178 DAHLAK 



We began unloading. The Formica was waiting ofF-shore 

 until the operation was completed, then she was going back 

 to Massawa with our friends and Gigi too, who was feverish 

 from his leg, which was getting worse. Cecco, Priscilla, 

 Giorgio Ravelli, Tesfankièl and I disembarked, accompanied 

 by the various feathered friends of our travelling zoo. 



The desert island of Dur Ghella is eight hundred yards 

 long and two hundred yards wide and is either the crest of 

 a coral mountain come up from the sea or a huge salami that 

 has fallen from the sky. 



No houses this time. We camped near the only bushes on 

 the island, a thicket of mangroves and acacias growing 

 around a sea pond. The pond was not connected directly to 

 the sea, but the tides filtered slowly through its muddy bot- 

 tom. The bushes would afford us some shade from the sun 

 since it was now March, and as there had been no rain for 

 a year the temperature in the shade rose with an alarming 

 ease to 98° F or more. 



Our boat was small and we had to make several trips to 

 get all our equipment on to the island. The Formica was 

 staying a number of days at Massawa and we needed plenty 

 of water and food, a certain number of zinc chests, jars and 

 boxes for the biological collections, the gas ring, the nets, the 

 oxygen equipment and the thousands of odds and ends that 

 are so often forgotten (hammer, soap, tin-opener, DDT, 

 acetylene lamp and so on). The equipment gradually piled 

 up on the beach, and while the others continued going to 

 and from the Formica, Cecco and I studied the thicket for a 

 suitable camping spot — without finding one. When Priscilla 

 and Giorgio came back from the last trip they were horrified 

 to find the boxes, bottles, chests and other baggage on the 

 beach covered with a living wave of crabs. 



For days and days the crabs were our colleagues, our 



