(D) Proverbs are usually the offspring and embodiment of the life and occupations of a nation. In both ancient and modern Persian there is, as far as I know, but one proverb—and that rather contemptful—allusive to fish or fishing. It runs, “Thou shall not make a fish thine enemy,” which probably signifies that no foe, however unlikely to injure, can be despised.
(E) In the experiences related to me by the Rev. Dr. St. Clair Tisdall, and by the late Sir Frank Lascelles, Netting ousts Angling.
The former:[99] “’Though I have lived in Persia for many years and have travelled through it from Sea to Sea, from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian, I have never seen a fish-hook in a Persian’s hands. In the districts I know best, the Net is the only weapon.”
The second, when our Minister at Teheran, on his first holiday went a-fishing. Having caught on a likely stream before supper three or four half-pound trout (I think), he anticipated next day pleasant sport. With the very early morning came not Remorse, but the local Sheikh to do his reverence and to make the customary present. “As I have heard that His Great Excellency worked hard for a few fish last night, my tribesmen have netted the river for the length of a parasang, and I bring you plenty of fish.” Tableau! Hasty flight of Sir Frank to another river, with like results!
Reasons both of date and data prevent my including the Japanese, perhaps the most alert and adaptive sea-fishers in the world. As their history before 500 a.d. must apparently be classed as legendary, this nation eludes my chronological Net. Data on ancient fishing, if existing, are either unknown[100] or as being derived from China find place postea.[101]
I set the time limit of my book at roughly 500 a.d., so as to include the last classical or quasi-classical piscatory poems viz. those of Ausonius—notably ad Mosellam—in the fourth and of Sidonius in the fifth century.
This date seems, indeed, a pre-ordained halting-place for three reasons. First, the tackle of our day (though improved almost beyond recognition in rod, winch, artificial bait, etc.) is merely the lineal descendant of the Macedonian described by Ælian in the third century a.d. Second, between Ælian and Dame Juliana’s Boke no record, with two possible exceptions, of fishing with a fly exists. Third, and more important, we possess no real continuous link between the Angling literature of Rome down to the fifth century and that which sprang up after the invention of printing some thousand years later.
In the intervening centuries, it is true, books and manuscripts were written (mainly by monks) which treated more or less of fishing, but of Angling only incidentally.[102] They illustrate the customs of fishermen, the natural history of fish, the making and maintaining of vivaria or fish-ponds, rather than instruct or inform on practical Fishing.
The most notable would, could we trace it, be “an old MS. treatise on fishing, found among the remains of the valuable library belonging to the Abbey of St. Bertin, at St. Omer. A paper on this was read, a few years before 1855, at a society of antiquaries at Arras. From its style, the MS. was supposed to have been written about 1000 a.d., and to have been divided into twenty-two chapters. The author’s main object was to prove that fishers had been singularly favoured by Divine approbation; but appended to the MS. was a full list of all river fish, the baits used for taking them, and the suitable seasons for angling for each sort of fish.”
For the existence of this work, vanished now for over sixty years, we have only the authority of Robert Blakey.[103] But this, if it do pass muster with Dr. Turrell, fails to satisfy Westwood and Satchell, who describe his book on Angling as “a slipshod and negligent work, devoid of all utility, a farrago of quotations incorrectly given, and of so-called original passages, the vagueness and uncertainty of which rob them of all weight and value. Mr. Blakey’s volume, it is but fair to add, is redeemed from utter worthlessness by the excellent bibliographical catalogue appended to it by the publisher!”[104]