Even these night rambles were unsuited to the genius of a quiet people; retaliation soon quenched this warlike spirit; and like the Babylonii of modern days, they preferred making raids upon the peaceful inhabitants of the bay-for in those days salmon did abound, yea, plentiful as shirks and blue fish; and many a black canoe, with the spearman standing out in bold relief by the light of his pine-knot torch, could be seen, where now the solitary tower on Fire Island casts its menacing glare upon the

waves.

Such was the enviable condition of the territory of Babylon or "Sunkwam," as it was then denominated, and so it remained until the discovery of the island of Manhattan, and the landing of the pilgrim fathers and mothers upon the famous rock at New Plymouth. It is not my purpose to repeat these familiar portions of the history of the new world. The rise and fall of the Dutch dynasty, and the colonial government of the Puritans are well known to every man, woman and child in the country. The patient Netherlander slowly populated the peaceful city of the Manhattoes. The Pilgrims took possession successively of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. But Sunkwam was reserved for greater things, and therefore her day came later than the rest. It was not until the middle of

the seventeenth century, that the first irruption of the white men into the territory of the Massapequas took place. The western end of the island nearest New-Amsterdam had been deliberately settled by the phlegmatic Dutchmen, while their more mercurial brethren had extended themselves over the largest portion of the island, from Montauk Point to the present western boundaries of Suffolk county. At the latter place an imaginary line had been drawn defining the limits of the respective settlements, but in 1642 a party of Orientals started from the town of Lynn, and, with true Yankee audacity, squatted themselves at Cow Bay, directly within the boundaries of the Dutch territory. Now Governor Keift was a little man, and not over brave for a governor, but like many other little men he could do a great deal of fighting—at a distance. So he forthwith dispatched a rascally bailiff, one Cornelius Van Tienhoven, with directions to capture this band of "infamous Yankees," who had dared to come (from Lynn) "between the wind and his nobility." Whereupon the said Cornelius took with him six good men and true, and after a laborious journey of three weeks, five days and twenty-three hours, arrived in sight of the embryo colony. Here he reposed for two days and a half to recover his wind, and then taking off his coat and tying his suspenders

around his capacious abdomen, started off alone to take the settlement by storm, leaving his valiant army behind as a "corps de reserve." As luck would have it, just as he reached the brow of the little hill which rises before Cow Bay, his foot slipped in something, and he rolled down the hill toward the ill-fated colony. When the Yankees beheld this huge Dutch avalanche coming down, and threatening to demolish the whole of them in a twinkling, they were seized with a horrible panic, and ran away as if the devil was after them.* Then, as is the custom with puissant conquerors, did the aforementioned Cornelius take a view of the village, which, by the law of nations, had again become a possession of the States General, and twisting his mighty moustache, seize and carry off with him the spoils and prisoners of war, namely: an old woman with the fever and ague, a yellow-headed baby with gooseberry eyes, together with a bag of corn meal and a huge rasher of pork, and march back to Nieuw-Amsterdam

* Here let me caution my readers against the account given by DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER in the History of New-York, of this memorable event. I do most heartily believe every thing that he relates, except when he speaks of the Yankees, but there, methinks, his prejudice has warped his accuracy. Beside, how could "STOFFEL BRINKERHOFF," as he asserts, "trudge through Nineveh and Babylon, and Jericho and Patchogue, and the mighty town of Quog, on his way to Oyster Bay?" He might as well have tried to get to Albany by the way of Coney Island!

like a modern Mexican hero, fresh from the "Halls of the Montezumas."

But this little circumstance was productive of a great result, for one of the aforesaid Yankees, Hosea Carl by

name, ran straight across the island and never drew breath until he came in sight of the pleasant waters of the Great South Bay. Here he beheld the wigwams of the renowned Massapequas, and finding them to be an indolent devilmay-care set of savages, forthwith took them under his kindly protection. It was on this memorable day, namely, the twenty-third of May, 1642, that the first blue-fish was eaten by a white man within the precincts of Sunkwam, or Sunquam as it is sometimes erroneously spelt. Nor must I omit to relate that this same Hosea Carl had in his waistcoat pocket some pumpkin seeds, which he planted without delay, for the pumpkin is the mystic symbol of the Yankees, and the planting thereof gives as good a title to the soil as right of possession by flag-staff, or any other ingenious invention by which barbarous tribes are taught to respect the rights and claims of civilized nations. Being thus in a manner under the shade of his own vine and fig-tree, Hosea sent a faithful copperhead, Squidko by name, to hunt up his wife, who had fled before the terrible splutter-damns of Cornelius Von Tienhoven, like a struck wild-fowl at the sound of a rusty gun.

The daguerreotype painted upon the memory of Squidko was a perfect likeness, and in a few days the hapless fugitive was found. Hosea then made a "clearing," and before