But Bates’s solution demands four agents at work, the fisher, the prey, the portrayed profile of the latter, and the palette; from these the fisher extracts the desired power by decorating himself with the paint made out of a fifth agency, the galena, etc. Here exists no direct contagion as with the crocodile hunter, or direct connection as with the amulet-wearing _piscator_. That such early men as the pre-dynasties, though possessed of no insignificant a culture, should reason by causation at a fifth remove, seems lacking in probability, especially in a matter of primitive semi-religious belief, which is ever slow, ever resentful of change. FOOTNOTES: [747] The illustration is reproduced by the kind permission of Prof. Flinders Petrie. The data for this essay had been collected and half of it written, when I heard of an article on _Ancient Egyptian Fishing_ by Mr. Oric Bates, in _Harvard African Studies_, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1917. While somewhat disappointed of not being the first to write in English on the subject, I was quickly reconciled by the fact that the task had fallen to an experienced Egyptologist, whose monograph, while making necessary the recasting of this chapter, bequeathed to me some new, if not always convincing theories, and much technical and other data, the frequent use of which I gladly acknowledge. [748] _Od._, IV. 477, and XVII. 448. In _Th._ 338 of Hesiod, who, though not a contemporary, flourished shortly after Homer, ὁ Νεῖλος first appears. The Egyptians called it _Hapi_, but in the vernacular language _Yetor_, or Ye-or = the River, or _Yaro_ = the great River. [749] _Papyrus Sallier_, II. On the other hand, another hymn speaks of the unkindness of the Nile in bringing about the destruction of fish, but it is the river at its lowest (first half of June) that is meant. See _Records of the Past, being English translations of ancient monuments of Egypt and Western Asia_ (ed. S. Birch, vols. I.-XII. 1873-81), IV. 3, and _ibid._, new series (A. H. Sayce), III. 51. [750] The yearly sacrifice of a virgin at Memphis may be doubted—at least for the Christian age of Egypt, to which Arab writers wish to attribute it. [751] The Νειλῶα are described by Heliodorus, IX. 9. [752] J. H Breasted, _A History of the Ancient Egyptians_, 1908, p. 47, declares that the Egyptians discovered true alphabetical _letters_ 2500 years before any other people, and the calendar as early as 4241 B.C. [753] P. E. Newberry, _Beni Hasan_ (London, 1893), Plate XXIX. Cf. Lepsius, _Denk. Abt._, 2, Bl. 127; J. G. Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1878), p. 116, pl. 371. [754] _Ibid., loc. cit._, pl. 370.