sh left on the ground by
the gradual drying up of these ponds.

[Illustration: 077.jpg FISHING IN THE MARSHES]

Other pools, however, remained till the returning inundation, as so many
_vivaria_ in which the fish were preserved for dwellers on the banks.
Fishing with the harpoon, made either of stone or of metal, with the
line, with a net or with traps, were all methods of fishing known and
used by the Egyptians from early times. Where the ponds failed, the
neighbouring Nile furnished them with inexhaustible supplies. Standing
in light canoes, or rather supported by a plank on bundles of reeds
bound together, they ventured into mid-stream, in spite of the danger
arising from the ever-present hippopotamus; or they penetrated up
the canals amid a thicket of aquatic plants, to bring down with the
boomerang the birds which found covert there.

[Illustration: 078.jpg HUNTING IN THE MARSHES: ENCOUNTERING AND SPEARING
A HIPPOPOTAMUS. 1]

1 Tomb of Ti. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Dumichen,
Besultate, vol. ii. pl. x.

The fowl and fish which could not be eaten fresh, were dried, salted,
or smoked, and kept for a rainy day. Like the river, the desert had its
perils and its resources. Only too frequently, the lion, the leopard,
the panther, and other large felidse were met with there.

[Illustration: 079.jpg HUNTING IN THE DESERT: BULL, LION, AND ORYX
PIERCED WITH ARROWS. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting by Beni-Hasan,
Lepsius, Denhm., ii. 136.

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Ptahhotpu.
The dogs on the upper level are of hyenoid type, those on
the lower are Abyssinian greyhounds.

The nobles, like the Pharaohs of later times, deemed it as their
privilege or duty to stalk and destroy these animals, pursuing them even
to their dens. The common people preferred attacking the gazelle, the
oryx, the mouflon sheep, the ibex, the wild ox, and the ostrich, but did
not disdain more humble game, such as the porcupine and long-eared hare:
nondescript packs, in which the jackal and the hyena ran side by side
with the wolf-dog and the lithe Abyssinian greyhound, scented and
retrieved for their master the prey which he had pierced with his
arrows. At times a hunter, returning with the dead body of the mother,
would be followed by one of her young; or a gazelle, but slightly
wounded, would be taken to the village and healed of its hurt.

[Illustration: 080.jpg C