This sudden change in the weather afforded me an opportunity of seeing, to much greater advantage than might have been expected at this season of the year, parts of New York and Long Islands, which the shortness of my stay in this neighbourhood had not permitted me to visit in the summer. After leaving the immediate vicinage of the city, which stands at the southern extremity of the former of these two islands, but little is to be met with that deserves attention; the soil, indeed, is fertile, and the face of the country is not unpleasingly diversified with rising grounds; but there is nothing grand in any of the views which it affords, nor did I observe one of the numerous seats, with which it is overspread, that was distinguished either for its elegant neatness or the delightfulness of its situation; none of them will bear any comparison with the charming little villas which adorn the banks of the Schuylkill near Philadelphia. On Long Island much more will be found, in a picturesque point of view, to interest the traveller. On the western side, in particular, bordering upon the Narrows, or that contracted channel between the islands, through which vessels pass in sailing to New York from the Atlantic, the country is really romantic. The ground here is very much broken, and numberless large masses of wood still remain standing, through the vistas in which you occasionally catch the most delightful prospects of the distant hills on Staten Island and the New Jersey shore, and of the water, which is constantly enlivened by vessels sailing to and fro. [Sidenote: LONG ISLAND.]