LONG ISLAND. 
371 
On the coast of America., a country house is 
not merely desirable as a place of retirement 
from noise and bustle, where the owner may 
indulge his'fancy in the contemplation of rural 
scenes, at a season when nature is attired in 
her most pleasing garb, but also as a safe re¬ 
treat from the dreadful maladies which of late 
years have never failed to rage with more or 
Jess virulence in these places during certain 
months. When at Philadelphia the yellow 
fever committed such dreadful havoc, sparing 
neither the rich nor the poor, the young nor 
the aged, who had the confidence to remain 
in the city, or were unable to quit it, scarcely 
a single instance occurred of any one of those 
falling a victim to its baneful influence, who 
lived but one mile removed from town, where 
was a free circulation of air, and who at the 
same time studiously avoided all communication 
with the sick, or with those who had visited 
them ; every person therefore at Philadelphia, 
New York, Baltimore, &c. who is sufficiently 
wealthy to afford it, has his country habita¬ 
tion in the neighbourhood of these respective 
places, to which lie may retire in the hot un¬ 
healthy season of the year; but this delightful 
part of Long Island, of which I have been 
speaking, though it affords such a number of 
charming situations for little villas, is unfor¬ 
tunately too far removed from New York to 
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