The ancient monuments sometimes portray fishing from a boat with hand-lines. Those of the Old Kingdom as often as not depict the fisher as an elderly peasant, presumably no longer equal to the brisker business of hauling a heavy seine. Occasionally two lines are employed, as in the scene which Blackman[785] describes: “A small reed skiff, containing two men, one of whom, lolling at ease in the stern, has just secured a catch upon one of his lines, while his companion, standing upright in the bow, is pulling his loaded net out of the water.” Another instance of hand-lining comes from Beni Hasan.[786] The same register contains a representation which is not only the earliest (_c._ 2000 B.C.) of fishing with a Rod known in the whole world, but is also (with the exception of that from the tomb of Kenamūn at Thebes[787]) the only depictment, I believe, of the Rod till we reach Greece about the sixth century B.C. Unless the passion for sport pure and simple dominated rich and poor alike, we can fairly surmise that Angling yielded good results. The man in the Beni Hasan illustration, whether a fishing ghillie, or a professional fisherman belonging to the province which the tomb’s owner governed, or a peasant fishing on his own, is not merely posing for his picture. [Illustration: THE EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF ANGLING, _c._ 2000 B.C. From P. E. Newberry, _Beni Hasan_, Pt. 1, Pl. 29.] The Theban illustration (some six hundred years later) squares with Wilkinson’s statement “sometimes the angler posted himself in a shady spot by the water’s edge, and, having ordered his servants to spread a mat upon the ground, sat upon it as he threw his line: some, with higher ideas of comfort, used a chair, as stout gentlemen now do in punts upon retired parts of the Thames.” The beat of our _piscator_, whose fishing lines should be closely studied, was probably not on “a retired part” of the Nile, but on one of his own _vivaria_, which, as in Assyria and Italy, ensured a supply of fresh fish in hot weather. The lengths of the Rod and of the Line, if we may compute them by the height of the Anglers, assimilate fairly well to the eight cubits or six feet of Ælian’s Macedonian weapon some two millennia later. Figures of fish caught by the mouth indicate baits, but no data enable us to identify their nature. Wilkinson’s statement “in all cases they adopted a ground bait, without any float” leaves itself open to question. In the Beni Hasan scene of Angling, which he entitles _Fishing with Ground Bait_, neither the hieroglyph attached nor anything else shows that, although in this instance no float appears, the bait was resting at the bottom, and not moving in the stream. The tombs generally may have led him to conclude that floats were unknown, but a netting scene in the Tomb of Ti shows a large float, presumably indicating the exact spot occupied by the trap in the water.[788]