons had prospered. Religion had become good business. I
met them both the morning after my arrival. Thomas was ar-
rayed in a magnificent yellow suit with half-inch stripes run-
ning the length of it and a white "lion hunter's hat." David
looked equally sublime in a race-track check of mail order
origin purchased via the out-island schooner. Thomas had
reached the imposing position of "Bishop of Haiti" and, as he
gravely assured me, no longer had to work. Late one evening
I strolled down to their church building and listened outside,
hoping to hear another sermon about "de blessin" but was dis-
appointed, for the service was ingeniously devised to make
the collection as convenient and as pleasant as possible. This
was achieved by permitting the congregation to dance and
clap around the pews in company to the boom of drums and
the rattle of gourds. Everyone was having a grand time and
the file was arranged to pass the collection box each time
around. An occasional rattle of coppers denoted the success
of the scheme. The old sincerity of the Daxons seemed lack-
ing. There was no question, however, of the whole-hearted
and evident enjoyment of the congregation. They appeared to
fully appreciate the privilege of dancing in church.

Once beyond the settlement and the tiny sphere of influence
of the energetic Ericksons, the island remained as it had been
since Columbus found the New World. Steeped in briUiant
sunshine, blasted by the wind, it appeared exactly as I had left
it. When I contemplated the hunt for the nesting place of the
flamingo my hopes sank. Somewhere in the 800 square miles

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 249

of the island's surface the colony was situated; but without
some hint of its location I could spend a month in fruitless
exploring. A few preHminary trips into the field failed to give
any clue. During the first of these I became badly sunburned.
Fresh from the rigors of a northern winter I had forgotten
the intensity of the sun's rays and had paid the penalty for
my lack of memory.

Much of the credit of finding the nestling place of the
flamingos belongs to Mary Darling, which is not a name of
affection but the real name of the bush woman who guided me
to that portion of the great salt lake in the center of the island
where the flamingos have their colony. Mary was a most re-
markable person. Although she was a grandmother several
times over, she was the most un-grandmotherly individual I
have ever encountered. She was not old and feeble; quite the
contrary. She lived alone in a Httle driftwood and thatch hut
on the southern coast between Mathewtown and Lantern
Head. Here she made her living by hunting the wild hogs
which abounded in her neighborhood, and by making cleverly
woven grass baskets and hats which she traded for certain
necessities. Besides these activities she raised a few gigantic
sweet potatoes, some weary looking corn and guinea grain and
fished for conchs and other delicacies on the reef beyond her
door. She habitually carried an antiquated shotgun which she
loaded with iron slugs sawed from old ship fastenings, and
which went off with a roar that could be heard for miles.
When a wild hog crossed her path it was either blasted bodily
out of existence or succumbed to heart failure. I was never
certain which end of the shotgun was safest for it threatened
to explode whenever the trigger was pulled. Beside the shot-
gun Mary carried a two-foot machete which gave her a most
warlike appearance. She was a self-sufficient woman.

She had been recommended as the only person who could

250 I N A G U A

solve my problem and I set out to visit her as no one seemed
to know when she would take one of her very infrequent
trips to the settlement. I found her near her hut trudging up a
donkey trail with a fifty-pound load of palmettos on her
head. With typical northern impatience I asked her to halt
her task and take me to the flamingo. She puffed on her pipe
for a minute, considered, and said it could not be done until
next Monday.

I did not want to wait until next Monday so I offered her an
extra dollar, which is as much money as she would have made
in a couple of weeks' steady labor. Mary shook her head. I
made it two dollars but no other day but Monday would do.
I knew it would be a long time before Mary could make two
dollars so quickly. But money meant little to Mary, so for
nearly a week I cooled my civilized heels waiting. If I had
offered her a hundred the result would have been much the
same. Quite probably at the moment I approached Mary she
did not need a dollar, so there was no use working for one. As
I discovered later she spent the interval making a few grass
baskets and catching up on her sleep!

But bright and early Monday morning she turned up with
two donkeys, which she called Helen and Samson. Before I
was finished I knew Helen and Samson as well as I knew my
closest relatives. I slept with them and drank out of the same
bucket, greatly preferring that to the alternative which was
to die of thirst. Helen and Samson were almost as tempera-
mental as Timonias had been but Mary had much better con-
trol over their peregrinations. Her running comment to these
donkeys was a source of wonder; she coaxed, she wheedled, she
pleaded, spoke terms of endearment, cursed and blasphemed,
shrieked and howled, whispered and sang to attain her end.

"Now yo Samson, please be genleman fo de white mon.
Samson, yo gives me a pain; if yo don behave I break yo dom

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 251

neck— donkey yo shoulden do dat— come back heah fore I
slay yo daid— "

I began to perceive that the management of donkeys was
a fine art and was more than willing to turn this delicate task
over to Mary's attentions.

We headed down a narrow trail directly into the interior.
The usual flocks of doves began fluttering before us and wild
hogs frequently blundered away. The trail began to narrow;
the bushes grew closer and thicker. Spines from gaunt thorn
trees caused us to edge carefully through their interstices;
the ground became littered with pumpkin-shaped short round
fat cacti with reddish top pieces reminding me of the fezzes
of Turks— the turk's head cactus. These grew in shallow holes
in the bare rock where the thorn trees thinned. The heat began
to rise to amazing heights; a small pocket thermometer regis-
tered 108° in the shade. Samson and Helen were streaked with
moisture and gobs of lather dripped from their tongues. The
bare rock underfoot was so hot it could scarcely be touched.

By noon I had consumed nearly three quarts of water and
we refilled our jugs from a hole in the rocks. Mary was a
genius at finding water. From a thousand depressions she se-
lected the right ones, and usually, when she had scraped away
the accumulations of brown leaves and black soil, there was a
little skim of moisture in the bottom. This water was dark
brown; it crawled with insects and it stank. But it was wet
and I moistened my lips and followed this stout female into the
bush.

The next day we reached the last waterhole, at the base of
a tamarind tree, with the vilest taste of any liquid I ever sipped.
Mary calmly filled a big bucket which she had been carrying
on her head and watered the donkeys— the hole was too deep
for them— and then refilled it for our own use. She then broke
a twig of aromatic thorn leaves and dropped it in the liquid

252 I N A G U A

to keep it from splashing. The bucket contained at least seven
gallons and must have weighed fifty pounds but Mary heaved
it to her head and then with superb posture and exquisite
balance swung down the trail without spilling a drop. While
engaged in this feat she picked up a dead stick in her toes,
which were as dexterous as fingers, transferred it to her hand
without tiltinof the bucket and in one stride went after Helen
who had strayed off the trail. Not bad for an old girl who must
have been close to half a century!

The smooth barren rock altered to a fine layer of silt and
apparently at some not very distant date the great lake must
have expanded miles from its present shoreline, for in places
the ground was littered with the bodies of thousands of small
fishes which had become stranded. These had become segre-
gated in small ponds which had dried, leaving them in the hot
sun to die. Although the temperature was well above a hun-
dred and the sun glared directly on their corpses, the bodies
of these fishes had not decayed. The soil and the silt were so
impregnated with salt that they were pickled. Only the eyes
and soft bellies had caved away. At certain angles the shafts
of sunlight glinted brilliantly on their scales, giving the ground
the appearance of being carpeted with silver coins.

Later in the day, close to sundown, we reached the edge of
the lake. It lay very quiet and still, for the wind had fallen
away to a calm, and it was of a pale green color, yet almost
not green, of a hue that lies midway between emerald and
light ultramarine. The lake gave the sensation of great expanse.
It seemed to sweep away into infinite distance, silent, unmov-
ing; the horizon was obscured by haze and the water appeared
to merge with the light blue of the boundless sky. One had the
feeling of being in a shallow liquid bowl without top or
border.

Not far away were two diminutive islands, mere vestiges

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 253

of vegetation in a liquid world. Nestling between these was a
long thin line of pink— the flamingos at last! Forgetting my
weariness, I left Mary and the donkeys on the nearest island
to make camp and waded into the lake before it became too
dark to see. The water was quite shallow, reaching about to
the knees, and the bottom was composed of loose sand and hard
rock. Crawling over the lake floor were millions of Ceritheum,
enough to feed a hundred thousand flamingos.

Soon the pink line became more clear. For nearly a mile
it stretched out; the flock must have numbered about a thou-
sand birds. Before long I could hear them, a queer sound like
the gabbling of geese, with which were mingled the cries of a
dozen other species of birds. Flocks of laughing gulls, clean in
their black and white plumage, swept over my head, screech-
ing in raucous chorus; pelicans dived headlong for fish, mak-
ing tremendous splashes as they hit; graceful terns wheeled and
uttered their plaintive calls; sandpipers stood in droves along
the shallows and made the air musical with their twittering
and whistling. Pure white egrets and the more somber bodies
of herons stalked all about and dozens of ducks paddled like
fleets of boats over the surface.

But it was the flamingos that held the center of the picture.
Through my binoculars I could see them stalking about, dip-
ping their queer shovel-bills in the water, scooping up the
Ceritheums as they moved. Their gorgeous color made them
stand out above everything else. Pure pink of the most deli-
cate hue, the color changed with the light. While I watched,
the sun faded behind a cloud and the pink suddenly altered to
scarlet, to vermilion and finally to a seething line of bloody
red against a background of pale blue sky and green water.

The sentinels of the flock saw me coming. The gabbling
noise increased and the red line began to shift. I moved closer.
Every head was in the air, watching, and nervously the fla-

254 I N A G U A

mingos began to stalk back and forth. Soon I was a hundred
yards away, then fifty.

A roar of sound suddenly burst across the water and a thou-
sand pairs of scarlet wings beat the air at once, throbbing,
and the flock went screaming into the sky. It was the most
breath-taking sight I have ever witnessed. The skin at the base
of my scalp crept at the magnitude of it. In long skeins, a hun-
dred crimson birds to a line, the shrieking flocks soared into
the heavens. Higher and higher they mounted, wheeled, and
in a colorful deluge poured over the horizon.

The spectacle was so magnificent that I stood open-mouthed
for some minutes. Recovering, I moved on to the tiny islands
where the flock had stood and there, only a few inches above
the water, on some barren rocks, found a few nests. These
consisted of mounds of mud about a foot in height. On the
top of the mounds was a slight depression, and in each de-
pression a single egg. The eggs were chalky white and about
three times as large as a hen egg. One egg had been trampled
by the flock and the yolk was drooling from the crushed
shell. It was not yellow, but deep sickly red.

The birds were just beginning to lay. A few nests were
in process of construction. I was interested to observe that
they were reinforced with layers of lake weed which the
birds packed into the mud while it was wet. This was a note
which none of the ornithology books mentioned and may have
been an Inaguan peculiarity. I examined the place for photo-
graphic possibilities and decided the only way to photograph
the birds satisfactorily would be from a blind. But there was
no room on the rocks for a hiding place nor materials from
which to build one. The only solution was to construct some
sort of boat, place a shelter on it and anchor it close to the
colony.

I lied to Mary, told her the birds had not yet laid their

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 255

eggs— for I knew she would steal them for food— and returned
to Mathewtown to give the flock time to get a better start,
construct more nests and become thoroughly attached to
their colony before disturbing them further. With some can-
vas and strips of plywood purchased from the Ericksons, I
built a boat of sorts. It was little more than a flat-bottomed
skiff, blunt at both ends, and very wobbly. By necessity it
had to be light to be transported to the lake, so I had to
sacrifice sturdiness for portability.

To take the boat over the trail Mary and I had so labo-
riously followed was out of the question, so I had it carried on
a donkey cart to an arm of the lake which extended to within
about eight miles of the settlement. From there it could be
poled or rowed the fifteen or twenty miles to the flamingo
colony. I loaded it with food and water, with a tent and a
quantity of photographic equipment. By the time I had it all
ready the trade wind began to increase in intensity again, daily
growing more violent until on the date I scheduled for the
departure it was blowing a full gale. The shore where the boat
was grounded was piled waist deep in billowy foam and short
but steep waves pounded against the sand.

With some difficulty I dragged the scow through the break-
ers and tried to climb aboard. The makeshift craft, overladen
with heavy equipment, plunged heavily and began to ship
water. The only way to save it was to jump out and lighten
the load. There was no help for it, nor any use in waiting until
the wind calmed; it might blow thus for weeks. Shedding my
already sodden clothes I started out pushing the boat ahead
of me to prevent the waves from slapping into my face. There
was no shelter from the wind, the lake was open from one
side to the other. Very distant on the horizon were some low
islands, and I estimated that by steady plodding I might make
them by sundown.

1^6 I N A G U A

Hour after hour I forged ahead. It was grueling work.
While the water was not particularly deep, it reached over my
waist, making footing difficult. The heavy boat had to be kept
continually in the wind for as soon as it went slightly broad-
side it became unmanageable. To make matters worse the
waves began breaking over the top and I had to bail continu-
ally, using my shirt as a sponge. The excessive salt irritated my
skin and made my eyes burn; in addition the sun created a
glare that very soon gave me an excruciating headache, al-
though I am not normally susceptible to this malady.

About three in the afternoon I was nearly out of sight of
land, although the island on the horizon had loomed a little
higher. I felt completely out of my element and was beginning
to grow very weary. The waves were running as high as
ever and the bottom had dropped slightly until only my head
and shoulders protruded. Progress was maddeningly slow; I
could just catch enough purchase with my toes to make a
little headway; at times I stepped into holes and had to swim
for a few yards until I could touch bottom again or drift back
to the edge where I dropped off and circle the depression. At
an hour before dark I estimated I had waded eight or ten miles
and I was bordering on exhaustion. The island was still a mile
or two distant; as far as I could see the lake swept on and on;
I was very nearly in the center of it.

When I reached land just as it was growing dark I was so
tired I could scarcely stand and when I found that the borders
of the island were beset with an impassable barrier of prickly
pear yards deep, I sat down in the mud by the shore in dis-
gust and despair. I could not spend the night sleeping in the
slime and water so I unlimbered my machete and hacked
gingerly at the soft pads. The sharp spines pierced my fingers
and stuck into my legs, but eventually I cut a narrow path
through the barrier and slumped on the dry sand behind. But

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 257

I did not sleep long for the hum of mosquitoes quickly brought
me to Hf e again. Trudging back to the boat I gathered the tent
and its poles, a jar of water and a few tins of food. Half asleep
and fighting the insects, I somehow managed to erect the tent
in the dark and crawl inside. Behind the netting there was re-
lief. I devoured a tin of fruit and then relaxed on the canvas
floor where I fell into a deep slumber.

In the morning the heat of the sun aroused me. The lake was
as calm as a sheet of glass. Hurriedly, to take advantage of the
smooth surface, I lowered the tent and set out again. But I
had hardly left the island when the wind resumed its vigor. In
a half hour the waves were whipping up again, but the bot-
tom shoaled to my knees and I made much better progress
although the resistance of the water was very tiring. Around
eleven o'clock I caught sight of the flamingos in the distance.
The shimmer of their plumage was visible long before the
birds; the horizon appeared laden with pink down. When I
was still about five miles away I saw my first mirage. A group
of six or eight flamingos close to a small islet far to the left of
the main group gradually enlarged until they appeared about
four times as great as in Hfe, then above their heads appeared
an equal number inverted. The inverted birds walked in an
inverted lake and imitated the actions of their brethren below.
When fully extended the heads of the upside down flamingos
almost touched those beneath. The optical aberration lasted for
almost half an hour when it faded slowly away. Strangely, the
water in which these mirrored birds were wading looked quite
calm, and when I approached I saw that it was sheltered from
the wind in the lee of a dry sand bar.

I was in for a great disappointment. Late in the afternoon
I reached the island where I had camped with Mary Darling
and made myself comfortable for the night. As I expected to
stay for several days I made the tent secure and prepared a

258 I N A G U A

decent meal. As soon as the sun set I turned in to recoup some
of my dissipated energy; the miles of wading while pulling a
heavy boat had made me too tired to be interested in fla-
mingos; for that evening, at least, I would relax. The air was
very heavy, and although I faced the tent into the wind I did
not sleep well and awakened several times. This camp was one
of the most exciting of my entire outdoor experience. The
moon was out again and between the clouds it sent long shafts
of blue light scurrying over the black waters. It had hardly
risen when a vast tumult of bird voices began to fill the air.
These started with a light peeping refrain of sandpipers and
the plaintive calls of plover and killdeer. The gallinules took
up the concert and their cackling broke in a dozen wild
choruses over the lake. One by one other birds added to the
tumult. The clatter of rails and squawk of little green herons,
accompanied by myriads of faint splashings and whistlings,
made the lake seem alive. As the minutes passed the sounds
increased until the lake was an unbelievable bedlam. This
was rather amazing for the remainder of Inagua was extraor-
dinarily quiet at night. Except for the wind, the ground clat-
ter of the crabs and the occasional sweet melody of a mock-
ingbird, a migrating Maryland yellow throat or other warbler
singing in its sleep, the evenings were deathly still.

The bedlam increased until the flamingos joined in. From
that moment the lake became a vast roar, a dark empty space
surffine with waves of seethin^ noise. The nearest common
approach to the sound was the tumult of a crowd at a major
football game. No football crowd, however, ever gave the
sense of majesty that came out of the lake that night. The
combination of all the sounds blended in a mournful minor key
that sent cold shivers up and down my spine. I have experienced
the same effect from certain passages of Sibelius and from
the blood-chilling cadences of G otter ddmmerung.

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 259

Early in the morning it quieted down somewhat, and I
awoke conscious that a new tone was swirhng off the lake.
It was the flamingos. They were no longer gabbling to them-
selves as though engaged in endless conversation; instead their
notes were louder, more penetrating and goose-like, shortened
and, it seemed, frightened. Crawling out of the tent, I walked
down to the shore and listened. Beyond the flock I could hear
a loud splashing as of some heavy creature. The flamingos
heard it too, and their voices raised in alarm. Waves of sound
broke over the flock, swept over acre after acre of birds and
then died down again only to start once more. Then, all at
once, there was deathly stillness, a quiet that seemed more
intense after the noise that had gone before. The silence lasted
for almost a minute, then with a thunderous burst there was
a shriek of a thousand voices and the throb of a thousand
pairs of wings. Like a great dark cloud the flamingos burst
into the sky, blotting out the stars and shielding the light of
the moon. The sound was such as I would imagine would fill
the sky on judgment day when all the graves of the centuries
would open and yield their doleful inhabitants to the heavens.
A great and sorrowful wail went echoing into the spaces of
the night and was lost in the emptiness.

I took the boat and went over as soon as I finished break-
fast. The colony had grown since I first found it and a dozen
or two new nests were plastered over the boulders. These had
all had eggs in them but the panic of the night before had
destroyed them. In their hurry to get away the birds had
trampled on the shells and the ground was littered with broken
fragments, crushed embryos and bloody yolks. Out of the
entire lot only four eggs were still intact.

In the hope that the main flock would return I went back
to the camp and slept most of the day where I would be out
of sight. But in the evening there were still no more birds,

26o I N A G U A

although a few small flocks flew overhead as if reconnoiteiing.
The next day I tried to get some pictures of the few flamingos
that remained but the wind became so violent that my make-
shift boat blind was shredded apart and the fluttering cover
only served to alarm the birds so that they would not ap-
proach. That night complete disaster overtook the struggling
colony, for the waves broke over the heaped-up nests and
washed the shells into the water where they drifted away.

Flamingos build their turreted nests to safeguard against
this very eventuality but their breeding colonies are always
subject to flood and are located in places where the change of
water level may vary overnight. An extremely heavy rain may
destroy a colony of a thousand nests in a few hours, or an
extremely brisk wind blowing a great mass of water in one
direction, as happened in this case, may cover nests that would
normally would be quite safe.

A completely empty lake greeted my eyes the next day.
In every direction there was nothing but green water and blue
sky. There was no indication where the flock had gone; a
more lifeless landscape would be difficult to imagine. The
prospect of setting off once again in that waste of shoal water
was not very encouraging. As I had done several times before
on Inagua I asked myself what the impelling force was which
led me on and on under the most uncomfortable conditions.
In the incident of the exploration of the island it was pure
curiosity, coupled with a sense of duty to salvage something
out of the fiasco of the expedition. In the case of the flamingos
it was a desire for beauty, nothing else, for I was no longer
bound to duty. Beauty and discomfort do not always go hand
in hand, but the flamingos of Inagua Island are one of the
world's truly grand and inexpressibly lovely spectacles. If
the great flock of this island were readily available to the
people of the earth so that it might be reached without having

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 261

to endure sun and thirst and the sting of salty water, it would
be a mecca for hundreds of thousands. But that will never be,
for when civilization comes the flamingos depart forever; this
most marvelous of all avian sights will remain the privilege
of the few, a half dozen naturalists and inquisitives who have
tucked in their bodies an unquenchable thirst for the unbe-
lievably exquisite, the ultimate of loveliness.

Flamingos are the waning remnants of a once considerable
group that had their being as far north as the present polar
regions. Time has eliminated all but small portions of the
numerous species that once roamed the world. Farther and
farther back into the lonely and desolate regions they have
been crowded until at the time of this writing there are re-
maining only a few great colonies in this hemisphere. There
is still a large colony on the island of Andros and some scat-
tered groups along the sandy coast of Brazil; the Inagua colony
is the greatest and the most magnificent of all. Here, unless
fate hurries the inevitable by the medium of a great hurricane
or exploitation by man, the flamingos will make their last stand
before they, too, will take their final flight into the misty
passages of time along with all the other wonderful creatures
of the past, with the dinosaurs and pterodactyls, the saber
tooths and the great sloths. The people of the earth, in spite
of war and famines and pestilence, are steadily crowding out
the wild things; new modes of transportation are pushing
back the frontiers. Only those creatures which are exceed-
ingly adaptable can survive man's companionship outside zoos
and reservations. Flamingos are not adaptable, and unless they
are accorded permanent and strict seclusion, the hour is not
far distant when they will be gone. And nature as if realiz-
ing that these flamingos are probably the last of their kind
has created in them the most completely gorgeous of all liv-
ing birds of equal size. If they are exterminated in the next

262 I N A G U A

centurv or two, as I believe they will be, their line will depart
in a blaze of glory.

It is not sufficient that nature has created in the flamingo
one of the most beautiful birds of the earth; she has made it
also a paradox. Where most birds feed with bills extended
forward, reaching toward their prey, the flamingo does ex-
actly the opposite. Its bill is a remarkable adaptation for feed-
ing on ceritheum snails and is bent backwards at an obtuse
angle. This peculiarity gives them an exaggerated aristocratic
appearance reminding one of the cartoons picturing middle-
aged Englishmen of the nobility; camels have a similar ex-
pression. The feeding is accomplished by swinging the head
in a series of arcs while walking slowly along and scooping
up the shells on the backward stroke. The edge of the bill
is equipped with a comb or screen which separates the shells
from the mud, permitting the excess water and silt to escape.
Equally odd is the fact that these ceritheum snails are exceed-
ingly small, the palm of the hand will comfortably hold several
hundred; I have seen birds one tenth the size of flamingos de-
vour prey many times as large; only the astronomical numbers
of ceritheum make it possible for the flamingos to exist on
such microscopic diet.

In reality flamingos are perfectly fashioned for the life they
pursue. Their long legs are ideal organs for wading endless
hours in the lakes and ponds; their equally lengthy necks are
the result of the legs; the height of one is compensated by
the lowering ability of the other. By pedal elevation and oral
depression they are able to exist dry and comfortable in a
world of splashing liquid; by any other arrangement of anat-
omy their niche in life would be much more difficult.

Discouraged, I climbed the only tree on my islet, a gnarled
and twisted specimen that leaned toward the west, and scanned
the horizon with the binoculars. Rotating slowly, I carefully

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 263

examined the entire 360 degrees of the lake's rim; everywhere
was emptiness, miles of whitecaps and long streamers of foam.
There was no sign of flamingos. Once again I circled, stand-
ing on tiptoe to gain added height, stopping now and then to
recover balance, for the binoculars upset my equilibrium. I
was about to give it up when far in the north I imagined I
saw a faint reddish haze. Strain as I might, I could make noth-
ing further out of it. At times it disappeared entirely and I
wondered if I had actually seen it. The haze was so vague
that I was tempted to disregard it, and was almost on the
point of returning to the settlement when I decided it might
be the flamingos after all. Truthfully, I was so discouraged
and tired that I did not particularly care if it was.

Nevertheless I loaded the boat and set out into the waste
of water once more. To my dismay the bottom dropped away
again until I was neck deep, and worse, it became rough and
jagged. The wind meanwhile was blowing at least thirty miles
an hour and my head was under water as much as on top of
it. Finally I could stand the buffeting no longer and I did the
only possible thing. I lightened the boat of all unnecessary
equipment, dumped all the food overboard, about twenty
pounds of it, threw a canvas cot away, though I recovered
this several days later on the far end of the lake where it
drifted, and retained only my camera and films, a gallon of
water and the tent which was very Hght. This raised the free-
board enough to accommodate my weight so I crawled in and
lay panting on the bottom. The wind meanwhile swept me
rapidly down the lake farther and farther from the spot where
I had seen the pink mist. Unless I got busy I would lose in
a short while all the miles I had gained the first day I set out.
Scrambling to my knees and balancing carefully, I seized a
tent pole and began battling the waves. Progress was almost
nil, and I realized that unless I could stand up and push with

264 I N A G U A

all my strength, I would be swiftly and surely drifted to the
far end of the lake.

Throwing caution to the winds and risking everything on
the slim hope of maintaining balance I rose to my feet and
pushed away. Several times I nearly capsized and only saved
the boat by quickly jumping overboard and chmbing in again.
But presently I got the hang of the motion so that by flexing
my knees and giving myself up to the roll of the waves I was
able to keep upright very nicely.

By putting all my reserve into the task I crossed the deep
section and reached a place where the water was shoal again.
I had been so busy with the boat that I had not thought to
look for flamingos and when I jumped overboard and glanced
at the horizon I was elated at what I saw. The whole northern
sector was lined with birds. Regiment after regiment trooped
across the skyhne. They were still far distant but I could see
that this congregation surpassed anything I had yet witnessed.

The lake bottom shoaled very gradually until it indefinably
merged with the dry land where the flocks were standing.
This made progress much easier and the majesty of the sight
revived my sagging spirits. Soon I was within a mile of their
outposts. These retreated at a pace equal to my approach,
sending up series after series of low notes. The main flock
at first paid little attention, but as I came closer, greater and
greater numbers of loosely knit companies began trooping
toward the main body. A vast murmuring began to fill the
air. It was mournful and wild in its tenor and once again I
could feel the flesh crawl on the nape of my neck. The sun
slid behind a cloud and the great scarlet army turned into a
mass of seething red, an angry shade suggestive of the color
of blood.

