 | NO. I.
THE WRECKER OF RACCOON BEACH;
OR, THE DAUGHTER OF THE SEA. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
1. NO. I.
THE WRECKER OF RACCOON BEACH;
OR, THE DAUGHTER OF THE SEA.
It was during the reign of Anne, of blessed memory, and
while the blue laws executed wholesome judgment upon Connecticut
sinners, that Jerry Smith sought quiet seats, and a
safe retreat, from the persecution that afflicted a man who had
kissed his cousin on a Sunday. Wethersfield lost, and the
wet sands received him. The people of the classic shores of
Jerusalem, and Babylon, and Oyster-bay south, wondered and
wondered what could have induced Jerry to go down to that
unpeopled, barren spot, to live.
Raccoon beach is a ridge of sand. It runs from its western
point, seven miles south of Babylon, where Uncle Sam
has lately built a light-house—thirty miles due east, averaging
three fourths of a mile in breadth. It is one of those insular
breast-works, which nature has thrown up, to protect that ancient
and respectable country, called Long Island, from the
incursions and ravages of the southern tempest. On its northerly
side lies a smooth, quiet bay; its southern border is
lashed by the ocean. A mere nutshell of a skiff may ride
securely in the bay, but wo betides the pennant that floats
over the foam of the inlet! The surface of the beach is diversified
by irregular hills. A gloomy forest of pines has
sign of vegetation appears. Myriads of quackes and crows
share their solemn roost upon the aforesaid trees, the descendants
of happy ancestors, who were rent-free, undisturbed
tenants of said gallinary, when Jerry's skiff touched the
strand.
Jerry Smith knew what he was about, when he put up his
Esquimeaux-like hut on the side of one of the beach hills.
To be sure, it was cold, and exposed and barren: and it was,
moreover, very unsociable to stay there all alone; but what
of that, if he could make himself, in two or three years,
as rich as old pirate Jones? And after all, he was not so
much alone, neither. For there was the bay full of eels,
and crabs, and clams, and the surf was sparkling with striped
bass, and the air and the water were vocal with the hawnking,
and crucking, and perutting, and screaming of geese, and brant,
and broadbills, and oldwives, and cormorants and hell-divers,
and all the other varieties of the anseric and anatic families.
At this early period, too, before too much civilization had unpeopled
the land of its rightful lords, the bays of Long Island
were frequented by that interesting class of amphibiotics, whom
mortals call mermaids. Of the existence of this order of
created handiwork, the old colonists had the most substantial
and satisfactory evidence. Their songs might be heard every
evening, upon the sea, falling and sinking with the setting
sun; and at night, in the storm, amid the strangling surges of
the breakers; or in the calm, when moonlight and the waves
were mixed up so that a body couldn't tell them apart, their
siren voices, taking the tone from the elements, filled the air
with rich and fearful music. But there was danger in listening
to them. People used to put their fingers into their ears,
or have some evil happen to them.
But it was not clamming, nor fishing, nor shooting, nor
hearing mermaids sing, that took Jerry to the beach. More
prudential and substantial objects were his aim. To tell the
truth, he had from early life, been troubled with a grievous
and most jejune impecuniosity; and having heard that his
grandfather who had been afflicted with the same distemper,
had been cured by the sea air, he now determined to turn his
exile to the like advantage. Jerry was in the right. It has
been, before, indirectly suggested, that at this early period,
there was no light-house on the beach. Is it then to be wondered,
that many a richly freighted ship, in the hard south-easters,
rested her devoted keel upon the Fire island sand-bars,
and was battered and dashed to pieces? What bales of
rich French silks and laces, and Irish linens, and casks of
liquors used to come ashore! Was any body to blame, if
Jerry picked them up? The goods were probably insured,
and the owners could get their money out of the insurance
office; and then, if the insurance people, or the wreck-master
did come to look for the wreck, it couldn't be expected that
Jerry would give up what belonged to no one, so far as he
knew, after he had had all the trouble and pains of stowing
it away. Besides, by removing the property out of sight, he
prevented all misunderstanding and dispute about salvage,
and the other perplexing questions, that always give so much
trouble, to the United States marshal, and the proctors in the
admiralty courts. Occasionally, too, Jerry could administer
comfort to some shipwrecked sailor, who had the good luck
to be rolled ashore of a dark night; and his hospitality was
generally well paid for, as was no more than right. Even if
the subject of his benevolence happened not to live to see another
offices were sure to be discharged by Jerry; and then, if
there should happen to be a belt of doubloons around the waist
of the defunct, that would very naturally go towards paying
for the trouble of scratching a hole for the poor fellow in the
sand, and for the liquor he drank the night before.
