76 DAHLAK 



madrepores that punctured and lacerated. Sometimes we 

 inadvertently touched a scorpion, which though dead, was 

 still capable of leaving its mark on us. 



Research and collection took over two hours and were not 

 accomplished without some danger. Sharks arrived with 

 absolute regularity a few seconds after the explosion, four 

 or five of them on average, although several times the number 

 rose to ten and fifteen. For the most part they were black-fins, 

 white-fins and dusky sharks. Now and again there were other 

 isolated ones, which looked as though they might have been 

 anthropophagous. Not one of these, however, behaved in the 

 least aggressively towards us, or even looked hostile. All they 

 did was rush back and forth in agitation, with the sorry air of 

 scavenging dogs, dogs that throw themselves on refuse heaps, 

 consumed equally by the desire to eat and the fear of being 

 beaten. In fact, as soon as one of us sank on to the bottom to 

 recover his fish, the sharks cowered away and circled round 

 him several yards distant, watching with an expression of 

 peeved impotence. They were, however, ready to throw 

 themselves into the fray as soon as man departed towards the 

 surface. (This in itself was a manoeuvre that had to be 

 executed with a certain prudence. To rise straight to the 

 surface and present the shark beneath you with a pair of 

 undefended legs might be tempting Providence one step too 

 far.) Once more the sharks would throw themselves into the 

 middle, trying to dispatch the last of the prey as quickly as 

 possible, becoming ever more excited and probably more 

 dangerous as the booty became less and less. Each one would 

 intimidate the other by suddenly charging nose-down. As 

 always it was the biggest who drove away the smallest, while 

 the black-fins appeared to be the most enterprising among 

 them. 



Sharks grab their prey from above with one jerk of the 