When I was about a hundred yards away all motion in the
colony ceased and every bird stood quiescent, lined up in a

QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 265

solid front. I stopped also, overawed by the phalanx. As nearly
as I could estimate there were at least three thousand fla-
mingos. Every eye was turned in my direction; I suddenly
felt self conscious and, I must admit, almost afraid. I knew,
of course, that flamingos were absolutely harmless, yet the
spectacle of three thousand scarlet birds lined up in an im-
mense army as though ready to charge was a little unnerving.
I know now how the men of Lexington must have felt when
they saw the regiments of scarlet-clad British.

Slowly, trying not to make a splash, I crept toward the
flock. A sudden hush settled over the universe. The birds
remained motionless, their heads high in the air. Fifty yards.
Then thirty. I unslung the camera, opened it and held it in
my hand. Then the whole world burst into flame. With a
resounding roar the three thousand birds catapulted into the
sky at once, and the entire firmament was sheeted in crimson.
Instinctively I crouched, as I would have if a blast of fire
had suddenly swept out of a volcano. Even at thirty yards
I could feel the rush of air created by the wings. The great
multitude poured in an immense swathe over my head, and
a long slow rain of pink feathers, dislodged by the sudden ac-
tion, floated all around on the water. The flock swirled out
into the lake and then settled like a vast pink snowstorm on
the surface. When I recovered from the spell of their going,
I was amazed to discover that I was trembling all over. Noth-
ing that I have ever witnessed in all the realm of nature has
ever quite come up to this incident.

To my chagrin, when it was all over, I realized that I had
completely forgotten the camera. It was still clutched in my
hand, untouched. Tying the boat to a boulder I walked over
to the shore where the flamingos had been and saw then that
I had at last found the main nesting colony. Hundreds of
conical nests were arranged in low rows on ridges of rock

266 I N A G U A

that ran parallel to the shore and which were separated by-
narrow lanes of water. The nests were all new and many still
showed the wet marks of feet and bills where they had been
patted and moulded into shape. There were a few eggs, but
not many. The colony had just been formed; I was a little too
early.

Quietly, so as not to frighten the flock any further, I re-
treated to the boat, pushed oif and went drifting down the
lake on the wings of the wind. As I swept away the flock once
again rose, circled, and then settled on the nests. Through my
binoculars I could see individual birds at work, scraping up
the mud and patting it with their feet. Those that had laid
eggs settled awkwardly in place and began brooding their
spawn. This was the last I was ever to see of them.

After two weeks I returned and went directly to the col-
ony. There was not a bird in sight nor an egg— only broken
shells and empty nests. In the soft mud between the nests was
the evidence— the prints of bare human feet. Natives had
found the colony and cleaned it out for the eggs. I spent
nearly a month looking for another nesting site but found
nothing but small companies of non-breeding birds.

The natural dangers of existence such as floods, wind, dis-
ease and downpouring rain are all the evils with which the
flamingos can successfully cope. When the disaster of human
interference during their breeding period is added, the hope
that these most magnificent of birds can survive continued
molestation is remote. The number of flamingos on Inagua
has visibly decreased during the last eight years, and unless
the Bahaman Government can educate its natives to protect
these creatures, if for no other reason than the added beauty
they give the island, it will be only a short time before one
of the world's most sublime sights will have disappeared from
the earth.

CHAPTER XIII

The Great Reef

There are two sights on this earth that are so unusual that
they do not seem credible. One of these is the flamingos; the
other the fantastic and exquisite world of the undersea barrier
reef viewed from the point where the ocean bottom falls
away into the great depths off the coast of Inagua. It is a
strange paradox that the island of Inagua, which is so drab
and forlorn in many respects, should harbor in its few square
miles two of the earth's most magnificent spectacles. While
I am writing these words I am trying to think of something
with which to compare them— and I fail completely. The awe-
inspiring display of the aurora borealis comes to mind, but
this is too pastel and ghostly; and I also think of the beau-
tiful bay of Samana in the Dominican Republic with its royal
palm forests and curving bays of indigo blue water, where
there is lovelier scenery per square mile than any place I have
ever visited— but this, also, lacks the final touch of sheer
splendor that is an integral part of the great reef.

Many hours have I spent beneath the sea, in helmets and in
diving suits, in massive steel cylinders with thick glass win-
dows, in the dark green water of the Chesapeake Bay and in
the limpid waters off the coast of Florida, but I was wholly
unprepared for the sublime vista which spread before my eyes
when I descended from the deck of a dirty Inaguan sailboat
anchored on the outer edge of the reef some miles from the
settlement. From the deck there was no hint of what lay
beneath, though I should have suspected something unusual
for the top of the reef was magnificent in its own right. On

267

268 I N A G U A

the ocean side the water was dark blue, of the deep shade
that women use for blueing and is born of great depth and
darkness beneath. Down, down, the bottom dipped— two thou-
sand fathoms the chart read— down to the blackness of ever-
lasting night. From out of the ocean came great swelling
waves propelled by the trades that swept steadily from the
east. Suddenly these mounted high in the air and dissolved
in thunderous fury on the jagged edge of the coral. On the
inside the water was calm and green, emerald of the most
intense hue, reflecting sunlight and smooth sand in liquid
vividness. This blended into lighter greens and the pure white
of an undisturbed tropical beach. Behind, etched in paler
green against the sky stood a curving line of cocoanut palms
swaying in the wind. The upper reef was a scene of pristine
beauty— but it was as nothing to that which lay beneath.

The captain and owner of the sailboat, an inky black
Inaguan, was considerably upset by my intentions.

"Boss mon," he pleaded with me in his funny island dialect,
"boss mon, I wouldn't go down dere foh anyting— dey's
shark and dey's barracuda down dere as big as dis boat."

With his hand he indicated the blue water beneath our
anchorage. I grinned, looked at the length of the sailboat-
it was at least twenty-five feet long— and scoffed.

"O.K., boss, it's yo hide, but I wouldn't go down dere foh
a milHon shillins."

But I had returned to Inagua and traveled no less than 1 800
miles just for the purpose of going "down dere" and I was not
to be thwarted by the warnings of the sailboat captain. To-
gether we unloaded the eighty-pound diving helmet, eased
it over the gunwale, fixed it in position and connected the
air line and pump. I plunged overboard and came up spouting
water and shivering. After the hot tropical sunlight the water
felt cold. The black captain signaled that he had the pump

THEGREATREEF 269

going so with a blowing of bubbles I ducked beneath the hel-
met and came up inside. 1 waved my hand in token that I was
ready and slid gently down the life line. For a fleeting second
there was a glimpse of the palms on shore, a snatch of blue
sky and towering clouds, and a deep roar as a huge comber
piled up in frothy whiteness on the jagged coral.

Then utter silence and quiet, a silence that seemed more
intense because the only indication of life that came from the
upper world was the faint pulse of the air pump that kept
me alive. I looked in the direction of the comber breaking
on the reef and caught my breath. It had splintered into a
million, million bubbles which sprayed downwards in foun-
tains of color— greens, reds, blues, all the hues of the spectrum,
highlighted by the rays of the sun from the world above.

For a scant second the bubbles held their position and then
raced toward the sky. The bigger bubbles reached the sur-
face first and disappeared as through a molten silver wall.
Then there was a period of inaction when nearly all the glob-
ules had vanished, a momentary quiet when only a few
trickles of imprisoned air moved laggardly toward the sur-
face. Suddenly without warning, the whole surface broke
again, abruptly tearing apart into a chaos of color and driven
froth. But the fact that was most astonishing was that there
was not a sound, although I knew that only a few feet above
the air was filled with a sullen roar.

Turning, I glanced away from the area of the surf. Above
my head was the bottom of the boat, festooned with moss
and bits of feathery seaweed. Beside it long shafts of golden
sunlight pierced the water, flashed momently and disappeared.
All around was a world of lirripid pastel blue, the most ex-
quisite hue I have ever seen. I felt drowned in it, as though
I were floating in space with pure azure above, below and
beneath. Nor was it a depressing blue, but a blue that seemed

270 I N A G U A

alive, a pearly sort of color that shimmered with a faint luster
that was conceived of clarity and sunlight. I hung suspended,
lightly grasping the life line. In the distance the sheen faded
imperceptibly into a pale golden silver through which rays
of misty sunlight penciled downwards in long streaks which
came and went as the facets of the waves captured and di-
rected them on their courses. I looked below me and gulped
in amazement.

I was hanging on the very edge of a deep canyon, a
drowned dark space that tumbled dizzily toward the center
of the ocean. For seventy feet I could see clearly. Each rock
and stone stood out in vivid relief, but beyond that objects
became progressively dimmer, less and less visible, until in the
farther reaches of out-of-focusness I could discern only the
blurry outlines of phantom shapes, shadowy crags, and queer
forms that flitted from place to place. Further down was
empty darkness that seemed more mysterious because there
was nothing tangible.

Gingerly I let myself down a few feet and became con-
scious that I was swaying back and forth like a pendulum.
Then I noticed that everything in the canyon was swaying
too. First one way and then the other. Not forcefully but
very gently, back and forth over an arc of ten or twelve
feet. For a second I would be poised over a mound of hard
white sand, and then slowly and quite helplessly, I would
sweep out over the steep walls of the canyon until I was
suspended over thirty feet of nothingness. It was a most sur-
prising sensation to be wafted thus like the lightest feather,
and for nearly five minutes I hung suspended, enjoying the
sensation. On a return swing I dropped the remaining distance
to the mound of white sand and landed with a gentle bump on
its surface. But only for a second. For a brief moment I poised
erect and then was dragged from my perch by the current.

THEGREATREEF 271

Only by quickly dropping to my knees and grasping a lav-
ender sea fan was I able to maintain my position. I hung diz-
zily on the edge of the canyon until on the return swing I
let go and was swept well away from the edge. Twice I re-
peated this process. Then I was certain that I would not roll
over so I stood erect and gave myself up to the surges. Like
a dancer in a slow motion picture I found myself able to
give a little hop, drift airily for ten feet, land gently, poise
for a second, and hop back exactly to my original position.
In a little while I became accustomed to these aerial, or
"waterial," excursions and had opportunity to look about.

To see the surf upside down was startling enough, but the
scene that stretched before me held me speechless in wonder.
Against a background of pale cerulean blue was a fantastic
forest of yellow coral trees that reached leafless branches in
indescribable confusion toward the surface. Row upon row
extended into the intangible distance. In between the great
trunks were dark caves and open blue patches with other trees
beyond. This was a forest that would have done credit to
the most imaginative fairy tale. I was reminded of the woods
in which Snow White found herself while fleeinor from the
wicked Queen. And between the trunks of these nightmarish
yellow trees of coral was filing a host of fishes of all the colors
of the rainbow. Brilliant yellows and azures, vermilions and
emerald greens, burnished silvers, purples and lavenders, iri-
descent pinks and mauves, all combined into a melee of un-
believable color. It was as though some artist, gone mad, had
prodigally spattered a picture of some wonderful fairyland
with his most intense pigments and then suddenly endowed
that picture with life. Only no artist, however mad, could
conceive or execute so variegated a pattern. Since this dive
I have been undersea half a hundred times in the shadow of
this same reef and each time my feeling is one of great awe.

272 I N A G U A

Nowhere in the world of upper air is there such a con-
ception of color or color values. Sunsets and the brilliant
foliage of autumn are lovely, but in contrast they are garish
and crude. There is something indescribably soft and un-
touchable about these coral reef hues, a shimmering pearly
quality which is so evanescent and intangible that it baffles
accurate description. A few feet away a school of mackerel
of some unidentifiable species was pouring from between two
great stone trees. When they came from the shadow they
were faint lustrous pink tinged with a suggestion of silver
and lavender, but when they emerged into the full rays of
a stream of sunlight they suddenly but softly altered to bril-
liant yellow that flared and dimmed from flaming gold to
reddish copper as the sun caught their scales at full right
angles or obliquely.

Perhaps the most entrancing effect of the entire scene was
the utter lightness of everything. Even the great stone trees,
ponderous though they must have been, had an air of delicacy.
Their branches extended out and out in lacy filagree becom-
ing, queerly enough, more fragile as they went towards the
direction of greatest force, the point where the surf was
breaking. Land trees of equal delicacy and weight in similar
position would not have lasted ten minutes. The bottom was
strewn with hundreds of purple and yellow sea fans, and with
the long feathery plumes of gorgonians and sea pens which
gracefully swayed back and forth, not rapidly, but ever so
gently in the most artistic undulations. I noticed that every
sea fan was placed in precisely the same position, exactly
parallel to the coast. Like the reef, like the beach and the
sand dunes back of the palms on the shore they had oriented
themselves at right angles to the wind and waves. Between
the fans were other hundreds of purple sea-plumes which
looked like feathers torn from some gigantic bird and planted

THE GREAT REEF

273

helter-skelter by a childish hand. But the simile of feathers
faded away when I bent close to one and saw the hundreds
of tiny tentacles protruding from the shafts marking the pres-
ence of the stinging colonial animals which, bound together
in feather-like association, go to make up the entirety. These
sea-plumes were the most beautifully curving creations I have
ever seen. Never in all their waving back and forth did they
assume an ungraceful or awkward position.

The fishes, too, took on this same air of lightness. They
soared without effort, flitting carelessly between the branches.
Most amazing were some wrasses which were nibbling on
algae on the rocks. At the beginnings of their swings they
would nibble, pulling the vegetation from the boulders, and
then sweep out into space, preserving the exact spacings as
when they were eating, reach the perihelion of their swaying,
and then return to the precise points which they had deserted
when they once again resumed their interrupted feeding. Even
a big jewfish, a dark brown fellow fully three feet long and
weighing a hundred pounds or more, seemed to partake of
this buoyancy. I first saw it far back in a deep dark hole in
the farthest recesses of the coral. Only its head protruded
when I discovered it but when I grasped a sea fan to anchor
myself, I could see that for all its ponderousness, it too was
airily swinging with the water. Without moving a muscle the
fish would float motionless in its hole and then gracefully
gUde out head foremost to a position midway between two
great coral trees and then slowly tail first back to exactly the
same position. I watched the jewfish for Rvq minutes and in
all that time never saw it move so much as a fin, yet it always
returned directly to its hiding place.

I tried walking down the avenues of sea fans but found
it nearly impossible. From the deck of the boat the bottom
had seemed quite smooth, or at most slightly rolling. Instead

274 I N A G U A

it proved to be a great jagged hillside, cleft with deep ravines
and pitted with dark caves. Paradoxically, and unlike the
hillsides on land, the tree line was on the upper slopes instead
of the lower. Besides the swaying of the water which dragged
me from place to place was the complication that I could not
judge distance. The refraction was too great. I was surprised
to find that sea fans for which I reached in order to steady
myself and which appeared to be within arm's distance were
really six feet or more away. To my discomfort I found my-
self time and again placing my foot on mounds of white brain
coral which simply were not there. Although I have been
undersea many times this reef was the most confusing place
of my experience. Repeatedly I fell helplessly and slowly into
deep holes. This was disturbing because usually as a result of
some trick of the current I fell in backwards and could not
see where I was tumbling. I was afraid of landing on a nest
of sea urchins whose poisonous spines I could see jutting out
from the crevices. Once I brushed against a smooth brownish
coral which burned like nettles. I was worried about cutting
my legs on the sharp stone. I knew what that would mean.
Undersea in the tropics is no place in which to be bleeding,
for the scent of blood drives some of the carnivores mad.

But presently I began to get the hang of the thing. I found
the best way was to aim for a smooth mound of rock, gauge
the distance carefully, and then leap into space allowing for
the swing of the w^ater. So near balance was I that, even
though I was carrying nearly eighty pounds of lead, I could,
with a light spring, float upwards and out for ten feet or
more, drift gently through space and come down again like
the lightest feather. Later when I became practiced at the
art I found that twenty-foot leaps were quite feasible.

Once I started an underwater landsHde. I had reached the
edge of a deep valley, a vertical wall hung with sea fans and

THE GREAT REEF

275

pink anemones, when my feet dislodged a rounded head of
brain coral that had long since died and was falling to pieces.
Slowly it rolled over and went bounding down the slope. I
clawed at the water to keep from following it and turned
in time to see it reach the bottom. It landed with an easy
bump, rolled once or twice, and came to rest upside down.
Then a peculiar incident occurred. Every fish within fifty feet
raced to the boulder and began tearing at the upturned base.
Still others darted to the trail of the avalanche made visible
by a whitish cloud of silt and nibbled at the torn and crushed
debris in its path. Carefully, I scrambled down to the fish
and thrust my way through their milling bodies. Then I
understood. About the base were the crushed bodies of dozens
of sea worms whose tube-homes had been torn apart. In a
split second these fishes had sensed the disaster to the worms
and had come to feed. This gave me an idea. I worked my
way back to the base of the reef where I had seen a number
of sponges growing, looking for all the world like big black
rubber balls. With a bit of a struggle I pulled one loose. In-
stantly a writhing six-inch green and scarlet worm shot out
of the base and squirmed toward the shelter of another
sponge. It did not get three feet. A brilliant red and yellow
wrasse darted out of the coral and savagely attacked it. It
was joined by another and by a school of small yellow fish
which snatched at the crumbs. In this manner I soon became
the center of attraction of a whole host of fish which fol-
lowed me from sponge to sponge.

Deceit and subterfuge were farthest from my thoughts
when I found a quiet spot between two mounds of brain
coral. I had snuggled between them to get out of the reach
of swaying current and was just making myself comfortable
when to my amazement a piece of the bottom detached itself
between my fingers and swam away. I felt much as you would

276 I N A G U A

if a portion of your dining-room floor would suddenly wake
up and amble off into the kitchen. For a second I stared in-
credulously, and then smiled to myself. A flounder, of course.
I should have known. So perfectly did the creature match
the white sand that even when it settled a few feet away I
had difficulty locating it. Nor could I begrudge it its little
deceit, for I knew it was its sole means of securing a liveli-
hood and protection from its enemies.

The flounder gave me a good demonstration a short time
later of how it employed its camouflage. A young bluehead,
a brilliant fish of yellow, blue and black, left the shelter of a
cluster of coral and idly drifted over the sand in the direction
of a towering finger sponge. The flounder was quite out of
sight and the only indication of its presence was a slight rise
in the surface of the sea floor. By looking carefully I could
just discern the creature's eyes mounted on low turrets. As
the bluehead approached these moved very slightly and fo-
cused on the victim. Unsuspecting, the fish floated nearer
until it hovered exactly over the spot where the flounder
rested on the bottom. There was a quick motion and with
a swirl of white sand the flounder seized the bluehead, gave a
few quick gulps, and then settled on the sand again where it
wriggled slightly until the sand flowed over its fins. Briefly,
after devouring the bluehead, the flounder altered color, as-
suming a light brown tone, but this soon faded away and it
once more mierged indistinctly with the piles of coral and the
loose grains.

I began to look for other forms of deception and realized
I had entered a whole world of it. Near my elbow, growing
out of a piece of dead meandrina coral was an informal garden
of maize-colored flowers whose petals unfolded in a graceful
spiral. These petals were long and delicate and were faintly
barred with alternate rows of black which gave the blossoms

THE GREAT REEF

277

a most artistic and unusual pattern. I reached out to touch one
but before my fingers contacted it, their shadow fell across
the petals. The blossom was jerked back into the stone so
rapidly I could barely see the movement. I reached for an-
other, and it, too, was pulled out of sight. Where the blos-
soms had been were only a number of slight round holes. I
knew then that the blossoms were not flowers at all but sea
worms, long wriggly creations of pecuHar form that spend
their entire lives hidden in the interstices of the rock. The
sensation that this sight afforded is the same as one would
have in a garden should one try to pick a daisy or a nastur-
tium and have it suddenly yanked into the ground. My arm,
casting a moving shadow, was all that was necessary to send
dozens of these creatures hurtling into their burrows. Imagine
walking through a hothouse and having the flowers fold up
as you progressed. Yet more strangely, when the sun went be-
hind a cloud, and cast a shadow identical to that produced by
my arm these worms moved not at all but merely swayed
and curled with the flow of the currents.

The flower-like petals are really the means by which the
worms seize the microscopic prey on which they feed and
carry it to their mouths. Life for them is principally a ques-
tion of waiting patiently with tentacles expanded for the
currents to bring them food. The usual connotation of the
word "worm" conveys something mean and low, or a slimy
creature that frequents the damp and dark. The worms of this
Inaguan coral reef are almost all lovely. Why they should be
so exquisite is hard to answer unless it is because everything
else on the reef is so gorgeous that to be ugly would seem
out of place.

The worms were not the only flower-like animals that prac-
ticed deceit. Brilliant sponges of red, emerald green, maroon
and lavender pretended to be mosses and plastered the rock

278 I N A G U A

wherever there was space. Bryozoans played at being lichens,
and their lacy filagree covered eroded spots on the coral and
bare spots on the stems of sea fans. Only, unlike the Hchens,
these bryozoans contained no commensal algae and had no
green coloring. A crab topped the list when it made a show
of being an entire garden! I discovered it when a complete
set of vegetable-like animals and mosses got up and walked
between two lavender gorgonians and then sank down again
a foot or so away. If it had not moved I would never have
suspected it. Planted on the creature's shell were several small
anemones, a dainty finger sponge, and a cluster of yellow
seaweed.

Struggling up the slope again I made my way back to the
nook between the brain corals. I had hardly seated myself
when I noticed a wave of excitement pass over all the parrot-
fish. There were quite a number of these, in assorted groups
of red and blue. Up to this time they had been contentedly
feeding, munching the algae off the rocks, like so many azure
and scarlet cows. The simile of cows is not altogether inap-
propriate for parrotfish spend their hours grazing on the algae
which they scrape off the rocks with their great white pro-
truding teeth. These teeth give them a rather ''horsey" ap-
pearance and they wear a stupid bovine expression in keeping
with their habits. As one fish they streaked for narrow holes
in the coral. I looked to see the cause of the disturbance. Off
in the obscure distance was a great gray shape that swam
just beyond the point of clear vision. In a moment it had
melted into the haze and was gone. A big shark possibly, I
do not know, for it did not reappear immediately and before
long the parrotfish were back at their interminable munching.
In some way they sensed that all was not well and that an
enemy was near. Strangely, none of the other fish showed
any indication of alarm.

THEGREATREEF 279

The behavior of the parrotfish, however, gave the clue to
life on the reef. Everywhere there lurked some sort of danger.
Everything fed upon something else, something smaller or
more helpless than itself. The sand-colored flounder on the
sea floor, the vegetable-like anemones and worms, the garden-
simulating crab were all examples of deception for a purpose,
to hide from enemies or to catch prey more easily. Even the
unmoving coral trees passed their existence in a similar man-
ner, for the millions of tiny polyps that covered the yellow
branches in a living skin harbored stinging tentacles that in-
stantly killed the small prey that came within reach.

In time I beean to notice that there was a definite order
to everything about the reef. Life was divided into rigid
groups or castes. The fishes that had their being near the sea
floor were not the same as those that flitted among the upper
branches of the coral trees. The sea floor group might be
portioned into three main classes— the munchers, like the
parrotfish and the triggerfish which made their living by
feeding quietly on the filmy vegetation that covered the
rocks; the probers, such as the goatfish, which seemed to
spend their time incessantly roaming over the sand and rocks,
tapping the bottom with their barbels until they located some
microscopic tidbit in the soil when they quickly burrowed
and snatched it up; and the lurkers, typified by the flounders,
which hid in the sand; and finally by the jewfish and groupers,
which concealed themselves in deep holes waiting for some
luckless muncher or prober to pass.

The jewfish and groupers probably had the best system of
all. They are tremendously fat fishes with gaping cavernous
mouths. I discovered their strategy quite by accident when I
was watching the progress of a pair of golden angelfish. The
angels swam slowly by a jewfish's den. Suddenly, and quite
unaccountably, one of the angelfish simply disappeared. Into

28o I N A G U A

thin air— or water— as it were. I blinked and looked at the
jewfish. It had not moved a muscle and yet I could have sworn
that I saw the angelfish vanish into its mouth. I waited pa-
tiently for another victim. Soon a demoiselle with a brilliant
yellow tail came near. It passed within three feet, stopped to
feed at a sea fan, and then turned back again. This was its un-
doing, for it came close to the cavernous mouth. Abruptly and
without warning, it was sucked into the swaying jaws. Then I
knew what had happened. The jewfish was operating an un-
derwater vacuum cleaner! I saw it clearly. The fish merely
opened wide its tremendous gill flaps, creating a suction into
the yawning mouth. The jaws snapped shut and the demoi-
selle was no more.

Quite in contrast to the bottom fishes were those that hung
in mid-water well up into the interstices of the coral. There
were numerous sergeant-majors, little fellows striped vividly
in jet black and yellow like off -colored barber poles. These
filtered in and out among the branches along with a few score
silver moonfish, a host of bright blue tang and some azure
Beau-gregorys. These Beau-gregorys were the bravest fishes
on the reef. Certain little portions of the coral they claimed as
their very own, and these they guarded as territory inviolate.
One of the tang, which resembled nothing so much as flat
blue dinner plates which had fantastically become equipped
with fins and taken to an underwater existence, ventured too
near a branch of coral which a Beau-gregory had appropri-
ated. With fins bristling with rage the midget dashed out and
attacked the tang. The larger fish, much to my surprise, turned
tail and fled.

A few minutes later I saw this same Beau-gregory coura-
geously assail a Spanish mackerel which was fully twenty times
its size and which was armed with a long row of sharp teeth.
The mackerel almost seemed to have a look of hurt surprise.

THEGREATREEF 281

and, like the tang, fled ignominiously. But the mackerel
amazed me still further by gliding to the surface and there
snapping up a glistening silverside which was peacefully idling
just below the surface film minding its own business. This
lesson "in what might have happened" had no visible effect
on the Beau-gregory, for shortly after it was busily engaged
in driving- another intruder from its domain.

Still another category of life about the reef had its exist-
ence in the few feet just beneath the surface. Here a consider-
able galaxy of organisms hung forever suspended between the
wrinkled mirror of the top of the sea and the regions lower
down. These were even graded according to their distance
from the waves. Farthest up were the houndfish, which were
long streamlined creatures equipped with double rows of
murderous-looking teeth. They are savage carnivores belong-
ing to the genus Strongylura and although the whole of their
activity took place within a narrow zone they were so swift
and well equipped that they garnered a good living by prey-
ing on the hundreds of silversides, bumpers and flyingfish,
which also wxre restricted to this area. The energy of these
houndfish, once they got into motion, was amazing. They ap-
peared as living arrows, as indeed they were. At such great
speed do they move that they have been known to injure
fishermen severely into whose boats they have blundered
during some of their spectacular spear-like leaps after flying-
fish. Their prey was usually caught crosswise in their bills,
crushed and shaken until dead and then momentarily released
to be turned head foremost for easy swallowing.

