choosing dwellings by the lake where
the land was good. The latter tell of later settlers, attracted solely
by the beauty and salubrity of the place. There is one house still
standing on the east side of the lake, a weather-beaten veteran of a
century and a half. It has been in the same family ever since it was
built, and if its walls were as eloquent of facts as they are of
sentiment, it could no doubt unfold a varied tale. The place has, of
course, a history based upon Indian times. Where we now see boats and
skiffs, canoes were once paddled, and the lonely seclusion of the lake
is said to have made it the theme of many an Indian story. Only one
legend now survives. The lake has always been, and is now, well stocked
with fish, and it is in places so deep that the Indians thought it
unfathomable. With a curious kind of veneration they believed that the
Great Spirit brought the fish that swarm in its waters, and kept them
under his special care. Even when the whites came upon the scene the red
men clung to their superstition, and would not catch nor eat the fish,
believing them to be superior beings.

A change has come over the spot since that day. The land near the lake
has been partially cleared, but not to such an extent as to divest it of
any of its early beauty. A fringe of trees encloses it on all sides
except the north, where a narrow belt of sand divides it from a lily
pond. It is from that feature, and from the glistening western shore,
that the lake was called Ronkonkoma (Sand Pond). At the point where it
first bursts upon the traveller from the south it is seen gleaming
through the trees like a diamond in a robe of green. Standing upon its
margin, we are about fifty feet above the sea, and the cool wind that is
rustling among the trees comes fresh from the Great South Bay, seven
miles away. To right and left are high tree-covered banks, and to the
north across the lake, about a mile off, the white sand is shining like
a line of silver. The trees above the eastern shore are reflected as in
a mirror, and the little boat with its snowy sail is there in duplicate,
itself and double.

[Illustration: THE BEACH AT FIRE ISLAND.]

But, to be seen at its best, Ronkonkoma should be viewed from one of the
higher points along its eastern shore when the sun is sloping down the
western sky. One memorable evening this view was so beautiful as to be
almost unearthly. The sun had sunk behind a heavy cloud-bank, which it
ti