DAHLAK KEBIR, DESERT IN THE SEA 69 



seven or eight palms in all, two mangrove forests along the 

 seaboard, and several sparse clumps of dwarf acacias. The 

 fauna includes gazelle, rats, turtle-doves, quails, sand-grouse 

 in the season of their passage, herons, flamingoes, pelicans, 

 red-billed tropic birds, oyster-catchers, water birds of every 

 kind, birds of prey in great numbers, Arabian bustard (few 

 and bad to eat) , guinea-fowls when you are lucky enough to 

 find them, dromedaries and goats, 'domestic' in so far as they 

 are someone's property, but to outward appearances 

 absolutely wild and at full liberty; no one steals them and I 

 would say that no one could catch them either. A property of 

 doubtful value. Sun, desert, misery. 



Many of the natives from the Dahlaks have never seen 

 Massawa. The children believe that white men cut off 

 children's ears ; the women usually have a manifest horror of 

 whites, while the men show them extreme cordiality and 

 respect. Their faces are dark but not black. The men are of 

 medium height, thin and bearded, with crooked legs. They 

 dress in semi-Arab fashion, in short printed cotton waistcoats 

 and skirts (the futa) or else go semi-nude. The young 

 women, the very few we managed to see, since the Moslem 

 religion orders absolute reserve on the part of the young 

 married ones, are surprisingly beautiful. At Nocra Vv^e saw a 

 sixteen-year-old girl with a tattooed skin, who would have 

 put any beauty queen in the shade. The old women, on the 

 other hand, are repulsive hags of dried mud and paper. 



They are an intelligent people. The men go and fish for 

 sharks, uasif and sadef sardines, and trochus shells from which 

 are made mother-of-pearl buttons. They remain at sea in 

 their sambuks for months at a time, while the wives remain 

 hidden in their huts that they call agudos, which look like 

 igloos of skins, rags and sticks, and live on goodness knows 

 what. Some of the women work with a fibre rather like 