The roof of this liquid world was a network of living crea-
tures. There was an endless pfocession of small fishes continu-
ally passing to and fro at all conceivable angles. Some of these
passed hurriedly, rushing by as though the very devil were
after them, as indeed they may have imagined. Others drifted

282 I N A G U A

slowly, pausing frequently, spiraling or sidling off on all sorts
of side excursions. Suspended between these moving forms
was an innumerable assemblage of baby fish of a hundred
varieties. Every inch of this upper strata contained at least
one transparent fishlet or equally glass-like crustacean visible
to the naked eye, not to include the literal billions of micro-
organisms on which these small fry feed. The water was a
living soup; and the diatom feeders, those peculiar fishes that
are equipped with natural sieves and scoop nets within their
gaping mouths, were busily crisscrossing, gathering the manna
which, instead of faUing from heaven, strangely floated as
though the laws of gravitation had been inexplicably and
suddenly repealed.

A most magnificent cavalcade crossed this area when a
school of six large tarpon, gleaming burnished silver on their
large scales, went by without stopping. The tarpon were fol-
lowed by a tremendous school of mackerel, which as nearly
as I could determine by the appearance of their well-sepa-
rated dorsal fins and small curved tails belong to the genus
Aiixis, or frigate mackerels. Each was about a foot in length
and was streaked with a line of intense yellow which flamed
in iridescent glow just above their lateral lines. The school
was so huge that its passage temporarily darkened the water,
and the excitement occasioned by its passage caused a veritable
deluge of small fishes seeking to escape this finny hurricane.
Long after they had gone the more sedentary surface fishes
went periodically into small local flurries; their frenzied ac-
tivity sent myriads of darting forms whirling about in a con-
tagion of fear which spread in widening circles.

But the main impression of the reef was one of peace. Ex-
cept for the occasional forays of the houndfish and the amus-
ing angers of the incautious Beau-gregorys there was no sense
of strife or danger. Rather, the reef was a cosmos reigned over

THEGREATREEF 283

by color and beauty. Everything appeared relaxed, at ease,
swaying back and forth with the water.

I worked my way into the coral down an avenue of limpid
blue. On the way I was surrounded by a large school of flashy
blue and golden snappers. They darted fearlessly between my
legs and under my arms. I amused myself by carving up
anemones with my knife and feeding them the pieces. They
greedily snatched the fragments from my fingers and crowded
closer.

Then, when I leaned over to dig at another I suddenly
suspected that something was wrong; an instinctive sixth sense
caused me to look up. The snappers, like the parrotfish some
minutes before, had all deserted me and were swimming off in
between close-set barriers of the coral. I peered about for
the cause of their fright but saw nothing. But presently, far
off in the hazy distance, I recognized the same dim gray shape
that had alarmed the parrots. With my mouth I squirted a
quantity of salt water on the glass of the helmet to secure
better vision, as it had become slightly clouded from my warm
breath. The shape was still indistinct but it was surely moving
closer and closer. Slowly and leisurely it emerged from the
blue depths and flowed up a narrow misty valley. I glanced
at the bottom of the boat suspended from the rolling silvery
ceiling. The air line and rope curled down into the water be-
side it, but it was too far away to attempt to reach it. What-
ever the thing was, it could get there quicker than I.

I sat tight, one hand clutching a sea fan and the other on
the life line ready to go. The gray form came closer, swept
up the valley and then turned toward the reef. Then, al-
though the object was still blurred from the distance, I could
see what it was. It was a tremendous shark, species unknown.

I remembered the warning words of the sailboat captain,
and grinned a sickly grin into the emptiness of the helmet.

284 I N A G U A

At the same time there flashed mto memory the recollection
of the body of a ten-foot shark which I had once found on
a Florida beach with its stomach neatly bitten out in one piece
by some monstrous creature. I crouched close to the ground
and the beast curved up the last rise of the valley and swept
on parallel to the ridge. I was quite helpless, for before I could
use a knife the animal could have made mincemeat of my un-
protected body should it choose to attack. But the creature
glided on, paying me not the slightest attention. As it passed
within twenty feet I could see the whites of its eyes rolling
as it peered about. Once it swerved sHghtly in my direction
while I stared breathlessly. But it swerved back again and I
limply watched it pass. From its size and the deep pit at the
base of its tail I guessed it to be one of the Galeocerdo or
tiger sharks.

The Inaguan had not lied, the creature was at least fifteen
feet long. Above it was softly mottled, beneath pearly white
with a suggestion of delicate pink. There was not a blemish
on it. Through the sleek back I could see the great muscles
rippling as they twisted the long caudal fin. Strangely, with
the exception of the snappers and the parrotfish, and a few
other forms of equal size, none of the other reef fish seemed
to be alarmed at its presence. They went on feeding as usual
and a pair of silly-looking trunk fish even swam under its belly
as it passed. Perhaps these last felt secure in their triangular
bodices of bony armor. The shark soon disappeared in the
distance. Later, from a number of dives in this same spot, I
discovered that this individual spent much of its time patrol-
ing back and forth along this section of reef. From the sur-
face through a water glass I saw it no less than a dozen times.
I waited cautiously, thinking it might reappear, saw the par-
rotfish and the tang resume their feeding, and then climbed
hand over hand up the line.

THEGREATREEF 285

The Inaguan beamed in triumph. "Yoh wouldn' listen to
me," he caroled. "I tol yo."

On deck my courage revived and I reminded him that,
after all, the shark behaved like a gentleman. There are, un-
doubtedly, a number of well-substantiated cases of shark at-
tack, but from my several experiences, the first at Sheep Cay
and later on the barrier reef near Mathewtown, and from the
discussions I have had with other divers, the possibilities of
sharks attacking a normally behaving man clad in a helmet
or full suit are somewhat remote. Most of the smaller sharks
are afraid of the strange figure of a diver and give him a
wide berth.

After resting a while I went below again. This time I landed
on the edge of the canyon, teetered drunkenly, and then
swung out over the depths. Instead of swaying back to the
wall I decided to drop to the ocean floor and explore the
shadowy crags below. The valley turned out to be deeper
than I supposed and when I landed with a slight bump the
pressure was very perceptible. The surging flow of the cur-
rent, however, was largely stilled; apparently the influence of
the inrolling combers did not extend beyond thirty feet. It
was a great relief to be able to stand without danger of being
carried away, and although the pressure was uncomfortable
and the water much colder, I began to look about with in-
terest.

The valley might well have belonged on Mars, or on the
rim of one of the craters of the moon. It was shrouded in
gloomy azure, purple shadows merged with the deep blacks
of underwater caverns in producing an other-world aspect.
I would have liked to have entered some of these caverns,
but try as I might I could not gather quite enough courage.
Several times I approached the mouth of one, tried to peer
inside and then edged back. The fact that there was nothing

286 I N A G U A

tangible on which to gaze rendered the undertaking more
frightening. Man is always more afraid of the invisible than
the real. So I excused myself on the grounds that I had no
flashlight, and besides I had no desire to provoke an unwar-
ranted combat with an angry moray or some other large
carnivore that might be lurking in the dark. The appearance
of the valley itself was sufficient to melt my already partially
dissipated bravery. There is no place in all the world so effi-
cacious as the depths of tropical undersea for deflating the
human ego. One feels so helpless and out of element.

The valley was interesting in that it marked the boundary
line of the distribution of a great many creatures. The closer
one approached the surface the more abundant and varied was
the fife. Down below variety was compensated by size. It
seemed that the older fishes preferred a more quiet and sub-
dued life away from the flash and turmoil of the resplendent
reef. The upper edge of the ravine also marked the fringe of
the true vegetation. The last carpet of moss and algae termi-
nated at the brim. These plants required fight for their well-
being; and although the valley was lighted, this iUumination
was much too wan and weak. This was the farthest down of
vegetable fife; everything beyond was animal. From the valley
floor one left behind all vestige of the world of the upper air.

I had never realized before how very important light was
nor how dispiriting the color blue could be. On the reef itself
the blue was afive, for it was fused with a shining abundance
of sunlight; down there it was heavy and depressing. I am
confident that a person kept continually in deep blue light
would shortly go mad with melancholia; to have the blues
is a literal description.

The very center of the valley was occupied by a towering
crag that was topped with a smaU coral tree. It reminded me
of the absurd stone castles that people place in goldfish bowls,

THEGREATREEF 287

and like those ornaments, it was pierced with carved grottoes
at the base. One of the grottoes held a soHd culture of the
most immense tang I have ever seen. All the ichthyological
textbooks place the size limit on tang at about twelve inches;
none of those in the grotto were less than sixteen inches and
some were closer to eighteen, with all due allowance for the
refraction of the water. The tang were packed like the pro-
verbial sardines and were all aligned in the same position,
facing the entrance. This gave them the most ridiculous ap-
pearance. Tang are very round and flat but are highly com-
pressed in a vertical direction, and when they are examined
head on they seem to be only thin vertical hues. When I first
saw them all I could discern was a large number of dark blue
streaks out of which peered twice the number of golden
brown eyes and an equal number of pale whitish lips. The
tang were slowly opening and closing these lips as though
eternally, and soundlessly, mouthing the word "oh" over and
over again. I tried to make them desert their shelter but they
would not be moved. Even when I thrust my leg squarely
into their packed bodies, they only glided slightly to one side
and then closed ranks again. These were evidently resting,
for there seemed to be no other reason to congregate in this
sheltered nook, though there may have been. We know so
little about the habits and behavior of undersea creatures.

My life line began jerking and I was nearly dragged from
my feet. Turning to gaze back I saw that I had reached the
end of my tether, the entire coil of the air hose had been
used up. Following its twisting course I crept back toward
the reef. It seemed very far away, a glimmering line of fan-
tastic tan trees poised on the very edge of the drowned cliff.
Even as I looked a great school of yellow snappers rushed
out from between the massive trunks, rank after rank, file
after file of them, and poured like a flood into the depths. At

I N A G U A

the very moment they reached the edge of the chff a ray of
sunhght caught their scales and transformed them into an
array of gleaming motes. It was as though an army em-
blazoned in gold were marching into the sea. For a brief
second I saw them; and then a cloud passed over the sun,
drowning my world in even more melancholy blue.

CHAPTER XIV

In Defe72se of Octopuses

I FEEL about octopuses— as Mark Twain did about the devil-
that someone should undertake their rehabilitation. All writers
about the sea, from Victor Hugo down to the present, have
published volumes against them; they have been the unknow-
ing and unwitting victims of a large and very unfair amount
of propaganda, and have long suffered under the stigma of be-
ing considered horrible and exceedingly repulsive. No one has
ever told the octopuses' side of the story; nor has anyone ever
defended them against the mass of calumnies which have been
heaped on their peculiar and marvelously shaped heads. We
have convicted them without benefit of a hearing, which is a
most partial and unjust proceeding. I propose that octopuses,
and their near relatives the squids, are among the most wonder-
ful of all earth's creatures, and as such are deserving of our
respect, if not our admiration.

My personal interest in octopi dates back to the moment
when I turned to climb out of the drowned ravine at the base
of the Inaguan barrier reef. I had reached the lower portion
of the final slope and was about to seize on a piece of yellow
rock to steady myself when I noticed that from the top of the
boulder was peering a cold dark eye that neither blinked nor
stirred. In vain I looked for eyeUds; the orb apparently be-
longed to the rock itself.

Then suddenly, I felt a chill wave creep up my spine. Be-
fore my gaze the rock started to melt, began to ooze at the
sides like a candle that had become too hot. There is no other
way to describe the action. I was so startled at the phenomenon

289

290

I N A G U A

that it was a full second or two before I was conscious of what
I was watching.

It was my first acquaintance with a live, full grown octopus.
The beast flowed down the remainder of the boulder, so closely
did its flesh adhere to the stone, and then slowly, with tentacles
spread slightly apart, slithered into a crevasse nearby. The
head of the octopus was about as big as a football, but as it
reached the fissure, which was not more than four inches in
width, it flattened out and wedged itself into the opening. It
seemed somewhat irritated at my disturbing it, for it rapidly
flushed from pebbled yellow to mottled brown and then back
to a livid white. It remained white for about twenty seconds
and then altered slowly to a dark gray edged with maroon. I
stood stock-still but it made no overt motions and I slowly
edged away. Quite possibly it might have been a nasty cus-
tomer, for the tentacles were about five feet from tip to tip.

This last statement may seem a contradiction to my opening
paragraph; and, I must admit, that is the way I felt about the
octopus at the time. However, since that hour I have collected
and observed a number of these creatures, including the squids.
I have found them animals of unusual attainments and they
should be ranked among the most remarkable denizens of the
sea. They are endowed with considerable intelligence and they
have reached a system of living all their own which they have
maintained for approximately 500,000,000 years. As far back
as the Ordovician period of geology we find their ancestors,
and there is good evidence that at one time the forefathers of
the present octopi very nearly ruled the world. Had they been
able to pass the barrier of the edge of the ocean as the early
fish-derived amphibians did there might have been no limit
to the amazing forms which would have peopled the earth.

Within the bounds of pure speculation, however, the fact
remains that the cephalopods, as the entire octopi-like group

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 291

of animals is termed, have missed the status of brainy intelli-
gence, of which man is the highest criterion, only by a very
narrow margin. There is reason to believe that they are the
most keen-witted creatures in the ocean and had they developed
an opposable thumb and fingers instead of suckers with which
to manipulate various objects the entire course of the earth's
existence might have been altered.

There are some very curious similarities between the de-
velopment of intelligence in man and in the modern cephalo-
pode. Both acquired brains after their individual fashions
because the course of organic evolution left them without ade-
quate physical protection against the vicissitudes of nature.
Alan, the weak and the puny, without claws and rending fangs
to battle the beasts and without long legs with which to flee,
had to acquire cunning or perish. That marvelous addition, the
opposable thumb, made possible holding and using tools and
gave a stimulus to cunning that nothing else in the mechanics
of evolution could have provided. The thumb is by far the
most remarkable portion of man's anatomy. Literature, music,
art, philosophy, religion, civilization itself are directly the re-
sult of man's possession of this digit.

Like man, the modern cephalopods have been thrown upon
the world naked and without the armor protection of their
ancestors. For cephalopods are shellfish, blood brothers to the
oyster, the clam and the conch; they are mollusks which have
been deprived of their shells. The only present day cephalo-
pods which still retain their shells are the Nautiloids which are
direct descendents of the ancient types whose fossils are found
in the tightly compressed rocks of the Upper Cambrian. Over
three thousand fossil nautiloids^ have been named, an imposing
group ranging in size from a tiny seven millimeter creature
called Cyrtoceras to the immense 14 foot cone of Endoceras!
Only four closely related species of this mighty shelled host

292

I N A G U A

remain, all occurring in the South Pacific.

To compensate for the loss of their shells, which were their
bulwarks against fate, these unclothed cephalopods have de-
veloped, like man, cunning and intelligence. Alone among the
molluscs they have acquired by concentration of their chief
nerv^e ganglia w^hat may be truly considered a brain. With the
casting aside of the shell they have also gained their freedom,
speed and mobility.

Safety often goes hand in hand with degeneration. It is a
curious circumstance that those creatures which live com-
pletely guarded lives also have a very dull existence. What,
for example, could be safer and more stupid and sedentary than
an oyster, clad in its house of lime? The loss of a shell not only
rescued the cephalopods from dullness but it probably also
saved them from extinction. The most highly ornate shelled
cephalopods of all time, the gracefully coiled Ammonoids,
which are so named because of their resemblance to the ram-
like horns of the deity Jupiter Ammon, and which developed
during the Upper Silurian and lasted until the close of the Age
of Reptiles, went out of existence because the extent of their
external sculpture and complexity of septation rendered them
so specialized that they failed to respond to change. Some of
these fantastic Ammonoids, of which six thousand species are
known, possessed coiled shells more than six feet in diameter!

"Cephalopods," the scientific name of the octopi and squids,
immediately characterizes them as something unusual, for it
signifies that they walk on their heads. This is precisely what
they do, for their tentacles or "feet" are located between their
eyes and mouths. No other animals on earth utilize this position
or method of progression.

However, it is in their mode of swimming that the motion of
these weird beings is most amazing. They are beautifully
streamlined when in action, and can dart about at remarkable

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 293

speed. I recall once being out to sea in a fishing trawler off the
Virginia Capes. I was sitting in the dark on deck watching the
stars and swaying to the slight roll of the boat when suddenly
I heard a rapidly reiterated splashing in the sea. The sound was
slightly reminiscent of the pattering noise of flying fish. I knew
that I w^as too far north for any quantity of these volant crea-
tures. I went below and returned on deck with a flashlight.
Its beam pierced the dark and glowed on the wave tops. The
ship was passing through a school of small surface fish. They
were being prayed upon by hundreds of Loligo squid. The
squid were shuttling back and forth through the water at in-
credible speed. Most wonderful was the organization with
which they seemed to operate. Entire masses of these cephalo-
pods, all swimming in the same direction, would dart at the
mass fish, quickly seize and bite at them, then abruptly wheel
as a unit and sweep through the panic-stricken victims which
scurried everywhere. Some of these squid were traveling so
rapidly that when they approached the top of the water they
burst through and went skimming through the air for several
yards, faUing back with light splashes. In the morning I found
several on the deck of the trawler where they had jumped, a
vertical distance of at least six feet! There is another record
made near the coast of Brazil of a swarm of squids flying out
of the water on the deck of a ship which was twelve feet above
the surface and which was further protected by a high bulwark,
making a minimum jump of fifteen feet! Several score were
shoveled off the ship when daylight came.

The cephalopods and particularly the squids might be com-
pared to living fountain pens or animated syringes, for they
accomplish their flight-like swimming by pulling liquid into
their body cavities and squirting it out again. Their likeness
to a living fountain pen is even further heightened when one
considers that some of the cephalopods contain ink and a quill.

294 I N A G U A

Nor is this all, for nature, not content to offer all these wonders
in one creature, has ordained that they may swim, not only
forward like all other creatures of the sea, but backward! They
can swim forward and sideways, too, but the normal mode is
stem foremost.

The quill of these mobile fountain pens is the remnant of
the shells of their prehistoric ancestors, and it persists, like our
vermiform appendix, as a useless but telltale evidence of former
usage. The quill, reduced in the octopi to two chitinous rods,
and in the squid to a long narrow fluted pen, remarkably re-
sembling an old fashioned quill, is buried deep within the tissue.
In a sense, the octopi and squids are shellfish which have sur-
rounded their shells.

It is in the ink of these cephalopods that we are confronted
with a true paradox. This ink, basis of the familiar India ink, is
utilized for two diametrically opposite purposes. It is intended
to provide concealment and, diversely, to enable the animal to
keep in touch with its fellows. When there is fear of an attack
by enemies, the ink is expelled into the water to form a "smoke
screen" behind which the cephalopod flees to shelter. Thus
the modern military technique of employing the smoke screen
to conceal retreating movements was conceived by the cephalo-
pods as early as the Jurassic, as is proved by a beautifully pre-
served fossil of that period which shows the ink bag promi-
nently Hmned in the highly compressed tissue impression of a
squid. However, when night closes down on the water shroud-
ing the blue vastness of the deeps in impenetrable gloom it is
by means of this same ink that the members of a school of squids
are able to keep in contact with one another. It is beheved that
the ink is extruded in very small quantities and is picked up by
unusually sensitive olfactory organs. The more solitary octopi
use it in much the same manner to locate their mates.

I had no idea of the efficiency of this inky fluid until my

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 295

third or fourth meeting with the octopus of the valley. I had
been going down for a half hour or so each day near the same
spot in the reef and almost always finished the day's dive with
a final excursion to the limit of the hose on the base of the
ravine. In these trips I saw a number of octopuses, mostly much
smaller than the first. These seemed to live in the crevasses near
the base of the reef, and often all that I saw of them was a ten-
tacle or two twitching or writhing languidly from a fissure.
Some I discovered by the neat piles of mussel shells and other
mollusks near the entrances to their hiding places. Some of
these shells were, surprisingly, unopened and, it can be assumed,
were being stored against an hour of larger appetite. Also, most
interesting, the only localities on Inagua where the mussels
were to be found in any abundance was in the area of the surf,
a living habit that might be attributed to the ceaseless raids of
octopods on colonies in more peaceful localities. The mussels,
in self defense as it were, had established themselves in the only
place where they might live undisturbed, which was, in con-
tradiction, the most violent area of all the world of underwater.
They were, so to speak, between the devil and the deep blue
sea, or to be more exact, between the devil and the hot dry air.
Most of these octopods were exceedingly shy, fleeing into
their shelters at my approach, and drawing far back out of
reach, a reaction quite at variance with the accepted theories
of ferocity and malignancy. I tried to capture some of the
smaller ones, but they were too fast for me. The big fellow on
the slope of the ravine, however, while it did not seem quite so
timid always gave me a wide berth and invariably, the few
times I encountered it, withdrew to its fissure where it was
never quite hidden, but was revealed by a portion of the body
and the restless arms. At first I left it strictly alone, but curi-
osity about its peculiar color changes, prompted me to come
closer.

296 I N A G U A

It always seemed irritated at my presence. Its nervousness
may have been caused by fear, for it certainly made no pretense
of belligerency, and it constantly underwent a series of pig-
ment alterations that were little short of marvelous. Blushing
was its specialty. No schoolgirl with her first love was ever
subjected to a more rapid or recurring course of excited flushes
than this particular octopus. The most common colors were
creamy white, mottled Van Dyke brown, maroon, bluish gray,
and finally light ultramarine nearly the color of the water.
When most agitated it turned livid white, which is I believe
the reaction of fear. During some of the changes it became
streaked, at times in wide bands of maroon and cream, and once
or twice in wavy lines of lavender and deep rose. Even red
spots and irregular purplish polka dots were included in its
repertoire, though these gaudy variations seldom lasted for
long.

I had heard that a light touch on the skin would leave a vivid
impression of color and I was anxious to see if this were the
case. From the boatman I borrowed a long stick and dropped
down to the sea floor again. The octopus was still in place and
I walked over to it with the pole in my hand. At first I was
hesitant about the experiment. The creature had behaved so
nicely that I almost decided to give it up. But the old curiosity
prevailed and with my pole I slowly reached out and stroked it
along the side of its body.

Then things began to happen. The stick was snatched from
my fingers and went floating to the surface. The octopus flashed
out of the fissure and ejected an immense cloud of purplish ink.
For a brief moment I saw it swimming away, long and sleek in
shape, and then I was surrounded by the haze. The fog was
not opaque but imparted much the same quality of non-vision
as thick smoke in dry air, except that I did not notice much
in the way of wreaths. In fact, I was so confused and startled,

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 297

that my only thought was to get away. From underneath the
hehnet there arose a faint odor quite unhke anything else.
Fishy musk is the nearest description I can think of. The color
was most interesting, as I had always been under the impres-
sion that cephalopod ink was black. Rather, it appeared dark
purple which later faded to a somber shade of azure. I can
also remember, when it thinned considerably, seeing vague
shafts of reddish when the rays of sunlight far above caught
the substance at oblique angles. The ink spread out in a cloud
extending over several yards; and, in the still depths of the
ravine took quite a time to dissipate. Actually it floated away
as a hazy smudge before it evaporated.

I was not able to continue my observations on color changes
until several days later when I netted a baby octopus from some
turtle-weed growing a few yards from shore near the place
where the reef reached its final termination in a mass of sandy
shoals. I transferred the mite, a youngster of seven or eight
inches spread, to the tidepool near my old house where I kept
it for several days. It took to its new surroundings very grace-
fully and made no attempt to escape but made life miserable
for the numerous small crabs and fishes that shared the pond.
The crabs were its principal prey which it captured by stealth
and by lying patiently in wait. Patience was its most evident
virtue, and much to my disgust it would sit for hours in one
spot without moving, staring endlessly at the moving forms
in the water. It used a great deal of intelligence in securing the
crabs and selected a spot to lurk where it had ready command
of an entire corner of the pool.

The rocks of its dwelling were creamy brown, and this was
the exact hue it assumed while waiting to make a capture. It
had perfect control of its pigmentation. In comparison the re-
nowned chameleons are but rank amateurs. The mechanics of
this alteration of hue are very complex but are controlled by

298 I N A G U A

the expansion and contraction of a group of cells attached to
pigmented sacks, known as chromatophores, residing in the
outer layers of skin over the entire surface of the body. In
addition there is scattered over the body another great series
of cells capable of reflecting light. These are yellow and impart
a strange iridescent shimmer, slightly suggestive of the glow of
pearls. The chromatophores, which are of a variety of colors,
are opened and shut at will producing any or all colors of the
rainbow.

These color cells are manipulated by highly sensitive nerves
communicating with the brain and with the eye. The eye prin-
cipally dictates the choice of color although emotion also
seems to have a definite influence. When frightened the octopi
usually blanch to a whitish or light tone; irritation will cause
them to break out in dark pigments. No other creatures in the
world can alter their color as quickly and completely. Emo-
tion will cause a human being to flush with anger or become
pale with pain or anxiety; but no one can hold his hand and
will it to be green with yellow stripes, or even yellow or plain
brown, let alone lavender or ultramarine. An artist may paint a
picture; only an octopus can color its skin with the portrait of
its emotions, or duplicate exactly the pattern of the soil on
which it rests. Only a very highly organized creature, one
with a brain and an unusually well co-ordinated nervous system
could accomplish the mechanical marvel of operating several
thousands of cells at once, rapidly opening and closing them in
proper order.

The cephalopods are not limited to color change but are
also credited with being able to produce the most brilliant light
known in the realm of animals. While this luminescence is
limited to a very few deep sea species of decapods, which are
the ten- armed squids, their light is so vivid that they outshine
the fireflies. These lights organs may be found on any portion
of the body, including the eyeball itself, and oddly enough,

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 299

even in the interior of the animal! In these last forms the body
tissues are quite transparent, so the light is not necessarily con-
cealed. These light organs are quite varied, some being but
mounds of glowing fluid, others complex and carefully con-
structed lenses with mirrors of reflecting tissue. As yet very
little is known of these abyssal octopi and squid, though a few
captured specimens have been observed burning with a strong
light for several hours. Some day when the means of exploring
the vast deeps of the ocean comfortably and safely has been
devised we will learn more of these unbelievable cephalo-
pods.

Quite unseen, my octopus would wait until a crab ventured
near. Then it would either swoop quickly over the victim
smothering it in its diminutive tentacles or suddenly dart out
an arm and seize its meal before it had time to flee. It seldom
missed but when it did it usually retrieved its dinner by a
quick pursuit before it had gone far. Before twenty-four hours
were up the entire bottom of the pool was littered with the
hollow carapaces of crabs. Peculiarly, the animal almost always
devoured its victim bottom side up, biting through the softer
lower shell with its small parrot-like beak and rasping out the
contents with its filed tongue before casting the empty shell
away. The legs and feet were seldom eaten and were usually
torn off and discarded. Little of this feeding was done during
the day. At high noon I even saw a crab crawl over the relaxed
tentacles without being molested or becoming aware of the
danger it was courting. In the evening, however, particularly
just before sunset the octopus seized everything within reach.

