Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-23

| Mr.. Torres Immediately obtained a
| coil of rope, hurried down to the spot.
and, with the aid of the mozo, soon
hauled me to the top of the cliff. This
| experience practically cured me of
diving alone off the Bunda Bend cliffs,
| l may add that a day or two later,
| using a 200-foot rope, a chain leader
and steel hook Il inches long, with
| 4 piece of fat pork for bait. we caught
| man-eating shark 15l2 feet long off
| this same cliff. Possibly it was my
| friend: a any rate his backbone sup
| piled me with a highly ornamental
walking stick, which | still possess.
y \
IN another occasion, in the
Hawaiian Islands, where tourists
are told that sharks never bother
white people" dived down into lit
tie bay to get view Of a particularly
brilliant submarine garden. There
was not more than So feet of water
over this garden-possihly not so
much-and 1 foolishly believed that
sharks would not enter it. Barely had
touched bottom. however. when
small man eater-he could not have
been more than S or 9 feet long
swung at me with express-train speed
|
well filed with teeth for my liking.
1 could not duck beneath this dan
ger, so l waited until he was almost
upon me, and then leaped sideways
and upward. The teathery side Of the
shark rasped my leg between hip and
knee as he passed. but for some I'M
accountah bic reason he continued on
out into deeper water and l escaped
to the surface. Possibly the brute
was scared by the shadow of small
skiff. which had just come into the
bay bringing some people intent on
looking at the submarine garden
through water telescopes"
These two experiences and a minor
one with small octopus, which made
me think what the larger octepi might
be able to do to me, finally cured me
of this habit of unprotected deep
water diving. and I set about finding
some other way to continue my paint
ing of submarine seascap pes. First of
all, tried a regulation diving suit. but
found it to be of little use | could
not carry my painting materials under
water with me. and in addition to re-
strlcting my movements the dress Of
fered scant protection against the
larger, sharks and practically none
against a full grown octopus.
Then, while I was at Pearl Harbor.
l saw men working in diving bell
and Immediately there flashed into my
mind the idea of submarine studio"
The first one | built was four feet
square at the bottom and FIVE feet
high, with q conical top, all made Of
sheet steel, with plate.glaSS windows
an inch thick on three sides-virtu-
ally a water and air tight box. 1t was
lowered and raised by means of
heavy cable, and an air hose was con-
nected with the top. In it l had my
self let down from boat or over a
cliff, while one man watched the sig
nal rope and another attended to the
air pump.
This steel box offered only very
cramped quarters, as I had to sit
down Immediately the top was screwed
into place, and when | was painting
for four or five hours on end the posi-
ton became very uncomfortable. New
ertheless, have painted some 200 TN
der-water pictures from it. peering
through the windows at depths from
100 up to 159 feet. but the pressure
there is too great for safety
At $50 feet I am able to see with,
out artificial light about 40 feet from
the diving bell on all sides. The light
at this depth Is a diffused golden
green, beautiful in the extreme and
giving everything weird and unreal
appearance.
Wrecks OF ships appear as IL made
of silver or lead, outlined in gold.
while the highly coloref fish of tropic
waters take on all the hues of the
rainbow. The resultant pictures are
much softer in color than any land
scapes, and as the scenery of the bed
and wall Of the ocean is as beautiful