DAHLAK KEBIR, DESERT IN THE SEA 79 



The shark is a timid fish, easily frightened, often a coward. 

 Our direct experience with the more terrible sharks was, alas, 

 not vast, but it is hardly feasible that some species of sharks 

 should behave in one way and others quite differently, or 

 even contrarily. We feel, therefore, in a position to insist that 

 sharks, some more, some less, are suspicious and cautious and 

 often cowardly, a view confirmed by shark fishermen, serious 

 ichthyologists and navigators whose word can be relied upon. 



I have many reasons for affirming that sharks are cowards. 

 Of all fish, we foimd them the most unapproachable ; any 

 movement on our part underwater was enough to put them 

 in a state of alarm. If from curiosity they did draw near, it 

 was always slowly and warily. We found too that when we 

 wounded a shark it did not react in any way against its 

 human aggressor. It remains to be seen whether a tiger-shark 

 or a white shark would behave in the same way. If a small 

 coral fish 'threatened' it, it escaped. We found they were 

 more audacious when in the herd. If some heavy object (a 

 bit of rock, or a spear-gun, for instance) was dropped sud- 

 denly above a shark, its first instinct was to flee, and its 

 second, to come back and have a look. It seems, then, per- 

 missible to state that the shark attacks man only if it finds him at 

 an obvious disadvantage. 



Is it true that sharks possess extreme cunning? Fish are by 

 no manner of means as stupid as is generally supposed, and 

 it is evident that confronted with a dead body, or a swimmer, 

 or a man struggling helplessly in the water, the shark has not 

 the same sense of inferiority as he has in the presence of an 

 underwater man. 



Man underwater is a fish, not to sharks alone, but to every 

 sort offish. He may be a queer, clumsy sort offish that blows 

 bubbles, and seems to have neither head nor tail, but he is a 

 fish all the same. The shark therefore, who is not courageous, 



