l68 DAHLAK 



are usually discovered by chance and kept highly secret by 

 Arabian professionals. The bil-bil in these grounds take root 

 on deep sand-banks and are difficult to spot. 



West of Entedebir. We caught another shark by line. It was 

 a five-foot white-fin and jumped around the boat like a 

 jack-in-the-box. *Give it some tea to calm it/ I shouted. 

 Gigi, who was dancing like a parrot in the bows with the 

 thing right under his feet, took the comment seriously, got 

 the flask which was still full of watery tea and stuck it 

 quickly into the beast's jaws. Glug, glug, glug — and down 

 went half the contents of the flask. The shark went rigid, 

 stone dead. 



We repeated the experiment a second time with a black- 

 fin, also caught by line. The first case was repeated exactly 

 ... to the last bitter dreg. 



The Island of Sciumma. Towards the end of our work in the 

 Red Sea, the biggest shark catch, although quite innocuous, 

 fell to Silverio. It was a nurse shark — a shark *of the sand' 

 because it feeds on molluscs on the sea bed, rather like a red 

 mullet, with the aid of two fleshy whiskers hanging from its 

 upper lip. Silverio's nurse-shark measured seven feet. It was 

 shot in the back with a * Cernia' gun (the gun with the 

 double spring that we generally used) . At first the selachian 

 put up a strong resistance and tried to drag Silverio off. Then 

 it got tired and surrendered. 



It was Silverio, too, who made up for a month he had had 



