JAPAIS^, CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES 



The Chinese have long devoted themselves to fishing, but 

 not to angling, although there is reference to rod anghng in their 

 early works. Their ancient classics refer to the time many 

 centuries before the Christian Era when there were officials 

 appointed something like the game-wardens of to-day, or Fish 

 Commissioners ; one Chiang Tzu-ya, who flourished three thou- 

 sand years ago, is, doubtless, the first man known to fish with a 

 rod. Wei-Ching, W. Yen, Second Secretary of the Imperial 

 Chinese Legation at Washington, says that the man fished with 

 an iron rod, at the age, of eighty. The emperor Wen Wang heard 

 of it, and paid him great honour for twenty years. The clever 

 poet of Punch, author of the following lines, must have had in 

 mind Chiang Tzu-ya : 



' THE FIRST FISHERMAN. 



' Beside a vast and primal sea 

 A solitary savage he. 



'Who gathered for his tribe's rude need 

 The daily dole of raw sea-weed. 



' He watched the great tides rise and fall 

 And spoke the truth — or not at all ! 



'Along the awful shore he ran 

 A simple pre-Pelasgian ; 



• A thing primeval, undefiled 

 Straightforward as a httle child — 



' Until one mom he made a grab 

 And caught a mesozoic crab ! 



' Then — ^told the tribe at close of day 

 A bigger one had got away ! 



' From him have sprung (I own a bias 

 To ways the cult of rod and fly has) 

 All fishermen — and Ananias ! ' 



Punch. 



349 



