Worth fully and particularly investigating indeed this Paumanok, (to
give the spot its aboriginal name[3],) stretching east through Kings,
Queens and Suffolk counties, 120 miles altogether--on the north Long
Island sound, a beautiful, varied and picturesque series of inlets,
"necks" and sea-like expansions, for a hundred miles to Orient point.
On the ocean side the great south bay dotted with countless hummocks,
mostly small, some quite large, occasionally long bars of sand out two
hundred rods to a mile-and-a-half from the shore. While now and then,
as at Rockaway and far east along the Hamptons, the beach makes right
on the island, the sea dashing up without intervention. Several
light-houses on the shores east; a long history of wrecks tragedies,
some even of late years. As a youngster, I was in the atmosphere and
traditions of many of these wrecks--of one or two almost an observer.
Off Hempstead beach for example, was the loss of the ship "Mexico" in
1840, (alluded to in "the Sleepers" in L. of G.) And at Hampton, some
years later, the destruction of the brig "Elizabeth," a fearful affair,
in one of the worst winter gales, where Margaret Fuller went down, with
her husband and child.
Inside the outer bars or beach this south bay is everywhere
comparatively shallow; of cold winters all thick ice on the surface.
As a boy I often went forth with a chum or two, on those frozen fields,
with hand-sled, axe and eel-spear, after messes of eels. We would cut
holes in the ice, sometimes striking quite an eel-bonanza, and filling
our baskets with great, fat, sweet, white-meated fellows. The scenes,
the ice, drawing the hand-sled, cutting holes, spearing the eels, &c.,
were of course just such fun as is dearest to boyhood. The shores of
this bay, winter and summer, and my doings there in early life, are
woven all through L. of G. One sport I was very fond of was to go on
a bay-party in summer to gather sea-gull's eggs. (The gulls lay two or
three eggs, more than half the size of hen's eggs, right on the sand,
and leave the sun's heat to hatch them.)
The eastern end of Long Island, the Peconic bay region, I knew quite
well too--sail'd more than once around Shelter island, and down to
Montauk--spent many an hour on Turtle hill by the old light-house, on
the extreme point, looking out over the ceaseless roll of the Atlantic.
I used to like to go down there and fraternize with the blue-fishers,
or the annual squads of sea-bass takers. Sometimes, along Montauk
peninsula, (it is some 15 miles long, and good grazing,) met the
strange, unkempt, half-barbarous herdsmen, at that time living there
entirely aloof from society or civilization, in charge, on those rich
pasturages, of vast droves of horses, kine or sheep, own'd by farmers
of the eastern towns. Sometimes, too, the few remaining Indians, or
half-breeds, at that period left on Montauk peninsula, but now I believe
altogether extinct.
More in the middle of the island were the spreading Hempstead plains,
then (1830-'40) quite prairie-like, open, uninhabited, rather sterile,
cover'd with kill-calf and huckleberry bushes, yet plenty of fair
pasture for the cattle, mostly milch-cows, who fed there by hundreds,
even thousands, and at evening, (the plains too were own'd by the towns,
and this was the use of them in common,) might be seen taking their way
home, branching off regularly in the right places. I have often been out
on the edges of these plains toward sundown, and can yet recall in
fancy the interminable cow-processions, and hear the music of the tin or
copper bells clanking far or near, and breathe the cool of the sweet and
slightly aromatic evening air, and note the sunset.
Through the same region of the island, but further east, extended wide
central tracts of pine and scrub-oak, (charcoal was largely made here,)
monotonous and sterile. But many a good day or half-day did I have,
wandering through those solitary crossroads, inhaling the peculiar
and wild aroma. Here, and all along the island and its shores, I spent
intervals many years, all seasons, sometimes riding, sometimes boating,
but generally afoot, (I was always then a good walker,) absorbing
fields, shores, marine incidents, characters, the bay-men, farmers,
pilots-always had a plentiful acquaintance with the latter, and with
fishermen--went every summer on sailing trips--always liked the bare
sea-beach, south side, and have some of my happiest hours on it to this
day.
As I write, the whole experience comes back to me after the lapse of
forty and more years--the soothing rustle of the waves, and the saline
smell--boyhood's times, the clam-digging, bare-foot, and with trowsers
roll'd up--hauling down the creek--the perfume of the sedge-meadows--the
hay-boat, and the chowder and fishing excursions;--or, of later years,
little voyages down and out New York bay, in the pilot boats. Those same
later years, also, while living in Brooklyn, (1836-'50) I went regularly
every week in the mild seasons down to Coney Island, at that time a
long, bare unfrequented shore, which I had all to myself, and where I
loved, after bathing, to race up and down the hard sand, and declaim
Homer or Shakspere to the surf and sea gulls by the hour. But I am
getting ahead too rapidly, and must keep more in my traces.
Note:
[3] "Paumanok, (or Paumanake, or Paumanack, the Indian name of Long
Island,) over a hundred miles long; shaped like a fish--plenty of sea
shore, sandy, stormy, uninviting, the horizon boundless, the air too
strong for invalids, the bays a wonderful resort for aquatic birds,
the south-side meadows cover'd with salt hay, the soil of the island
generally tough, but good for the locust-tree, the apple orchard, and
the blackberry, and with numberless springs of the sweetest water in the
world. Years ago, among the bay-men--a strong, wild race, now extinct,
or rather entirely changed--a native of Long Island was called a
_Paumanacker_, or _Creole-'Paumanacker_."--_John Burroughs_.