CHAPTER 



DISSEI, BROWN ISLAND 



THE entrance to the channel of Abd-el-Cader is ap- 

 proached from inside the port of Massawa and it takes a 

 quarter of an hour in a rowing-boat to reach it. Even so the 

 sea sweeps into it, cutting it into a gorge and carrying in every 

 sort of fish, including big sharks. The banks of the channel 

 drop almost perpendicularly from the surrounding sandy 

 terrace to a depth that varies from forty to fifty feet, and its 

 floor is covered with madreporic vegetation. 



We were conducted there by a fellow-countryman, an 

 expert on the zone. The water was filthy (visibility down to 

 two or three yards), and put off by the yellow filth I did not 

 go in; only Cecco and Gigi braved it. They saw neither 

 interesting animals nor sharks, though I believe that if a 

 whale had passed them two paces away they would have 

 continued to sit imperturbably on the bottom scrutinizing 

 the mud, convinced they were in an underwater wilderness. 

 Gigi caught a large eagle ray (about twenty pounds) before 

 finishing his short bathe, and that was the only living thing 

 he encountered. 



The east coast of the peninsula, that is the one looking 

 out to the open sea, has no coral reef It descends gently in 

 sand dotted with large and small blocks of coral that never 

 succeed in forming a chain or bank. Along the shore threads 