The capture of fish was not nearly so easy, and although I
saw it make a number of attempts its only successful capture
was a small goby that very injudiciously decided to rest a few
inches below the octopus' chosen corner. As in the case of
several of the crabs it was blanketed by a mass of writhing
tentacles. Once the fish was grasped by the vacuum cups of

300

I N A G U A

these tentacles it was finished, for in their method of attack-
ins^, the octopi utilize one of the most efficient systems devised,
a principle more certain than curving claws or the sharpness
of teeth. Only the hand of man with its opposable thumb is
superior.

The feel of these vacuum cups on the bare flesh is most un-
usual. It is not unpleasant, and in a small specimen, gives the
sensation of hundreds of tiny wet clammy hands pulling at
the skin. The strength of the suckers is amazing. AVhen I tried
to lift the youngster off my wrist it clung tenaciously and even
when I had dislodged all the tentacles except one I still had to
give a strong pull in proportion to its size to release the suckers.
There have been cases in which the tentacles have been torn
apart before the suckers released their grip. These suckers,
which operate on much the same principle as the little rubber
cups with which we attach objects to automobile windshields,
are actuated by a muscular piston. The rim of the cup is
fastened to an object, then the floor of the center is raised and
retracted to form a vacuum. The cups, I found, would slip
easily from side to side but when pulled directly exercised con-
siderable power. In the octopods the suckers are sessile, or are
mounted on low mounds; the squids carry the mechanism a
bit further and produce them on stalks. In the giant squid the
rim of the suckers are even equipped with fine teeth to render
them more efficient. Whalers have recorded capturing whales
with dozens of circular scars on their heads, inflicted in gar-
gantuan battles with these monsters of the open ocean. Some
of these scars have measured over two inches in diameter so
that the creatures that possessed them must have been huge.

Flow large do the squid and octopi grow? There is an au-
thentic record of a North Atlantic squid which measured fifty-
two feet over all! Its tentacles had an abnormal reach of thirty-
five feet and the remaining seventeen feet was taken up by the

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 301

cylindrical body which had a circumference of twelve feet.
The eye of this fabulous animal was seven by nine inches, the
largest visual organ in the world. The suckers had a diameter
of two and a quarter inches, and as some of the scars on cap-
tured whales have exceeded this measurement it is not unrea-
sonable to assume that there may exist somewhere in the
abyssal depths of the North Atlantic still larger squid of per-
haps sixty or seventy feet. Even these amazing squid, how-
ever, are preyed upon by the great sperm whales which tear
them apart with their long shearing teeth. In that old classic
and favorite "The Cruise of the Cachalot," the author, Mr.
Frank Bullen, gives a vivid description of a battle between a
large sperm whale and one of these squid.

"At about eleven a. m.," he writes, "I was leaning over the
rail, gazing steadily at the bright surface of the sea, when there
was a violent commotion in the sea right where the moon's
rays were concentrated, so great that, remembering our posi-
tion, I was at first inclined to alarm all hands, for I had often
heard of volcanic islands suddenly lifting their heads from the
depths below, or disappearing in a moment, and ... I felt
doubtful indeed of what was now happening. Getting the night,
glasses out of the cabin scuttle where they were always hung
in readiness, I focused them on the troubled spot, perfectly
satisfied by a short examination that neither volcano nor earth-
quake had anything to do with what was going on; yet so vast
were the forces engaged that I might well have been excused
for my first supposition. A very large whale was locked in
deadly conflict with a cuttlefish or squid almost as large as
himself, whose interminable tentacles seemed to enclose the
whole of his great body. The -head of the whale especially
seemed a perfect network of writhing arms, naturally, I sup-
pose, for it appeared as if the whale had the tail part of the
mollusk in his jaws, and, in a business-like methodical way was

302 I N A G U A

sawing through it. By the side of the black columnar head of
the whale appeared the head of a great squid, as awful an ob-
ject as one could well imagine, even in a fevered dream. Judg-
ing as carefully as possible, I estimated it to be at least as large
as one of our pipes, which contained three hundred and fifty
gallons; but it may have been, and probably was, a good deal
larger. The eyes were very remarkable for their size and black-
ness, which, contrasted with the livid whiteness of the head,
made their appearance all the more striking. They were at
least a foot in diameter, and seen under such conditions looked
decidedly eerie and hobgoblin-like. All around the combatants
were numerous sharks, like jackals around a lion, ready to share
the feast, and apparently assisting in the destruction of the
large Cephalopod."

Unfortunately Bullen does not tell the result of the combat
but one might assume that the whale was the victor, for the
food of sperm whales consists almost exclusively of squid.

If the squid and octopi are accused of being fearsome and
savage, it might be argued that they live in an underwater
world in which savagery and primitive instincts are the most
common passions, and the only way to exist is to conform to
the mode. There is no doubt that an enraged large cephalopod
could be a formidable antagonist. The authentic instances of
octopi or squid attacking human beings or divers, however,
are so rare as to be considered non-existent in spite of a large
literature to the contrary. Most of their savagery is confined
to securing their food, which is a normal and reasonable func-
tion.

The tentacles serve still another and more wonderful pur-
pose, for it is by means of their arms that these unorthodox
creatures are able to perpetuate their race. The arms that serve
in this function are known as hectocotylized arms and this
name was derived from an honest and understandable mistake

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 303

by Cuvier. The name also signifies the arm of a hundred cells,
and the mistake was made when the detached portion of one
of these many-celled arms was found clinging in the mantle
cavity of a female paper nautilus where it was erroneously
thought to be some new sort of parasitic worm. The strange
worm was named a hectocotylus and the error was not dis-
covered until further researches had been undertaken in re-
gard to the animal's breeding habits. It appears that the arm of
the male paper nautilus is extended during breeding time until
it looks like a long worm-like lash. This lash is charged with
the fertilizing spermatophores. When the male and female meet
they intertwine their tentacles in a medusa-like embrace, and
when they disengage from their fantastic lovemaking, the end
of the lash is deposited under the mantle of the female, where
it is held for a time, for the female is not yet ready to spawn.
When her eggs are eventually extruded, they are fertilized by
the waiting sperm. The broken arm is not completely lost, for
the male can grow another and still another.

The cephalopods are so delightfully versatile that they have
still other systems of reproducing. In some forms the hecto-
cotylized arm is not detached but is specially modified so that
it can develop and transfer spermatophores to the females'
mantle cavity near the oviduct. The spermatophore is itself the
most remarkable creation of all this complex mating. It is a
long tubular structure loaded with sperm, an apparatus for ex-
truding it, and most wonderful a cement gland for attaching
it to the female. It can be utilized at will; a thoughtful provision
considering that the female may then take her good time in de-
positing her eggs under favorable circumstances. In other
species the spermatophore is grasped by the male as it passes
from his mantle and is placed in her mantle cavity or to the
membrane around her mouth where the eggs are sometimes
fertilized.

304 I N A G U A

Some of the cephalopods show an amazing amount of mother-
love and parental care. The common octopus vulgaris has been
observed in aquaria guarding its eggs which were attached to
the stone walls. It fiercely resented any interference and kept
a constant circulation of water flowing, over them to insure
that no parasites would take hold and that proper oxygenation
would occur. The eggs were not even left long enough for the
mother to secure food even though the period of incubation
lasted for a considerable time. So intense was this guardianship
that another octopus in the same tank which ventured close too
frequently was set upon and slain. Mother-love in an octopus
seems a strange and outlandish emotion, but no doubt it is
actuated by the same flame that causes human parents to sacri-
fice their pleasures and desires that Junior, or his sister, for ex-
ample, might go to college.

Cephalopodian care of the egg is responsible for another of
the truly paradoxical things about these creatures. In the genus
Argonaut a the female carries about with her a beautifully coiled
and graceful shell. This seems a contradiction to an earlier
statement that the modern cephalopods are creatures which
have cast aside their shells. Actually the shell of the Argonauts
is not a true shell but is an egg case formed on the spiral shell
pattern, which is mechanically a very strong and structurally
efficient shape. The Argonaut is not bound to the shell in any
way, for it may leave it whenever it desires, which it has been
reported to do under certain conditions. No other mollusk is
so equipped. Imagine an oyster, for example, opening its valves
and stepping out for an airing! The shell is held in position by
two arms which are specially formed for the purpose. Only
the female possesses this protection, and she forms the shell,
not with the mantle as do all other mollusks, but with her two
modified arms with their expanded membranous disks. When
the Argonauts are first bom they have no shells and they do

IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 305

not begin its construction until they are a week or two old.
Unfortunately for the natural history of Aristotle, they do not
sail over the surface of the sea like miniature ships with the
arms held as sails as that ancient and inquiring naturalist so
quaintly believed, but creep and crawl along the bottom or
swim by means of their siphons like any other cephalopod.
While the eggs of the Argonauts are well protected and care-
fully mothered the adult has paid a reverse penalty for its ac-
quisition of a shell, even though that shell is not a true one. The
Argonauts have lost some of the intelligence and freedom of
other octopods, for they appear to be the most sluggish and
stupid of their class.

Inagua from above the sea gives no hint of the host of octo-
pods that must harbor in its reefs, or of the tiny frond-colored
squids that shelter in the growths of sargassum weed that float
ceaselessly by on the currents, or of the larger and more ap-
palling-looking decapods that move about in small groups in
the open water. Nor is there much indication even to the diver
of their presence. Unlike the reef fishes they are mostly noc-
turnal. During the bright hours they lie quiescent, curled up
in the crevasses of their coral homes or float suspended and
still, in the magic manner of underwater between top and bot-
tom, waiting patiently with staring round eyes for the sun to
drop and extend vague shadows over the blue depths. Then
they creep from their dens and go slithering over the coral
boulders or swim like living arrows through the green waters,
pouncing on their prey and doing whatever amazing things
fall to the lot of cephalopods.

Whenever I think of the great barrier reef of Inagua I think
always of two things; first, of the fairyland of the coral itself
and the pastel colors, and second, of the octopus of the drowned
ravine with its weird eye and rubbery body. More than any
other creature, the octopus is the spirit of the reef; unreal them-

3o6 I N A G U A

selves, completely fantastic, unbelievable, weird, they are fit-
ting residents of a world in which all the accepted routines
are nullified, in which animals play at being vegetables, where
worms are beautiful, where the trees are made of brittle stone,
where crabs pretend to be things they are not, where flowers
devour fishes, where fishes imitate sand and rocks and where
danger lurks in innocent color or harmless shape. That they
should, also, be inhabitants of the shadowy night places is the
final touch on their characters. The octopi fill a niche of crea-
tion claimed by no others and a niche which they occupy to
perfection.

CHAPTER XV

The Marvel of a Tide

All living, when looked upon in a large sense, is a tide. Ebb
and flow is one of the inevitable characteristics of existence.
The growths of nations and their declines, the boiling sweep
of conquests and their recessions, the rise and fall of cultures
are manifestations of the turn of tides in the affairs of men. The
Dark Ages and the Renaissance that followed were opposite
halves of a single flow of energy just as the devastation of the
hordes commanded by Chepe Noyon had its counterpart in
the brilliance of the court of Kublai Khan. Only time pours
ceaselessly in one direction; but even the march of the hours
leaves behind a trail of risings and fallings, of comings and go-
ings. The geologic eras bear bountiful evidence of the fluctua-
tions of existence. Great waves of life washed up on the shores
of eternity and fell back again; the extinct dinosaurs and am-
phibians, the fossils of armored fish and the bilhons of long
buried trilobites are proof of this. Even individual lives are only
tides in miniature; birth, growth and swelHng maturity, dechne
and dissolution are separate phases in this phenomenon.

I have often wondered if the ancient and very primitive re-
ligions which recognized the existence of Selene, the goddess
of the moon, did not have as their origin an instinctive recogni-
tion of the immense power of that satellite over the ceaseless
pulsing of the tide-controlled sea. The phases of the moon and
the correlation of the creeping of the waters into bays and
lagoons could hardly have escaped the attention of early man,
who was highly conscious of natural phenomena and who was
just becoming aware of a sense of power and articulation. The

307

3o8 I N A G U A

moon worships date far into the recesses of unrecorded history.
Many of the primitive peoples of today to whom the printed
page is an inexpHcable mystery have a keen appreciation of the
relationship of the tide to that orb and regulate their activities
accordingly.

The flowing of a tide to anyone familiar with the sea, and
with the least grain of perception, is an impelling and inspiring
event. The tides of time are discernible only from a distance,
but the surging and falling of a sea tide is a potent and tangible
happening. Perhaps the inexorable character of a tide is its
impressive quality, but I think the emotional response to the
occurrence goes deeper than that. The newly formed embryo
of a human being bearing its telltale marks of ancient gill
clefts harks back to the time when our ancestors, no matter
how far removed, strove and battled fin and tail with the tide.
If you have never leaned over a ship's rail and watched the
soft swirl and eddy of the tide-urged water flowing past a
rudder you cannot fully appreciate what I mean. If you have,
and were at all aware, you will know that the sight of a moving
tide is a stimulating experience.

Here at my typewriter, far from the flow of moving water,
the feel of a tide is a difficult emotion to catch and imprison on
a sheet of paper. If a tide boomed and crashed like the surf it
would not be so hard. But a tide is silent; it cannot be heard
except faintly when interrupted by a rudder or a ship's bow;
it cannot be smelled nor touched. A tide is best seen though it
is more readily sensed than visualized. Its very vastness makes
it difficult to grasp. In my mind's eye I see barren sand bars
lying idle in the sun with fiddler crabs moving about, or boats
lying on their bellies in the sand; I picture seaweeds traiHng
toward the mouth of a river or whirlpools eddying about a
buoy and I say "this is a tide." But it is not. These are only
small manifestations of a tide. A complete tide is a stupendous

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 309

awakening, a gargantuan breathing of the whole ocean, or a
monstrous wave running the circuit of the earth extending
from pole to pole. It is a swelling giant that sends millions of
creeping fingers into the hollows of the land, bringing life to
those hollows and as regularly withdrawing it again. A tide
is the pulsing bosom of our planet. The Norsemen grasped the
idea better than we when they believed it to be the breathing
of the earth-serpent, lormungander, a monster so enormous
that it encircled the globe and held its tail in its mouth to make
room for that appendage.

"Beneath the lashings of his tail
Seas, mountain high, swelled on the land."

It was a tide that wrecked me on Inagua when I thought all
danger from the ocean was past, and it was to the tide that I
turned for one of the most entertaining days I spent on that
island. Near Mathewtown, toward the south and in the direc-
tion of the opening of the Windward Passage, the coast of
Inagua makes a last turn before sweeping away in a long spit
toward the desolate frozen sand dunes of the weather side of
the island. At the last point of the turn the rock cliffs by the
settlement crumble away, and a little beyond, the interminable
arcs of the barrier reef take up their existence and fling away
toward the infinite horizon. Here the full force of the tide,
sweeping in twice a day from the wastes of the Atlantic Ocean
and from the turbulent deeps of the blue Caribbean, meets in
a boiling mass of currents and counter-currents. When all the
remainder of the coast was calm and smooth this point was
flecked with foam and with the peculiar lapping waves of
tide-rips. This was the final meeting place of east and west
where the debris and flotsam of two oceans mingled before
being swept into the blue depths or piled on the high white
beach which was already littered with the fragments of a hun-

310 I N A G U A

dred thousand sea tragedies.

The diving at this rendezvous of the seas promised to be good,
so I lugged the heavy helmet with its hose and line down to a
little shelf on the very edge of the breakers. Instead of diving
from a boat I decided to crawl from dry land to the depths on
foot, so that I might experience the full sensation of the transi-
tion from dry to wet and examine the structure of the cliff wall
and its life on the way. A small oblique opening in the sloping
rock made an easy entering wedge without making it necessary
to battle the full force of the surf. In addition, the opening was
well padded with algae on its upper slopes and was reasonably
free of the ubiquitous spiny sea urchins.

With a tremendous heave I hoisted the eighty-pound helmet
on my head and settled it on my shoulders. It was so top-heavy
that I staggered and nearly fell. The native boy that I hired
for the task, started the pump, and, like a drunken man, I felt
my way across the padded algae and stepped into the first
gradient of the slope. The foam whirled slightly about my
knees and then about my hips. In a second I had advanced to
my shoulders and the intolerable weight was suddenly lifted.
Once more I assumed control of my feet. I paused a moment
at eye height gazing at the strange sight of a world divided in
half and enjoying the unusual perspective of being exactly at
the level of the water. Most impressive was the definiteness of
the division; above was dry air and sunshine, all the familiar
sights, flowers and white clouds; below was a strange blue
cosmos of tumbled rocks, vague shadows and dancing bubbles.
The surface was as rigid a barrier for most life as if it had been
made of hard metal instead of the light-transmitting, yet
opaque, film that it appeared from beneath.

The amount of life that clung to the film itself was surpris-
ing. On the upper side it was dusted with yellow grains of
pollen drifted from the bushes on shore, and with down and

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 311

winged seeds that had floated too far on the trades. There
were also a few dead bugs, the frayed and broken wings of a
butterfly, and some beetle elytra, little else. For the land crea-
tures the top of the sea was death and failure. But a mere frac-
tion of an inch beneath, the reverse was true; the under film
was a marine maternity ward. For clinging to the burnished
ceiling was a host of just-created things: baby fishes scarcely a
quarter of an inch in length, transparent as glass and as helpless
as the current-swirled plankton; microscopic lacy crustaceans
aglow with jets of iridescent color; round globular pelagic eggs
with long filaments and dark specks of nuclei; small blobs of
pulsating jellies just released from their rock-dwelling, hy-
droidlike, animal-flower parents; and other myriads too small
to be identifiable to the naked eye but made apparent by the
rays of sunlight they caught and refracted. This final yard of
open sea before the beginning of dry land was a veritable
hatchery of sea-Hfe.

Swiftly I dropped into the wedge and entered the frothing
line of bubbles. These hurled about in all directions and I had
to seize a rock to keep from being smashed against the sheer
wall. The waves retreated and came plunging in again forcing
me to cling tightly, digging in toes and fingers like one of the
Grapsus crabs against the swirling retreat. Six times I crouched
against the onslaughts before there came a lull and I was able
to step lightly into space and float downwards to a ledge eight
or nine feet below. I had hardly landed when the seventh wave
came in and I had to fall on my knees to keep a firm hold. Once
more there came a period of quiet and again I jumped, pausing
momentarily on a round mound of meandrina before I gave
a final seven-league step and landed thirty feet below the sur-
face on the level white sand at the base of the cliff that was
the foundation of Inagua.

Catching my balance and my breath I looked about. Sea-

312 I N A G U A

ward a smooth plain of dazzling white sand leveled off into a
blue immensity, dipping slightly at the point where it went
out of vision. To the right the southwesternmost crags of the
island lay piled in gigantic fashion, torn loose in great blocks
by some heavy force. On the left a similar but smaller bluff
jutted out into the azure world. Like the first it was scarred
and pitted, festooned with a tremendous mass of living objects.
Long fronds of exceedingly lacy algae alternately drooped list-
lessly, then flung skyward as the advancing pulse of a wave
hit and rushed upward, deflected by the stone. Looking at
the combers from below I was interested to observe that it
was the wave form that moved, not the water itself; the great
bulk of blue liquid seemed to throb forward slightly but always
came back to its original station. I ascertained this by watching
some floating bumpers that hung close to the watery ceiling.
Only in the last few yards did the inverted wave-mounds fling
themselves in their entirety at the cliff. In the open the wave
shapes advanced ceaselessly; their power seemed to be trans-
mitted from particle to particle, but the particles remained in
their relative positions. Were this not so the destruction that
would be wreaked on the land would be so tremendous that
the islands and the continents would be quickly eaten away.

In order to take in the entire vista of the base of an island
resting on its bed of sand I moved forward towards the open
plain and stepped from the shelter of the twin bluffs. Instantly,
and unexpectedly, I was met by a blast of water that threw
me off my feet, rolling and twisting on my side over the smooth
sand bottom. A4y helmet filled with bitter salt water. I gasped
for breath and fought to stand erect. With a jerk I came to the
end of the light rope that I was trailing between my fingers,
then was startled to find myself yanked off my feet, and
streamed out on the end of the line like a rag in the breeze.
Fortunately my flight into open water brought me erect again

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 313

and with a final splash the liquid subsided in the helmet so that
I was able to catch my breath once more. The savage current
caught my lightly balanced body, swooped it in a great arc
nearly to the surface, swirled me towards the shore where it
slackened and let me drop again on the sand.

Then I became aware that beyond the shelter of the crags
a great assortment of objects was floating by at a dizzy rate. I
had noticed them before but they had made no impression. Be-
tween the cliffs the current was barely perceptible except as
a cool back eddy from the main stream. Once more I tried to
breast the flow but was thrust back as if by a heavy hand. There
was a solidity to the pressure that was unequaled by any other
flow of energy with which I have had experience. Wind in a
violent storm pushes and buffets one about, but water moving
at one-twentieth the speed of a gale of wind would level
everything in its path and tear up the ground besides.

The sand out in the swath of the tide was moving too. Close
to the bottom the grains were rolling and bumping, creating
small dust storms— a strange phenomenon under water— and
long curving ridges and valleys a foot or more in depth which
formed in endless parallel arcs at right angles to the course of
the water. On a larger scale they were precisely like the smaller
ripples seen on the mud bars when the tide is out. The whole
ocean bottom seemed on the move, as though it were alive and
were creeping towards an unknown destination.

Crouching in the shelter of the outermost boulder, I made
myself comfortable and sat down to contemplate this stupen-
dous event. For it was exactly that. All along the hundreds of
miles of coast all over the world this same action was takinor

o

place. Great rivers of liquid were surging past thousands of
headlands into bays, creeks, rivers, and lagoons, over shallow
bars and in the hollows of deep channels, rolling countless sand
grains and bringing oxygen, food, life and death to millions of

314 I N A G U A

swarming creatures. I remembered another tide I had watched
in the murky green waters of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.
In comparison to this Inaguan tide, it was a dull slow affair, but
before I was through witnessing it from the windows of a steel
cylinder hung from a barge anchored in the mouth of the
Patuxent River near Solomons Island, I was completely over-
whelmed at the mass of life it had brought past my small sphere
of vision. The Chesapeake at that time was full of ctenophores,
wraith-like comb-jellies belonging to the genus Mneiuiopsis.
The range of vision from the window of the cylinder was
limited because of the haze to about six square feet. With a
companion I began counting these organisms as they swirled
helplessly by on the rising current. For six long hours we
tabulated ctenophores and found that an average of 48 went
by every minute or over 23,000 for the entire period. Then by
computing the width of the river and the square surface of the
tidal flow in a line across the river at its narrowest point, we
reached the almost astronomical figure of 1,218,816,000 cteno-
phores! This did not consider any of the other forms of
life which abounded in the water. This was only one small
river, so unimportant that it does not even appear on a map of
the Eastern United States. When we realize that every inch
of this tide-impelled water all over the oceans from the poles
to the equator is swarming with similar billions of living things
we can only be silent with awe.

The Chesapeake tide, however, had none of the gigantic
sweep and force of this Inaguan occurrence. It was a small
scale flow, performed in a landlocked bay. This, of Inagua, was
a full-fledged deep sea current with the pressure of two im-
mense oceans forcing it on. While I watched, it increased in
intensity until even the backwaters of my quiet eddy began to
circle and tug at my bare flesh. The algae on the outer rocks
were all streamed in one direction, straining at their fastenings

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE

315

as though they would momently tear loose. There was none of
the gentle swaying and graceful undulations of the sea fans
that I had seen on the reef. The actions of the marine plants
and organisms gave the impression that a vast underwater
hurricane was brewing and that they would all be shorn away
into the blue abyss beyond. Some had been pulled from their
anchorages, for large heads of orange-colored algae went
swirling past and were lost in the haze. Clinging to one of them
was the curved, ringed torso of a spotted seahorse and the
saffron colored carapace of a small crab. They were battling
bravely to maintain their positions on the rotating fronds, but
they were probably going to a certain death. Sooner or later
the buoyant tissues would lose their freshness, become limp and
watersoaked, the particles of enclosed gas would escape and
the seahorse and crab would coast with the plant to the deep
sea bottom far off shore away from their accustomed habitat.
Somewhere down in the blackness they would be snatched up
by a hungry deep sea creature or would slowly deliquesce amid
the abyssal ooze and slime.

While the tide was disaster for the tiny cosmos of the orange
algae-head, it was the high road for the larger more vigorous
fishes which took full advantage of the current to carry them
on errands best known to themselves. A few fish attempted to
breast the tide but large numbers permitted themselves to be
carried on its strenuous course. How like people they were,
taking the path of least resistance, going full speed towards an
intangible goal, to be returned again when the tide changed.
In just this way human action follows the main stream of
thought, climbing on the fashionable bandwagons of a par-
ticular movement. Large numbers of big hogfish, gaudy fel-
lows splattered with reds and deep oranges went by in a steady
stream. Several times vast schools of blue-striped grunts, gleam-
ing with brilliant iridescence, obscured the sand, so closely

3i6 I N A G U A

packed and so numerous were they. These were followed by a
scattering of immense amber jacks which may have accounted
for the excessive hurry the grunts were in. Some very stout-
hearted fishes were breasting the current, but they were not
making a very good job of it. Most numerous of this rugged
group were the common and vividly colored spot snappers.
They moved along in a narrow file, or in congregations of
thirty or forty, close to the bottom, taking advantage of every
depression or place where the rush of water was moderated
even slightly. Their fins vibrated at high speed as they crept
along, gaining a few feet, holding their own for a space, then
inching forward again. What could have been so important to
cause all this expenditure of energy I could not guess, though
I rather suspect that the fishes themselves did not know. In
many respects they are like sheep and blindly follow the leader.
It is even questionable if the leader is fully conscious of its
activities, for if by some alarm or other interruption the direc-
tion of a schooling mass is changed, the leader relinquishes its
place and becomes the led, imitating the motions of the nearest
member of the school. There is much that is not understood
about the phenomenon of schooling in fish; it has been sug-
gested that the occurrence is a form of natural communism
organized by a scheming nature as a means of protection. It is
a simple task for a marauder to follow and seize a lone individ-
ual, but much more difficult to grasp that same individual when
it is one of a great mass of darting, scurrying forms. Numbers
mean confusion to the enemy, a sort of primitive and defensive
"united we stand, divided we fall." It is a curious fact, how-
ever, that very few of the big carnivores resort to gregarious
living; the greater number of fishes of this type are the preyed
upon. However, like all communisms, the individual is sacri-
ficed for the purposes of the mob, and we have the spectacle
of spot-snappers following their leader in a useless and energy-

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 317

spending task.

