Page 343 - The Tigris Expedition

From Asia to Africa; from Meluhha to Punt
southbound
To the swimming creatures joining us on our
course, and to ourselves whenever we dived overboard and looked
up, Tigris was a small floating island, a green meadow turned upside
down. Broad and jovial, with no propeller, with a cosy valley
where other ships have a sharp keel, we waddled along, all veget­
able matter, waving with spring-green sea-weed and with a speed
appealing to the drowsiest creatures of the sea. Tiny crabs had no
difficulty clinging to the reeds, and felt at home between the long
sea-grass, like fleas in the beard of Neptune. No grass was greener,
softer and more pleasing to the eye than the uncut marine lawn
growing upside down on Tigris, with goose barnacles growing like
mushrooms, and mini-crabs and minute fish crawling about like
beetles and grasshoppers in a meadow. Why should not all kinds of
homeless vagrants be allured to the only garden floating in the
blue?
We never tired of hanging with our heads over the side bundles or
trailing on a rope outside, watching the changing world on the
yellow reeds. By now the white goose-barnacles, small when we
left Oman, were as big as flat pigeon eggs, each standing on a long
black leg and rhythmically unfolding feathery crowns like yellow
wings waving to bring food and oxygen into the broken egg. Our
speed made them a permanent spectacle, a large procession of
waving banners, surrounded by tiny, legless common barnacles,
hidden like mini-tents in the greenery. Between them crabs the size
of fingernails patrolled mechanically like armoured tanks, but quick
to take cover between the reeds if they saw our giant heads coming
down from heaven. In a few places the sun glittered as if upon gold
wire wound up into balls, which proved to be marine worms that
never unwound and performed no other visible movement than to
grow slowly in size. But nothing was stranger than the sea-hares.
We had never had them travelling with us on previous raft-ships;
now two types were crawling slowly about, feeding on our sea-
grass. The smallest was as yellow as a banana and as big as a thumb;
the other was somewhat larger, fatter, and of a greenish-brown
colour. Except for two long protuberances on the head, reminding
one of a hare’s long ears, these boneless gastropods are far too
clumsy, slow and ugly to merit their name. To us they were rather
mini-hippopotami. The dull motion, the clumsy snout, the warty
skin of the broad unshapely body were those of a pocket-size
hippopotamus as they crawled up to and over the waterline, and
slowly wavered their heads, trying to determine where to move
next. When scared they would lose all shape and identity, crawling
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