312 TACKLE 



appears to have found employment against Hippo. From the 

 stick on whch the hanks of cord were wound, perhaps, came 

 its invention. 1 The most developed form shows merely an 

 axle run through holes in the ends of a semi-circular handle. 

 The ends of the axle were set in handles, which to some extent 

 faciHtated the process of winding up. 2 



The pursuit of the Hippo originated, like that of the fox 

 in England, from economic causes, viz. the destruction wrought 

 on crops, not on flocks and poultry. The beast in pre-dynastic 

 times existed in Lower Egypt, but by the end of the Old 

 Kingdom seems to have retreated to Upper Ethiopia. Pliny, 

 however, speaking of its ravages at night on the fields indicates 

 its survival above Sais.3 



Diodorus Siculus,^ after surmising that if the Hippo were 

 more prolific things would go hard with the Egyptian farmer, 

 furnishes the details, but not the locus of a hunt. "It is 

 hunted by many persons together, each being armed with 

 iron darts." With the substitution of copper harpoons for 

 iron darts, the description applies almost verbatim to some of 

 the hunting scenes of the Old Kingdom.^ 



The Hook. — At the end of the pre-dynastic or beginning 

 of the First Dynastic period the Hook, fashioned in no rude 

 method, and wrought of no primitive material, but of copper, 

 makes its appearance. 



From this it is clear that Egypt (a) can lay no claim to 

 have invented this method, and {b) had travelled many stages 

 on the long road of piscatorial invention. The complete 

 absence in the Nile Valley of hooks of bone, flint, or shell which 

 occur in so many neohthic centres in other parts of the world 

 adds confirmatory evidence. 



^ Cf. the hieroglyphs in Griffith's Hieroglyphs (London, 1898), PI. g, 

 fig. 180, and text, p. 44. The more elaborate form is shown by Paget- Pirie, 

 The Tomb of Ptah-hetep, bound in Quibell's Ramesseum, London, 1S98. 



* Bates, p. 242. 



^ N. H., XXVI I L 831. Perhaps he derived his information from the 

 not-trustworthy Theriaca of Nicander, 566 ff. 



* I. 35. He visited Egypt c. 20 B.C. 



' P. 243. From Newberry's Beni Hasan, there come, curiously enough, 

 only two representations of Hippos and not one of a Hippo hunt. From 

 Herodotus, IL 71, we gather that, if the beast was elsewhere hunted, at 

 Papremis it was traditionally sacred. 



