THE FIRST DIVERS 33 



next day to come and see him again. So, when a number 

 of them had come on board the fishing boats, as soon as 

 he had let down his hook, one of her servants was before- 

 hand with his divers, and fixed upon his hook a salted fish 

 from Pontus. Antony, feeling his line give, drew up the 

 prey, and when, as may be imagined, great laughter en- 

 sued, 'Leave,' said Cleopatra, 'the fishing-rod, general, to 

 us poor sovereigns of Pharos and Canopus; your game is 

 cities, provinces and kingdoms/ " 



With the decline of the Roman Empire and the break- 

 up of the old civilizations there came, as with so many 

 arts, a blankness in the records that was to last for almost 

 fifteen hundred years. The men of the south and east 

 undoubtedly still dived for pearls and coral and sunken 

 gold, but they used the age-old methods; and in Europe 

 the Leonardos of the time pondered means of capturing 

 neighboring castles, rather than possible ways of outwit- 

 ting Davy Jones. 



Nevertheless, everybody loved a good story as much as 

 ever, and the tribal singers, both east and west, lacked 

 neither material nor imagination. But in spite of their 

 proper patriotic fervors they did not forget the old heroes 

 altogether, and it is to the bards who sang and the monks 

 who preserved their songs that we owe a favorite bit of 

 diving lore. 



Alexander the Great has always been one of the most 

 beloved of heroes and, quite naturally, a large body of 

 stories sprang up about his figure, following close upon 



