MEN FISHING ASTRIDE GOATSKINS.[903]
From Assyrian Sculptures in Brit. Mus., No. 430.
CHAPTER XXXI
FISHING METHODS
The relevance to fish and fishing of all the preceding matter, except the last two sentences, may be challenged: a moment’s consideration, however, shows that it is apposite.
The object of introducing these historical facts is to demonstrate (1) the existence of an intercourse between Assyria and Egypt for certainly fourteen hundred, possibly three thousand, years, (2) to show cause for our astonishment at the absence of the Rod from all Mesopotamian representation or records, and at the non-adoption of a weapon which for centuries found favour with the Egyptians.
In my Jewish chapter I comment at length on the absence of any mention of or allusion to the Rod in Israelitish literature and on the unconvincing reasons advanced for this absence. Angling may have been unsuited to the Semitic temperament, because it yielded less lucrative returns than the Net.