Not all of the upstream creatures, however, were as foolish
as the snappers. Some of these wiser ones were exceedingly
cunning in their method of attaining their end. These were
mostly small fishes, like the red, dark-eyed squirrel fish, and
the silvery burnished moonfish and lookdowns. They went
well out of their paths to avoid the current, circUng in the lee
of rocks, catching the back eddies, pushing through narrow
holes and crevices, pausing frequently to catch their breaths,
as it were. Of all these the lookdowns were the most amazing.
They were characterized by the constancy of their numbers.
Whereas the other fishes came singly, in vast schools or in
isolated groups of six or seven, the lookdowns always appeared
in twos. There is magic in numbers. Seven is a favorite numeral
in certain folklore, thirteen forebodes evil, and all good things
are supposed to come in threes. The number two will always
bring to mind the silvery bodies of these fish. When I first saw
these peculiar creatures during some diving in Florida, they
were swimming in pairs and I have seldom observed them
otherwise. Always two by two, side by side, moving as one
individual, they are an underwater Damon and Pythias. Their
duality is complete. If one dipped downwards, its companion
did likewise; when they turned they turned together; moving
or quiescent, what one did so did the other. I can think of no
logical explanation for this piscine twinning, for these fishes
are not known to pair off and build nests in the manner of some
fish.

Even in appearance the pairs were identical. They seemed to
have a sad expression, and their name was in keeping with their
faces. The forehead sloped steeply downwards and they looked
as though they were continually searching for some treasure
lost on the bottom. From the tips of their backs long lacy fila-
ments went trailing off in graceful arcs. Not the least remark-

3i8 I N A G U A

able characteristic of these fishes was their thinness. When
swimming directly toward or away from one, all that was visi-
ble was a narrow line extending in a vertical direction. It was
fascinating to watch the thin line suddenly form into a broad
oval and then as quickly fade as the fishes wheeled and turned.
A sort of now-you-see-me and now-you-don't.

Although the tide was whirling a vast horde of larvae fish
and transparent spawn towards the outer wastes of the open
ocean, it was also bringing a bounty to the many fishermen
crouched on the rocks. Not human fishermen these, but an
array of fantastic creatures of considerable variety. They were
armed with an astonishing assortment of hooks, entangling
snares, poisoned arrows and cleverly designed nets. Among
the netmen were those most enchanting, highly successful and
amazing creatures, the barnacles. Superficially, nothing is more
stupid than a barnacle. Yet these doughty animals are clever
enough to maintain themselves all over the world, from the
frigid Arctic to the equally frozen Antarctic. There is almost
no place in the sea where one cannot expect to find them at
their interminable net casting. They think nothing of taking
a world voyage on the bottom of some dirty tramp, or to go
frolicking off on the hide of a whale. Certain species of whale
barnacles are so fastidious that they will most often reside on
the whale's lips and the front edge of its flippers, while others
are said to prefer the throat and belly to the exclusion of the
rest of the animal. Still other species are known to take to the
air on the persons of flyingfish, and not the least unusual are
certain forms that attach themselves to the umbrellas of large
dead jellyfish.

As seen from underwater barnacles are creations of con-
siderable beauty, not from their color, for they are always drab,
but from the exceedingly graceful and lacy form of their fish-
nets. These nets, which are really legs which have been trans-

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 319

formed by the mechanics of need into living seines, must be
seen to be appreciated. A barnacle's legs— even though these
appendages resemble feathers more than they do legs— are as
important to a barnacle as hands to a person, fins to a fish, or
vikings to a bird. Although walking is unthought of, their entire
existence is dependent on their limbs; their breathing is possible
because these organs circulate the water necessary for the
separation of oxygen; and the status of the barnacle's stomach
is directly in ratio to the functioning of the legs. A barnacle
lives because it kicks.

Contrary to popular belief, a barnacle is not a shell fish, al-
though it spends almost its entire life period tightly encased in
a shell. Instead it owes allegiance to the great Class Crustacea,
and in its family tree are the lobsters, the shrimps, and our other
friend of the epicures, the edible crab. The name of its sub-
class is the Cirripedia, which means, literally, the "feathery-
footed."

Biologists, not being above error, for a long time considered
the barnacles as aberrant relatives of the mollusks, and it was
not until some thoughtful soul undertook to study the early
stages of this creature that the truth became apparent. It was
discovered that, after hatching, the young barnacle was so un-
like the adult that it seemed impossible that the two could be
parent and progeny. The infant had no shell at all; it swam and
it looked like nothing on earth quite so much as an outlandish
mosquito. It was studded with hairs and bristles, with spikes
and long trailing appendages. But it obviously was a crusta-
cean, for it was segmented and resembled the young of cer-
tain other crustaceans. In time the microscopic monstrosity
molted, then again and again,- altering its shape until oddly
enough it grew a small shell on each side of its changed anat-
omy. At this period of its development it wandered about seek-
ing a place to settle down to begin housekeeping as a full-

320 I N A G U A

fledged, calcium-enclosed barnacle. When, by instinct or simple
chance, it discovered a proper locality it turned on its back,
firmly cemented itself in place, surrounded itself with a house
and began kicking— an activity that it continued to the final
chapter. And its legs— which in any other crustacean would
have become claws, paddles for swimming, or hooks for grasp-
ing—spread out, fringe apart and wound up looking like so many
feathers.

I worked my way out to the boulder where there was a con-
siderable colony of barnacles and watched them snaring the
manna brought on the tide. They looked like so many active
volcanoes, with puffs of light brown smoke beginning to issue
from the tips of the cones only to be suddenly snatched in
again, as though the eruption had gone inexphcably in reverse.
Peering closer I could see that the momentary puffs of smoke
were really the interlacings of the feet which were extruded
and then quickly withdrawn fully expanded and curved in-
ward to prevent the escape of any life that they had snared.
The excess water escaped between the interstices of the
fibers.

With my fingers I touched one of the delicate cirri, as the
feathers are properly termed. With a snap it was retracted and
the entrance barred with two plates of solid ivory. These plates
fit so closely that they are airtight and watertight, sealing the
barnacle in its shell until it once again desires to open. Thus
barnacles can survive low tides when they are helplessly re-
moved from their native element. Crashing surf, preying ene-
mies are all the same to the barnacle. I have often thought that
barnacles have their advantages. How nice it would be if we
could escape undesirable situations, tax collectors and such,
by merely closing our doors and going to sleep!

By this time the chill of moving water began to penetrate
every fiber of my being. Some of the current seemed to be

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 321

welling up from the depths for it carried bands of warm and
cold. As the tide increased the cold became more pronounced
until I was shivering. So I called a recess for a half hour.

When I again dropped below a great change had taken place.
The current had become so violent that I had difficulty in
keeping my position, even in the shelter of the boulders. Prac-
tically all the fish had disappeared. Those that were still about
were swimming close to the rocks or were snuggled down in
depressions where they were slowly undulating their tails.
Great numbers had retreated into crevices and fissures in the
clifi^ where they hung motionless. No big fish were in sight,
except a half dozen large blue parrotfish that were bunched
together in the shadow of a crag. The water had become a
veritable avalanche and its speed was so great that even the fish
did not consider it prudent to fight against it but took refuge
in a philosophical retreat.

I did not descend again until just a few minutes before the
tide began to change. The water which had flowed so swiftly
before was barely moving. It was nearing the full flood. The
aqueous dust storms had all subsided and the limit of visibility
had extended thirty feet or more. Only the long curving rows
of sand ripples remained to remind one of the deluge. I could
stand without danger of being swept away.

In ten minutes all motion ceased and a perfect calm settled
over everything, except at the surface where the waves still
rolled over the rocks. The greatest change, however, was in
the fishes. They no longer hung hidden in deep holes or lay
quiescent in hollows on the bottom. The grunts were back
again from their indefinite errands, though the amber-jacks
that pursued them did not returji. Most of the fish were busily
feeding. A number of brilliant triggerfish had mysteriously
appeared from nowhere and were ghding from place to place
munching on small tidbits which they scraped from the algae-

322 I N A G U A

adorned rocks. Their strange dorsal spines, I noted, were
folded well out of the way, and were raised only occasionally.
These spines, which comprise the first dorsal fin, are con-
structed in a most ingenious manner. At their bases is a com-
plicated locking device, so cleverly arranged that when the
first spine is erected it cannot be lowered from without until
the third is depressed. When this is done the entire fin auto-
matically folds down with it. I watched them carefully for
a long time hoping to catch some hint of the reason for this
strange contrivance. It is considered as a protection against
enemies, though this theory does not account for the unlock-
ing action of the third spine. Unless this is first lowered, how-
ever, when pressure is applied the other spines will usually
break before they give.

Between the triggerfish were swarming large numbers of
porkfish, handsome striped creatures, gleaming with iridescent
color. Like the triggers they were feeding off the algae, but
their method and food was quite different. The triggerfish
were scraping low lying mosses; the porkfish confined their
activities to the larger, more rounded heads of vegetation
where they seemed to search carefully, probing between the
fronds, snatching up the small crustaceans, worms and other
invertebrates that made the algae their homes.

With a five-pointed spear that I took down with me I tried
to add one of these porkfish to my collection. I missed it com-
pletely but on a second try snared one through the top of the
back. Before I could grasp it to place it in the mesh bag I car-
ried tucked in my belt for the purpose it had twisted loose,
and squirming in pain it floated lopsidedly past the cliff wall.
Before it had drifted very far there was a rush of fins and it
was seized by a rock hind, a large mottled fish covered with
reddish spots which, unnoticed by me, had been lurking in a
wide crevice. The hind returned to its shelter carrying its vie-

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 323

tim with it and I went to try for another porkfish. To my sur-
prise they would not permit me to approach. Previously they
had swum freely about my legs, but now they kept their dis-
tance. Before I had been considered some strange new kind
of fish; I was now regarded as a potential enemy. I have ob-
served similar behavior among the snappers.

Most fish, however, are quite unconcerned about the death
of their neighbors. Tragedy may strike within a few inches and
they will continue feeding or idling or whatever their activity
might be, as though nothing had happened. The next fish that
I tried to spear exhibited a most surprising reaction. The barbed
point scraped along its side, removed several scales and retained
a small speck of flesh on the point. The victim, which was a
yellow grunt with a flaming scarlet mouth, darted away, then
turned, snatched up the floating scales and bit at the flesh on the
point of the spear. Even when I jabbed at it again it did not
flee but glided to one side and nosed the blades which had be-
come buried in the sand! I marveled at the contrast between
the two species; one perfectly sure of itself and the other timid
and untrusting once danger had been proved.

Spearing fish is not as easy as it might seem. Although most,
fishes appear utterly relaxed, they are ever on the alert for
anything that moves with directness. I have jabbed a spear into
a school of fish, so densely packed that to miss seemed im-
possible, only to find that my barbs did not touch a scale. Yet
the school, itself, moved scarcely at all. Usually there is a local-
ized flurry which lasts for a brief moment and subsides.

After my failure at snaring the grunt my attention was
attracted to a pair of small dull-colored fish which were cavort-
ing between two sponge covered masses of dead coral. They
were blennies of the same type that I had found at Lantern
Head. They were the most unfish-like creatures I have ever
seen. They skittered about the rocks assuming the most unusual

324 I N A G U A

attitudes. Heads up, then down, vertically or horizontally,
they slithered in and out between the algae like restless insects.
In a moment they gave a most remarkable performance. They
had climbed down— they seemed to walk rather than swim,
so closely did they stick to the moss— to the sand at the base
of a boulder. Here they faced each other with only an inch
or two of space between. For a second they remained motion-
less, then began a strange little hopping dance, using their
pectorals as stilts. Round and round they went in a circle with
their mouths as the axis. Occasionally they halted as though
attempting to stare each other down.

Their mouths, which up to this point had been tightly closed
began chattering as if in conversation. Once again the hopping
and skipping began and continued for some time. When they
again stopped, instead of chattering, they protruded their
mouths until they touched. It was a perfect kiss! No such ama-
tory caress was intended, however, for, shortly after, the blen-
nies touched lips once more, established a firm contact and
began shoving. The kiss was really a trial of strength, and
apparently was their method of establishing ownership over a
certain territory, for after quite a bit of pushing one of the
blennies suddenly turned and fled, leaving the victor trium-
phantly poised over its tiny kingdom of a square yard of sand
and an equal amount of coral encrusted rock. This seemed a
very safe and sane way of settling the question of ownership
without resort to bloodshed.

The instinct of curiosity, I am certain, is very highly de-
veloped in certain fishes. Sharks possess it in a great degree and
so do the gurnards and sea-robins. This victorious blennie was
the most inquisitive fish I have ever encountered. When I sat
down in the sand close to its domain it come over and very
carefully inspected each of my fingers outspread in the loose
soil, tiptoeing delicately from one finger nail to the other. It

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 325

nudged each very gently and then proceeded to crawl over
my foot where it examined minutely an old scar inflicted by
the sharp edge of an oyster shell years before.

Life in this tide-swept land clung almost exclusively to the
rocks. The outer sand with its curving ridges was too com-
pletely unstable to house any permanent organisms. It was a
watery no-man's land, a barren sheet of white against a back-
ground of blue. However, in the temporary quiet of the full
flood, a number of fishes were deserting the rocks and making
short excursions into the open. With the exception of the
larger and more able types, few strayed any great distance.
The sergeant-majors, blueheads, and the demoiselles were re-
stricted to within eight or ten feet. Within this range they
seemed very confident, frequently passing within easy reach
of much larger forms. They knew that with a twist of a fin
they could dart into the safety of a crevice. The only small
forms that strayed with impunity into the open sand were the
trunkfish, which no doubt felt secure behind their solid casings
of jointed armor, and the porcupine fish, which are the nearest
things to a living pincushion except the sedentary sea urchins.
These were utterly without fear, and little wonder, for even
to touch one would be to invite a painful puncture.

The open water was also inhabited by a small group of swell-
fishes, drab prickly fellows with gullets capable of tremendous
extension when they are alarmed. These fish are supposed to
be very stupid, yet in the Chesapeake Bay I have observed close
relatives of the West Indian forms attacking large blue crabs
in mass and biting with their sharp teeth through the crabs'
hard shells, a task that would be exceedingly dangerous if at-
tempted singly. No creature that is capable of such organized
action can be considered stupid.

Most of the fish that patrolled the outer waters were large
carnivores that swept ceaselessly back and forth waiting for

326 I N A G U A

some rock-dweller to venture too far. They were not very
numerous, but most were capable of great speed. Among this
group were a comet-fish about three feet long, not including
the long filament attached to the end of its tail, an equally
long trumpet fish which chased a tiny butterfly fish into the
shelter of a crag, and the long sHm torso of a barracuda.

For a half hour the water at the base of the submarine cliff
remained quiet and motionless. The fishes ghded about, mov-
ing and turning in an easy effortless way. Then faintly, imper-
ceptibly, the tide began to swing. At first I did not notice it, so
gently did it start. But soon I became aware that the algae no
longer drooped listlessly. They began to point their delicate
fronds in the direction of the distant and invisible island of
Mariguana. I noticed that the sea fans on the rocks were bend-
ing too, and that, unlike the sea fans on the great reef, they
were all aligned at right angles to the shore instead of parallel
to it. Here the tide, not the surf, was the dominating force.
Out on the sand the long ripples began to reform, reversing
the position of their slopes, gradual on the upstream side, steep
on the lee. The parrots, demoiselles, and other rock feeding
species began to drift over to the sheltered side of the boulders
where they temporarily resumed their interrupted feeding.
The easy relaxation of the past half hour began to disappear.
The underwater gale was approaching, and in preparation the
fishes and even some of the invertebrates, including a half
dozen wandering hermit crabs, began to vanish into little holes
or fissures where they drifted into that wide-awake yet appar-
ently restful sleep of the creatures without eyeUds. The trunk-
fish and swellfish came out of the sand to settle down on a
smooth spot where the swellfish buried themselves until little
more than their eyes were showing. I could not help but won-
der what sort of perilous life the creatures of this outermost
point must lead, forever hedged in by marauding, patrolling

THE MARVEL OF A TIDE 327

enemies, limited above by the boiling surf, and twice daily
forced to battle, or sustain, an almost irresistible deluge of
flooding water. I was reminded of the people of Flanders, or
of Alsace, who are periodically overwhelmed by floods of
conquest or counter conquest, who bravely or hopefully con-
tinue living there, building new homes to replace those de-
stroyed by shells or gutted by flames, and who after a time see
them destroyed once more and are faced with the necessity of
doing it all over again. Yet the comparison is not a completely
true one, for a sea-tide is a river of life, not of death, a manifes-
tation of nature which is a normal state of affairs for millions of
creatures all over the world.

It was fitting that, as I returned to the dry earth again to
avoid the rush of water rapidly welUng to its climax, the last
creatures I saw before my helmet broke the surface were the
Aurelias, the moon- jellies. They were the first and only moon-
jellies that I saw near Inagua. Their appearance at this oppor-
tune moment was significant. More than any other living crea-
tures could have done, they expressed in their filmy iridescent
tissues the symbolism of a flowing tide. There were six of them
slowly drifting with slight pulsations of their hemispherical,
umbrellas on the bosom of the current towards the open sea.
Pale and glowing they resembled the moon after which they
are named; in a translucent shining galaxy they floated aim-
lessly off into watery space. Like the currents of the ocean they
were giving themselves completely and passively to the pull
of the invisible moon; the responsive tide was their life, their
complete world and their means of conveyance.

CHAPTER XVI

The Incredible Sharks

Sharks are beautiful in much the same sense that tigers or dive
bombers are beautiful. They may be savage, cruel, blood-
thirsty and sadistic beasts, or like the bombers, precise engines
of destruction, but the fact remains that a free, ocean-living
shark is perfection of line, the ultimate of grace. Streamlining
is not new; it is only a modern application of an art developed
by the sharks long ages before man was ever dreamed of, let
alone created. There are, of course, a few sharks that have
strayed from the elegant symmetry of their race. The hammer-
heads and the bonnet-sharks are among these variants, but, by
and large, the family of sharks has upheld the first rule of its
form— harmonious proportion.

A shark strung up on a fishing line or lying dead on the deck
of a ship is not lovely. Like any other dead thing it is so much
twisted flesh and crumpled tissue. Only life endows them
with their most conspicuous characteristic. I have questioned
numerous individuals about sharks, fishermen and naturalists,
and find that very few seem to recognize the fact of their grace.
Perhaps this is because only a mere handful of people have
seen sharks in their natural environment, and on the same foot-
ing. With even these, some of them, the legendary fear, the
accumulated distrust augmented by a large literature of shark
stories has made it difficult to recognize beauty. Similarly,
only one person in ten thousand can see beauty in a serpent
although it unquestionably exists. Also the man who is about
to have explosives dropped on his head by a Stuka is hardly
in a position or mood to think of the airplane's design. Only

328

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 329

when fear and distrust are divorced from the mind is it pos-
sible to think of sharks or of serpents or Stukas objectively.
I reiterate; sharks from the viewpoint of architecture are
among the earth's most carefully designed animals.

I do not propose to enter the interminable discussion as to
whether sharks do or do not attack human beings. There seems
to be good evidence for both arguments. There are a few au-
thentic cases of attack; many hundreds of records which are
neither authentic nor accurate and a large number that are
definite fictions. Many of the instances of attack credited to
sharks are really to be attributed to barracuda, about which
there is no question of their ferocity and savagery. Most sharks
are entirely harmless, including several of the largest species.
True man-eaters are rare.

I once held to the common thesis that all sharks are to be
avoided and are objects of repugnance. My metamorphosis
into an Elasmobranchophile began at Sheep Cay where, be-
cause of my ignorance, I was thrown into such a panic, and
blossomed into genuine interest with the adventure of the tiger
shark at the barrier reef. Do not misunderstand me; I am not
of that strange genus of humans who has any desire to hobnob
with sharks nor tackle them with a knife, as did one individual
for the sake of making a motion picture; nor do I tempt fate
by hitting them on their tender snouts to shoo them away as
another writer claims to have done. Rather, I have a deep re-
spect for all sharks. I prefer in my underwater excursions to
efface myself as much as it is possible in a metal helmet gurgling
with a stream of bubbles, and to sit quietly back in the inter-
stices of some well-protected coral where undisturbed and
more or less unseen, I can watch the activity about me.

Sharks about Inagua do not swarm so I cannot truthfully tell
any tale of being surrounded and hemmed in by schools of
these animals. On the contrary most sharks are distinctly soli-

330 1 N A G U A

tary, although some types do move in large groups. It was
seldom that I saw more than two individuals at a time, though
once I saw five moving leisurely along the face of the reef.
When I think of the Inaguan sharks I think of most of them as
associated with some definite place. The tiger shark patrolled
the reef face where I first went down; week after week it could
be found in that neighborhood. The sandy area just beyond
the surf north of Mathewtown was the feeding ground of a
pair of nurse sharks. An isolated patch of brain coral that grew
all by itself midway between the shore and the place, a quarter
mile out, where the bottom dropped away to the great depths,
not far from the location of my old house, was the hub of ex-
istence for a six-foot ground shark which seemed to go on
numerous trips but which always returned to its coral castle
to rest or to swim idly about, weaving its tail in graceful, slow
undulations. There were also a few species that were imper-
manent, true drifters and wanderers. These made their appear-
ance and immediately disappeared or hovered around for a
day or two at most before taking off into the misty distances.
Chief among these wanderers was a large blue shark, and it
was this particular individual that first brought to my attention
the fact that sharks are undeniably beautiful. It appeared on a
day when an unaccountable shift of the current brought large
masses of sargassum weed drifting in from the direction of
Cuba just below the horizon. On this particular day I did not
have sharks on my mind at all but went diving for the sole
purpose of examining some of the floating gulf-weed from
underneath, hoping to see some of the famed sargassum animals
chnging to the bright yellow fronds. I was hanging hghtly
suspended from my life line just a foot or so beneath the sur-
face watching the drifting masses go by. An unusually large
clump came within reach and I wedged it between the keel
of my boat and the line hoping thus to keep it there while 1

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 331

examined it frond by frond. Like so many sargassum patches,
this clump contained none of the fantastic sea horses or yellow
crabs which frequently make it their home. Disappointed, I
released it and turned to wait for the next mass.

As I turned I saw floating about twenty feet away the sleek
torso of a blue shark. It was approximately eight or nine feet
long, fully adult, and it was watching me, not moving a muscle.
My first reaction was the usual one; I was a little startled. But
this was followed by a second and opposite sensation. This
shark was the most exquisite and rhythmically formed animal
of its size I had ever seen. It was a symphony in blue. From the
tip of its smoothly rounded dorsal fin to the curve of its pure
white belly it was deep radiant blue, an indefinable shade that
was neither azure nor indigo; Gulf Stream blue is the closest
comparison of which I can think. The rays of the sun break-
ing through the top of the water caused the rounded skin to
glow with an unearthly Hght, a phenomenon seen only under-
water. The belly also carried a delicate sheen, at times pale yel-
low, at others pink and even light mauve, which ran in evanes-
cent waves over the tissue, glowing and fading, sweeping in
soft bands across the white. This creature blended perfectly
with the sphere in which it lived; it was a blue shadow in a blue
world.

Its color was only one feature of its beauty; grace was its
crowning accomplishment. The fish hung motionless for per-
haps sixty seconds and then flowed into action. There is no
other way of describing it. It did not merely move; it flowed
from its pointed nose to the tip of its attenuated tail. Progres-
sion was effected by an inexpressible curvature of the caudal
portion of the body, a long arc that swept to a perihelion,
paused for an infinitesimal fraction of a second and then ele-
gantly curved in the opposite direction. The motion was very
gentle and the shark pulsed ahead until it was almost out of

332 I N A G U A

sight, banked in a long sweeping loop, twisting its whole body
as it did so, and then passed in front of me within fifteen feet.
As it went by I could see that the pulsing of its muscles, easily
visible, kept perfect time with the action of the fins. It was
delicately balanced. Once when it decided to veer slightly
to the left it merely altered the position of its long pectorals a
bare inch or two, bent the tail a little further and with hardly
an effort went sliding off in that direction.

Once again it swam nearly out of vision, turned and was
swimmingr back when something alarmed it. I am not certain
what, perhaps a noise in the boat above, something it sensed,
or possibly it simply got an idea in its head. Unexpectedly it
put all its energy into motion and with tail lashing out with
tremendous power it shot by at incredible speed and hurtled
into obscurity. From a series of lazily curling arcs it became
in an instant an engine designed for speed, in a medium where
speed is acquired only by excellence of form and by perfect
co-ordination of nerve and muscle.

It is little wonder that the sharks have succeeded in attaining
underwater perfection, for they have had longer to do it than
any other fishes. Sharks go back to the very beginning of things.
The fossils of their ancestors may be found among the rocks
of the Paleozoic. It seems a far cry from a flyingfish with its
long multi-rayed pectorals or a scarlet parrotfish munching on
reef vegetation to a carnivorous shark, yet there is evidence
that all our modern fishes are derived from a shark-like an-
cestor.

Sharks, more than any other fish in the sea, fill me with a
sense of awe. When one considers that thev have maintained
themselves, almost unchanged, down through the misty flights
of the ages, undiminished and as vigorous as ever, one must
give them respect, if only grudgingly. Four hundred million
years is no mean record for any group of creatures. When one

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 333

contemplates the fact that they were pursuing their prey and
engaging in the activities of their kind when the soUd earth was
nothing but an empty space of sUmy mud or dusty desert,
where nothing moved or stirred and where no voice broke the
stillness, that respect must be tinged with wonder.

Eventually, when the land did become carpeted with vege-
tation, when the amphibians had their grotesque hour and then
disappeared, to be followed by the still more weird reptiles—
by the gigantic dinosaurs, the ichthyosaurs and the pterodac-
tyls—when the ocean was the abiding place of the ferocious
mosasaurs, which descended from the land into the sea, the
sharks maintained themselves as they had from time immem-
orial. When the reptiles were gone in their turn, and when the
dawn of the age of mammals broke upon the face of the earth
just as it is now in our time rapidly coming to a swift and un-
fortunate close these persistent sharks blossomed into a numeri-
cal abundance which must have been amazing, if we could
only have been there to witness it.

