140 DAHLAK 



madrepore. Quilici and Ravelli took some excellent under- 

 water photographs. Raimondo caught a lovely turtle with a 

 shot in the neck, then lost it after photographing it among the 

 coral. I consigned to the formalin two extraordinary, micro- 

 scopic fish, of a species unknown to us — one belonging to the 

 family of Holocanthus and the other to the family of 

 Balistidae. 



And finally, Cecco had his strangest quarter of an hour line 

 fishing. 



We fixed the line to the boat whenever we moved. On the 

 way out we had caught the usual grouper of fourteen pounds. 

 But on the way back, for the entire crossing over an open sea, 

 not one fish was enmeshed. Gigi was holding the line in the 

 stern, rather bored. I was at the tiller, near him, steering the 

 boat to the cliff on the island of Entedebir. We had just arrived, 

 and I was turning the bows for coasting, when something 

 stopped us with a jerk, and started pulling us backwards. 

 The shallop turned round on itself and I took her, with the 

 engine ticking over, to where the line was stuck. We looked 

 overboard and saw that the water was eighteen or twenty 

 feet deep and very clear (it was dusk and at this time the 

 plankton scatters and drifts away) . The spot had a Mediter- 

 ranean aspect, with its big clean rocks, covered here and there 

 with algae. How could the line be caught on such a deep 

 bottom ? Gigi tried pulling on all sides and I supported him 

 with manoeuvres with the oar. No result. The hook must be 



PLATE 2'^, (opposite) While we worked hour after hour on the barrier 

 slopes, large and imposing sharks, impelled by iìijìnite curiosity, 

 constantly came up from the deep to have a look. We never succeeded 

 in accepting these little pranks of theirs with a sublime indifference; 

 each time one was put of one's stroke for a second. This specimen, 

 taken by Ravelli, was over twelve feet long. 