In the performance of such charities and humanities, Jerry
contrived to pick up a very decent subsistence. He would
have been quickly rich, if he could only have readily sold his
jetsam and flotsam acquisitions. But Peet. Waters, the wreck-master,
was always snooping into his concerns. He suspected
that Jerry was active and painstaking for filthy lucre, merely,
and he was unable to comprehend the existence of any very
extensive disinterestedness in abandoning the warm upland,
for a bleak island in the sea. And no wonder; for Peet. was
one of those jealous mortals, who deny that any thing is virtuous,
which meets with its reward in this world, and who
look upon the chastenings of Providence in the shape of poverty,
and distress, as the only sure tokens of elect goodness.
Peet. was the man who spread the report about two sailors
coming ashore one dark night, with several kegs of dollars,
in a small boat, and how they put up at Jerry's, and were not
seen to go away; and how the boat was afterwards found
drawn up into Poor-man's harbor, half burned up. The story
about the false lights had the same origin. These scandals
distressed not Jerry much; for after all, nothing was proved
against him; and at all events, there was the stuff that could
buy the silence of fifty men like Peet.; and as to any loss of
reputation, Jerry knew very well that the best of his estimable
fellow citizens and neighbors were not overburdened with
scrupulosity. “Rem, quocunque modo, rem,” used to be as
good a maxim for people living along shore, as for hungry
yet very generally appreciated by the judicious republicans
who dwell upon the sea board. Salt air is a marvellous developer
of the organs of appetite and appropriation.
Years thus whistled over the point of the beach, and saw Jerry's
establishment increased to a snug double one-storied house,
with a spacious garret overhead, an out house, hog-pen, and
divers other appointments, or,—as Jerry called them,—“things
accorden,” indicating comfort and good living. That garret!
there was the hoard of things good and rich and rare; it was
a real museum of the seas! But no landsman ever got a sight
into it; except Jem Raynor, the captain of the sloop Intrepid,
that used to sail from the Widows creek at Islip, to Catherine
market, New York, every Saturday morning. Jem used to
carry on “quite a smart trade” with Jerry; and many a
goodly piece of broadcloath found its way into the slop-shops
in Cherry-street, that came from Raccon beach in the hold of
the Intrepid, covered over with clams.
But alas! as Jerry's worldly substance waxed, his satisfaction
with himself and his profession waned. He began to
feel that sense of loneliness, which makes a man pine, and be
unhappy in the midst of abundance: he had no object of sympathy
to share his thoughts with, and then, it was so seldom
that he could get any fresh meat. The intellectual and the
sensual man both began to wake up and rebel. Without
knowing what philosophy or morals meant, he pondered and
discussed the cui bono of his heaped up chattels, and dreamed
of luxuriations, of which, in former days, he had not even the
most abstract or indefinite idea. Instead of going to bed, he
sat up late at night, and smoked, and thought, and drank. His
rusty razor was now astonished by an occasional interview
with his beard; eels began to have a fishy taste, and the unhappy
of such words as wife, and beef-steak, as they involuntarily
escaped from his muttering lips.
But what was the use of all this, he often said to himself.
Could he persuade any one of the fair damsels of Queens
county to bear him company on that desolate spot? Who
would leave the endearments of home, and family, and friends,
to live with such a sea-otter as he? And if he were to move
away, what could he do with his things? Jerry sighed, and
was wretched.
