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Tus day being fair, and the sun shining bright,

I thought of Far Rockaway, which causes me to write:

I thought of Cow-Neck which will ever be dear.

Though I should be away from there these full twenty year.

The place of one's birth he always thinks the best.

Though we should have to live there half clothed, and half dress:
What then must it be, to one in my case.

Who had whatever he wanted when I was into the place 't?*

COPIED FROM MRS. PETTIT'S ALBUM AT ROCKAWAY.

THE winter had given a few premonitory symptoms, the winds beginning to come with a cutting edge from the north, the last flowers of the season having long dropped their disconsolate heads, where they had been cut down in their late bloom, and short icicles depending from the caves on the frosty mornings. One by one, the charms which crown the country during so many months, its roses, its green-sward, its foliage, nay, even the melancholy tints of autumn were withdrawn, until all was bare and desolate, and there was nothing left of all the glorious scene, except to those who can bow down to Nature in her severest moods, and can admire the symmetry of the dismantled oak with as true a feeling as when its limbs were robed in green. Still can you see in its majestic trunk and faultless anatomy, why it bore its honors so gracefully. But the woods were literally stripped. Here and there a dry leaf, crumpled up, shook on the end of a limb with a palsied motion, producing a death-noise, not unlike the reiterated strokes of a small wood-pecker's bill upon the bark. For the rest, a thin layer of dry leaves whirling about among the skeleton shadows of trees, or gathered together in the hollows and the valleys, was all that remained of the tissue of that massive, overarching pall which stretched over the forest for miles. How contractile is the power of death! Caw! caw! caw! The crows flapped their jet black wings over the region of desolation; and hark to the roar of the distant sea! The beautiful shores of the Long-Island Sound, its promontories, coves, and recesses, so late the resort of the invalid or the idle; the trout-streams, the wide plains, the forests filled with sleek deer, as also the places of note upon the sea-shore, had become deserted. Montauk-Point jutted out into the sea more lonely than ever. Glen-Cove lost all its charms, and not the least were those it borrowed from thy presence, glorious Araminta! The Baron Von Trinkets swore that he would die for thee. The Pavilion at Rock

away, where beauty and fashion had so lately woven the dance, was forsaken in all its halls, corridors, and piazzas; while the old steward sat by night in the kitchen-wing, tapping his feet on the hearth to the remembered music of galopades, and voluptuous waltzes. It was, in fact, the latter end of November a pretty season for an excursion into the Tinnecum bay!

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Tertullian insisted upon my going with him to shoot black duck, which were said to be more plentiful than for many years, affording great sport. But water-parties, to my mind, cease to be desirable when coal fires have become agreeable. Nevertheless, ad sauromatas, to oblige a friend. So we overhauled lock, stock, and barrel, which had become rusty since snipe-shooting, and, busying ourselves a whole evening in screwing, unscrewing, oiling, and getting in order our implements to make war upon the black ducks, the morrow found us ready. Tertullian shook me by the shoulders as I lay softly pillowed, and in the midst of pleasant dreams. With a yawn and a groan I acknowledged the salutation, and looking out saw the stars yet shining in the sky. The morning air felt cold! cold! As I stood shivering in my long robes, I was ready to sacrifice my friendship for Tertullian, and to plunge again beneath the warm sheets, and recur to my happy dreams. The rolling of wheels over the frozen ground beneath the windows, and Cudjo's sharp reproaches to the mules, indicated that all parties were on the ground; and although I considered it almost as bad as fighting a duel at that unseasonable hour, I clenched my teeth with determi nation, as if to preclude the possibility of a shiver. In a few moments we were armed and equipped, provisions for the day were placed in the bottom of the wagon, and Cudjo drove us out on the commencement of the cheerless journey. My friend, lover as he was of aquatic pastimes, and wild-duck shooting, shrugged his shoulders as we passed over the bleak meadows. There had evidently been a fall of snow during the night, somewhere among the Highlands, to judge by the sharper edge of the winds. In the course of half an hour we arrived at a landing-place, where a small creek put up from the bay. Here two negro boatmen, from NewGuinea, a small African settlement in the neighboring woods, had consented to meet us, and row us out in their new sedge-boat, which was first called the Pumpkin-Seed, from some allusion to its shape, but afterward from their own names, THE SAM AND JIM. On arriving at the wharf nothing presented itself but the old mill, with its wheel encased in ice, and as far as the eye could reach, the bleak meadows and the tortuous creek, and the Tinnecum bay. But the black gentlemen who were to be our guides did not show their faces, but were probably with the rest of New-Guinea dreaming of clams and eels, or of the gala-day when their new boat, fresh and gaudily painted, was launched into the black waters, below the dam of the Three-Mile Mill. The Sam and Jim' lay high and dry upon the shore, chained, padlocked, and protected from the weather. It must be confessed that the promise of the day's sport was small. With no Palinurus to guide us, and the wind blowing as if it came from an iceberg, the black ducks might take a new lease of their lives, for all the damage we should do them. Tertullian swore roundly, stamped his feet, and went raving round the old mill, which we tried to enter, but the doors were locked. Then getting upon a pile of mill-stones he gazed wistfully into all quarters of the horizon, and raising his trumpet voice

