Then I Have Cut A Stick For A Rod, And Made A Line With Some
Hairs From My Horse's Tail, With A Pin For A Hook, Baited With A
Shrimp, And The Fishing Has Commenced.
Fish and fruit are the most enjoyable articles of food in a
tropical country, and in the former Ceylon is rich.
The seir
fish is little inferior to salmon, and were the flesh a similar
color, it might sometimes form a substitute. Soles and whiting
remind us of Old England, but a host of bright red, blue, green,
yellow, and extraordinary-looking creatures in the same net
dispel all ideas of English fishing.
Oysters there are likewise in Ceylon; but here, alas I there is a
sad falling off in the comparison with our well-remembered
"native." Instead of the neat little shell of the English oyster,
the Ceylon species is a shapeless, twisted, knotty, rocky-looking
creature, such as a legitimate oyster would be in a fit of spasms
or convulsions. In fact, there is no vestige of the true breed
about it, and the want of flavor equals its miserable exterior.
There are few positions more tantalizing to a hungry man than
that of being surrounded b oysters without a knife. It is an
obstinate and perverse wretch that will not accommodate itself to
man's appetite, and it requires a forcible attack to vanquish it;
so that every oyster eaten is an individual murder, in which the
cold steel has been plunged into its vitals, and the animal finds
itself swallowed before it as quite made up its mind that it has
been opened. But take away the knife, and see how vain is the
attempt to force the stronghold. How utterly useless is the
oyster! You may turn it over and over, and look for a weak place,
but there is no admittance; you may knock it with a stone, but
the knock will be unanswered. How would you open such a creature
without a knife?
This was one of the many things that had never occurred to me
until one day when I found myself with some three or four
friends and a few boatmen on a little island, or rather a rock,
about a mile from the shore. This rock was rich in the spasmodic
kind of oyster, large detached masses of which lay just beneath
the water in lumps of some hundredweight each, which had been
formed by the oysters clustering and adhering together. It so
happened that our party were unanimous in the love of these
creatures, and we accordingly exerted ourselves to roll out of
the water a large mass; which having accomplished, we discovered
to our dismay that nothing but one penknife was possessed among
us. This we knew was a useless weapon against such armor;
however, in our endeavors to perform impossibilities, we tickled
the oyster and broke the knife. After gazing for seine time in
blank despair at our useless prize, a bright thought struck one
of the party, and drawing his ramrod he began to screw it Into
the weakest part of an oyster; this, however, was proof, and the
ramrod broke.
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