Some Sample Walks 53 



Shinnecock Indians, and when you hear 

 them you guess that their speech grew out 

 of the croaking of frogs and piping of tree- 

 toads. Listen : Quogue, Cutchogue, Pat- 

 chogue, Ponquogue, Aquebogue, Ronkon- 

 koma, Speonk, Sagg, Setauket, Islip, 

 Yaphank, Moriches, Amagansett, Man- 

 hasset, Commack, Peconic, Mattituck, 

 Mineola, Massapequa, Noyack, isn't it 

 like the evening chorus in the marshes? 

 And they have frogs there, too. But, oh, 

 they have one monster more awful in 

 imagination and reality than frogs, than 

 even the batrachian who snaps that double 

 bass string so loudly as we pass his haunt, 

 and that is the mosquito. 



I have travelled with my head in a bag 

 of netting, my coat buttoned to my ears, 

 my hands flailing the clouds that snarled 

 about me, but with little avail ; yet in a 

 tramp to Montauk Point I passed the 

 dreaded Napeague beach in safety by 

 wading in the sea. The pests hovered at 

 the edge of the water, but seldom ventured 

 beyond the shore. Climbing, then, to the 

 windy moors of the point, that crumble to 



