DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4862#0076
SPORT ON THE WATER
which serves as a foil to the freely drawn bird and insect life which
swarms above and within it. Good fortune and our wide-spread exca-
vations have saved for us a charming relic (Plate X). Fragmentary as
it is, the piece enables the imagination to restore the whole scene in
color. We see the field of sea-green reeds, the stems a shade darker
and bluer than the ground; the customary incident in the bush when
a marauding genet-cat(P), getting a foothold on a reed bending under
the weight of the full nest, raids the little home in spite of the brave
counter-attacks of the hovering mother; the soft butterflies that flutter
up from the undergrowth;1 the nests of white eggs cradled in impossible
security upon feathery papyrus heads. The designer, careless of the
science even of that day, has crowded the bush with the most varied
species of birds—egrets, owls, wild duck, and what not—and has al-
lowed them all to build similar nests full of similar eggs in positions
where a humming bird could scarcely perch with safety. In the fore-
ground the rippled blue water is stocked with pink and blue fish. Bright
water plants, with red leaves, jointed stems, and a flower or fruit
like a strawberry (Plate XI), are parted by the prow of the skiff. It
is not a place in which death seems to lurk, now that the figure of
the sportsman is lost. Only the child in the prow of the boat remains,
holding a bird (?) as booty, and steadying himself against his father with
the other hand.2
Scenes of fish-
ing and of
fowling
FEASTING AND FARMING
Life was not so far otherwise in Thebes than in our complex social Reticence
regarding
order today but that the man who had spent a lifetime in the service of Puyemres
the State found himself involved in its ties and traditions to the end. tions
The evidences of the miraculous pile of water in which the fish lie are slight, but indubitable. The shapes
of the barbs and the fish are altogether hazarded and the lines of the women's figures not much less so.
The kneeling lady is "his daughter, Kha . . .", the standing one "[his mother, the great foster-mother of]
the king, Neferyah," if, as is likely, this docket is in place.
1 Somewhat resembling Dana'is chrysippus.
2 For the attitude see Davies, Tomb of Nakhl, PI. XXIV. There is scarcely any guide to the position
of the scanty fragments shown either amongst or above the reeds. They have merely been arranged as
suitably as possible within the given breadth (itself a little indeterminate). The swooping birds are especially
to be queried; that on the right might be falling to a throw-stick.
53
which serves as a foil to the freely drawn bird and insect life which
swarms above and within it. Good fortune and our wide-spread exca-
vations have saved for us a charming relic (Plate X). Fragmentary as
it is, the piece enables the imagination to restore the whole scene in
color. We see the field of sea-green reeds, the stems a shade darker
and bluer than the ground; the customary incident in the bush when
a marauding genet-cat(P), getting a foothold on a reed bending under
the weight of the full nest, raids the little home in spite of the brave
counter-attacks of the hovering mother; the soft butterflies that flutter
up from the undergrowth;1 the nests of white eggs cradled in impossible
security upon feathery papyrus heads. The designer, careless of the
science even of that day, has crowded the bush with the most varied
species of birds—egrets, owls, wild duck, and what not—and has al-
lowed them all to build similar nests full of similar eggs in positions
where a humming bird could scarcely perch with safety. In the fore-
ground the rippled blue water is stocked with pink and blue fish. Bright
water plants, with red leaves, jointed stems, and a flower or fruit
like a strawberry (Plate XI), are parted by the prow of the skiff. It
is not a place in which death seems to lurk, now that the figure of
the sportsman is lost. Only the child in the prow of the boat remains,
holding a bird (?) as booty, and steadying himself against his father with
the other hand.2
Scenes of fish-
ing and of
fowling
FEASTING AND FARMING
Life was not so far otherwise in Thebes than in our complex social Reticence
regarding
order today but that the man who had spent a lifetime in the service of Puyemres
the State found himself involved in its ties and traditions to the end. tions
The evidences of the miraculous pile of water in which the fish lie are slight, but indubitable. The shapes
of the barbs and the fish are altogether hazarded and the lines of the women's figures not much less so.
The kneeling lady is "his daughter, Kha . . .", the standing one "[his mother, the great foster-mother of]
the king, Neferyah," if, as is likely, this docket is in place.
1 Somewhat resembling Dana'is chrysippus.
2 For the attitude see Davies, Tomb of Nakhl, PI. XXIV. There is scarcely any guide to the position
of the scanty fragments shown either amongst or above the reeds. They have merely been arranged as
suitably as possible within the given breadth (itself a little indeterminate). The swooping birds are especially
to be queried; that on the right might be falling to a throw-stick.
53