BRITISH OYSTERS IN ROMAN DAYS. 



133 



exhausted the beds in that great fly-catcher's reign; and it was not till under the wise 



administration of Agricola in Britain, when the Romans got their far-famed Rutupians 



from the shores of Kent, from Richborough, and the Reeulvers the Rutupi Portus of the 



'Itinerary/ of which the latter, the Regulbium. near Whitstable, in the mouth of the 



Thames, was the northern boundary that Juvenal praised them as he does; and he was 



right; for in the whole world there are no oysters like them; and of all the 'breedy 



creatures' that glide, or have ever glided, 



down the throats of the human race, our J ^!yj tf **^5'"* c ft \ 



' natives ' are probably the most delectable." 



The Roman emperors later on never failed 



to have British oysters at their banquets. 



Vitellius ate oysters four times daily, 

 and at each meal is said to have got through 

 1,200 of his own natives ! Seneca, who 

 praised the charms of poverty, ate several 

 hundred a week. Horace is enthusiastic 

 about them ; he notes the people who first 

 provided him with them, and the name of 

 the gourmet who at the first bite* was able 

 to tell whence the particular breed came. 



" When I but see the oyster's shell, 

 I look and recognise the river, marsh, or mud 

 Where it was raised." 



The shell is often an indication of the particular locality 

 whence it is brought, and no doubt the modern oyster 

 dealer, if not the ordinary eater, can always tell rightly. 

 For although London swears by her Milton and Col- 

 chester " natives/' Edinburgh has her Pandores and 

 Aberdours, and Dublin her Carlingfords and " Powl- 

 doodies of Burran." 



"There is one little spot," says the author of 

 the entertaining but veracious little work quoted before, A , oysters of twelve to fifteen months; B, five or six 

 "on the shores of Cornwall which I cannot pass over, mon * s; c ' thr f or f f< T m f hs ' ' one to ** 



' months ; and E, twenty days after birth. 



because from it came one of the colonies on the banks 



of the Thames from which the Whitstable boats still draw their annual supply. Into 

 Mount's Bay, the Helford River, upon which stands the little town of Helstone, empties 

 itself, opposite Mount St. Michael's, into the sea, and in the estuary of that little river, 



* The ancients masticated their oysters, and did not bolt or gulp them down. Many distinguished modern 

 authorities agree with them. Dr. Kitchiner says it must be eaten alive. " The true lover of an oyster," says he, 

 " will have some regard for the feelings of his little favourite, and contrive to detach the fish from the shell so 

 dexterously that the oyster is hardly conscious he has been ejected from his lodging till he feels the teeth of the 

 piscivorous gourmet tickling him to death." 



OYSTERS 



