86 DAHLAK 



Then suddenly an enormous dark turreted affair shot by 

 me in the direction of the channel. I jumped and followed 

 instinctively. Just before it vanished I recognized it : rhinoc- 

 eros ! I went back excitedly and it dawned on me that all the 

 time I had been paddling around the rock it had probably 

 been hiding behind it in a yard of water. 



So the rhinos were not so rare. The problem was knowing 

 how to get near them. But how was it that we had never seen 

 one on the coast of Massawa and at Sheik Said ? 



I told my friends about my encounter and we began for- 

 mulating methods for research into the private life of these 

 enigmatic beasts. Meanwhile the rain was washing all Africa, 

 our outboard motor had become a colander and we had to 

 row down the interminable channel, struggling against the 

 violent counter-current of the tide, bouncing over the waves, 

 and at the same time blowing away the beads of water and 

 sweat from our noses so as not to lose the rhythm. We reached 

 the Formica after three hours, exhausted. 



The rhinoceros fish or hunch-backs, as Cousteau called 

 them, were seen quite often after this. We met dozens, big 

 and small, in shoals, in pairs and alone, and we captured 

 another two. The biggest, of forty pounds, was killed after a 

 real battle, confirming Bucher's experience. The rhinoceros 

 rivalled that other mysterious fish which we called the 

 'cefalone' in the efficacy of its armoured plating. 



Our second rhinoceros was captured in the southern 

 channel of Nocra, where we had caught the huge grouper. 

 Gigi, Cecco, Priscilla and I were in the water. Cecco and 

 Priscilla were collecting corals and crustaceans inshore, while 

 Gigi was swimming further out alone, armed with an Aer 52, 

 working with compressed gas, quite powerful. I was photo- 

 graphing some butterfly fish and tripping around unarmed. 

 The boat was anchored. Everyone was concentrating on his 



