Aden 



June 7,, 1948 



Report E^Oc 4 4 



The aardina seine is a huge thing 0 The actual net^^ 

 forty feet wide by one hundred si3c:ty faet longg rectangu- 

 lar in shape g is made of cotton and woven into a fine mesh 

 ninety rows to the yardc The head and foot of the forty- 

 foot openings are fastened to headlines and f ootropes by 

 long staplings of tvvisted palm leaf strip thirty inches longo 

 A single heavy stone weights the middle of the footropOo 

 There are no floats on the headline but instead a strong 

 rope beckat is held by a canosg which acts as the floatc The 

 netting itself is the bunt or pocket of the seine o Twisted 

 palm-leaf strips fonti the v%dngs in the shape of an open mash- 

 work v^ith meshes of tvs?ei¥e-inch bar and fourteen rows deep - 

 or seven full meshes deep.. To each wing of about 400 yards 

 is attached hauling ropes « 



The use of this gear necessitates fair weather^ for it 

 is of great weight and bulk and must be jointly operated from 

 baat and shores Thirty to fifty i.en work the seine 5 and at 

 times the cat^h can be iimaensew 



Other gear in popular use are^ wickerwork traps ^ with 

 non-return valve « used for small fish; the shark spear g twelve 

 feet longg detachable barbed point; common cotton cord and 

 simple hooks - Fiost of which g incidentally ^ are inported from 



Korwavo 



Oftenj, late at nite and in the early morning hours ^ one 

 may see camel trains slowly ploddinc into Men Colony^ laden 

 with the fish caught near the eastern coastal villages ana to 

 be sold in Aden markets that dayo The catches are either 

 delivered to a few merchants to be dried ^ or are sold openly 

 in native market stalls o 



Aden Shell Jgishing Company 



A new division of the fishing industry 5, that of prooessiiig 

 shells into rough button forms g has been developed in iiden^ 

 but it is no market for local f ishermen^ for the shells are 

 mainly Imported from i^ustralia and some from the Red viea area. 

 At the present writing the Men ^hell Fishing Company occupies 

 a large ^ rented building^ containing within it storace rooms 

 for the rough-finishe' i^rticlep large cement tanks in which 

 the shells are soaked » processing rooms ^ and a machine shop 

 (operated by five Italian machinists) whei^e the processing 

 machines are both made and repaired. Only the rough button 

 form has been produced thus far^ and after cutting the fonas 

 are graded and sold to the ^Dominion Manufacturing Coi^pany'% 

 iarnaca^ Cyprus^ where they a^e finished * 



The spiral^ cone-shaped trocas is the shell used at 

 present^ from which forty to fifty button forais are cut; but 



experiments 



