24 A WAIF OF THE SEA-SHORE. 



food was never wanting in the hut. The eldest of 

 the lads was about twenty years old, and the youngest, 

 in giving birth to whom his mother had lost her life, was 

 about fourteen. This little fellow he was so little that 

 you would have thought him about eight years old was 

 the favourite of the family ; and if ever the father smiled 

 upon any one, it was upon him. Ben neither knew how 

 to manage a net, to cultivate the ground, or assist in the 

 household work ; his principal occupation consisted in 

 weaving garlands of sea-weeds, in fabricating rush mats, 

 and in gathering shells for his sister's collars and brace- 

 lets. Often they would find him prone on a great 

 level crag, behind which their hut was sheltered ; and 

 there, his eyes fixed upon the ocean, he followed with 

 wistful gaze the white sails of the distant ships, or 

 stared into the swift and flashing current which bore 

 onward the wandering bonitos or the blue -backed 

 dorados. 



Often, too, with the help of an iron crook, the boy 

 collected the beautiful ulvse and algae, which the furious 

 waves incessantly tore up from the submerged "meadows" 

 of the ocean and cast upon the rocks. 



These were the only labours Ben ever succeeded in 

 accomplishing, and he was so passionately addicted to 

 them, that neither his sister nor brothers cared to re- 

 proach him, or to complain of a desultory life which was 

 evidently natural to him. 



From our very first interview Ben had conceived a 

 great affection for me, though generally he was rendered 

 wild and alarmed by the presence of a stranger on the 

 solitary shore. The second time that I landed on the 

 island, he pressed me to remain some days with him. I 



