Cat of Bubastes #7

Chapter 6:

Jethro, Amuba and Chebron ate that night in the camp within sight of the swamp. When Chebron and Amuba looked at the beautiful view, Chebron glanced at Amuba and realized he had tears in his eyes. Chebron asked him why and Amuba replied that his own homeland had been just like this - he too had been able to see the sea.

The next day, they went fowling. It was really fun - it was okay to try to "whoosh" their arrows, but they only brought down two to three birds at a time. After they tried that unsuccessfully, they settled down to watch the throwing sticks done by the fowlers. It was amazing to see how quickly they threw their fowling sticks, and they give a twist as they threw it and it flew out of their hands. As the sticks hurled among the ducks, it whacked them all in different places - one on the head, one on the wing, one on the body and when it hit the body, it stopped. Jethro said, after this expedition, that he had thought that straight wood would have been better for this task, but he admitted to Amuba and Chebron that he was wrong, and the curved wood (rather like a boomerang) was better for killing lots of fowl at one time.

That night, they feasted, but not on the ducks they had killed that day. The man who was the leader of this expedition, Rabah, had purchased fish and ducks from the peasants.

The next day, they went fishing. It was hard work trying to spear the fish on the end of your spear because Chebron and Amuba did very poorly. They didn't succeed at all the first few times. Even after the local men showed them how to do it, they still didn't really do very well. Then the local men had a turn, and whoosh!, the fish that they had aimed at were out of the water and on their spear.

But before they went back to their camp, a few boats came to the lake. Chebron's pullers stopped at watched excitedly for what was going to happen.

"What is this all about?" Chebron asked.

One of the men answered, "My Lord, it is a fight. Two villages were arguing about something and now they are going to have combat on the water."

The boys and Jethro watched. It was amazing. They were armed with long poles, which the Egyptians called neboots. The men on the boats fought, hitting each other on the skull.

Jethro said to Chebron, "The shaving of the Egyptians heads must thicken their skulls, for any other people would not have survived those blows without their skulls being crushed like eggshells."

The fight ended, and the men in the boats separated, heading back to their villages. The men in those boats were still yelling jeers at one another.

Chebron and his boat headed back to shore to be met by Rabah. He greeted them and they told him that they had had another capital day. Rabah told them that the next day they would be hippopotamus hunting. The men were excited by this news. They ate and went to bed.