THE DANCE OF THE MANTAS 219 



deep. The ship was rolling. TesfankieFs skin had gone grey 

 while he looked to left and right at the monsters. Some of 

 them went under us. Others threatened to turn over on to 

 us. When one appeared like this right in front of the boat 

 we could measure it in relation to the boat. The boat was 

 eleven feet long and some of the mantas were twelve to 

 fifteen feet across and just as long, weighing perhaps up to a 

 ton. One cathedral that heaved out of the ocean was 

 approaching eighteen feet. It turned over five yards away. 

 The great wave in its wake plunged towards us. It flung 

 itself with a thud against the bows. Cecco was knocked flat. 

 The boat was swamped, and I was drenched. Cecco got on 

 to his feet again, opened out his arms and yelled: 'Great 

 God!' 



The sun went green and vanished. The sea turned to 

 purple and became transparent. We could see the mantas 

 twisting down below. The dance went on for half an hour. 

 Why? After another ten minutes the wake of some new 

 creature passed us. Then another approached from about 

 fifty yards away. They were little mantas two feet long, 

 travelling in pairs. They flapped their little wings furiously 

 and made for the open sea. New pairs of little mantas 

 passed us by and the mothers continued twisting over. I 

 shouted to Cecco : 



'These are the new-born! It's the parturition of the 

 mantas.' 



Cecco did not answer. No one in the world has seen the 

 mantas giving birth and it is still not known how many 

 offspring they produce at a time. The books say one. But I 

 saw one of those enormous beasts come out of the water 

 three yards from me and two little tails were projecting from 

 the cloaca. Then I saw others with two tails showing at the 

 cloaca, always two — not three and not just one ! 



