ul, told
it in so many different ways, that there has ever prevailed a great
variety of opinions on the subject.

As to the commodore and his crew, when they came to their senses they
found themselves stranded on the Long Island shore. The worthy
commodore, indeed, used to relate many and wonderful stories of his
adventures in this time of peril--how that he saw specters flying in the
air and heard the yelling of hobgoblins, and put his hand into the pot
when they were whirled round, and found the water scalding hot, and
beheld several uncouth-looking beings seated on rocks and skimming it
with huge ladles; but particularly he declared, with great exultation,
that he saw the losel porpoises, which had betrayed them into this
peril, some broiling on the Gridiron and others hissing on the
Frying-pan!

These, however, were considered by many as mere fantasies of the
commodore while he lay in a trance, especially as he was known to be
given to dreaming, and the truth of them has never been clearly
ascertained. It is certain, however, that to the accounts of Oloffe and
his followers may be traced the various traditions handed down of this
marvelous strait--as how the devil has been seen there sitting astride
of the Hog's Back and playing on the fiddle, how he broils fish there
before a storm, and many other stories in which we must be cautious of
putting too much faith. In consequence of all these terrific
circumstances the Pavonian commander gave this pass the name of
_Hellegat_, or, as it has been interpreted, _Hell-Gate_,[242-1] which it
continues to bear at the present day.

The darkness of the night had closed upon this disastrous day, and a
doleful night was it to the shipwrecked Pavonians, whose ears were
incessantly assailed with the raging of the elements and the howling of
the hobgoblins that infested this perilous strait. But when the morning
dawned the horrors of the preceding evening had passed away--rapids,
breakers, whirlpools had disappeared, the stream again ran smooth and
dimpling, and, having changed its tide, rolled gently back toward the
quarter where lay their much-regretted home.

The woe-begone heroes of Communipaw eyed each other with rueful
countenances; their squadron had been totally dispersed by the late
disaster.

I forbear to treat of the long consultation of Oloffe with his remaining
followers, in which they determined that it would never do to found a
city in so diabolical a neighborho