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as if he had been among the very huts of New-Guinea, called upon the delinquents, Sam and Jim. Still no human being appeared to offer assistance, and echo only answered Sam and Jim.' The sun began to appear well above the horizon, the tide was on the ebb; if a little more time were lost, it would be impossible to get over the bar, and return by night-fall. The miller's house stood near, whither we immediately hastened, and having aroused him by a volley of kicks against his door, asked his ghostly advice about an expedition into the bay. Joe Annis thanked us in language not very flowery for breaking his slumbers, and then telling us that his two boats, the Spasm' and 'Paroxysm,' (so named by some country doctor in that vicinity,) were a little way down creek, and that we might take either one, and row ourselves out, drew in his powdered head. Difficulties only serve to quicken the energies of men of nerve. Courage! courage! mon ami!' exclaimed my friend, wagging his haunches in the direction of the wharf in a great hurry. Tertullian was for ever speaking French and Latin. The first was tolerable, as far as it went, which was to the end of a very small vocabulary; but for the latter, Erasmus help us! it was of the canine species, except some few phrases, very pure, drawn right out from the body of the Roman authors. Of the latter was Quid agis? What are you about there? What are you doing in the stern of the boat? Ohe! jam satis ! Come, no more of your fun. Dic, age tibia. Wake up, and tune your pipes.' But then, the melancholy, barbarian ages succeeding, Miror quid diabolus fuciemini sine Sam et Jimmo!'

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On examining the boats, we found them not very well adapted to the purpose. They were rather small skiffs, and might be easily tilted over, or capsized in a squall. We took the SPASM. She was clean, tight, and ready to be launched; but the PAROXYSM was in bad condition, full of mud, grass, clams, shells, broken rum-jugs, and decayed cucumbers. In a trice we had effected the launch, victualled the boat for a day's voyage, and seizing the oars pulled with great vigor and hearty determination. We had been both indifferently acquainted with the bay, knew its shores, and bottom, and the fishing-grounds which were once visited with success. But such knowledge acquired in school-boy days had become dim. It might be that the old land-marks were destroyed; for if a certain row of poplars which stood upon the plain had been cut down during the prevailing unpopularity of poplars, we might be puzzled to find the entrance of the creek upon our return. Courage! courage!' exclaimed Tertullian; 'range your eye along the summits of the salt hay-stacks, thence onward over the ridge of the old boathouse, and you will see the trees, with their dry and decayed limbs rattling aloft, like pipe-stems:

'Altas maritat populos.'

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The broad expanse of the bay seemed to lie before us at a little distance, but the course of the stream was winding and ambiguous, often making a turn and bringing you back to nearly the same

place, which by dint of laborious rowing you deemed you were leaving far in the back-ground. Thus, often in life, do we seek to arrive upon the scene of some expansive prospect, but that which seemed a little interval turns out to be a weary distance, to be overcome only by patient determination. The exercise of pulling at the oars sent warmth through our bodies, and made the blood tingle in all our limbs, although the flags upon the shores were glazed, and sharp icicles hung from the banks, which the sun had not yet power to dissolve. At last the shores began to widen, and we emerged into a broad basin, where, coasting warily for a while, we ventured upon another more expansive. Here we saw a loon, who screamed out when he saw the skiff, in great alarm; but no harm was done to him. Some pieces of ice were seen floating, not of any great size. Having pulled heartily thus far, we considered it about time' to take a small pull at the brandy-bottle. The sun was by this time pretty high up in the heavens; the day though cold was of an amber clearness; the black ducks pretty scarce; but other things promising well, Tertullian broke out into music; a jovial, marine song, of which he expected me to sustain a part in the chorus:

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'Mchercle!' exclaimed he, breaking off suddenly, 'ecce duos oves!' 'Where?' replied I, in astonishment, looking up to the sky, and suspecting that he made some punning allusion to a few fleecy clouds.

