The wealthy Egyptian liked to take his wife or family in his light boat and wander at will among the reeds and marshy plants abounding in the little streams and lakes left still undrained. It was fine sport to flit in and out among the tall papyrus, rouse a flock of birds and bring some of them down with the boomerang. Fishes were plentiful in the streams, and the sportsman chose to get them with a two-pointed spear. If he became expert, he could spear two at once--one on either point. To be sure, the game dealers, requiring large numbers of fish and fowl, caught both in a net. Only the noble or the well-to-do had time to indulge in hunting and fishing for mere diversion. In the tomb pictures, gentlemen are shown seated in their gardens, on costly rugs, it may be, leisurely spearing fish in their own artificial ponds. This was too simple a process for any but the most indolent, and did not appeal to the true sportsman who loved the natural streams. Great was the attraction of these marshy lakes. "Much of the country formerly covered by marshes and tropical forests was already arable land. At the same time old river beds remained; stretches of marsh and half-stagnant water, overgrown as of old with papyrus reeds, offered shelter to the hippopotamus, the crocodile and to numberless water-birds. This was the happy hunting ground of the great lords of ancient Egypt, the oft-mentioned 'backwaters,' the 'bird tanks of pleasure.' They played the same part in Egyptian life as the forest in German folk lore; the greatest delight perhaps that an Egyptian knew was to row in a light boat between the beautiful waving tufts of the papyrus reeds, to pick the lotus flowers, to start the wild birds and then knock them over with the throw-stick, to spear the great fish of the Nile and even the hippopotamus, with the harpoon. Pictures of all periods exist representing these expeditions, and we have but to glance at them in order to realize how much the Egyptians loved these wild districts, and how much poetry they found in them."[1] Danger mingled with sport in capturing the larger game--the hippopotamus and crocodile. Pictures of crocodile hunts have not been found. Probably they were not painted, because in certain parts of Egypt these animals were held sacred to some god, and even those who did not share this belief might not have cared to record the killing of them in the tomb. No such feeling existed concerning the hippopotamus and he who was successful in securing one seldom failed to have the hunt pictured in his tomb. You will remember that in ancient Egypt, each person built his own tomb during his life time, and so decided for himself for what he was to be remembered.