TROPICAL BAPTISM I9 



thing, and there followed an interminable series of bureau- 

 cratic, official and officious meetings at Massawa and 

 Asmara. As a result we were tolerated. That is to say we 

 could conduct our researches, but only under certain speci- 

 fied conditions. We were allowed to work in certain places 

 only, we could not use our dinghies, fire-arms were pro- 

 hibited and we had to remain under constant surveillance 

 from the customs officers. This continued for a couple 

 of weeks until we managed to get H.E. the Viceroy, 

 Andergacciou Messai, directly interested in us. From that 

 moment Dahlak belonged to us; we were the guests of 

 honour of the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments, the pet 

 of the authorities and the cynosure of every newspaper editor. 

 Not a week went by without our activities appearing on the 

 front pages of the Eritrean press. Our meetings with sharks 

 were reported; our meetings with important personages were 

 reported ; Bruno Vailati's lectures were reported. But of the 

 sudden blooming of this new friendship, more later. 



The reasons why we did in fact choose Dahlak were few 

 but good. First and foremost the cost of the enterprise had 

 to be considered: we wanted to conduct an expedition in a 

 tropical coral sea; the Red Sea answered our needs perfectly 

 as a 'classical coral sea', and it was at a reasonably easy 

 distance from Italy. To find a comparable coral formation, 

 with its appropriate fauna, we should have had to cross 

 either the whole of the Indian Ocean or gone the other way 

 to the East Indies. Our finances would never have stretched 

 to this. Secondly, the French expedition on board the 

 Calypso had already carried out over a month's exploration 

 of a large zone of the islands of Farsan, and the Austrian 

 Hans Hass had thrust his nose well into the waters of Port 

 Sudan, whereas at Dahlak not one underwater explorer or 

 researcher had as yet flapped a fin. Dahlak, too, had the 



