There is an allusion here to an instrument resembling the trident or two-tongued fish-spear in use by the Egyptians, and frequently depicted on the monuments. This spear was a slender rod some ten or twelve feet long, doubly feathered at the end, like a modern arrow. It had two sharp points about two feet in length, and on these the fish were impaled. The fisherman pushed along the Nile in a flat-bottomed boat among the papyrus reeds and lotus plants, and on seeing his finny prey drove the weapon with his right hand, steadying it through a curve in his left.