202 DAHLAK 



look for slight swellings of the terrain and for sand that has 

 been moved. Then you dig your stave in and wait for yolk 

 on the end. We found most of the deposits the same, in that 

 the upper layer contained the edible eggs — the most recently 

 laid by the turtle on a calm night — while lower down there 

 were the unfertilized ones. 



The Yemenites glutted themselves with turtle eggs. They 

 said that you could only eat the yolks (there were two whites, 

 one more liquid than the other). We tried making an 

 omelette, but remained faithful to the modest, honest work 

 of our chickens. 



The second demonstration of the ancestral wisdom of our 

 friends was their quartering of sharks. 



In addition to the forty-odd fish weighing from two to 

 twelve pounds and ranging over red breams, pampano, 

 tunny, barracudas and groupers of different kinds, they 

 caught an average of two sharks a day. These generally 

 measured from three to four feet, but sometimes they landed 

 bigger specimens, as long as nine feet and weighing several 

 hundredweight (grey sharks and white-fins). The other fish 

 were gutted and stored immediately in a big wooden chest 

 in the middle of the sambuk. This chest was stacked with ice 

 bought at Massawa. The ice was kept inside matting, but as 

 it disappeared and the fish began to burst forth from the 

 chest, the Yemenites rushed back to the market at Massawa. 



The sharks were slit, gutted and cut into sections. The 

 quartering of the sharks took place on the beach in the dark 

 when the rest of the work was done. The light of our lamp 

 was highly appreciated. The chief was the butcher. He may 

 have held the office as an honour, but it was more likely that 

 he held it because he was the most skilled — besides he was 

 the man who caught them. It was hell's own job. He started 

 at the fins, sticking a rough knife in, rather like a cobbler's 



