DISSEI, BROWN ISLAND 53 



with the shadows of huge rock masses, there lived the 

 flowering sea-anemones and 'attine'. With their fringe of 

 tentacles they were like peach buds glued into coral cracks. 

 I touched them. They shut at once and dived back into their 

 stalks in a flash. 



I darted about the underwater world like a schoolboy 

 perpetrating practical jokes. I turned the star-fish upside- 

 down so that I could see them turn themselves back again, 

 first stiffly then more elastically, raising themselves up on 

 two of their points like ballet-dancers. I knocked on the 

 'bivalve' shells, which piqued them badly, and shook a coral 

 whose community of tiny fish, instead of abandoning ship, 

 clung to her even more tightly. Then I poked a crab as red 

 and as big as a big red fist. He was just as peeved as the 

 'bivalves' and rose up defiantly on his hind claws, waving 

 his pincers fearfully and looking daggers at me. He was 

 certainly no coward. Not only did he refuse to escape, but he 

 was presumptuous enough to want to put up a fight and 

 show me how he could defend himself. All right then. I 

 pointed the harpoon at him. His tweezers gripped its end 

 and there he stayed, his claws ready for action. Chnging 

 tighter and tighter he nipped and pinched, trying to reduce 

 it to pulp. I stretched out a hand and grabbed him by his 

 backside. 'Take your freedom, little fellow. You forget I'm a 

 man and therefore much more astute than you, though with 

 far and away less guts.* 



My last experience of the day was with a black-fin shark. 

 It was not more than four feet long but its body was beautiful 

 and tapering, its smooth pearl-grey broken only by a black 

 line along the stomach. It passed in front of me on the 

 terrace only five yards from the shore in six feet of water. 

 It went by and came back again looking at me uncertainly. 

 I found it difficult to get near and in the end shot in too 



