14 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



scantily supplied with inhabitants, and those of very large 

 size ; a remembrance of the Stormontfield experiments 

 naturally recurs to the mind, and one wonders whether, as 

 the parr were formerly distinguished from the salmon, so in 

 this instance the Sir may have been nothing else than 

 the young of some larger species, and their destruction have 

 given rise to the scarcity prevailing in the waters of the 

 Nile. 



Holy wars seem to have been as much in fashion in 

 Ancient as in Modern Egypt ; and the controversy assumed 

 the curious form of one tribe with the utmost irreverence 

 eating up the fishes which the inhabitants of the adjoining 

 territory held in divine adoration. This was a fertile source 

 of recrimination and dispute, and the quarrel between the 

 Ombitae and their neighbours on this knotty point attained 

 the dimensions of a very respectable war, A very ancient 

 exercise of royal prerogative has been preserved for us by 

 Diodorus. Mceris or Thothmes IV. made over to his queen 

 all rights in the lake which bears his name, for her to buy 

 ornaments with the produce ; and if it be correct that 

 twenty-two different kinds of fish were found there in great 

 abundance, her Majesty had no reason to be dissatisfied 

 with the amount assigned for her pin-money. In more 

 recent times Ebn Modalbir, according to Abd Alatif, an 

 Arab physician of the fourteenth century, was the first to 

 lay a tax upon fishing, and for this purpose established 

 regular inspectors at Alexandria, Damietta, the Cataract 

 of Oswan, and other places, 



Isis, under the form of a fish-tailed woman, the common 

 object of adoration to the Egyptians, was also worshipped by 

 the ancient Suevi as the discoverer of the sail. Doubtless 

 Horace had her image in mind when he penned his fdmous 

 comparison for an incoherent simile, 



•' Desinit in piscem mulicr formosa superne." 



