Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

4DATES—EARLIEST USE OF GUT 451Papyri) many quite new excerpts from lost writers, in additionto accounts, etc.^A goodly store of stories and descriptions of prehistoricFishing and Fishers exists in ancient and modern works.The statement that " Fishermen used the silk from thecocoon for their lines, a piece of sharpened iron for their hook,thorn-stick for their rod, and split grain for their bait " 2carries us back to an age very early and indefinite.On askinga high Sinitic authority what was the date of the Emperor inwhose 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 fourthcentury B.C., judging from the sentence in Lieh Tzii ": Bymaking a line of cocoon silk, a hook of a sharp needle, a rodof a branch of bramble or dwarf bamboo, and using a grainof cooked rice as bait, one can catch a whole cartload offish." 3Anghng as a pastime must have secured the Imperialfavour in early ages, as its metaphorical use by Sung Yii,fourth century B.C., indicates. " In the golden age," he tellsus, " the Emperors were fishers of men, using sages as theirrod, the true doctrine as their line, charity of heart and dutyto one's neighbour as their bait,ground, and the people their fishes,"the world being their fishingStroUing down the lane of Time, we meet (c. 1122 B.C.)with Chiang Tzu-ya, the first statesman to recognise theimportance of fishing, and its allied industry, the manufactureof salt.The tale—not of Chiang's rise from a very lowly stationto governance of a great Empire, for history furnishes many1 If the Chinese were behind the Egyptians in inscriptions on materialsuch 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 inthe roll containing the Diamond Sutra, with woodcut of 868 a.d., which deprivesF6ng Tao (of the tenth century) of the fame of being the inventor of printing.^ Cf. Introduction, p. 60. / shih chi shili, or The Origin of Things, althoughof modern date, gives an account of the introduction of the various Thingsamong the Chinese.^ Apud Werner, op. cit., p. 277.* Mr. Wei-Ching W. Yen, Address before the fourth International FisheryCongress, Washington, 1908.