666 SUPPLEMENT ON 



lative facts of abstinence from fish in some nations, and the 

 exclusive use of some species in others, and indiscriminate 

 consumption of all kinds in a third class, a more absolute 

 knowledge of their different characters and properties must 

 have been the result. Accordingly we find in the ancient 

 sepulchral caves of Thebes, representations of fish drawn 

 on the walls in outlines and colours, marking distinctly ten 

 species, mostly of silures, mormyri, lates, and chromis 1 ; other 

 delineations occur of fish and fishing, (angling) among the 

 oldest hieroglyphical remains, which show the law and the 

 practice to have been at variance in a remote period. The 

 same kind of institutions and the same violation of them, 

 however differently related, evidently obtained in Palestine ; 

 for on that coast, abounding in fish, its use appears to have 

 been prohibited to the indigenous population, until the 

 nautical Phoenicians commenced their settlements upon the 

 outer rocks which formed the nucleus of their subsequent com- 

 mercial sea-ports on the Aramean shores. Then roseSidon 2 , 

 the modern Said ; so named from fish, and standing on the 

 shores of a bay abounding to excess with finny produce to 

 this hour. There the clans of piratical navigators, afterwards 

 known as Pasni, settled, and with the aid of indigenous tribes, 

 Arvatites, &c. commenced that career of industry which has 

 stood prominent in the annals of mankind : they were the 

 first who undertook fishing with commercial views in the 

 Mediterranean. The Jews, and we may add all the Philistian, 



1 Cuv. Poiss, vol. i. p. 6. Caillaud voyage a Meroe ; there are others 

 in the antiquities of the great work on Egypt. 



2 Sidon, ]T^, Tsidhon, Trogus translates a fish. Said, the present 

 name, denotes a fishing place. Said-on and Dag-on both fish divinities, 

 the first in the female form, the last the male seed bearer ; not from Serwv 

 because the roots are of Aramean origin, as the aratri et frumenti deus, is 

 from a transition in the meaning. Sidon, the daughter of Canaan, is a 

 figurative oriental form of expression. 



