The Flux And Reflux Of The Tide Through This Part Of The Sound Is
Extremely Rapid, And The Navigation Troublesome, By Reason Of The
Whirling Eddies And Counter Currents.
I speak this from experience,
having been much of a navigator of these small seas in my boyhood, and
having more than once run the risk of shipwreck and drowning in the
course of divers holiday voyages, to which in common with the Dutch
urchins I was rather prone.
In the midst of this perilous strait, and hard by a group of rocks
called "the Hen and Chickens," there lay in my boyish days the wreck of
a vessel which had been entangled in the whirlpools and stranded during
a storm. There was some wild story about this being the wreck of a
pirate, and of some bloody murder, connected with it, which I cannot
now recollect. Indeed, the desolate look of this forlorn hulk, and the
fearful place where it lay rotting, were sufficient to awaken strange
notions concerning it. A row of timber heads, blackened by time, peered
above the surface at high water; but at low tide a considerable part of
the hull was bare, and its great ribs or timbers, partly stripped of
their planks, looked like the skeleton of some sea monster. There was
also the stump of a mast, with a few ropes and blocks swinging about
and whistling in the wind, while the sea gull wheeled and screamed
around this melancholy carcass.
The stories connected with this wreck made it an object of great awe to
my boyish fancy; but in truth the whole neighborhood was full of fable
and romance for me, abounding with traditions about pirates,
hobgoblins, and buried money. As I grew to more mature years I made
many researches after the truth of these strange traditions; for I have
always been a curious investigator of the valuable, but obscure
branches of the history of my native province. I found infinite
difficulty, however, in arriving at any precise information. In seeking
to dig up one fact it is incredible the number of fables which I
unearthed; for the whole course of the Sound seemed in my younger days
to be like the straits of Pylorus of yore, the very region of fiction.
I will say nothing of the Devil's Stepping Stones, by which that arch
fiend made his retreat from Connecticut to Long Island, seeing that the
subject is likely to be learnedly treated by a worthy friend and
contemporary historian[2] whom I have furnished with particulars
thereof. Neither will I say anything of the black man in a
three-cornered hat, seated in the stern of a jolly boat who used to be
seen about Hell Gate in stormy weather; and who went by the name of the
Pirate's Spuke, or Pirate's Ghost, because I never could meet with any
person of stanch credibility who professed to have seen this spectrum;
unless it were the widow of Manus Conklin, the blacksmith of Frog's
Neck, but then, poor woman, she was a little purblind, and might have
been mistaken; though they said she saw farther than other folks in the
dark.
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