LONG ISLAND.
To an inhabitant of one of the large towns on the coast of America, a country house is not merely desirable as a place of retirement from noise and bustle, where the owner may indulge his fancy in the contemplation of rural scenes, at a season when nature is attired in her most pleasing garb, but also as a safe retreat from the dreadful maladies which of late years have never failed to rage with more or less virulence in these places during certain months. When at Philadelphia the yellow fever committed such dreadful havoc, sparing neither the rich nor the poor, the young nor the aged, who had the confidence to remain in the city, or were unable to quit it, scarcely a single instance occurred of any one of those falling a victim to its baneful influence, who lived but one mile removed from town, where was a free circulation of air, and who at the same time studiously avoided all communication with the sick, or with those who had visited them; every person therefore at Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, &c. who is sufficiently wealthy to afford it, has his country habitation in the neighbourhood of these respective places, to which he may retire in the hot unhealthy season of the year; but this delightful part of Long Island, of which I have been speaking, though it affords such a number of charming situations for little villas, is unfortunately too far removed from New York to be a convenient place of retreat to men so deeply engaged in commercial pursuits as are the greater number of the inhabitants of that city, and it remains almost destitute of houses; whilst another part of the island, more conveniently situated, is crowded with them, although the face of the country is here flat and sandy, devoid of trees, and wholly uninteresting.
LONG ISLAND.
The permanent residents on Long Island are chiefly of Dutch extraction, and they seem to have inherited all the coldness, reserve, and covetousness of their ancestors. It is a common saying in New York, that a Long Island man will conceal himself in his house on the approach of a stranger; and really the numberless instances of shyness I met with in the inhabitants seemed to argue, that there was some truth in the remark. If you do but ask any simple question relative to the neighbouring country, they will eye you with suspicion, and evidently drive to disengage themselves from you; widely different from the Anglo-Americans, whose inquisitiveness in similar circumstances would lead them to a thousand impertinent and troublesome enquiries, in order to discover what your business was in that place, and how they could possibly take any advantage of it. These Dutchmen are in general very excellent farmers; and several of them have very extensive tracts of land under cultivation, for the produce of which there is a convenient and ready market at New York. Amongst them are to be found many very wealthy men; but except a few individuals, they live in a mean, penurious, and most uncomfortable manner. The population of the island is estimated at about thirty-seven thousand souls, of which number near five thousand are slaves. It is the western part of the island which is the best inhabited; a circumstance to be ascribed, not so much to the fertility of the soil as its contiguity to the city of New York. Here are several considerable towns, as, Flatbush, Jamaica, Brooklynn, Flushing, Utrecht; the three first-mentioned of which contain each upwards of one hundred houses. Brooklynn, the largest of them, is situated just opposite to New York, on the bank of the East River, and forms an agreeable object from the city.
The soil of Long Island is well adapted to the culture of small grain and Indian corn; and the northern part, which is hilly, is said to be peculiarly favourable to the production of fruit. The celebrated Newtown pippin, though now to be met with in almost every part of the state of New York, and good in its kind, is yet supposed by many persons to attain a higher flavour here than in any other part of America.
Of the peculiar soil of the plains that are situated towards the center of this island, I have before had occasion to speak, when describing those in the western parts of the state of New York. One plain here, somewhat different from the rest, is profusely covered with stunted oaks and pines; but no grain will grow upon it, though it has been cleared, and experiments have been made for that purpose in many different places. This one goes under the appellation of Brushy Plain. Immense quantities of grouse and deer are found amidst the brushwood, with which it is covered, and which is so well calculated to afford shelter to these animals. Laws have been passed, not long since, to prevent the wanton destruction of the deer; in consequence of which they are beginning to increase most rapidly, notwithstanding such great numbers are annually killed, as well for the New York market, as for the support of the inhabitants of the island; indeed it is found that they are now increasing in most of the settled parts of the states of New York, where there is sufficient wood to harbour them; whereas in the Indian territories, the deer, as well as most other wild animals, are becoming scarcer every year, notwithstanding that the number of Indian hunters is also decreasing; but these people pursue the same destructive system of hunting, formerly practised on Long Island, killing every animal they meet, whether young or full grown. Notwithstanding the strong injunctions laid upon them by the Canadian traders, to spare some few beavers at each dam, in order to perpetuate the breed, they still continue to kill these animals wherever they find them, so that they are now entirely banished from places which used to abound with, and which are still in a state to harbour them, being far removed from the cultivated parts of the country. An annual deficiency of fifteen thousand has been observed in the number of beaver skins brought down to Montreal, for the last few years.
RETURN TO NEW YORK.
From Long Island I returned to this city; which the hospitality and friendly civilities I have experienced, in common with other strangers, from its inhabitants, induce me to rank as the most agreeable place I have visited in the United States: nor am I singular in this opinion, there being scarcely any traveller I have conversed with, but what gives it the same preference. Whilst I continue in America it shall be my place of residence: but my thoughts are solely bent upon returning to my native land, now dearer to me than ever; and provided that the ice, which threatens at present to block up the harbour, does not cut off our communication with the Atlantic, I shall speedily take my departure from this Continent, well pleased at having seen as much of it as I have done; but I shall leave it without a sigh, and without entertaining the slightest wish to revisit it.
FINIS.