sea upon a closely sealed empty bottle. It passes out of 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, Galatea 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 Galatea 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

lighted to the beach the virtuous Peter and a constable. Galatea 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-Galatea 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

skill and success of those who have inherited the honorable 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 wellattested 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."

LEGENDS OF LONG ISLAND.

NO. II.

THE LEGEND OF BRICK-HOUSE CREEK.

WHOEVER has paid a visit to the interesting country around and about Jerusalem, has found a spot rich in legendary lore and romantic story. I mean not the ancient city of the holy land, but that modern Jerusalem, nigh unto Babylon, in the southern part of Queens county, Long Island, which is commonly distinguished and known as Jerusalem South. Here, while that right good penman, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, yet signed himself secretary of Niew Netherlands, ran the division line between the domain of the Briton and the Hollander. Here was the field of many a border skirmish, and plundering foray; and the musket and the scalping-knife gave frequent occupation to Dutchman, Indian and Yankee. Here are still to be seen the remains of old Fort-Neck, where Tackapuasha, the Marsapeague sachem, was constrained to yield a sullen submission to the conquering arms of the new settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts, under the command of Deacon Tribulation Smith.* This was the place that was wept over by the ministers of New-England, even as a mother weepeth over her ailing infant, because the land was licentious, and covered with a flood of manifold profaneness.† It was the place afterwards designated by Governor Fletcher, in his speech to the New-York Assembly, as a place needing a schoolmaster and a minister, because he "didn't find any provision had yet been made for propagating religion."‡ * S. Woods' Memoir of Long-Island.

+ Minutes of Dedham General Assembly, 1642.

Smith's History of New-York.

This, alas! is not all. It is grievous to add, that the neighboring bays and inlets of the sea furnished sad temptations to maritime speculations, which they who were so fortunate as to have money enough of their own, affected to esteem of rather equivocal morality, and which the pressure of the times and the necessities of the people made in many instances very persuasive, ay, almost irresistible.

Not that the Jerusalemites were absolutely all pirates. That is a hard name, and one that carries with it the idea of blood and robbery. But people must live; and if a man has his crops all cut off or stolen, or if his house and barn are burned down by the savages, he must, as a matter of course, look out for some other means of livelihood; and certain it is, that about these times, many worthy gentlemen invested much property in divers small craft, yclept brigantines and cutters, wherewith they scoured the sea, paying visits unto other vessels, and carrying on a general trade, after a very wholesale and extensive fashion. Goodly revenues are said to have been derived from the business, and the names of many great men and lords were enrolled on the books of the concerns, as sleeping partners. The excellent historian of New-York tells us, that Captain Kidd had for his associates Lord Chancellor Somers, the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls of Romney and Oxford, and other equally illustrious individuals.* The fact speaks much for the honor of the trade; and we should be careful how we indulge in harsh nomenclature of gentlemen engaged in it, seeing that it met the sanction and protection of the rulers of the land.

No place was better calculated for a depot and a sally-port, than the bays of Matowacs, as Long Island was then properly called. It was so easy to run out and run in ; and pro* Smith, p. 151.