64 DAHLAK 



to its brethren. Poor Gigi held his clenched fists heavenwards 

 and swore that never again would he hold a gun in his hands 

 in the Red Sea. 



And Dissei, how can we forget your guinea-fowls? One 

 morning we touched land at a small beach. It was surrounded 

 by rocks J prickly-pears and agaves, while inland there were 

 glades of dwarf acacias. I crossed the beach, took a couple of 

 steps into the glade which opened before me, and there, 

 between the grey-green sparsely growing trees I saw a flock 

 of about twenty large birds, looking like nothing less than a 

 bevy of farm-yard hens scratching away under the hill. I 

 ran to the boat and after a minute we were out on the shoot. 

 The guinea-fowls, which were as fat as turkeys, began 

 running and flying round the hill. While I hemmed them 

 in below, Cecco, Gigi and Priscilla followed them. They had 

 forgotten the asps and the vipers about which the Massawans 

 had been so careful to warn us, and were wearing only 

 sandals on their feet as they scrambled over the loose rocks. 

 The whole mountain rang with shots. When they eventually 

 returned, worn out, soaked with sweat, their legs bleeding 

 from the scratches of thorns and cactus prickles and all of 

 them on the point of sunstroke, they were holding five 

 succulent guinea-fowl in their hands. An undreamt-of meal, 

 a meal for all, including the dogs. 



And finally there was that last walk under the sea at 

 Dissei when the water was clearer than ever before. Hori- 

 zontal visibility was at least forty yards, and vertical visibility 

 between twenty-five and thirty. I had neither speargun, nor 

 camera, nor knife with me, only the breathing apparatus 

 slung on my shoulders like a haversack. Alone and un- 

 trammelled I wandered where my fancy led me. I travelled 

 over every kind of depth, and encountered every sort of 

 landscape — sand plains, algae forests, mazes and gardens. I 