In the midst of his tribulation, he was one evening returning
home from a long cruise by the surf-side. It was a mild,
moonlit night in autumn. The spray broke so brightly, that
he could almost hear it sparkle as it fell in small stars at his
feet. Presently, a low, indistict murmur chimed in with the
music of the rippling water. It was faint, and soft, at first,
“A stealing, timid, unpresuming sound,”
as the singing of the mermaids, until the magic of the song
had begun to work upon him; his ears were unstopped—he
listened a little too long—a delicious tremor came gradually
over him—his heart was dissolved, and he sunk upon the
sand. Who can describe his feelings, as he lay there, a captive
bound by rapture and agony! Many were the fearful
stories that were told of these daughters of the sea; and
whether he was to be eaten up, or have his eye-balls pulled
out, to be strung upon the said ladies' pearl necklaces, who
could tell! It was evident that he was seen, and that he was
the victim of the spell. But O! what music! Jerry often
used to say that he had been to camp-meeting, once, at Mosquito
cove; but the singing there was “nothing to it.” At
like the lamentation of the whippoorwill in the far distance;
then it would die away upon some painfully delicious chromatic
scale, and by and by reviving and increasing in volume,
and perfectness of harmony, swell into a full and glorious
chorus; then, as though by sudden magic, the performers
had changed the orchestra, it would hover over him,—sostenato,
as the Hempstead singing-master used to say,—and
rise and rise high up into the air, diminishing though distinct,
like the mellow, attenuated trill of the soaring dowitcher, in the
spring time, until sense and sound were lost; and the next
moment, after a rapid and almost insensible cadenza, it moved
far off upon the sea, maestoso, solemn and slow, like a distant
church organ. Jerry soon could see the forms of the sirens
indistinctly. They were sporting among the breakers, singing
and plunging down, and coming up through the foam of
the dashing waters. As they did not appear to notice him,
particularly, his apprehensions were somewhat quieted, and
he began to examine “what the creatures were.” There
were about fifteen or twenty of them. So far as he could tell,
they looked very much like young women “in general,” only
they had pink eyes and long green hair. They were modestly
dressed in long robes of sea weed, thrown over their
shoulder, bound at the waist by a brilliant belt of pearls, and
falling in graceful drapery a little below the knee. Jerry had
always heard they had the tail of a fish; but he could see
nothing of the kind; except that on their ankles they had a
kind of fins, or wings, such as people see in the picture of the
heathen called Mercury.
At length, the song and the sport ceased. The nymphs
joined hands, and skated away over the surface of the sea, all
but one—and what did she do, but with fairy fleetness spring
hand upon the place where physiologists say a woman's heart
ought to be, and leaning forward, with an air of the most tender
affection, fixed her expressive eyes upon him, and bade
him “good evening,” in plain, christian English, and with a
sweet low voice.
This was a little too much for the poor man to bear. He
became—to use his own words—crazy as a sheldrake shot
through the head. Yet, not a word could he speak, nor a hand
could he move. Not so his new acquaintance. She, like
most of her sex, talked much, and fast, and well. She tried
to allay his fears, assuring him that she was no sea-monster,
that she came of a good family, and was well brought up, and
she would do him no harm, and all that.
Jerry listened, and considered her from head to foot, and
soon became familiar with the unusual sight and sound. Such
a voice, and such beautiful words, he had never heard before!
And the woman, or fish, herself, whatever she was—why—
she was well formed, and had a fair skin, and look but in her
eyes, and she seemed the gentlest and most amiable being in
the world. Alack! those eyes, those eyes! they were working
a dangerous work of fascination upon Jerry. They were
so deep, and clear, and good. It was like looking down into
a deep spring of water on a sultry day. Still he was speechless.
“Speak, man,” said the mermaid, “and don't be frightened
out of your wits.”
“Who—what are you?” at last stammered Jerry.
“Flesh and blood, like yourself, dear Jerry,” was the kind
response, “your friend, your true lover; yes, by Jupiter, I am
come to marry you.”
“The dence you are!” said Jerry, drawing a hard breath.
“Do you suppose that I would marry a fish?”
“Do not call me names, Jeremiah—you will regret it when
you know me better. I am a sea nymph, to be sure; but I
bring you wealth, and honor, and respectable connections, and
a heart full of love.”
“I should like to know where your wealth is,” interrupted
Jerry, waxing bolder, “and, as for your connections, I suppose
they are seals and penguins.”
“Have I not the keys of the treasures of the deep?” replied
the mermaid, half mournfully, half indignantly. “Come,
I will lead you into my coral grove, and into our pleasant orchards
of pearls:
“The floor is of sand. like the mountain drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow”—
am.” Thus saying, she threw up her eyes to the blue sky,
and began to sing in a soft, plaintive voice, a little ballad of
her history. What the tune was and what the words were,
Jerry never could remember. That ballad did the business
for him, however. The outline of the story was, that she was
a daughter of the king of the ocean, the father of fifty fair
daughters. Galatæa was her name. The pebbly strand of
Sicily received the print of her youthful footstep, and the billowy
Egean laved her tender limbs. One Acis, a shepherd,
saw and loved her, with requiting affection; but one Polyphemus
pursued him, with revengeful malice. The sea threw
up the crushed limbs of Acis, and the blue skirt of Columbia
fell upon the fugitive nymph. Here, she had had no comfort
for her desolate heart, until her eyes fell upon the wrecker of
Raccoon beach.
