South from the Red Sea

London: The Travel Book Club, 1956. A near Fine unmarked copy with near Fine dustjacket which is not price clipped. 213 pages. 8 Illustrations. Haroun Tazieff went with Captain Jacques Cousteau to explore the Red Sea bed, and his descriptions of under-sea are among the best ever written. He climbed the volcano Nyiragongo, and spent a night at the bottom of its crater, alternatively scorched and frozen, observing the lake of molten lava, bright red under a black skin, bubbling and heaving beside him. He tested at Lake Tanganyika a theory of his that crocodiles are cowards, and will not attack a man under water; and he endured a killing journey across deserts and burning rocks to Lake Rudolf. But almost the greatest interest in his book lies in incidents by the way: land crabs encircling and advancing upon their quarry (Tazieff himself); the attempt of three of Cousteau's men to penetrate into Arabia, and how the local Emir, full of charm and knavery, kept them tightly under his thumb; and the voyage out in Calypso, with her unhandy crew of chemist, engineer, physicist, biologist, geologist, diver, doctor, parachutist and cine-photographer. 3. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.