ght
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 ea