This was all heathen Greek to Jerry, whose learning did
he accordingly understood not a word that was sung, except
the name of Polyphemus, whom he took to be some namesake
of his fair cousin, for the violation of whose cheek he had suffered
exile. It smote upon his heart, with all his old hatred
of womankind.
“Polly Femis?” said he, “she was some poor devil, I'll warrant.
I had a cousin once named Poll, and I hate all upland
women for her sake. Yes, and I think I can—I will—I do
like you. Come, Galatæa, dry your tears—you shall be my
gal now, fish or flesh, by the living—.”
So saying, he took into his brawny grasp, the unresisting
little hand of the mermaid. It was a delicate, well formed,
soft hand as ever a man pressed; only it was bluey all over,
and a little cold, and webbed-like between the fingers. But
hearts, not fingers, ruled that hour. Forthwith was enacted
everything that is necessary and appropriate to the completion
of a sea-nymph's matrimonial contract. The many-voiced sea
sent up a newly concerted epithalamium; the servants of
æolus rolled a mellow strain along the hollow shore; and the
stars, blessed winkers at sudden and fierce love, distilled a
most classical essence upon the happy couple.
The next question was, where they were to go to get married.
For although the nymph considered their then pledged
vows, in the court of Diana, and in the midst of the glorious
radiations from the very throne of the goddess, to be ceremonial
quite sufficient, yet Jerry had some New-England qualms,
about taking a wife without the sanction of a deacon, or a justice
of the peace. Upon this point Jerry was not a little uneasy.
“They'll take me up, perhaps,” thought he, “and send
me to the court-house.” The lady, however, dispelled his
anxiety, by yielding to his prejudices, assuring him that she
not even he, much less the justice, would suspect her to be a
nereid.
To the house, then, they hastened, and the stores of the
garret were tumbled before Galatæa: Linen cambric, and
dimity, and velvet, and brocade, and lace, were soon in requisition.
It was matter of astonishment to the bridegroom, to
see with what nimble speed his bride plied her needle. He was
the happiest man alive. At length, he had the delight to see her
descend from the garret, dressed in such style! Nassau island
never saw a girl like her. And then,—says the transported
narrator of the legend,—she had on white kid gloves, and silk
shoes and stockings, and a real French velvetine hat, with
white wavy plumes: the bridegroom could scarcely believe
his senses.
By this time night began to grow gray, and infant day
showed his sandy hair in the east. The tide served, and off
the lovers started in Jerry's skiff, for the island, in search of
the squire. They landed at the head of the creek, below Lif
Snedicor's, at Islip, just as the people began to go to their
work. The appearance of the rugged fisherman, accompanied
by a lady of unparalleled beauty, bedizened out in such extravagant
apparel, excited no little wonderment. The little
children ran after them, and the women went out to consult
their neighbors about the meteoric visit. All sorts of speculation
were on foot as to the meaning of the apparition. One
old lady said she shouldn't be surprised if the queen of England
had been shipwrecked on the beach, and that Jerry was
showing her the way down to York. This idea took well.
It soon spread like wild-fire, and threw the whole county into
commotion. To see the queen was no trifling matter for the
colonists in those times. In a few hours foot passengers, and
thronged the roads from East Hampton to Babylon. All the
schools were let out and not a clam was caught in the bay
during that whole day.
The morning was far advanced before Jerry and his bride
were ushered after a weary walk, into the squire's parlor. A
boy was soon despatched after the representative of Hymen,
who happened then to be employed some miles off, on the
brush plains, a-carting wood. Jerry was, meanwhile, smitten
with sore apprehension, as he reconnoitered the door yard, and
saw the throngs of anxious faces peering in at the windows.
And why there should be so many unbidden guests, so many
unknown friends, to do him honor at his wedding, he could
not divine: unless, O horror! Galatæa's aquatic parentage
was suspected. The mystery was not dispelled by the conduct
and conversation of the squire, who at last arrived, and
who, advancing into the centre of the room, fell upon his
knees, and addressed Galatæa by the name of his “liege lady,”
or something of that kind, and welcomed her “majesty into
his poor house.” Having done this to his infinite satisfaction,
he arose, and invited Jerry to go into the kitchen and take
something to drink. Jerry signified to the squire that he was
mistaken in the persons.
“What, is not your majesty the queen?”