'Two teal, by Jupiter!' said he, cocking his piece, and rising up in the boat with great eagerness. Looking in the direction to which he pointed, I saw the birds rising up and down on the rough waves, and occasionally bobbing their heads beneath the brine. There is a grace and sleek elegance which belongs to animals in their state of utmost wildness, that is incomparable. Swans in the tranquil lake, and kine in the richest pastures, are beautiful for the eye to rest on. But the bird which looks out from some high, extreme limb in the wood-even if it be the small, red robin, stretching out its long neck, and displaying an elegance of form, very different from its summer plumpness, ready to flap its wings at the merest crackling of a leaf, or approach of the distant shadow; the straggler from that long file of migratory birds, (how beautifully it undulates, and swerves from a rigid line in yon high aërial flight,) descending to bathe in the woodland swamp, and plunging its head deep into the waves as the quick eye of the sportsman, the flash, and the report are simultaneous; the stag listening with erect ear to the fall of far-off footsteps in the forest, and expressing in that tremulous air the full force of his incipient bound;

'Non sine vano Aurarum, et siliiæ metu;

these express an idea of ecstatic life and enjoyment, which it is difficult for the painter to depict.

Tertullian could not get a shot at the teal, for they went under, and never came up again, that we could discover. Nor was the loss of sport to be regretted, as, had he discharged his piece standing, heavily loaded as it was, the recoil would have been sufficient to upset the skiff. Such casualties are not infrequent. It was near this very place that Pomp Ruin, poor black! in his eagerness to shoot a wild duck, got kicked overboard, and went down, with all his sins upon his head; and as the colored clergyman truly observed, in improving the subject on the Sunday following: My brudren, he was never heered of arterwards.' Coasting along still with resolution, we doubled Cape Round-your-hat, and it being high-noon, drew up on the beach at Rider's to dine. An hour and a half was suffered to elapse before we got off from this sterile place, and the afternoon beginning to wear away in divers cruisings, we thought it high time to begin to think of a return.

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We had been resting on our oars for a few minutes, Tertullian ceasing from his French and Latin, and maintaining a profound silence. 'Hearken!' said he, suddenly rising up, in an attitude of intense listening; it is the surf bursting upon the shore!' I put down my ear, and heard the hollow, heavy roar, and booming of the breakers, rolling upon the beach at Rockaway. We are near the mouth of the inlet,' said he; pull for the point of yonder island, or we shall be carried out to sea.' I remembered a story told me by Captain Phibious, of the small schooner Sally Jane, who got carried out into the Gulf Stream, four or five hundred miles, without provisions, in which expedition all hands liked to have perished. Fear lent strength and vigor to our arms. Into what peril were we brought through the remissness of those irredeemable negroes Sam and Jim! With such good effect did we pull at the oars, that in a little while we struck the point of land, and leaped upon the shore in safety. 'Do you know where you are!' exclaimed Tertullian. 'Certainly not, except upon a desert strip of sand.'

'You are on Scollop Island.'

My blood froze in my veins. 'We are then,' said I, 'upon the dominions of Floys Boyo, and within the precincts of the DEVIL

TAVERN.'

'The same,' answered he; 'let us draw up the boat.'

Scollop Island, whither we had now come, was a small, barren place, which lies just at the mouth of the inlet, opposite to the Rockaway beach. It consists of little hillocks of white sand, and intervening valleys, with here and there a few groves of pines, and gnarled oaks, whortleberry-bushes, and brambles, or whatever will grow on so unpropitious a site. Beside these, there is at any time little sign of life. Only one house or tenement was visible upon its highest point, before which the broken mast of some wrecked schooner was planted in the sand; and half way up jutted out a sign, on which was painted some figure, not intended to be human. Some beaks, figure-heads, and gilded ornaments, the relics of unfortunate ships, lay about, or were nailed over the doors. The house, it must be confessed, had never borne an excellent reputa

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