DUR OHELLA AND ITS INHABITANTS 183 



Ghella was full of interest. It was lined with cracks, for 

 example. Its rocky surface was open in places with fissures 

 up to nine feet deep, caused evidently by violent seismic 

 shocks both in the distant past and more recently. We had 

 to take care where we put our feet since the smaller cracks 

 were often hidden by dog grass. 



The general structure of Dur Ghella resembled that of the 

 other islands. The coastal formation was like that of Dissei 

 and Cundabilu. On one side (west) the underwater terrace 

 of sand was very short, followed immediately by the madre- 

 poric barrier and the deep sea-bed. On the other side (east) 

 the terrace was broad and low and four times as long as the 

 opposite side; the barrier here was less imposing and the 

 sea-bed ran progressively nearer the surface. 



Therefore the great beach of Dur Ghella was on the east, 

 while on the west the cliffs dropped clean into the sea from 

 a height of fifteen to twenty-five feet. In fact the sea was 

 eating into the base of these cliffs, causing a continual 

 crumbling away. 



On the day we landed we did not succeed in pitching the 

 tent. Both Cecco and I had pitched hundreds of tents in our 

 time, but we could not find a space among the mangroves 

 that night, and with the one hundred and one things that 

 there were to do, darkness overtook us. So we slept on the 

 beach under the humid trees, visited by advance guards of 

 red ants, and the first Sioux. The following morning, armed 

 with bill-hooks, we cleared a space in the mangroves. The 

 tent was then put up in the shade, a few steps away from the 

 rising and disappearing water, near a rock which would do 

 duty as a kitchen table with a hole underneath for our cases 

 of victuals (as well as several mice) . Gandhi was tied by an 

 ample cord to a branch of a mangrove, Gregory to a stake 

 on the edge of a pond, and Coso, the little osprey, which we 