“Oh no, squire, what put that into your head?” replied the
bridgroom: “this is Mrs. Smith that is to be—we have come
here to be married—that's all.”
The squire's magisterial discrimination was sadly confused
by this declaration. He looked, first at one, then at the other,
and dwelt with no little admiration on the contrast presented
by the couple. “And who could the lady be? And how had
she ever consented to marry that rough”—but then he remembered
silk and scarlet, and he thought of the rumors about Jerry's
wealth—and this might be some town lady, who was no better
than she—but that could not be, for he glanced on her
face, and it was so modest and decorous, and her eyes—no,
they looked as though she drank a little, being pinkish, as before
mentioned.
His honor shook his head. However, he was satisfied it
was a match, and the why and wherefore were none of his
business, so long as he got his fee. So he put on his
gravity, and pulled out his book in which he kept the hymeneal
record. Having set down into the proper column, the
name, age, and occupation of Jerry, he turned to the bride.
“What is your name, ma'am?”
“Galatæa, sir.”
“Galatæa? That's a queer name. Galatæa what?”
“That is my whole name sir.”
“Ha? What ma'am? Oh yes, yes—Gally Teer.” And
he wrote it down. “Where do your parents reside, Miss
Teer?”
“Indeed, I do not know their present residence, sir,”
answered Galatæa, hesitatingly, while Jerry spoke up, and
asked the squire if it was necessary to know her whole seed,
breed, and genealogy.
“I thought as much,” said the squire, affecting to take no
notice of Jerry's impudent blustering. And now it occurred
to him, that here was a proper occasion to inflict wisdom and
authority. So with all the importance of a police justice, when
he has caught a big villain, he called to his son John to bring
him the vagrant book, and to tell the constable to clear the
people out of the door-yard.
“How long is it since you left your parent's roof, young
woman?”
“I cannot tell, sir, exactly. It was about the time of the
first Punic war.”
“Punic war? I never heard of such a war as that;
Come no deception, miss; I know you better than you think
for”—poor Jerry trembled from head to foot—“what is your
father's name? We'll see about this matter.”
Galatæa now rose, with the blood of a goddess mantling
in her cheek. She saw the danger they had fallen into, but
she had a woman's wit to get out of it. She commended
and flattered her examiner, for his zealous vigilance, but besought
him not to condemn her by appearances. She told
him that she had lately been obliged to fly from her native
land, on account of some popular excitement against her
family, which, she said, had always furnished the rulers and
judges of the country. That on her voyage of expatriation
she had been shipwrecked upon Raccoon beach. That her
life had been saved by her betrothed, and she had determined
to give him herself and her treasures forever.
This was plausible, although, in the main, terribly destitute
of fact. She added, further, that her fortune was ample, and
that most of it was rescued from the wreck, and that she
intended to make a generous present to the magistrate who
should make her happy.
The good justice's heart was affected by this recital, and
particularly by the concluding part of it. He began to see
the case more clearly.
He assured her, that he had not intended to say any thing
unpleasant, and the ceremony should be finished with all
speed. First, however, he said it was his duty to write in
the book the christian names of her father and mother.
This was a poser of a requisition; but Galatæa simply said
that the names of her parents were Nereus and Doris. So,
down it went into the book, “Gally Teer, daughter of
Nereus Teer and Doris Teer, spinster.”
The formality was now soon completed, and without further
trouble; although Jerry once told a particular friend of the
grandfather of the narrator of this legend, that the justice
looked “most almighty awful,” when Galatæa pulled off her
glove, and presented her hand for the investment of the wedding
ring. He must have noted, in that dangerous moment,
the submarine conformation of the lady's fingers. But on
that same afternoon, a keg of Hollands found its way into the
cellar under the bridal altar, and before many months the justice
built a new house.
Thus Providence rewards discreet and considerate magistrates.
The aforesaid narrator told me once, when I was a boy, that
“he had a drink out on to that 'ere same liquor, in his honor's
new house, several times, and that it was the best gin
he ever tasted.”
Of all the meannesses of which a man can be guilty,
none equals the treachery of a friend who blabs your secret,
provided, of course, he is well paid to keep it. Let not the
juxta-position of this axiom, and the precedent narrative,
lead any one to believe that the justice told Peet. Waters
that he believed Jerry's wife was a mermaid. Scandal is
an impalpable essence, and Hermes cannot seal it up. The
tongue may be dumb, and the ear may be deaf, and the
hand may be tied, yet does this entity extricate itself from
its supposed place of confinement, and insinuate itself into
other dwelling places, vainly believed to be surely fortified
against its admission. It is like the pressure of the mighty
and into the eyes. The pores of the flesh, the touch of
the hand, the air, are all its sure and well regulated avenues
of travel. Mist, fog, and steam,—particularly of the
tea-kettle,—are the frequent vehicles of its portation.
