178 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



the mainland, we find the sea everywhere replete with 

 the most delicious fish. Here I have seen them in 

 such enormous quantities as to make me gasp ; but 

 a fishing- boat is a rare sight indeed. Well, that 

 accounts, of course, for the neglect of the fish, for the 

 people being very low in the scale of civilization, and 

 not at all given to nautical adventure, are precluded 

 from taking toll of the sea as they otherwise un- 

 doubtedly would. Here, as everywhere along this 

 coast, the only native seafarers are the Arabs, and 

 they are far too energetic in money-making on other 

 lines to become fishermen. Fishers of men they have 

 always been until Britain stopped them (they do a 

 bit of it even now, when they get a chance), and born 

 traders they are, of course, but fishermen ! oh no ; the 

 gains are too small. And as for food, well, whoever 

 lacks in those regions, be very sure that the Arab will 

 not. Occasionally, in some harbour or sheltered road- 

 stead, a scattered few fishermen will be seen plying 

 their profession in a timorous, tentative fashion, but 

 nowhere as if they had any heart in their work. 

 Zanzibar Roads, for instance, swarm with fish of great 

 size and delicious flavour, but the utmost number of 

 fishermen I have ever seen there at work has not 

 exceeded a dozen at one time, although there is a 

 teeming population on the island, and plenty of 

 money wherewith to buy. The same story holds good 

 of Madagascar ; the natives, though fond of flesh food, 

 do not fish, apparently do not care to draw upon the 

 vast supplies of succulent food the sea brings up to 

 their very doors. 



Eight up along the African coast to Somaliland, 

 along the shores of the Bed Sea and the Persian 



