The Aqua Eye
John Stewart Collis
Recently I found myself on the South Cay, which is the smallest island, and furthest from the shore, out from Port Royal at Kingston in Jamaica. It contained one mangrove tree and a few bushes. It was about the size of three tennis courts. Its beach was chiefly composed of coral chipp- Ings. There can be smaller islands than this dotted in the oceans of the world. Sometimes they can be illusions and sink when you land on them Thus, Theobald, author of Physiologus de Naturus XII, mentions how sailors landed on a certain Island which was rather small, and lit a fire. But they had made a mistake. It was not an island. It was composed of some basking whales. The lighting of the fire caused them to submerge at once, and the sailors were drowned. However, this shoal of earth on Which I stood in the Caribbean was no illu- sion, and it served as a good base from which to swim out with a snorkel. It cer- tainly goes against the grain to use so ugly a word as snorkel in reference to so wonder- ful and experience. I wish we could do away with it and use instead a term such as `the Aqua Eye'. Anyway, thus equipped we can explore the submarine world of coral.
I wonder if there is anything in Nature More wonderful than coral. It appears to be rock, and it is hard enough and sharp enough to pierce the hulls of ships, and to serve as a barrier to affright the fiercest sharks. But it is not made of rocks. It is Made of skeletons. Yet its top layer is alive, consisting of millions of tiny creatures call- ed Polyps. They are rather like jellyfish, but they Possess rudmentary bones which by virtue of lime in the sea water become very hard. We call the final product coral, and we can truly say of polyps that their bones are of coral made, for they have suffered a sea change into something rich and strange. How does the coral reef grow, how does it increase? We think of another little creature called the hydra. Its manner of giving birth to new hydras is by growing them on its per- x°11 like buds on a tree. After a certain period they break off to live a life of their own. The he losing of a head is no problem to a nYdra: it simply grows another. Thus we sPeak of the hydra-headed monster. A Polyp has the same organisation as the "Ydja, the same method of budding its off- sPring with one difference. The hydra breaks off from the parent body, the polyp Continues to remain attached, thus increas- ing the body of which it forms a part.
the Polyp is seemingly'a poor thing. But
t
'i re multiplication of polyps in their millions clinging together to from a whole which grows and swells and marches, is a very great thing. There is no term to their ex- istence, nor limit to their empire. The Great Barrier Reef along the north-eastern coast of Australia stretches for a length of one thousand miles. In the construction of this coral there is a remarkable exchange bet- ween the living and the dead. When a polyp dies, all the soft parts of its body perish and are washed away, while its skeleton is left to make a further contribution to the strength and size of the polypary. The skeletons are broken but not lost: the alchemy of lime works upon the fallen bones and cements them to the whole. In summary, we have the living creatures reaching upward, and the dead creatures, while their fleeting flesh decays, casting down their remnants to reinforce the pedestal upon which the others stand. The living reef arrayed with many colours is based upon the congrega- tion of the dead.
.... I take my Aqua Eye and swim out. My head is practically on the surface, but my eye could be fathoms deep. As I pass along I see miniature mountain ranges, crags and cliffs and caves and secret recesses, and valleys winding through hills. I see coral in so many colours and shapes: some like huge green leaves, others like bat- tered tables, like a group of stags' antlers, like tapestried cannon-balls, like sponges, like hedgehogs: some as thin as ferns, others in the form of boulders with marks upon them as hieroglyphics of the first scripture traced upon the foundations of the world.
As I pass through this element I am struck by the extraordinary purity of it the extremity of its cleanliness. Here there is no dust, no dirt. Not a thing here needs to be sent to the wash. In this kingdom nothing is rusty or in need of a coat of paint; there is never any smoke or fog of fumes or foul smells or dreadful noises or shameful sights. It was not till life had pushed its way from the water to dry land that the earth was stained.
The fishes seem unaware of my presence, they take no notice of me. They do not ap- pear to be in any hurry or in search of anything particular; they twist here and there, examine a recess, look into a corner then pass on unconcerned, they are not troubled. I marvel at the versatility of their designs: that neat one over there, a bright yellow; that larger one in stripes, that long one looking like a translucent snake: here a shoal, there a longe ranger. Clearly they are superior beings. They do not fear the Monster that rules our movements. Every creature on dry land is obliged to keep its feet upon it or perish. If we go over the edge of a cliff we are instantly pulled to the bottom and killed. We call it falling. There is no fall of fishes. Unimpressed by gravitation they survey their world with equanimity. Never do we see a fish bruising itself by ignoring the law which governs us. They are supported on all sides in an ele- ment which unfailingly evens itself out. No need of arms or legs: with a flick of a tail they can mount their Matterhorn or des-
cend their Everest in perfect equilibrium. Exempt from our bondage and freed from our fears, they live in so democratic an ele- ment that no monarch among fishes, with the indifference of princes, is ever in a posi- tion to say — Apres moi le deluge.
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