TABÙ t75 



The time passed on this March night. . . . The breeze had 

 dropped, the leaves were still and there was no sound of the 

 sea. 



Over there on the far horizon was an island, the isle of 

 Tabu. Every black man who lands there dies. Not from 

 disease, nor from spears, for the island is deserted, nor from 

 snakes, hunger or thirst — he just dies. During the Italian war 

 in Africa the mihtary commanders wanted to place a gun on 

 the island to watch over a channel to Massawa. Five Ascari 

 volunteers were dispatched with the gun, munitions, a tent, 

 food and water for a fortnight. Precisely on the last day of 

 the fortnight the relief boat arrived with a replacement of 

 men and provisions. The first five were dead on the ground, 

 some in an advanced state of putrefaction, the others just 

 expired. The post-mortem examination failed to establish 

 the cause of death. 



Radiation ? Autosuggestion ? 



Down there behind the line of black islands the Red Sea 

 carried fire water. You just had to dip your arm in and death 

 would follow. You could not see anything — ^no algae, no 

 fish, no colour. The water was pure or perhaps a little 

 cloudy from the usual plankton. The fishermen of the uasif 

 who throw their nets in those parts, or the pearl fishers who 

 swim there without knowing, all die, apparently, after one 

 or two days with atrocious pains. It is not the water that 

 burns, but the fire inside it. Some dying fishermen have 

 been transported to the hospital at Massawa, but none of 

 them has ever been saved and the cause of death has never 

 been ascertained. 



Certainly, it is a stinging plankton that is exceptionally 

 poisonous. Certainly it is composed of microscopic algae. 

 And then the suggestion ! 



On the opposite coast, before the Yemen and in southern 



