A BAY-SIDE OUTING. 63 



longings are in the hands of men who stand out 

 boldly before us. Fancy within bounds is the 

 twin-sister of fact, but mischief brews when she 

 oversteps the mark. An hour with potsherds is 

 monotonous. One longs for some more shapely 

 trace of human handiwork, but among heaps of 

 broken and burned shells, these are not frequent. 

 Herein the kitchen-middens of the New Jersey 

 coast differ, as a rule, from the former village 

 sites in the river valleys. It would appear that 

 the Indian's life as a coast-dweller was simplicity 

 itself. It meant the mere gathering of food from 

 the shallow water. No contrivances were called 

 for, so no specialized tools were left behind, and 

 in their annual pilgrimages to the coast, the in- 

 land people either took but little with them, or 

 were very careful to carry back everything they 

 had brought. No wonder, then, we grow rest- 

 ive when a richer harvent is promised by the 

 mere leaping of a fence. There, in a grassy 

 field, it was reported, Indians had been buried, 

 and how exciting it is to know that a skeleton 

 may be brought to light by the mere turning of 

 the sod. It has been cruelly said that he who 

 removes from the ground a recently buried body 

 is a ghoul, but if we wait until the flesh has de- 

 cayed, then the collector of dry bones becomes 

 an archaeologist. It is not a fair statement ; but 

 whether true or not, we gave it no heed, but pro- 