My earliest memories of fossil hunts bring recollections of
finding myriads of shark teeth. At the base of the famous blue
cHffs of the Miocene in Maryland along the shore of the Chesa-
peake Bay I have in a single day picked out of the sand and
clay a thousand shark teeth from a strip of cKff and beach
several hundred yards long! Sharks must have swarmed in
legions to have left so many teeth in one spot. These ranged
in size from tiny points a quarter inch in length to large tri-
angles five inches from apex to root. It has been estimated that
these latter teeth must have been borne by animals ranging
from a hundred to a hundred and twenty feet long, the largest
living organisms of all time? A man could have easily sat
in the open mouth of one of these monsters. They apparently
persisted into comparatively recent times for hundreds of simi-
lar teeth have been dredged from the ocean bottom. We have

^^4 I N A G U A

no indication of what force, or series of circumstances, drove
these greatest of all beings from the face of the earth. Perhaps
by their very ferocity they may have devoured everything
within their geographical range and then eliminated them-
selves by cannibalism. Perhaps some unknown elasmobranchian
disease may have vanquished them. Some smaller and equally
hungry creature may have destroyed their young or they may
have become too specialized in some manner to breed with
facility. We do not know.

Perhaps one of the reasons the sharks have persisted so long
is because of their simplicity. Some of the most efficient ma-
chines are the least complex. The sharks in their truly in-
credible style have managed to remain quite primitive, yet re-
markably facile. Many of the animals with which they started
their history became exceedingly intricate, exceedingly special-
ized—and also exceedingly extinct. The early sharks, which
were the starting point for a very diverse group of fishes, in-
cluding practically all modern forms, provided the basic archi-
tecture on which these later creatures were patterned. The
sharks, too, have evolved but they have been very conserva-
tive about it. One is reminded of the architecture of the Greeks.
It has been the inspiration of much that has followed, yet few
modern structures are as exquisite as the Parthenon with its
essential simplicity. This is why the sharks are still found
wherever there is sufficient sea water to hold them. From the
sunlit surface to the blue-blackness of a thousand fathoms and
from the berg encrusted arctic to the tropics, sharks thrive and
thrive efficiently.

Sharks to land dwellers seem rather nebulous, yet not an
hour's travel from the Atlantic Coast in the vicinity of New
York and Philadelphia, there are legions of them. Once, in the
winter, I spent a week on a trawler operating out of Norfolk,
Virginia. The trawler was out after porgies and similar food

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 335

fishes for New York consumption. The trawl nets were dragged
for a full week over a stretch of several hundred miles. Every
half hour the drag was lifted and emptied of its contents. It
took seven days to secure enough edible fish for a skimpy boat-
load to port. Nearly every time the trawl was lifted, it was
bulo^incr with sharks, hundreds to the haul. We waded in shark
bodies up to our knees. The fishermen beat them, clubbed them,
slit them with razors until the decks ran with blood, trying to
destroy them and cursing them, for each haul meant lost
money. It was a futile proceeding, for the next net, like the
first and the next and next was packed with sharks. For seven
days we skipped over the ocean hoping to outrun them, nor
did they begin to thin out until we reached the vicinity of Cape
Hatteras far to the south. The ocean floor must have been
literally carpeted with their undulating bodies.

Most animals eat to live. Sharks live to eat. It is their constant
insatiable hunger that has brought them so unfavorably to
attention. I frequently watched the nurse sharks on their sand
bar. From the shore they appeared to spend their time merely
ghding about, restlessly pacing back and forth between the
beach and the depths. Hour after hour they continued their
peregrinations, dark shadows against the gleaming bottom.
They even came in to the last few yards of surf in search of
carrion and crustaceans. Here their fins and broad lobed tails
could frequently be seen cutting the surface. But they never
hurried, except when I occasionally frightened them by throw-
ing conchs at their bodies when they came too close to shore.
Then they exerted themselves to the utmost to be away and
splashed out of the shallows with lightning speed. Usually
their progress was a series of interminable weavings from side
to side, economy of energy their characteristic.

From the helmet they were beautiful to watch. They prowled
close to the bottom skimming just above the sand. Their color-

336 I N A G U A

ation was rather light so that against the sand bottom they were
very inconspicuous. At times their shadows were more visible
than the owners. Most interesting was their ability to stop
instantly in their flight. I never quite discovered how it was
managed. Their pectorals were spread apart as checks or brakes
but not to the extent it seemed necessary to halt a hundred
pounds of gliding fish. They could also make a complete re-
versal within their own length, though I only saw this done
once. Usually they banked steeply, rolling slightly to one side
and then came about in a long graceful sweep.

By way of entertainment I gathered a group of prickly sea
urchins from some rocks near shore and carried them under me
along with a five-pronged spear. With this instrument I crushed
several and rolled them along the bottom. Then I retired twenty
or thirty feet away. For a long time I waited. Nothing hap-
pened except that in the meantime a group of small fish began
tearing at the broken urchins and soon had them all eaten up.
I gathered some more which I beat into an oozy pulp with a
rock. This time I had better luck although hardly ten seconds
had elapsed before the bait was surrounded by a dense cloud of
fish. There was no shooing them away so I withdrew, hoping
against hope that my bait would last until the nurses got the
scent. They did. A few seconds later I saw their shapes devolv-
ing out of the blue sunlit haze. They were no longer moving
leisurely but were sweeping along at considerable speed al-
though they did not give the impression of being in a rush.
One approached directly head on and I was interested to ob-
serve that it did not move in a straight line but was weaving
from side to side. Apparently its sense of direction was dictated
by the use of alternate nostrils. When it received the strongest
stimulation on one side it swung in an arc until the other was
affected. As soon as it saw the bait the weaving ceased. With a
rush it swept up with its companion, glided over the urchins,

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 337

scattering the snapping iishlets which fled a short distance and
hovered, hoping to catch some of the crumbs.

Both sharks carried remoras, which is a contradiction to the
behef that these pecuhar parasites are not to be found when
two or more sharks swim together. These dropped off before
their hosts had time to turn and busily dug their noses into
the urchins. They had only a brief second, however, before
the nurses were back. The sharks immediately snatched up the
bait, giving it several hard shakes before gulping it down. The
spines of the urchins did not seem to bother them for they
devoured the pieces, spines and all.

The remoras glided busily about in front of the nurses'
mouths, snatching at small fragments that they dropped, but
keeping alertly just out of reach. When the bait was all gone
except for a few crumbs, the nurses appeared tremendously
excited, twisting and weaving about the place where the bait
had been. Not finding any more they began circling and then
approached me, possibly attracted by the urchin scent on my
hands. They made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, but
fortified by the knowledge that they were harmless. I stood my
ground. The shadow of the boat seemed to cause them some
disquiet for they avoided it scrupulously. Twice they went
around, whirling in opposite directions, ogling me with their
tiny eyes but not venturing closer than about twelve feet. I
remained perfectly motionless, fascinated by their grace. Their
appearance was only marred by their barbels, a peculiarity of
the nurse sharks, one on each side of the mouth, which gave
them a slightly sneering and disdainful expression. At the be-
ginning of the third turn around I decided I had had enough of
their attentions and suddenly raised my arm, hoping they
wouldn't get an idea to eat it. With two mighty surges they
turned in their tracks and went bursting away into the haze.
As they went I could feel the rush of water from their caudal

338 I N A G U A

fins and its force was sufficient to stir up the sand at my feet in
little clouds of silt.

Quite unexpectedly, the remoras, which were still restlessly
searching among the urchin crumbs, did not follow but per-
sisted in their quest. They remained around for perhaps five
minutes longer and then, one after the other, melted into the
azure distance. They neither followed the paths of the nurses
nor seemed to be aware of what direction they had gone.

At first examination there is not much relation between
beefsteak and sharks. Yet I am certain that but for sharks our
interest in beefsteak would be very casual. For as far as we
know sharks invented teeth, and without teeth our beefsteak
potentialities would be limited to gulping and hasty swallow-
ing, assuming that we would even be eating this dehcacy. In
fact, a shark may be truthfully and literally described as being
an animal which is covered from one end to the other with
teeth; skin teeth to be exact, or as they are more properly termed
*'dermal denticles."

The hide of a shark, which appears so smooth and velvety,
is not soft at all but tough and rasping with a touch like a file.
I know one old-fashioned cabinetmaker who so preferred his
well-worn piece of shark-skin for certain finishes that he would
use it in preference to sandpaper. Shark-skin was a common
polishing agent long before sandpaper was conceived. This
roughness is caused by the presence of hundreds of thousands
of miniature "teeth" which protrude through the skin. These
teeth, which en masse are known as shagreen, are true teeth in
that their structure exactly resembles that of the dentition of
all animals above the grade of the sharks. Like true teeth these
skin teeth contain a "pulp" with blood vessels, nerves and con-
nective tissue, dentine which is that ivory-like substance char-
acteristic of all teeth, and finally on the outside a layer of hard
enamel. Happily, sharks are not subject to toothache.

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 339

It is these skin denticles which give us the clue as to the
method by which chewing, grinding and cutting teeth were
evolved. The gradual transition from skin denticles to actual
teeth is readily observed in the embryos of certain sharks,
where, if one follows with a glass the curve of the mouth from
exterior to interior, the denticles become more and more al-
tered, larger, and finally perfect and functional teeth. The
peculiar teeth on the swords of sawfish, which are close rel-
atives of the sharks, are derived similarly from the skin. These
teeth are greatly enlarged skin denticles which have grown in
alternate positions on the blade of the sword. The teeth in the
mouth of a shark are frequently laid in series, row after row,
sometimes to the amount of four hundred. These advance con-
tinually, replacing those worn out or lost. Only the outer
series are used.

Depending on their usage, the teeth of shark and their rela-
tives show a great variety of form. Some of these are little more
than tiny pointed needles, others have become blunt, or even
hexagonal while some are triangular with razor-sharp saw edges
that cut like a knife. A bite from one of the latter would shear
flesh into ribbons. Strangely, one of our very largest sharks, the
whale sharks, which reach a length of forty feet and a recorded
weight of 26,500 pounds, have teeth which are on the average
less than a quarter of an inch long. These fish are quite without
means of protection and certainly, in spite of their huge bulk,
are among the most inoffensive of creatures. I once saw one
of these huge fellows basking in the sunlight on top of the
ocean about half way between Inagua and Haiti. It was beauti-
fully checkered with a series of light polka dots and rectangu-
lar cross lines. The ship missed it; by inches. A moment later
the monster sounded and went hurtling into the depths. Little
is known of this species and it has been seen only a few times.
Its food is believed to consist of small plankton, organisms that

340

I N A G U A

float freely with the waves and current. This accounts for the
minute dentition, for plankton feeders have little or no use
for teeth.

Fins in most fish serve as rudders, balancers, brakes, or
ailerons. It remained for the sharks to put them to a more
remarkable and important purpose. The ventral fins of male
sharks are produced into a long rod-like process which possess
a hollow groove. The function of these modified fins, or clasp-
ers, as they are commonly termed, is to carry the life-creating
sperm to the body of the female where the eggs are fertiUzed.
Consider what an intelligent provision this is. It is not only a
means of insuring proper fertilization of the waiting ova, but
IS a distinct economy. There is none of the terrific waste com-
mon to so much marine fife, none of the lost milHons of sperm
cells cast loose to drift away on the tide, their destiny unful-
filled. Nor is there the corresponding loss of eggs because of
lack of union with the fertilizing element. This is another rea-
son why sharks thrive undiminished while other fishes have
their seasons of scarcity and why they have continued where
more complex types have gone out of existence.

Life and arithmetic are associated in exact proportions. The
number of young that the shark produces, just as in other fishes,
is in precise ratio to their chances of survival. In this respect
the sharks maintain an almost human ratio. Some of the vi-
viparous species are known to produce only two or three
young; a dozen is usually considered a maximum family. Con-
trast these figures with those of a cod which must extrude up
to 9,000,000 eggs to keep its race alive. While the fertilization
of shark ova is accomplished in most of the species in much
the manner described, they are still somewhat versatile in their
methods of reproduction. A great many forms bring forth their
young alive— a surprising action in such a primitive animal—
and an equal number lay eggs. Here again we see the laws of

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 341

mathematics applied, for the Ggg laying forms, being subject
to greater loss, must and do produce a larger number of spawn
to maintain themselves.

The eggs of sharks, and the affiliated skates and rays, are
encased in tough leathery covers, usually rectangular in shape
with long fibrous tendrils which are caught about marine vege-
tation or solid objects to prevent them from being drifted away.
Others, however, are formed in a peculiar ridged spiral resem-
bling somewhat the curled forms of certain sea shells. Every
Atlantic beach at certain seasons of the year is strewn with the
black remnants of these cases.

Not the least curious of all fin developments is that belong-
ing to those most original of all hoboes, the remoras, itinerant
and unwanted companions of the sharks. They attach them-
selves to their elasmobranchian freight trains with an oval disk
located on the flattened upper surfaces of their heads. These
disks are made up of a series of fleshy partitions which by mus-
cular retraction create a semi-vacuum. The disk is simply a
dorsal fin which by an amazing transformation has become
modified into a sucker.

The thresher sharks, however, have the most unusual fin
development of all. The upper lobe of their caudal fin is equal
to the length of the remainder of the animal. Its purpose has
not yet been discovered, although it is believed by some to be
utilized as a flail to herd the small schooling fishes on which it
feeds into a compact mass where they can be attacked with
ease. The common stories that the blade-like tail is used to beat
porpoises to death is utterly without foundation. There is also
the possibility that it is one of those freaks of animate existence
which has no sensible purpose but which was caused by an
outlandish mutation, a going astray of the genes and chromo-
somes of a distant ancestor. We will not know much of these
creatures of the sea until some way is devised of observing

342 I N A G U A

them in their own element. The ocean will remain to the very
last the farthest boundar)^

The subject of shark fins is by no means exhausted with
mention of the threshers. For there remain the rays and skates,
including the giant devil fish, which are little more than sharks
which have become modified for a bottom existence. A ray
or skate is, in a sense, a set of shark pectorals equipped with an
almost indistinguishable body; they are all fin. The transition
from shark to skate is proved by the existence of the angel
sharks which are neither true sharks nor yet quite progressed
to the point of being full-fledged rays. There were large num-
bers of these skates and rays all about Inagua, and at the settle-
ment they frequently came to within a few yards of shore to
feed on the entrails and other refuse which the local fishermen
cast into the water while cleaning their catch.

One of these rays gave me quite a fright. I was walking in
the shallow lagoon behind the barrier reef looking for shells.
Suddenly I felt something rubbery beneath my foot. Startled
I jumped high in the air and came down just in time to miss
the lashing tail of a large stingaree. The fish went dashing off
into deeper water, swimming rapidly with graceful undula-
tions of its broad wings. I was very happy not to have stepped
in the way of the tail for it was equipped with a dangerous,
saw-edged spine which can inflict a nasty and very painful
wound. These wounds often take months to heal because the
spine is frequently coated with a layer of germ-ridden mucus
that starts a festering infection. This spine is simply one of
the skin teeth of their shark relatives which has become en-
larged as a weapon of defense.

If I were to make a catalogue of strange and wonderful ani-
mals, I would place the hammerhead shark that I saw late one
afternoon at the top of the list. I had been diving for about an
hour in a spot midway between the patrolling grounds of the

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 343

nurse sharks and the coral castle of the ground shark and was in-
teresting myself in some huge razor shells that jutted out of the
sand. I was down quite a depth, nearly forty feet. These shells
were larger than any I had seen washed up on the beach. Al-
though they were imbedded in soft sand they were fastened
firmly by the strands of their byssus and I had quite a time
prying them loose. My bare hands, softened by the water, were
not equal to the task so I returned to the dory and secured a
hook of iron. After warming myself in the sun for a while I
dropped down again with the instrument and made my way
over to the spot where several huge shells were clustered to-
gether. Carefully, so as not to injure the delicate shell I inserted
the curved iron bar in the sand until it engaged the tangled
byssus threads, and then pulled. To my disgust the shell crum-
bled to pieces and the hook emerged with the flesh of the mol-
lusk adhering to its point. I tried another, being exceedingly
careful, but the result was the same. Another fared likewise as
did a fourth before I began casting around for another method.
It then occurred to me that the most satisfactory attack would
be to excavate the creatures complete. With the iron I began
scraping at the bottom and was soon surrounded by so dense
a cloud of silt that I could not see. Nevertheless I continued.
On my hands and knees I dug at the chalky close packed soil
until, with a slight heave, the shell came loose and I rose holding
it in my hand and tried to peer through the murk. There was
very little current at this spot and the cloud hung around like
a pall.

I was about to turn and climb up the life-line when I dis-
covered that I had dropped it during my digging and it had
drifted out of sight. This did not particularly disturb me, for I
knew that if necessary I could climb the hose curling up from
under my shoulder. Preferring to locate it, however, I groped
around in circles waving my outstretched arm back and forth.

344 I N A G U A

After a few seconds I found it again and tucking the shell in
my belt started to go up the line. I had scarcely ascended ten
feet when I saw an indistinct gray shadow surging through the
water. Not knowing what it was I felt that prudence was the
sensible course and went rapidly up to the surface. Under the
keel of the boat I hung long enough to dispose of my shell and
then dropped down again about six feet to be clear of the bub-
bles breaking against the bow.

I looked down. The bottom seemed a long distance away,
an illusion created by the refraction of the water. In the very
center of the limits of vision was the cloud of silt I had stirred
up. It was slowly clearing and about its periphery was a cloud
of fish. They were obviously excited about something and, as
I watched, others arrived out of the blue and joined the mill-
ing circle. This in itself was extremely interesting because
when I first went down there was hardly a fish in sight; the
ocean bottom seemed peopled with only the half buried razor
shells and a few isolated conch.

Suddenly one entire sector of the circle burst asunder and
out of the silt emerged the form of a small hammerhead shark.
The smaller fishes dashed in all directions, waited until the
hammerhead was several yards away and then reformed ranks.
But they were not to have much peace for the shark suddenly
doubled on its tracks and with mighty thrusts of its tail went
into the haze again. Then it dawned on me what it was after.
Like the other fish it had smelled the juices of the mollusks,
and attracted by the promise of an easy meal had come on the
scene. That it had arrived first testified to the keenness of its
senses. Before I stirred up the bottom the water had been so
clear that I could see a hundred feet in either direction. The
shark had scented the mollusks and reached the place of their
demise in less than four minutes. This seemed incredible for
the current was flowing slowly. Even presuming that the shark

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 345

was just beyond the range of vision it must have come at ter-
rific speed. Perhaps it was just as well that I was surrounded
by haze when it approached for to have looked up suddenly
and seen a hammerhead rushing on me like a bolt out of the
blue would have been too much.

In a few seconds the silt began to settle and I could see the
creature swooping just above the sand, nosing the spot where
the shells had been. Its energy was astonishing, not for a second
was it still. Taking a deep breath and crossing my fingers for
luck, I slid in a long drop down the life line and checked myself
just above the bottom, blowing hard through my nostrils to
relieve the pressure that had suddenly built up in my ears. It
corrected itself with an audible squeak and I dropped the re-
maining six feet to the sand. Trying to feel just a little brave, I
turned and consciously composed myself. Inasmuch as the
hammerhead was less than six feet long I felt reasonably safe,
though if the shark had been much larger I think I would have
cast bravery to the winds and scrambled hurriedly into the
boat. But this was the only live hammerhead I had seen on
Inagua, or anywhere else for that matter, and I did not want to
forego the opportunity of making its acquaintance.

It was the most grotesque animal I have ever seen. From its
gill clefts backwards it was a normal shark, graceful and sleek.
From this point forwards it was all out of reason— a travesty
of a fish. Its eyes were set on the distal extremities of its out-
landish head, and its nostrils, unlike those of all other sharks,
were visible as long narrow slits along the entire front edge of
the hammer. With such elongated sensory organs it was little
wonder that it had smelled the mollusks as quickly as it did.
When it rolled over I could see that the mouth was situated
well back of the head projections. Underneath it was yellowish
white, above dark brown with the sHghtest suggestion of mot-
tling. I was inordinately interested in the use of the amazing

34(5 I N A G U A

head anatomy but saw nothing that even suggested its purpose.
Whatever its function, the creature's bow was certainly no
hindrance, for it was one of the most active sharks I have ever
seen. The nurse sharks are the Southerners of their family;
nothing except fright ever makes them move beyond a cer-
tain leisurely pace. The hammerheads, by comparison, are
metropolitan New Yorkers; they are bursting with impatient
energy, restlessly scurrying here and there, working like the
very devil to make a living, rushing through hf e as though their
very existence depended on speed. Already excited by its easy
meal of mollusks, the hammerhead was circling and swooping
at a dizzy rate. Its appetite must have been whetted, for it be-
gan pursuing several small wrasse which, attracted by the scent
of the mollusks, had injudiciously left their clump of isolated
coral faintly visible in the distance to seek food. One of the
wrasse escaped by diving headlong into a hole in the bottom
which had been constructed by some sort of animal, for there
was a considerable circle of piled up silt around the entrance.
The other was not so fortunate. It made the mistake of dash-
ing in a straight line for its coral home. The shark then gave
one of the most masterly exhibitions of water acrobatics I have
ever seen in all my hours of diving. It lunged after the wrasse
which was vibrating its tail so rapidly that it could scarcely be
seen. The midget was putting its last ounce of energy in its
dash for life. But it was no equal for the hammerhead. The
big fish swooped over its tiny prey, hovered for a split second
and then dived. The wrasse, sensing the tragedy over its head,
suddenly halted and with a violent twist of its body reversed
its direction. But too late. The hammerhead did a magnificent
Immelmann turn, curving backward in its own length, and
then coming down again in a rushing dive gave a half turn,
opened its mouth and snapped it shut on the wrasse. Without
a stop the shark did another twist before it hit the bottom,

THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS

347

missing it by inches and causing a temporary flurry of loose
sand before it flung into a wide arc which, with diminishing
speed, carried it to a point midway between the surface and
the ocean floor where it hung motionless for at least sixty
seconds. I saw it gulp once or twice and watched a silver scale
trickle from its jaws. The scale went slowly drifting down
through the azure water catching momentary flashes of sun-
light as it rocked back and forth before it finally settled on the
floor of the ocean.

The effect of this tiny mote and its slow descent after the
rush of action that preceded it was startling. The nearest com-
mon happening to which I can link it is the silvery tinkle of
tiny fragments of glass falling to the ground after the rending,
sickening crash of a bad automobile accident. I vividly remem-
ber the same sensation when a car in which I was rijding, and
which was driven off the road by a reckless driver in another
machine, collided with a telephone pole and snapped it off at
its base. Fortunately no one was hurt but the most realistic
recollection of the whole affair was not the thunderous boom
of the actual contact but the delicate trickling of minute
pieces of the windshield and headlights as they slid across
the crumpled metal in the comparative quiet that followed.
Whenever I hear the tinkle of fine glass I automatically wince.
Similarly whenever I think of hammerheads there immediately
flashes to mind the silvery scale slowly dropping through the
azure water.

The shark poised in midwater for perhaps Rve minutes and
then with a mighty surge of its torso pulsed off into the un-
known. The last I saw of its retreating body was a three quar-
ter view when it swerved to inspect something beyond my
ken. I felt as though I were looking at a creature which did
not belong to my world; it seemed a shape that was properly
snatched out of the recesses of the past to spend a brief hour

348 I N A G U A

in the present. Yet I know that it is not improbable that the
sharks, hving as they do in the depths of the unchanging ocean
will be swarming the waters of the world when our man-made
cities are crumbling mounds of earth and that they will be
feeding, as they do now and have been doing for breathless
ages on the crustaceans and the fishes, in a time when man will
be a forgotten, precocious creature who, for a brief space of
time, nearly upset the balance of nature.

CHAPTER XVII

Night Beneath the Sea

At half past nine on the evening of May 14th I was, I must
admit, just a Httle uneasy. A pecuHar crawHng sensation in the
pit of my stomach, somewhat hke the emptiness of extreme
hunger caused me to feel ill at ease. I have long ago passed the
period in hfe when I am disturbed at natural phenomena.
Storms still fill me with awe; I respect them and avoid them
whenever possible, but I am not afraid of them. Spiders and
snakes cause me not the slightest quiver. I have studied them
long enough to know that they are— most of them— perfectly
harmless; I regard them with interest and with an eye to beauty.
Likewise with most other natural creations; I have already
written my reactions to sharks and octopi.

Before the darkness had come I had rowed out beyond the
breakers near the settlement and watched the sun plunge be-
neath the horizon in great sheets of gold and vermihon. While
it was sinking, casting purple shadows over the dark line of
the shore and temporarily painting the usually white beach
with crimson, the trade wind had slackened and the white caps
which all day had been marching toward the west ceased their
movement. The waves became rolling, and as darkness came
rushing blanketwise out of the east the waters grew still, then
slick with only a slight heave to suggest the turmoil of the
day. In the brief space between half-light and dark, while the
stars appeared one by one, I had unloaded my diving equip-
ment, placed the helmet in position over the gunwale, con-
nected the air hose and pump, adjusted the Hfe line, and then
sat down to wait for the coming of full night.

349

3 so

I N A G U A

The water turned from light blue to blue gray, gray, then
dark and finally somber opaque ebony. The shore which, up
to this time had been plainly visible, became a black line sug-
gested more than revealed by the loom of the stars. There
was no moon. That satellite would not appear for another
week; it was hidden on the other side of the earth. I turned and
contemplated the surface of the ocean. Its blackness was com-
plete. Once more the crawling at the pit of my stomach began.
I had come out beyond the breakers with the avowed inten-
tion of diving beneath the surface to see what was going on in
the ocean during the dark. Now that the accomplishment was
only waiting for my action, I hesitated. Even in full daylight
the undersea is a world in which man definitely does not be-
long. Then, when visibility is at its utmost, one is frequently
beset with a feeling of helplessness. How much more so at
night when one's eyes are completely useless, and when clear
vision is further complicated by the Hmited perception directly
in front of the helmet.

In a last minute check-up, and to gain time to revive my
waning courage, I tested the fastenings of my underwater
flashlight. This was an ordinary searchlight encased in sheet
rubber with a lens cemented over the bulb, so arranged that by
feeling through the rubber I could turn it on and off. Satisfied
that it was in proper working order, and finding no further
excuses for delay, I issued some last minute instructions to my
black helper, and told him that regardless of what happened he
was to keep pumping steadily. Turning away, I poised on the
gunwale, stood still long enough to hear a rooster on shore
crow halfheartedly as though it knew it was hours too early,
felt a wave of perfume redolent of jasmine and lavender come
swirling off the beach in a breath of warm air, and then stepped
over the side into the depths.

The cold water plunging over my head shocked me into

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 351

activity, and with a spurt of energy I stroked my way to the
surface where I located the boat and swam over to the gun-
wale. Now that I had actually made the first step the feeling
of fear left me somewhat though I still felt keenly aware of
being out of element. I groped along the side for the life line,
curled it about my hand, once again patted my belt where the
flashlight was hung to make sure it was there, acknowledged
my readiness in a low voice and permitted myself to be helmed.
The sibilant rush of pulsing air assured me that the pump was
functioning properly, and with a last minute roar of breaking
bubbles in my ears, I let go and was plummeted into the spaces
of watery night.

