IL THE ISLAND OF MERSEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2258, 10 June 1897, Page 46

IL THE ISLAND OF MERSEA.

I took passage in a smack that was about to stand over for the creeks that lace the j northern shore. It was a chill wind that cut • the tide, but the winter sun glowed moodily, and yellowed the tan sails of a fleet of fishing boats that were cheating the current to westward. They were the shrimp fleet ; and here you have another wild trade of the salt estuaries. These brown-sailed yawls stand away in light winds to dredge the thick tide for shrimpß, which are netted in thousands on the Blackwater. It is a cold, hard trade ; but shrimps are saleable, and the shrimp trawlers are well off in tfeeir community. So we beat through the golden baze that floated coastwise along the water, and presently the southern face of the island called Mersea loomed through the mist. A wild, marshy ialet it was, fronting the outer Blackwater, with a low, tree-clad ridge at its westerly point, where the village of West Mersea lay caddled among tho elms. A desert of sea marsh, voiceless but for the cry of the waders and the hoarse croak of pirate gulls, stretched drearily away to east and west. Two lon£% mazy creeks wound inland past the island, spangled with knobs of weed-bung saltings and ooze bank. This i was THE SNUGGEST BEN OF SMUGGLEBS ON THE J WHOLE COAST LINE in the old days whan a boat-load of tobacco and spirits could be rtm inshore and spun through the dark network of creeks, bsffling 1 tbe smartest coastguards of the service, and | lading the whole country side with undutied ! goods. It was a region without trammel not very long ago — a hidden, outlawed district, that had only sudden death to offer those who might try to thwart its way of doing things. Up to the cosy village, over the treacherous tide flat, ran a long, muddy passway called the King's Hard, and it glimmered In the sun glow like a bar of copper. Tho tide, which eddies up and licks the feet of West Mersea twice a day, had swung out to sea, and there was no passage to the townlet by boat. From the oozy channels that hug the island coirsa the finest oysters in the world, and West Mersea is, above all things, an oyster and wild fowl village. There is a fleet of blunt-nosed, many-patched dredger boats which lie round Mersea Quarters, and oysters are tbe cause of their existence. Oa the Mersea be?.oh you may see a long line of blue-white wild fowl punts, hauled up from the lash of the sea, and these cope with the piping widgeon and the hosts of trumpeting Brent geese of the cuter flats. There is a large wild-fowlicg family at Mereea, and to its members nearly all these punts belong. But it is only on the chilliest days, when an easterly gale whipa tha main and a biting

frost holds the marshes in a grip of Ifim*. that much can be done with the VAST HOKDE3 OF SHBILLINQ WILD FOWE that haunt the great grim Blaokwater. As to the oysters, they lie" in the tide ! channels, and an acre of oyster bed is worth to its owner 30 acres of corn land. It is a marrow-freezing occupation in the winter months,, this dredging of the little flat shellfish, which are daily shipped in smack« up to Colchester, and distributed all over the country. Far up this estuary loomed a smaller land speck — the Island of Oaea. A little' elmspeckled bank it is, riling like a platform out of the tide currents, and even on Ojea there is a farmstead. Twice a day, when the whispering tide sucks out to seaward and bares the green flats, it is possible to walk dry-foot to Oaea, and also to the sister isle of Northey, a few miles to the west. The river is broad here at Oaea, but from start to finish it is rimmed by the same grey sea marsh, tenanted by hungry fowl of passage, and flooded at intervals of four hours by the rising tide. On the dreary salt marshes near Mersea lay, a bevy of clay mounds called the Red Hills— rubbish heaps of a dead tribe that haunted the Eseex marshes bafore the dawn of history. Beyond them Btood the pinecrested barrow of Grim's Hoe, left by the early Danes. It was a weird spot. Tha Mersea islanders whispar a strange tale— a gfaoat story of the grey marshes. When the Danes sacked Mersea, they say, two twin brothers fought for the possession of a Saxon girl of St. Oayth till each killed the other. Whereupon the Dines shrouded the brothers and the girl in the bold of a blud, drew it to the barrow spot, and heaped Ifc with earth. And now, when the moon is in her first quarter, and neap tide OEEEPS UP THE SEA WALL, the girl arises to watch. Flesh grows on the j bones of the twin brother?, and they gird themselves. At the last day of neaps, when the full moon glares down upon Mersea, you may hear the brothers groan and hack in ths death struggle far down in the hold of the old ship beneath the red clay and nodding pines. The wealth of a prince wonld not tempt a true Mersea islander to sit upon Grim's Hoe throughout a summer night. There is no wilder expanse in the British Isles than the mid-Essex marshes, where the tide runnels sob and moan, and the rushes shiver bo dolefully. Throughout the earth you will find no stranger customs, no weirder legends, nor any hazier mystery of sea and sky. The swamps are neither land! nor water, bat a seething, hybrid mixture of botfc. | The place is strange, the people are strange, and the golden glory of dawn and sunrise on 1 the shining sea marsh is strangest of all. At the door of Britain you have a marvel , which rivals many things of the outer seas. 1 — Answers.