450 CHINESE FISHING 



covered by this period, if the Line claimed adherents, ^ Nets 

 made of fine bamboo, with bags arranged in front of wooden 

 stockades planted on the banks of rivers, 2 were the general 

 method. 3 



Although the Chinese have produced quite a considerable 

 literature on Fishing, the path of a writer unversed in 

 their language is, from the absence of translations, com- 

 passed about with many difficulties. The trail winds dim 

 and Serbonian, even if, as was my good fortune, a friendly 

 hand holds out now and then a torch to guide his faltering 

 steps. 4 



The dividing Hne between the historical and the non- 

 historical in China does not cut clearly and without breaks. 

 History as distinct from legend was assumed till recently to 

 begin between 900 and 800 B.C., but three archaeological dis- 

 coveries have affected previous chronological conceptions. 



1. The inscribed hone fragments (till the advent of paper, 

 c. 100 B.C., bones, stones, bronzes and tablets of wood served 

 for papyri) found in Honan apparently carry as far back as 

 c. 1500 B.C., and shed quite new light on the character of the 

 early Chinese script. Among the divination tablets I had 

 hoped for some fish omens similar to those of Assyria, Greece, 

 and Rome, or some trace of the belief still current in Southern 

 China that certain fish, as the Dolphin in the Mediterranean, 

 were weather-prophets : but, owing probably to the dry 

 character of the country of which they are the voice or rather 

 the testament, none survive.^ 



2. The wooden tablets at Tunhuang along the Great Wall 

 which illumine social conditions and deal largely with the 

 commissariat of the army. 



3. The MSS. at the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, found 

 about 1907. Coming from a Buddhist monastery, they give 

 in the main Buddhist texts, but also (as do the Egyptian 



^ / shih ching, i. 5, v. i., ii. 8, apud Vi''erner. 

 " Ibid. i. 5, iii. 4. 

 3 Ibid. i. 8. ii. 5. 



* To my friend Dr. Lionel Giles of the British Museum, and to his father, 

 Prof. H. A. Giles of Cambridge, my thanks are due for leading and kindly lights. 

 ' See L. C. Hopkins in New China Review, 1917, 1918, 1919. 