In a long sweep I allowed myself to drift downward for
about twenty feet. Then with ten feet of inky water still be-
tween me and the bottom I halted my descent with a slight
pressure of my fingers and hung motionless. For a few seconds
I swayed back and forth, twirling slightly, and came to com-
plete rest.

I peered out of the glass. Try as I might I could discern
nothing. I was poised in the center of empty space. There was
neither Hght nor movement, only a still sohd blackness. Thus
might the world have been on the first day of creation. The
feeling of terror surged through my senses again. The skin at
the back of my legs quivered as though some sixth sense warned
that something was rushing silently at me out of the night. I
twisted around and saw nothing except the same utter void;
my nerves were playing me tricks. Revolving to my original
position I saw a very wonderful event. Out of the darkness
that covered the deep there suddenly blossomed into being a
tiny pinpoint of light. It flared,^ for perhaps a sixteenth of a
second, reached a briUiance made all the more vivid by the
dark all around and was extinguished. Here in a few seconds
was re-enacted the first portion of the drama of genesis; the

352 I N A G U A

prelude to all that followed.

Then, as my eyes adjusted themselves to the dark, I began
to see other flashes, minute explosions that burst suddenly into
being and then passed forever out of sight. Reaching for the
searchlight I extracted it from its carrying hook, raised it at
arm's length and pressed the button. Instantly a long beam of
strong white light pierced the gloom and went penciling off
into the distance. I looked in vain for the makers of the tiny
flashing Hghts but they were nowhere to be seen. A few drift-
ing motes, slightly resembling sunbeams, floated through the
ocean, watery counterparts of the dust that drifts in the air
over the land. Turning the beam off, I waited until my pupils
had once more expanded to their fullest capacity. Sure enough
the lights became visible once again, only this time I saw many
more, until on my straining retinas the world registered as a
galaxy of little star-points, a cosmos of pale Fourth of July
sparklers without the glowing stems. The lights were the
energy-burstings of hundreds of microscopic animalcules,
whose bodies too small to be visible under natural illumination
were betrayed by the energy they expended.

Turning on the flash again I swept it in a wide arc. The
lovely evanescent blue of daytime was gone; in its place was
a long beam of yellow surrounded on each side by purplish
gloom. The water, however, was crystal clear and the rays
brilliantly brought into vision any objects within their reach.
Arching my back so I could see above me I pointed the light
toward the surface. It was as molten and as impenetrable as
ever. Casting the light in another direction I focused it in mid-
water, started to sweep it in an arc down to the bottom— then
held it rigid.

A briUiant flash, many times brighter than the rays of the
electric bulb suddenly burst back at me. It lasted for only a
second and then vanished. Its source was far away but in the

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 353

space of an eyewink it was followed by another and another
until the water was blazing with them. The owners of the
flashes, still unseen, moved as though animated by invisible
heliostats. These were no microscopic explosions but large
blazes of colored fire.

The flashes came closer, shooting across the bearii with
lightning rapidity, flaring and disappearing, approaching ever
nearer. Finally one stopped only a few inches away. It was
glowing from one end to the other with unearthly light, the
most brilliant undiluted lavender I have ever seen. I recognized
this lovely creature as an anchovy, a fish about three or four
inches in length. It did not seem possible that this glowing
animal could be the source of the dismal mess known as an-
chovy paste. Yet a quick glance at the creature's long under-
shot jaw identified it beyond all question. No opal ever gleamed
with more intense fire; even as the anchovy moved the lavender
was replaced with a shimmering pink and finally with a bright
silver as it sped away.

The coming of the anchovies is an event that I shall long
remember. There must have been some magnetic quality about
my searchlight that they could not resist. The silversides, long
minnows with broad bands of burnished silver running down
their sides, were affected similarly. In less time than it takes to
write this sentence, I was surrounded by a deluge of silver-
lavender forms that milled about the lens in a whirling cloud,
rushing headlong at the glass, bumping it and turning in sud-
den fright to dash away, only to be magnetized once more.
The accumulated reflection of their shining bodies lit up the
darkness for several yards around; ripples of rose-colored light
flickered through the murk.

Within five minutes there must have been several hundred
of them, but these were completely eclipsed when from the
surface of the ocean there rained down a large school which

354 I N A G U A

must have numbered several thousand. These came so quickly,
so compactly, and flared into brilliance so suddenly that I in-
stinctively ducked when they hit the aura of the light. For
yards around the sea was packed with their close-set bodies.
Most beautifully, they were swimming as one fish, veering and
turning together, a great pink and lavender wheel that circled
round and round.

Unfortunately their circling did not last for long, for like
javelins out of the night a group of small houndfish burst
through the school, snapping and gulping their prey as fast as
they could swallow. The anchovies scattered in all directions
and for several minutes the water was streaked with lines of
flashing color which marked the trail of the fleeinor fishes.
While the houndfish worked their carnage, they were followed
by a half dozen flying-fish which surprisingly appeared out of
nowhere and then, realizing their mistake, suddenly turned
and shot like arrows toward the surface. As strong an attrac-
tion as the light was, it was not enough to keep them in place;
their fear of the houndfish was something to behold. They were
crazed with terror, and in a vibrating, scintillating blur they
passed out of my sphere.

The pure ferocity of the houndfish exceeded any similar
savagery I have ever seen. Their appetites were insatiable. Back
and forth they lunged, striking, slaying, maiming, sometimes
not pausing to swallow their prey before dashing on to an-
other. They gorged themselves until their gullets were dis-
tended, then continued to kill and injure. More than any other
sight, this massacre of the anchovies brought home the cruelty,
the age old barbarity of the ocean.

Presently, back in the dim haze beyond the flashhght, I be-
gan to be conscious of moving forms, some which reflected the
light and others which appeared as dark, heavy shadows. These
flitted from place to place, appearing and disappearing, as

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 355

though attracted by the activity around the Hght but not dar-
ing to approach. Their very vagueness caused the queer feel-
ing in the pit of my stomach to arise once more, and rather
than tempt any larger animal to join the activity of the lung-
ing houndfish, I felt with my fingers for the flash button and
switched off the current.

The blackness that followed was more intense than any that
had gone before. Hordes of scurrying silversides and anchovies,
frantic with panic, brushed against my arms and against my
exposed legs, sending tiny cool currents across my flesh. For
several seconds I could feel their bodies, and then the tickling
of their fins ceased and I hung once more in lifeless space.
Slackening the grip of my fingers, I allowed the strands of the
rope to slide slowly past. Down, down, until with a slight bump
I felt the pressure of sand beneath my feet. Here I let go, and
leaning slightly against the tide walked several feet.

Once more I turned on the light. Its beam glared across the
bottom casting long shadows, throwing the tide ridges into
high relief and bringing into prominence objects that I had
never seen before, though I had dived at this place a dozen
times. Deep craters, which in the light of day would not have
been conspicuous, pitted the bottom everywhere. Holes in the
sand were visible as round black patches and from some of
these little currents, laden with specks of silt and tiny plank-
ton, could be seen pulsing in and out. Their molluscan or
crustacean owners, whichever they were, were busy at work
sucking in and expelling the water by which they derived
their oxygen and food.

In order to get a better look at one of these underwater
ventilating systems I slid to my knees and then lay on my
stomach, arching my back so the water would not enter the
helmet. I had hardly settled myself when there suddenly ap-
peared a strange apparition. Its head was clad in plates of mail

356 1 N A G U A

and these were chased and engraved in the most unusual pat-
terns, reminding one of the etchings of snowflakes, or of some
of the mineral crystals which have a radiating design, or better
yet, of a cartoonist's idea of an exploding bomb, dozens of lines
issuing forth from a common center. These plates were fur-
ther studded with grotesque short spines which gave the face
a lean angular appearance. But most peculiar this medieval
armored physiognomy, which was coming head on, appeared
to have no body and was walking on a series of six spidery legs.
The legs appeared jointless and flexible and were being ad-
vanced one after the other in the most dainty yet consecutive
precision. The rays of the lamp cast further incongruous
shadows over the creature, gnome, troll or whatever it was,
and accentuated the already weird features. It was not until
it had advanced to my finger tips and turned partly around
that I recognized its true character— a sea robin belonging to
the genus Frionotus.

Walking fish are always of sufficient rarity to be interesting.
This one had mastered the art to a fine degree. It made no at-
tempt to swim and held its broad, spotted wing-like pectoral
fins stiffly out at right angles to its body. These were of large
size and seemed all out of proportion to the owner. The crea-
ture's curiosity was overpowering. It tiptoed up to the lens
of the light and stood staring at the illumination. Unlike the
anchovies nearer the surface, however, the light did not seem
to excite it in the slightest degree. When it finished its examina-
tion it backed away, reminding me of a ballet dancer, and then
came over to the rope which was curled like a long serpent in
the sand. It walked back and forth over this and then stepped
over to my hand which was partly buried in the sand. When it
had walked completely around the periphery it topped its per-
formance by stepping across my bare flesh. The pectoral rays
tickled as they went across and the ends felt sharp. When it

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 357

reached the other side I made a sudden grab for its body. I was
too slow, however, for it quickly folded up its walking rays
and put the fins to their normal use— swimming. Settling again
just beyond reach, it dropped airily to the sand and stood there
eyeing me.

Rising to my feet again I plodded over to the great shadowy
mounds of boulders that marked the lower ramparts of the
island. The moss covered crags towered high into the air-
water rather— and the algaes and sea fans were dipping and
swaying just as they had done in the daytime. But it was not
the same world. There was a noticeable difference. At first I
credited it to the darkness and the long shadows cast by the
flash. These, of course, changed its appearance considerably,
altering an already strange landscape into another of still more
weird proportions. The crags which during the day might well
have fitted into a valley on Mars, at night were almost lunar in
their aspect. Everything was delineated in sharp, vividly con-
trasted outlines. Brilliantly scarlet gorgonians, that normally
melted inconspicuously into the general melee of color, merg-
ing with yellows, blues and greens, now stood out in all their
crimson glory against a background of jet black. There is no.
richer combination in the world than scarlet and black. The
old Chinese craftsmen long ago realized this and have made
ample use of it in their incomparable lacquers. The lacy fronds
of the algaes' tendrils looked even more fragile now that they
were silhouetted alone; they appeared to be doing some sort
of filmy dance, forever flinging their graceful arms upward
in supplication and bowing them to earth again. The dark en-
trances to a hundred underwater caverns gaped open-mouthed
between long curving ovals of brilliant yellow. Stony rain-
bows fringed with the pale white stems of hydroids and en-
crusted with purple and lavender finger sponges arched away
into the somber distance. Long rows of yellow sea fans run-

358 I N A G U A

ning along the crest of the rock ridges flexed and bowed with
the pulse of the waves; their glow reflecting against the molten
surface above sent soft bands of voiced light running across
the sand at the foot of the rocks where it was focused and
shot down by the facets of the waves.

Everything was either colorfully lighted or shrouded in
gloom. There were no half tones to break the contrast. The
distance between high visibility and complete dark was less
than a half inch; only the reflection from the surface softened
the shadows, and this accentuated rather than relieved the ob-
scurity. The factor, however, that imparted a sense of dif-
ference to the locality was not the alteration of the main color
scheme, as striking as this was, but the change in the residents.
Practically none of the daytime fishes were about. In vain I
turned the searchlight over the rocks looking for them. They
were nowhere to be found. In their places were other forms
which heretofore had been seen only as lurkers in shadowy
holes and deep fissures. Chief among these were the squirrel
fish, brilliant red, with wide open dark eyes which gave them
an over-cosmeticized appearance. These were actively filtering
in and out among the rocks and were accompanied with an-
other scarlet species, a round-bodied fish, with eyes so big
and soulful that it gave the impression that it was about to
burst into tears at any moment. The fish's common name, the
Deep Big Eye, describes it exactly. I was rather surprised at
seeing these, for I had always understood them to be deep
water fishes. Yet here they were only a few yards from the
surf. It was odd, too, that they should be associated with the
squirrel fish, and even more peculiar that the two forms, both
apparently nocturnal, should be colored red. I remembered
that some of the deep sea fishes and crustaceans which live in
regions where night is eternal are also colored in this hue.

The blue tang were still about but these were not very ac-

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 359

tive. There were several masses clustered together in the midst
of a large crevasse where they hung in midwater like a living
ball. The ball floated lazily up and down with the action of the
surf but the individuals held their exact positions to the frac-
tion of an inch. Each fish was facing in the same direction, and
while I watched, the entire group slowly revolved as though
on a pivot.

I let my light play over their motionless forms and then
switched it to the crevassed floor and back along its slope to
the mouth of a narrow festooned cave. Here I was startled to
see a row of seven pairs of gleaming teeth floating in mid-air
with no evidence of bodies. Two pairs were bright bluish
green, four were whitish and one had a very perceptible rosy
hue. They suggested nothing quite so much as the nightmare
of an inebriated dentist on the verge of delirium tremens. The
teeth backed into the cave until they were nearly out of sight;
and following, I climbed over an immense sponge and pointed
the light directly into their shelter. The seven pair of teeth then
resolved into the bodies of seven pairs of assorted large parrot-
fish, four olive green fellows at least two feet in length, two red
ones with prominently marked scales and one of variegated hue.

Backing out again I examined other holes and fissures. Nearly
everyone was filled with fish, some of these were floating quite
motionless except for slight wavings of their pectoral fins.
Others, including the sergeant-majors, readily identifiable by
their vivid yellow stripes, were restlessly pacing back and forth,
but remaining well within the Hmits of their abodes. A cluster
of eleven butterfly-fish had the most unusual sleeping arrange-
ment of all. They did not elect to dispose of themselves in the
dark of the cave but had taken up their positions under a stone
arch, shaped somewhat like the famous Natural Bridge of
Virginia. Here they had arranged themselves in a vertical
column poised midway between the bottom and the top. If

36o I N A G U A

the position of the lowermost fish was north, the one above was
north by east, the next northeast, and so on around the com-
pass in an ascending scale. The result was an exceedingly grace-
ful spiral. The spiral, keeping time with the great ball of liv-
ing tang, rocked slightly with the current but maintained its
relative position. What the reason was for this formation I
could not guess unless it was so arranged as a protection in
order that there would be a butterfly-fish facing in every direc-
tion to give warning of the approach of an enemy. But if this
were so, why then did the tang ignore the rule and all face the

same

way

While I was watching the butterfly-fish I suddenly sensed
a great swirling movement behind me. Frightened, I whirled
around expecting to see the large form of a barracuda or other
predator. Instead, I was relieved to see that it was only a tre-
mendous migration of schoolmasters, which were fishes about
a foot in length marked with a brilHant blue streak placed just
below their eyes from their lips to the edge of their opercles.
Their eyes gleamed like jewels and as the school twisted and
wound its way into the dark, the mass effect was of a thou-
sand glowing coals gliding into the depths. The school was
proceeding very leisurely and sliding along close to the bottom
like a great long rope. The fishes were packed so close together
it seemed they had scarcely room to waggle their tails. Ap-
parently they mistrusted the Hght for they made a long circle
around the spot where its beam was focused on the ocean floor.

The reaction of various marine organisms to artificial light
is an absorbing study. Anchovies, silversides, menhaden, free-
swimming worms and certain crustaceans seem to find it ir-
resistible, some of these, like the worms, are driven mad by it.
Other forms shun light like the plague, or at most, hover un-
certainly about its further edges. Strangely, weak light at-
tracts more life than excessive brilliance. It cost me about forty

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 361

dollars to find this out. During my experiments in the Chesa-
peake Bay I conceived the idea that a five thousand watt light
assembly would bring a vast assortment of marine life to my
observation post. Accordingly I purchased a number of ex-
pensive electric bulbs, special waterproof wire to carry the
current, and suitable fuses and switches. When the apparatus
was lowered in the water and turned on, it produced a tre-
mendous glare, lighting the water for yards around. It im-
proved visibihty tremendously but little came to its beam. In
disgust, I gave it up and returned to the old method of using
flashlights, which was much more satisfactory.

After the schoolmasters were gone I was deluged for about
ten minutes with a crowd of half-beaks. These came from near
the surface and were one of the types that found the light an
irresistible attraction. They must have been traveHng in a
loose-knit school for they arrived within a few seconds of each
other, dropping in out of the darkness above like silver and
green comets. Their greenness was most unusual. It shimmered
over their scales with a delicate glaucous iridescence, and the
border of each scale was outlined in vivid emerald. These same
fish when taken out of their element are plain silver but few.
fishes appear underwater as they do in the open air. Some day
I would like to prepare a color chart for the quick recognition
of tropical fishes in their natural element. It is most confusing
to read in the identification keys that mullet, for example, are
silver with faint gray stripings only to find when viewed on
their own level and in their own element that they are not silver
at all but gorgeous flaming lavender; or that Spanish mackerel
are not olive platinum but are adorned with body-length streaks
of fiery yellow which disappear when they are taken out of
water, leaving no hint of its existence.

The glaucous tone of the half -beaks was not nearly as un-
usual as the appearance of their heads. Their lower jaws were

362 I N A G U A

extended all out of proportion to the upper, being equally as
long as the remainder of their heads. This gave them an odd,
though not ungraceful, shape. They were long and streamhned,
reminding one of miniature swordfishes. Unlike swordfishes,
however, their attenuated bills were not sharp and hard at the
ends but were finished off with a scarlet tip which was soft and
fleshy. The purpose of the tip is obscure; it may be used for a
sensory organ or as a probe. The food of half-beaks seems to be
principally vegetable matter mixed with a few small crusta-
ceans. How they manage to feed with their long bills thrust in
front of them is something of a mystery.

Dropping to my knees I crawled along the lowest border of
rocks to see what the invertebrates were doing. They were al-
most all awake and active. The barnacles were still casting
their nets, extruding and withdrawing their feathery feet.
Light and dark meant nothing to them encased in their thick
shells of carbonate of lime. Food and oxygen were their con-
cern; sleep would wait for a full belly. At any hour of the day
or night the barnacles can be found busily at work. Likewise
the anemones. These were all out in full blossom, slowly waving
and pulsing; their poisonous tentacles loaded with fiery darts
were patiently waiting for some incautious crustacean or swim-
ming worm. The flower-pretending worms, too, were all awake
with cirri expanded for whatever fate and the currents would
bring them.

Not all the worms were bound to the rocks, for my light was
rapidly becoming surrounded by a maze of their undulating
forms. Swimming sea worms are among the most unappealing
of all earth's creatures. My fingers, long used to grasping all
manner of insects, spiders and reptiles, instinctively recoil
at the vibrating bodies of swimming worms. Some of them
sting when touched, others bite with long sharp extrusible jaws,
and all of them send shivers through my flesh on contact. They

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 363

are covered with such a maze of bristles, antennae, legs, odd
fibers and cirri, all vibrating at high speed, that they possess
something of the appearance that I imagine a bolt of electricity
would have if suddenly and unexplainably endowed with life
and tissues. The comparison of sea worms to electric arcs is
not as farfetched as it might seem, for their activity is stupen-
dous. Whatever their imaginary amperage may be, their visi-
ble voltage is high. The worms which were darting about my
light were becoming frantic in their excitement. Looping, un-
dulating, vibrating, shaking and shivering, they whirled about
the lens in a vermiform frenzy. My nerves, already slightly on
edge, revolted when a long body slithered along the curve of
my forearm and burst into the light leaving my flesh tingling
from the contact. It was a brilliant worm of light scarlet
fronted with a yellowish head, and it was being rowed along
with several scores of triangular green oars composed of fibrous
bristles. From its fantastic head covered with whisker-like blue
cirri to its pointed, feathery tail it was about seven inches long.
In the rays of the flash it shimmered and scintillated with
iridescent light.

I had barely recovered from the shock of its bristly touch
when it was joined by two others which dashed over to the
first and began looping over and over its body. Round and
round they went in a blur of activity. They were joined by
others until the beam of the lamp was filled with a swirling
mixture of revolving bodies. In between the larger worms
fifteen or twenty smaller individuals of several species darted
back and forth on straight paths. These gave the moving de-
sign an additional pattern of horizontal streaks, flashing lines
of green and pink. Hastily I tried to remember their charac-
teristics in the hope that I might identify them later, but gave
it up as impossible. The larger worms I am confident were
some type of Neirids, but the indentification of sea worms is

364 I N A G U A

at best an uncongenial task. I can patiently count the scales
of a fish, or enumerate the location and position of its spines
and rays; but the characters which determine the nomencla-
ture of sea worms are so technical and vague as to cause me
invariably to throw up my untaxonomic hands in despair.

Events undersea, like certain forms of trouble, generally
occur in bunches. The galaxy of worms which had collected
in front of my light were the forerunners of a considerable
mass. Possibly the continued burning of the light attracted
them, possibly the behavior of the worms already there, but
whatever it was they came swarming from all sides. They were
followed quickly by the scarlet bodies of the squirrel-fish and
the big-eyes which made the most of the unexpected provender.
The worms did not flee but seemed intent on nothing but their
interminable whirling about each other's bodies. I am con-
vinced that they were in the throes of their reproductive cycle,
for I noted that certain individuals were giving off exceed-
ingly faint emanations, somewhat like smoke, which must have
been either unfertilized ova or male sperm. When a newly ad-
vanced worm hit these miniature clouds it went into a blind
frenzy which made its previous activity seem mild.

Minute after minute the horde of gyrating worms increased
in number. Unable to stand the sensation of their squirming
against my bare flesh and alarmed at the activity of fishes that
I had stirred up, for the squirrel-fish were followed by larger
and more active forms, including the huge bulk of a beautifully
barred Nassau grouper, I turned off the light and climbed
hurriedly up the line. I quickly ducked out of the helmet and
flopped over the raihng into the bottom of the boat.

When I checked my watch I found that I had been under
for sixty-seven minutes. The wind had picked up again and
the boat was pitching and plunging at its anchor. I realized that
I was tired and satiated with the black depths of the ocean.

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 365

Looking again at the ebony surface, I shuddered slightly at
the memory of the feel of the swarming worms, and decided I
had enough for one night. I w^ould have given much for the
strong curved sides of my steel cylinder with its big plate glass
window. With its aid I could have watched the drama of the
worms to its conclusion. But it was a thousand and a half miles
away, drawn up high and dry on a Chesapeake Beach. So with
the aid of my pump operator, I gathered in the anchor and
rowed to shore where I dropped into bed and fell into a deep
slumber. Here I lay without moving until the rays of sunlight
steaHng through the open window announced the coming of
full daylight.

I did not go diving at night again until almost three weeks
later. The moon, at first wan and thin, had nightly chmbed into
the sky, expanding steadily, until it was round and gleaming.
Its rays lighted the dry salinas and turned the sloping shell-
studded beaches into pale white ribbons that stretched away
into the indefinite darkness. The surface of the reef, moaning
with the might of the curling breakers, was plainly visible and
even the shallow waters of the lagoons were sufficiently il-
luminated to show the differences between the depths and the
shallows and the locations where the patches of green turtle
grass grew. Only the ocean beyond the reef was completely
black; down in the great depths the sand and rocks were too
far away to reflect the moonlight. But even its somberness was
relieved by the sparkle of moonbeams on the wave facets and
by the momentary whiteness of hurthng whitecaps.

We anchored a few yards from the face of the reef, and
pitching and tossing waited until the slack of the anchor rope
was taken up by the drift. A flying-fish, disturbed in its surface
floating, or perhaps alarmed by the cable, suddenly whizzed
out of the night, skimmed across the hollow of a wave valley,
was silhouetted against the sphere of the moon, and with an

366 I N A G U A

audible plop fell in the water several yards away. It was fol-
lowed by several more and all around we could hear their pat-
terings as they rose, flew, and returned to their proper element.
Further away a heavier and more sullen splash marked the
place where some larger creature, perhaps pursuing the flying-
fish, had lunged through the surface and fallen back again.

The ocean seemed alive. Gleams of silver flared briefly up
from the depths, thrown back by the bright scales of schooling
fishes. Close by the hull a twice repeated swish of rippling
water gave evidence of the presence of some large moving
organism whose fins had broken the surface. Shadows even
blacker than the general tone of the water glided under the
hull and merged with the liquid emptiness beyond. High above,
between the stars and the reef, the faint call of migrating sand-
pipers came filtering down through space and once, in the di-
rection of the breakers, a tarpon leaped high in the air, shook
itself, and landed on the water with a loud crash.

The same feeling of uneasiness that had come upon me in
my first night dive swept over me again. But the thought of
seeing the great reef in the moonlight was so tempting that I
pushed the crawling fear into the background of my con-
sciousness. This time I was descending fully clothed and with
a strong pair of shoes to ward off the spines of sea urchins that
I might not see in the dark. Also, I decided to carry a short
spear to prevent the unwelcome attentions of any large fishes
which might become too curious.

I delayed my dive into the water long enough to allow an
acre-wide swarm of thimble- jellies to float slowly by. They
were packed so closely together that their sides touched, and
in the fifteen minutes that elapsed before they passed under the
keel their denseness never diminished. Each square foot con-
tained several hundred; the swarm must have contained well
over a million. When they were safely by I vaulted over the

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 367

rail and donned the helmet, hoping they would not be fol-
lowed by another school, for to be engulfed in several hun-
dred thousand jellies at night seemed too strange an experience
to be contemplated with the equanimity which a similar event
would occasion in the full light of day. Besides, although the
stings of thimble- jellies are reported to be very mild to the
human skin, I did not feel like experimenting with them in the
dark.

A coral reef during the day is unbelievable. At night and
lighted by a tropical moon it is so utterly fantastic that there
are no superlatives in the English language nor similes with
which to make an apt comparison. Imagine a world in which
all color is gone, where shadows assume the shapes of twisted
giants, where nothing is still for a moment, where the sky is
solid burnished platinum, where phantom figures, clad in pale
somber gray, hover restlessly in mid-air in the shelter of nar-
row caves dripping with stalactites, which do not hang mo-
tionless but sway eerily to and fro. Imagine the atmosphere
filled with a pale soft glow, an unearthly sheen that has no
visible substance but which increases and dims as shafts of
pearl gray light run like ghosts from surface to bottom, creat-
ing halos of visibility as they reach the sandy soil.

This was the scene that met my eyes when I sHd slowly
down the rope and came to rest over my usual drowned valley.
Catching a loop in the line and placing the arch of my foot in
it, I relaxed and permitted myself to be swayed slowly back
and forth. The beautiful blues, reds, lavenders and golds were
vanished as utterly as if they had never existed. The rays of
the moon filtering down through the clear water cast long
wavering shadows into the ravine which seemed more gloomy
and mysterious than ever. The great stone trees stood like a
row of silvery ghosts. Their jagged fingers, each outlined with
a white line of glowing light, reached pleading hands up to the

368 I N A G U A

ceiling where the surf was breaking. There the water was be-
ing churned into livid mercury. Great windrows of melted
platinum and frosty aluminum swirled into one another, mark-
ing the positions of large bubbles or fine atomized froth. It was
a scene in monotone. Silvers, grays and liquid blacks were the
pigments. Lustrous near the surface, they became more and
more vague and indeterminate as they faded toward the depths
until at forty feet there was nothing tangible, nor even sug-
gested.