The beginning of the third year after Jerry's marriage,
saw him the father of two as fine boys as a man could
wish to look on; and a happier couple than he and his
wife never existed. But suspicion was abroad, and dark
surmises threatened the family on the beach. In sorrowful
truth, it became pretty generally known, that Galatæa was
not, exactly after the order of women, although no one ventured
to call her, in so many words, a mermaid. She was
too good, and too human-like for that. Yet Peet. Waters
swore he heard her singing, one night, out in the breakers;
and that he believed that more than one vessel had
been lured on shore by the magic of her voice. Alas!
alas! malice and envy were working fearful sorrows for
the daughter of the sea.
One melancholy night, at the time when rumor was most
busy, and danger was most imminent, Galatæa came home
from the wide waters, where she had been disporting, pale
and in deep distress. She told her husband that she had
seen her father—that he had warned her of sudden peril,
and insisted that she, with her sisters, must leave the inhospitable
coast forever. Forever! Husband and wife!—
that tells the story of the scene that followed. But there
was a rosy-cheeked little fellow in the cradle—“Oh! my
boy!”—what else Galatæa said could hardly be understood
—a woman always talks so thick and unintelligibly, when
she is crying and kissing—and kissing her child, and bidding
it good-by, never to see it again. The morrow's sun
Galatæa had been indicted under the statute against
witches.
“Where is your wife?” was the first gruff sentence that
broke the still air of the morning.
The response of “gone, gone, and buried in the sea,”
added a mortified, if not a much grieved gentleman, to the
trio of mourners which the beach had already possesed.
Yes—Galatæa had torn herself away, and had departed
with her sisters in search of some more charitable clime.
Jerry could never be induced to tell the circumstances of
their separation. All that he ever related, was that, about
three o'clock in the morning, just as the moon was going
down, he was awakened by the mermaid music. Galatæa
sprang out of bed, burst into tears of bitter agony, and
saying, “they have come for me—farewell, farewell,” she
bounded into the surf. Jerry followed, with a breaking
heart, but was waved back by the mermaids, with an authority
and a spell which he could not resist. He then
stood upon the beach, watching their fading forms, as they
glided away to the southeast, singing a mournful dirge;
and he traced them until they came to where the sky and the
water met, when they seemed to open a door in the blue
firmament, and disappeared from his aching eyes,
Since that time, not a mermaid has been seen on the
south side of Long Island.
It was not long before Jerry left a spot full of such
painful associations. Within a few weeks he removed down
east, and laid the foundation of the ancient city of Smithtown.
His boys were the greatest sea-dogs in the country;
and to this day, not a man on Long Island can clam,
crab, jack, shoot, or draw a net for bony fish with the
name of “Smith.”
Note.—The lover of classical proprieties, to whom the
interesting facts of this narrative are new, must not shake
his incredulous head, without making some inquiry into the
matter. That a sea-nymph should take a fancy to a fisherman,
is nothing new nor strange. All women whether of
the land or of the sea, will bestow their hearts upon whom
they please. As to the fact of mermaids having lived on
the coast, there is now no doubt whatever. Every man of literary
pretensions on Long Island, will confirm the well-attested
tradition. Moreover it is incontrovertibly shown,
by the laborious author of the “Parakalummata Hamerikana,”
that after the general spread of christianity throughout
Greece, the divinities of the air, earth and sea, all
abandoned their neglected shrines, and migrated to this
country. Every body knows, that the American Antiquarian
Society points to its demonstration, that the old fortifications
and other extensive works at the west, were constructed
by Vulcan and the cyclops, as the chef d'œuvre of
its learned labors. If anything farther be needed, reference
may be had to the very man, mentioned above as the particular
friend of the grandfather of the narrator of this
legend, and who is now living at Jerusalem, very old, but
very sensible. He is the same veracious chronicler who
tells the story well known all over the island, as “the
legend of Brickhouse Creek.”
| NO. I.
THE WRECKER OF RACCOON BEACH;
OR, THE DAUGHTER OF THE SEA. Sporting scenes and sundry sketches | |