i 


96 
KIDD’'S OWN JOURNAL. 

sea-shore, with nothing in one hand but his 
unsuccessful boar-spear, and nothing in the 
other but his fist. There he beholds a 
splendid panorama! The west all a-glow; 
the conscious waves blushing as the warm 
sun sinks to their embraces; the blue sea on 
his left ; the interminable forest on his right ; 
and the creamy sea-sand curving in delicate 
tracery between. <A pictwre anda child of 
Nature! 
Delightedly he plunges in the foam, and 
swims to the bald crown of a rock that up- 
lifts itself above the waves. Seating himself 
he gazes upon the calm expanse beyond, and 
swings his legs against the moss that spins 
its filmy tendrils in the brine. Suddenly he 
utters a cry: springs up; the blood streams 
from his foot. With barbarous fury he tears 
up masses of sea-moss, and with it clustering 
families of testacea. Dashing them down 
upon the rock, he perceives a liquor exuding 
from the fragments; he sees the white, 
pulpy, delicate morsel, half-hidden in the 
cracked shell; and instinctively reaching up- 
ward, his hand finds his mouth, and, amidst 
a savage, triumphant deglutition, he murmurs 
—OysTEeR!! Champing, in his uncouth 
fashion, bits of shell and sea-weed, with un- 
controllable pleasure he masters this mystery 
of a new sensation; and not until the grey 
veil of night is drawn over the distant waters, 
does he leave the rock, covered with the 
trophies of his victory. 
We date from this epoch the maritime 
history of England. Ere long, the reedy 
cabins of her aborigines clustered upon the 
banks of beautiful inlets, and overspread her 
long lines of level beaches ; or pencilled with 
delicate wreaths of smoke the savage aspect 
of her rocky coasts. The sword was beaten 
into the oyster-knife, and the spear into 
oyster-rakes. Commerce spread her white 
wings along the shores of happy Albion, and 
man emerged at once into civilisation from a 
nomadic state. From this people arese the 
mighty nation of Ostrogoths ; from the Ostro- 
phagi of ancient Britain came the custom of 
Ostracism—that is, sending political delin- 
quents to that place where they can get no 
more oysters. 
There is a strange fatality attending all 
discoveries. Our Briton saw a mighty 
change come over the country—a change 
beyond the reach of memory or speculation. 
Neighboring tribes, formerly hostile, were 
now linked together in bonds of amity. A 
sylvan, warlike people had become a peace- 
ful, piscivorous community; and he himself, 
once the lowest of his race, was now ele- 
vated above the dreams of his ambition. 
He stood alone upon the sea-shore, looking 
toward the rock, which, years ago, had been 
his stepping-stone to power, and a desire to 
revisit it came over him. He stands now 
upon it. The season, the hour, the westerly 
sky, remind him of former times. He sits 
and meditates. 
Suddenly a flush of pleasure overspreads 
his countenance ; for there, just below the 
flood, he sees a gigantic bivalve—alone— 
with mouth agape, as if yawning with very 
weariness at the solitude in which it found 
itself. What Iam about to describe may 
be untrue. But I believe it. Ihave heard 
of the waggish propensities of oysters. I 
have known them, from mere humor, to clap 
suddenly upon a rat’s tail at night; and, 
what with the squeaking and the clatter, we 
verily thought the Prince of Evil had broke 
loose in the cellar. 
But to return. When our Briton saw the 
oyster in this defenceless attitude, he knelt 
down; and gradually reaching his arm to- 
ward it, he suddenly thrust his fingers in 
the aperture, and the oyster closed upon 
them with a spasmodic snap! In vain the 
Briton tugged and roared; he might as well 
have tried to uproot the solid rock as to re- 
move that oyster! In vain he called upon 
all his heathen gods—Gog and Magog—elder 
than Woden and Thor; and with huge, un- 
couth, druidical oaths consigned all shell-fish 
to Nidhogg, Hela, and the submarines. 
Bivalve held on with “a will.” It was nuts 
for him, certainly. Here was a great lub- 
berly, chuckle-headed fellow, the destroyer 
of his tribe, with his fngers in chancery, and 
the tide rising! A fellow who had thought, 
like ancient Pistol, to make the world his 
oyster, and here was the oyster making a 
world of him. 
Strange mutation! The poor Briton raised 
his eyes: there were the huts of his people; 
he could even distinguish his own, with its 
slender spiral of smoke ; they were probably 
preparing a roast for him; how he detested 
a roast! ‘Then a thought of his wife, his 
little ones awaiting him, tugged at his heart. 
The waters rose around him. Hestruggled, 
screamed in his anguish; but the remorse- 
less winds dispersed the sounds, and ere the 
evening moon arose and flung her white 
radiance upon the placid waves, the last 
billow had rolled over the First OYSTER- 
EATER !—From Hout’s Magazine, No. 2. 
THE WORLD'S “ PLEASURE.” 

Cast an eye into the gay world. What see we 
there? For the most part, a.set of querulous, 
emaciated, fluttering, fantastical beings, worn out 
in the keen pursuit of what they call “ pleasure,” 
—creatures that know, own, condemn, deplore, 
yet still pursue their own infelicity! These are 
the thin remains of what is called “ delight.”— 
Youne. 
[Let every one of us, at this season,“ read, mark, 
learn, and inwardly digest ”’ the above.] 

