To adapt ourselves to modern conditions, and as we must view Long Island in sections to appreciate it as a whole, a route may be chosen in which, by using both railroad and stage, we may see even more of it, and that to greater advantage, than the old-time traveller. It is necessary, in the first place, that something should be seen of the northern shore. In character and associations it differs widely from the southern. There is, in the second place, the central section, in avoiding which much of the rural and most placid beauty of the island would be lost. There is, thirdly, the southern shore, varied in itself according as the point at which it is viewed lies on the ocean or on the landlocked bays between Hempstead and Mecoc, and extending to the rugged headland of Montauk. We shall thus, by passing from point to point, see as in a panorama all that need now attract our attention in viewing Seawanhaka.
[Illustration: PORT JEFFERSON, FROM CEDAR HILL.]
The place which the Indians named Cumsewogue is now mainly distinguished by the cemetery of Cedar Hill. Passing among the graves, we reach the summit, and a wonderful scene bursts upon our view. Looking north toward where the village is nestling in a hollow surrounded by woods, the waters of Port Jefferson Bay are lying without a visible ripple; the sails of the ships passing up and down the Sound gleam in the sun; and beyond them, like a hazy line, are the shores of Connecticut. On the left are glimpses of farmhouses, the church-spires of Setauket, and rolling fields alternating with woods. On the right are more woods, bounded far away by the broken shore of the cliff-bound Sound. The wooded peninsula in front that stretches to the north, forming the eastern shore of Port Jefferson Bay, was named by the old Puritan settlers--for what reason it would be hard to divine--Mount Misery. It is now, fortunately, more generally known in the neighborhood by the name of the Strong estate of Oakwood. Sea, shore, woods and valleys make up a picturesque scene of peaceful beauty, and one forgets in the presence of its living charms that the site upon which he stands is within the limits of a city of the dead.
[Illustration: CABIN IN THE WOODS ABOVE POQUOTT.]
