We gathered the wood, which was bleached
and dry, an we piled it a few feet to windward of the mass of
oysters. Striking a light with a cap and some powder, we lit the
pile. It blazed and the wind blew the heat strong upon the
oysters, which accordingly began to squeak and hiss, until one by
one they gave up the ghost, and, opening their shells, exposed
their delightfully roasted bodies, which were eaten forthwith.
How very absurd and uninteresting this is! but nevertheless it is
one of those trifling incidents which sharpen the imagination
when you depend upon your own resources.
It is astonishing how perfectly helpless some people are if taken
from the artificial existence of every-day life and thrown
entirely upon themselves. One man would be in superlative misery
while another would enjoy the responsibility, and delight in the
fertility of his own invention in accommodating himself to
circumstances. A person can scarcely credit the unfortunate
number of articles necessary for his daily and nightly comfort,
until he is deprived of them. To realize this, lose yourself,
good reader, wander off a great distance from everywhere, and be
benighted in a wild country, with nothing but your rifle and
hunting-knife. You will then find yourself dinnerless,
supperless, houseless, comfortless, sleepless, cold and
miserable, if you do not know how to manage for yourself. You
will miss your dinner sadly if you are not accustomed to fast for
twenty-four hours. You will also miss your bed decidedly, and
your toothbrush in the morning; but if, on the other hand, you
are of the right stamp, it is astonishing how lightly these
little troubles will sit on you, and how comfortable you will
make yourself under the circumstances.
The first thing you will consider is the house. The
architectural style will of course depend upon the locality. If
the ground is rocky and hilly, be sure to make a steep pitch in
the bank or the side of a rock form a wall, to leeward of which
you will lie when your mansion is completed by a few sticks
simply inclined from the rock and covered with grass. If the
country is flat, you must cut four forked sticks, and erect a
villa after this fashion in skeleton-work, which you then cover
with grass.
You will then strew the floor with grass or, small boughs, in
lieu of a feather bed, and you will tie up a bundle of the same
material into a sheaf, which will form a capital pillow. If
grass and sticks are at hand, this will be completed thus far in
an hour.
Then comes the operation of fire-making, which is by no means
easy; and as warmth comes next to food, and a blaze both scares
wild animals and looks cheerful, I advise some attention to be
paid to the fire.
