DATES— EARLIEST USE OF GUT 451 



Papyri) many quite new excerpts from lost writers, in addition 

 to accounts, etc.* 



A goodly store of stories and descriptions of prehistoric 

 Fishing and Fishers exists in ancient and modern works. 



The statement that " Fishermen used the silk from the 

 cocoon for their Hues, a piece of sharpened iron for their hook, 

 thorn-stick for their rod, and split grain for their bait " 2 

 carries us back to an age very early and indefinite. On asking 

 a high Sinitic authority what was the date of the Emperor in 

 whose reign this tackle was employed, he rapped out, " Date ! 

 What was Adam's date ? " 



The use of gut was famihar at any rate about the fourth 

 century B.C., judging from the sentence in Lieh Tzu : " By 

 making a line of cocoon silk, a hook of a sharp needle, a rod 

 of a branch of bramble or dwarf bamboo, and using a grain 

 of cooked rice as bait, one can catch a whole cartload of 

 fish." 3 



Angling as a pastime must have secured the Imperial 

 favour in early ages, as its metaphorical use by Sung Yii, 

 fourth century B.C., indicates. " In the golden age," he tells 

 us, " the Emperors were fishers of men, using sages as their 

 rod, the true doctrine as their hne, charity of heart and duty 

 to one's neighbour as their bait, the world being their fishing 

 ground, and the people their fishes." 



Strolling down the lane of Time, we meet [c. 1122 B.C.) 

 with Chiang Tzu-ya, the first statesman to recognise the 

 importance of fishing, and its allied industry, the manufacture 

 of salt. 4 



The tale — not of Chiang's rise from a very lowly station 

 to governance of a great Empire, for history furnishes many 



^ If the Chinese were behind the Egyptians in inscriptions on material 

 such as papyrus, they anticipated Gutenberg and printing by some 600 years, 

 as is proved by the recent discovery of the first specimen of block printing in 

 the roll containing the Diamond Sutra, with woodcut of 868 a.d., which deprives 

 Feng Tao (of the tenth century) of the fame of being the inventor of printing. 



* Cf. Introduction, p. 60. / shih chi shih, or The Origin of Things, although 

 of modern date, gives an account of the introduction of the various Things 

 among the Chinese. 



3 Apud Werner, op. cit., p. 277. 



* Mr. Wei-Ching W. Yen, Address before the fourth International Fishery 

 Congress, Washington, 1908. 