The coral forest with its upper branches wreathed in ani-
mated silver held the center of attraction. During the day the
glory of upside down surf, brilliant as it was with all the hues
of the spectrum, was dulled and overwhelmed by the color of
the reef beneath. In the moonlight the reverse was true. Then
all the fury, the power and the turmoil of breaking water were
expressed in one medium— cold icy light. Boiling, surging,
frothing and tearing into a thousand fragments the breakers
spread out as a great gleaming line reaching across the zenith.
But again, as in the daytime, the silence was overwhelming.
More than the sight of rushing, glowing bubbles this created a
sense of awe. It seemed impossible that there should be so much
violence and no sound. But then, when I looked downwards,
away from the turmoil and the froth, down toward the un-
fathomable depths, I knew this was as it should be. Forever
drowned, forever separated from the upper air, this world had
no place for sound. No place for sound and only a little for
light. A few yards away, a few feet down the slope both light
and sound were vanquished; down below was only still empty
darkness. A chill sensation crept over my flesh. Shuddering a
little, I tore my eyes from the depths and concentrated on the
coral.

As in the daytime, and unlike my first nocturnal dive, hun-
dreds of fish were moving about the branches. But they were

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 369

not the fish I was familiar with. These were merely shapes and
shadows, moving wraiths in monotone, or at best momentary
gleams of silver or soft pearl gray. All the identifying colors
were gone. Blue and red parrotfish, gold and orange snappers
and grunts, were toned exactly alike. Only the pale and ap-
propriately named moon-fish were instantly recognizable.
While I looked one rose from a deep hole, arched slowly
through space, reached the summit of its course, and slowly,
like its heavenly counterpart, set over a rim of earth. To make
the imitation more complete it rotated as it went across the
watery sky. At first it appeared new and thin. As its revolving
continued it became more and more round, reached the full
and finally disappeared as a narrow crescent line.

Only shape and method of movement were the clues to
species and genera. In some cases I had to rely on swimming
alone. In the half-hght the bodies of the sergeant-majors and
the butterfly-fish looked exactly alike; they were instantly
separated by their manner. The sergeant-majors had an inter-
mittent bouncing flight with numerous stops and starts; they
waved their fins leisurely except when startled. The butter-
flies were erratic and vibrated all over when they moved.
Angelfish soared, as angels should; the similarly shaped, round-
bodied tang floated and drifted. Other types like the needle-
fish could best be described as darting arrows; the flying-fish
and trumpet-fish also belonged in this category. The snappers,
grunts and porgies trailed close to the bottom in a slow un-
dulating style, sinuosity their characteristic; still others forged
steadily on their paths without hint of slackening pace. Among
these last was the large body of a tarpon, possibly the same that
leaped in the air when we first- anchored. With a little study I
believe most fishes, like birds, could be instantly distinguished
by their swimming.

Several times, however, I was badly fooled, as when the

370 I N A G U A

arrow-like form of a fish came darting by and I automatically
assigned it to the houndfish group, I was startled to discover
when it turned and came in full view that it was a barracuda in-
stead. In the dark it looked grimmer than ever and I was much
relieved when it kept going and disappeared. The barracuda,
however, did not give me nearly as much of a scare as the big
jewfish which I had observed previously during the day swing-
ing airily in its den.

Tiring of my pendulum-like position on the life line I with-
drew my foot and slipped down to the bottom. Here, care-
fully retaining my grip on the rope to prevent a mishap in the
current, I hopped and skipped over to my favorite sea fan
where I sat down, clutching it between my legs. From this
position I could see the creature's hiding place, but the gloom
inside was too great to make out any details. Knowing that
it was nocturnal I wondered where the jewfish was and started
revolving around the fan to see if I could find it. It suddenly
loomed up a few inches from the helmet. I let out a yell which,
if emitted on the surface, would have been heard a couple
miles away, and gave a great jump that carried me nearly
to the surface. The leap shot me out over the ravine and as I
floated down I came to an abrupt, though easy, halt when I
reached the end of my tether. I then swung in towards the per-
pendicular and towards the jewfish which was still waiting
near the brink. By this time, however, I had recovered my men-
tal equilibrium and came to a gentle rest on the rock bottom a
few feet from its body. It backed away a short distance and
then hovered again.

I felt a little chagrined for reacting the way I did but the
sight of that monstrous black body so close to mine, even
though I was looking for it, was more of a shock than my
nerves could stand.

The jewfish regarded me for a minute or two and then

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA

371

slowly moved its great hulk back into the shadows. When it was
gone, I made my way over to a large mound of brain coral
where I had frequently sat during the day and wedged myself
against its roundness. Here at least nothing could approach
me from the rear. Feeling a little safer, though with nerves still
on edge, I settled down to watch.

It was fitting and wholly like the happenings in this dark
world of underwater that the next event should be one of
delicate splendor. In fact it was so in contrast to the ugliness
and fright of the jewfish adventure, that I caught my breath
and held it in wonder. While I was sitting trying to distinguish
the characteristics of the shadowy forms darting over the bot-
tom, the light suddenly faded away. Thinking a cloud had
passed over the moon, I arched my back and glanced up. Then
I saw that the surface was obscured by a vast school of fish.
They were moving parallel to the reef. The school must have
numbered several hundred thousand individuals for I could not
see its outer edges. The lines of alternate black and silver that
they formed as they swam past row on row, produced a glow-
ing tapestry effect, a skein of living motes. The school slowly
split, riven by a great band of burnished light, turned and
reversed its direction. As it wheeled each of the thousands of
bodies caught the rays of the moon and focused them down-
wards in a broad sheet of glowing light. This briefly lit the
bottom and then died as rapidly as it was formed.

There was a second flare as the school, alarmed by some-
thing in the far distance, wheeled again and went into a brief
frenzy of fright. After it had dashed about fifteen or twenty
feet it slowed up and once more resumed its flowing march up
the coral wall. Down on the sand the record of its passing was
exhibited as a host of reflections glided over the ocean floor
like miniature ghosts. These danced and swirled as the waves
above changed the focus; the entire undersea appeared splat-

372 I N A G U A

tered with fragments of light and shadow.

I looked up again. The whole school had altered its course.
This time instead of following the heaving sky, it was pouring
into the depths. The effect was that of a living cascade. Long
threads of burnished metal and spangles of quivering silver
glittered in a liquid torrent. For fully two minutes it lasted,
and then, with a final spluttering of light, the fishes faded away
and vanished forever.

The calm that followed the deluge of fishes was so intense
that some seconds passed before I became aware of any move-
ment. Then in the direction of the coral trees at the base of the
trunks, I saw what appeared to be a long winding serpent. It
was defiling from a shadowy avenue of twisted trunks and was
slithering close to the bottom where it followed the contour
of the rocks and crags. Neither end was visible as it squirmed
and swayed into obscurity. My curiosity was aroused and al-
though I felt safer in my corner I got up and walked slowly
over. When I came close I saw it was one of the interminable
schools of snappers. They did not seem to mind my presence,
though I must have been a strange sight to them with a geyser
of moonlit bubbles mounting from my head. I strode through
the snappers but they merely separated long enough to allow
passage and closed ranks again.

Where they were going in the night and for what purpose I
could not guess. They seemed to be in no hurry but they were
off on some errand which, no doubt, was important to them.
For a few seconds I had an irresistible urge to follow but know-
ing that I was limited to the length of my hose, even imagining
that they would permit my trailing them, I desisted and watched
them vanish like the surface fishes into the abyss.

The two schools taking their separate paths to obscurity gave
a hint of the tremendous activity that w^as occurring along the
borders of the sea. In my imagination I could visualize similar

NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 373

schools that must be winding in the moonhght and in the
shadows along the slopes of the oceans all over the world. Off
Inagua alone the pulsing masses of life creeping in and out of
the coral forests must be stupendous. Whenever I stand on the
seashore at night I will think, not of the waves lapping at my
feet, but of the winding serpents of individual fishes crawling
in and out of the sea, all unseen, unnoticed and unknown. When
I think again of these milhons of lives going on miUions of er-
rands, with millions of hopes and millions of failures, with mil-
lions of problems, millions of ways of solving them, pursuing
millions of meals, escaping millions of enemies, giving life to
milHons of spawn and dying millions of deaths, I can only be
silent with awe.

Then, when the snappers were gone, I turned away and
crept down into the valley as it had become my custom to do
at the end of each trip. At the bottom I stood motionless while
all around phantom shapes resolved and dissolved with the
shadows. For a long time I paused. Then, when a group of large
fishes went hurrying by, and I recognized them by their forms
and by their gleaming horselike teeth as parrotfish, and saw
that they were scurrying frantically for the upper corals, I
knew that this was not my world and that I had stayed long
enough.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Edge of the Edge of the World

Helmeted and visored like some knight of old, I stood mo-
tionless at the bottom of the sea on the next but last day I was
to spend on Inagua and contemplated the great mound of yel-
low rock where I was poised forty feet beneath the surface.
Slowly I crouched, stooped to nearly a sitting position, and
then sprang into space. Up I soared, ^vt feet, ten, fifteen, on
up to twenty, slowly drifted to a stop and then coasted down
again. I landed on a smooth stretch of sand, bounced a tiny
bit and, like an actor in a slow motion picture, came to rest.
Breathing a sigh of relief I turned and looked at the jagged
rocks I had just cleared with my amazing leap.

I was glad I had not misjudged the distance, as an error
would have resulted in badly scarred limbs. Strange, I thought
to myself, the chances a man will take for the sake of curiosity.
There was no other excuse I could think of for this last-minute
escapade. I thought I had had enough of diving but one thing
remained. For weeks I had stood on shore and looked at the
place beyond the settlement where the color of the ocean
changed abruptly from light green to dark blue, marking a
sheer drop of 1200 fathoms, a terrifying plunge to the utter-
most depths. Finally I could resist the temptation no longer; I
had to see what the edge of that submarine chff was like.

With the aid of a native boatman I loaded my diving helmet
into the boat and anchored just a few feet on the land side of
the brink. I was perhaps a quarter of a mile out from shore.
The bottom looked a long distance away, and it was with a

374

THE EDGE OF THE EDGE 375

feeling of doubt that I donned the helmet and went sliding into
the blue. I landed a few seconds later, deeply conscious of the
pressure, and turned and looked about. A heavy weight seemed
to be pressing on my abdomen and chest. The surface was a
long, long distance away; my hose curled up behind me in a
wide arc, a snaky black line that became increasingly indistinct
until at its further end it blurred away. Even the boat was ob-
scure and somewhat nebulous.

I peered about, trying to get some hint of direction. Above
and to all sides existed nothing but blue water, a filmy evanes-
cent blue that baffled description, unrelieved by any solid ob-
jects. Leaning far backwards, I looked towards the surface.
Still nothing but liquid blue, perhaps a trace lighter than the
color to each side. There was no such thing as direction. North,
east, south and west were all the same. Blue water everywhere;
one was drowned in it, lost in azure.

Only the sand at my feet, heaped in little piles between the
rocks, helped to stabilize, to give a hint where I might find the
edge of the cliff. I sensed that it was close because my naked
flesh could detect a faint cold current coming up from the
depths. Hesitating, I turned my body this way and that, trying
to catch the direction of the current. But it was too slight, too
vague to help. Then my feet gave me the clue. The bottom was
uneven, very regularly uneven. I looked at the piles of sand.
They were heaped in hundreds of little mounds, long waving
lines that faded into the blue immensity. They were similar
to the lines I had seen when I watched the tide flowing by
Inagua's westernmost point. I guessed that, like those others,
they would run at right angles to the shore opposite the direc-
tion of the current. My course was parallel with them.

On I pressed, leaning hard against the water. Presently the
cold became more pronounced, a gentle sort of chill that merely
gave a hint of what lay before, like the faint coolness that some-

376 I N A G U A

times comes on dry land in September before the leaves are
gone.

A feeling of loneliness swept briefly over me. I felt as though
I were the only person in the world, as indeed I was, for al-
though I knew that only seventy feet away the boatman was
steadily stroking the pump that kept me alive, he might well
have been on Mars, so separated were we by the thin film of
the top of the ocean. And I knew that I was treading a spot
where no man had ever trod before, that my eyes would be
the first to see this abyssal underwater cliff that dropped away
for nearly 7000 feet before it reached the floor of the ocean.
Perhaps it was the deathly stillness that gave the feeling, for
no sound came to my ears but the faint hiss of the air that came
down the hose.

Nervously I tightened my grip on the Hfe line and pulled on
it to make certain that it was securely fastened. It was. I could
feel the surge of the boat as it bobbed up and down on the
waves. Turning on my course T looked again for the boat. It
was quite out of sight. Completing my rotation I searched care-
fully in all directions. The boatman had warned that the cliff
edge was the rendezvous of huge sharks and barracuda and that
I should be cautious. As I had done on the reef, I scoffed at him;
though after my experience there, and now that I was by my-
self and lost in an azure immensity, I was not so sure.

The edge came sooner than I expected. Suddenly I was peer-
ing down into a great blue void. The soil had disappeared at
my feet and the bottom had become soft and yielding. For an
awful second I could see the sand drifting, sliding downwards,
and frantically I seized the life line and held it tight. I knew
well enough that I would not drift ten feet before I would be
checked by both hose and line, but the space below looked so
utterly vacant that I could not help reacting as I did.

Trembling slightly, I sat down on the soft bank and peered

THE EDGE OF THE EDGE 377

downwards. It was an overwhelmingly empty space. Down,
down into the terrifying blur of out-of-focusness the sand
sloped away. There was nothing down there but deepness,
empty dark and cold.

Like an invisible wall a chill feeling hung on the edge of the
cliff. I stirred one of my feet. A little pile of sand drifted loose,
gathered volume and in a creeping slithering landslide, oozed
its way down the slope. A faint cloud of powdery silt arose,
gently spread apart and slowly disappeared. There was some-
thing so serpentine, so creeping about that landslide. None of
the rush and tumble of a slide on land— only a slow gentle fall-
ing into the depths. I imagined how horrible it must be to shde
helplessly to death, should one be unable to free the helmet
weights and lose the stabilizing hose and line, to drift oozily
down, inch by inch, foot by foot, with the pressure increasing
in a crushing horrible grip. And I could imagine the increasing
darkness that would come before unconsciousness would make
it complete, a gradual deepening of color, ultramarine, azure,
deep azure, blue-black— and then utter darkness.

Clickety-click, clickety-click— the faint sound of the air
pump brought me back to reality. I reasoned that I was per-
fectly safe, and curiosity began to replace the sensations of
panic. I wondered what lay below and what held the soft edge
so evenly in place. I looked back. In a long even plain, seamed
with fissures and crevasses, the sand and rocks sloped gently
towards the surface, a rise that was so gradual as to be almost
imperceptible.

I reached down and picked up some of the sand, tightly
clenching it in my palm to keep it from oozing from between
my fingers. Holding it close to the helmet I examined it care-
fully. It was foraminiferous sand, not the hard quartz sand of
American beaches, but sand formed from the dead and de-
cayed shells of numberless sea creatures. In incredible billions

378 I N A G U A

these animals had died, dropping their calcified remains in a
slow organic rain to the sea floor. The cliff was a vast funeral
pile of a million, million lives. The ocean currents welling up
from the depths had gathered it all there in one spot to make
the edge of a world.

A shadow passed across the helmet. The shadow of the boat
I thought, and let the sand run between my fingers. The boat
was fully seventy feet away from the edge. It could cast no
shadow!

I saw a darkened patch move slowly over the sand, slide
over the rounded edge and become nothingness with the gloom
beyond. I looked up and nearly yelled into the recesses of the
helmet. There, not fifteen feet above my head, was a great
manta, the most gigantic of all the devilfish. It was flying-
there is no other word for it— flying along in mid-water like
some great bat or monstrous pterodactyl, looking like a vision
out of the forgotten past. Flapping its great expanded wings,
it seemed to be soaring rather than swimming through the
water.

I froze to the sand. The monster turned slightly, coming
dangerously close to the air line, swooped gracefully over the
edge, and faded into the depths. It must have measured fifteen
feet from wing tip to wing tip.

I turned to grasp the life line to go to the surface and then
froze again. The fish was returning. To the right I saw its huge
bulk heading up out of the shadows. Up to the very brink it
came, curled one great fin high, and in a sweeping curve turned
up the edge of the bank. It headed straight for me, and I could
see its drooping cephalic fins, looking like great horns, held
straight downwards. Apparently they were being used for
rudders, but the thought flashed into my mind that they were
also used for sweeping prey into the mouth with its crushing
rows of cobblestone teeth.

THE EDGE OF THE EDGE

379

On it came straight for the helmet. There was nothing I
could do. I was helpless, was not even carrying a sheath knife.
In a moment it was but fifteen feet away, then ten, and then,
just as I was prepared to be crushed under its great spreading
black and white wings, it banked sharply, swung eerily over
my head, narrowly missing the air hose again, and disappeared
to the left. As it banked I could see its little pig-like eyes gUnt-
ing at me, jet black pupils set in a white iris.

I rolled over and caught a glimpse of the creature flying
slowly towards the place where the boat was anchored. Behind
it for three feet trailed a slim, rigid, black tail held stiffly like
a rod. On its body were two remora, larger than the ones I
had seen on the nurse sharks. They slithered all over the crea-
ture's belly as though restlessly waiting the manta's dinner-
time when they would glean their meals of crumbs from the
monster's feasting.

The devilfish swung again and then came back but not so
close this time. It passed within fifteen feet, steered wide of
the air line, much to my relief, and turned down the edge of the
bank. Rapidly it faded into the haze, became more and more
faint, and finally disappeared altogether. I waited to make
certain that it was gone and then went hand over hand up the
life line as hard as I could go. In a moment I was safe and sound,
panting in the sunshine on the deck of the sailboat.

For the second time my boatman beamed with triumph.

"Some day yo get yosef in trubble— dem tings aint nothin
to mess wif," he warned.

For once, I was inclined to agree. If the manta had sheared
off my air hose or had become entangled in the life line its
visit might have been extremely- awkward, if not tragic.

Half an hour later, after catching my breath and reviving
my courage, I went down again. I found the edge rather easily
this time, but in a different spot. Here a patch of sea grass ex-

38o I N A G U A

tended out to the very brim, and the sand was more firm. I
made myself as comfortable as possible and sat patiently, squirt-
ing little jets of water on the glass to clear the mist that was
forming from my breath. At first I saw nothing but presently
made a discovery.

The edge was the highroad for hundreds of fishes passing
up and down the bank. The first that I saw were a large school
of mackerel of a species that I could not determine. They were
ill about eighteen inches in length and were traveling about
(en feet above my head. The glow of the sunshine filtering
down through the blue caught their silvery bodies and high-
Hghted each one with a line of gleaming yellow. I have never
seen anything on dry land as brilliant except possibly the wings
of certain butterflies. When I first glimpsed them they were
swimming leisurely; but suddenly, as one fish, they all broke
into action. In a great yellow streaking line they darted towards
the surface where some slim smaller fish were idling.

The smaller fish saw them coming, and like living arrows
they, too, streaked surfacewards. Looking up I could faintly
make out the opaque surface film and, as I watched, the smaller
fish burst through and disappeared. Then I knew them for
flying-fish. Disappointed, the mackerel turned aside and re-
sumed their march up the bank edge. I did not see the flying-fish
drop in again, as the haze and the distance obscured them from
view.

Suddenly my arm began burning as though on fire. Fright-
ened, I whipped around, sending a white cloud tumbling over
the earth brim. Trailing over my arm were two or three strands
of gelatinous tentacles from a Portuguese man-of-war, a blue
and lavender jellyfish that was drifting over my head. Franti-
cally I ducked the remaining tentacles and managed to elude
them by throwing myself on the sand. The swirl of my action

THE EDGE OF THE EDGE 381

twisted the soft-bodied animal around, throwing the traihng
stingers out of their graceful arrangement. I gasped, rubbed my
arm and was interested to observe that the man-of-war in-
stantly retracted its tentacles, drawing them well up under its
partially deflated float. The expanded tentacles were fully ten
or twelve feet long and, had I received the full benefit of their
discharge I would have had an exceedingly nasty arm. As it
was, my arm burned and smarted for nearly two hours.

Portuguese men-of-war are as peculiar as they are malignant.
They are cousins to the hydroids and the jellyfish but have
the distinction of being almost the only communists to live in
a completely beneficial yet unquarrelsome group. For men-
of-war, as single as they may seem, are really made up of
several separate individuals, all performing different functions
but operating as a unit. Superficially they appear as one animal
but if the colony is examined carefully it will be seen to be
composed of polyps having varied shapes and purposes. One
type, a tube-like structure of dehcate blue, does the feeding
and digesting for the entire group; another, a finger-shaped
jelly, is highly sensory and functions as a tactile organ; still
others serve as reproductive cells, while a fourth kind have
been metamorphosed into long tentacles and streamers loaded
with poisonous stings. These capture the prey and act as de-
fensive armament. They also serve the further purpose of bal-
ancing rudders. Needless to say, the Portuguese men-of-war
are let strictly alone.

But the most interesting sight, after I recovered my equilib-
rium, was the host of tiny fish that centered about the jelly. I
identified them as the butterfish, Peprilis, the young of the same
creatures that grace our tables. They have become associated
with the Portuguese man-of-war and with other jellyfish, to
which they look for protection. When menaced by larger and

382 I N A G U A

hungrier fish, these butterfish sHp quickly beneath the poison-
ous tentacles and take up a position safe from harm. Once in
a great while in the excitement of fleeing from an enemy, a
butterfish blunders into a tentacle and is immediately paralyzed.
Then the jellyfish has its innings and slowly, inexorably the
tentacles contract and pass the helpless fish to the mouth to be
devoured.

Except for accidents of this type, however, the jellies do not
seem to be aware of the protection they are affording their
sHm associates. This is not true of the butterfish, for they are
acutely conscious of the stinging character of the tentacles and
exercise great care in slipping in and out. Theirs must be a pre-
carious lot, comparable to living in a place hung with dozens
of high voltage electric wires.

This association of the men-of-war and the butterfish, as
one sided as it is, is a wonderful thing. How did such a com-
panionship begin? AVhat intrepid butterfish first ventured into
these portieres of paralyzing death and learned their value as
protectors? Was it a super-butterfish that first did this thing,
and then, in some unexplainable manner, transmitted the new-
found knowledge to its successors? Or did all the butterfish
come to know this all at once by some strange instinct? These
questions are almost without answer.

I was glad when the man-of-war was gone, for while they
are very lovely in their deUcate lavender colors there is some-
thing very sinister about them, and they sting frightfully. There
is no group of creatures that so entirely fits into this strange
world of underwater. Filmy, delicate, fantastic in shape and
form, nearly 98% water themselves, extremely fragile, they
melt perfectly into the underwater landscape.

Relieved, I sat down and watched some margate fish come
filing out of the haze. Unlike the mackerel they traveled in
twos and threes. They seemed to find little tid-bits in the sand

THE EDGE OF THE EDGE 383

below the rim and their progress was rather leisurely, inter-
rupted by all sorts of side excursions.

Once I saw a barracuda. Long and slim and graceful, it
emerged from the filmy distance and came to a stop a few feet
away. Across its gill flap was a deep line which gave it a hard,
grim appearance. It eyed me coldly, hung motionless in the
water for about three minutes, and then without visible effort
slid away into the blue. I was not as nervous over the barracuda
as I had been over the devilfish, though I might have been, for
the barracuda are the reputed tigers of the sea.

The greatest thrill came when a great green turtle, weigh-
ing a hundred pounds or more, swept by. It arrived from be-
hind me somewhere, sliding just above the sand, reaching out
with graceful motions of its flippers. It paid me not the slight-
est attention and went by within ten feet. Great masses of
whitish barnacles covered its shell, and it was adorned with a
filmy carpet of greenish moss. Like the manta it was carrying
a parasite, a remora attached to the underside of its shell. Hang-
ing close to the bottom, it slid over the edge and vanished in
the gloom. I could :fiot help wondering where it was going,
because I knew there was a limit to the time it could stay below.
Turtles breathe atmospheric air and must come to the surface
at regular intervals. But down it went, down into the hazy
distance and the dark.

The turtle gave a clue to another type of migration on the
cliff edge, a migration that was not as important as the long
shore migration. Fish were gliding back and forth from the
depths and the shallows of the bank. The most abundant of
these were the squirrel-fish, which I had not seen in any large
numbers before except at night: A steady stream of them fil-
tered out of the depths. They seemed to know where they were
going and headed straight for the rocks on shore. Others were
returning, coming to the edge and slipping over and down.

384 I N A G U A

They were accompanied by red and blue parrotfish whose
errands in the depths were something of a mystery, for the
Hmit of the vegetation on which they fed was near the cUif
edge. Yet there were great numbers and presumably they
divided their time between the rocks on shore and some shad-
owy crags far below.

My last view of this edge of a world was one of the most
awe-inspiring sights I have ever seen. I determined to go down
as far as I dared and the pressure would permit. After a short
rest I crept out to the very edge of the brim and, grasping the
life line, let myself over. The sand started sliding beneath my
feet, but I held fast and crept downwards. The slope was quite
steep, but with the steadying line I managed to keep upright.
Down I went, slowly, blowing hard through my nose to re-
lieve the pressure on my eardrums. Down ten feet, fifteen,
twenty.

I looked up. There was no hint of the surface. I was down ^^
feet. Not much as modern diving goes, but a lot for the light
equipment I was using. I knew that I should go no further.
But something drew me down. Curiosity again, that indefina-
ble urge to see what is around the corner, to go a few feet
more and a few more. I was beginning to feel the pressure. A
heavy weight seemed to be pressing against my stomach and
chest, and I was breathing heavily. Sixty feet. My head began
to swim. Sixty-five.

I hurriedly looked about. Down as far as I could see there
was nothing but sand sloping away into infinity, sand and
utter darkness, the most mysterious quiet darkness I have ever
beheld. There was something terrifying about it— it was so
vague, so intangible. I turned back and struggled up the slope.
High above, over the rim poured a halo of golden light. My
head was reeling from the unaccustomed pressure. Hand over

THE EDGE OF THE EDGE 385

hand I pulled myself up the line. Even as I reached the rim a
shining horde of golden motes poured over the edge. It was
a great school of fishes going to the depths. We passed midway,
for them the darkness and the cool— for me the glorious, dry,
air-breathing world of the sun.

MARINE

BIOLOGICAL

LABORATORY

WOODS HOLE, MASS.
W. H. 0. L