Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/95

 Rh as a ghostly herald or accompaniment of war, and discountenance all faith in his performances since 1865.

About half a mile above the city limits there are three rocky islets. Just below the last of these three rock-points rise out of water at low tide. Some say that just here the sisters were drowned. One account makes them Indian maidens out fishing; another, white damsels going to mill. The three islands, it used to be said, came up to mark their resting-places; but the popular credulity which can still swallow and digest a drum-playing phantom is no longer equal to dealing with such gymnastics on the part of great masses of stone. Also one hears no longer of a certain dreaded whirlpool near that group, which young swimmers once knew of. Old residents insist on the actual death of three sisters by an overset boat; but the circumstances raise a strong presumption in favour of the theory that the three neighbouring islands called for a metaphorical name, and the name in turn called for some fancy work by way of justifying it.

.

Fifteen miles down the river the Piscataway joins it from the north by a broad, shallow estuary, once navigable, now choked; most probably by the uptilting of strata. The region about it was early settled, the village of the above name appearing on maps of over two hundred years ago. Near it Tinker's Branch, a tributary, flows in. Following this beyond the deserted Chapel Hill, where white men's graves are going as the red men's have gone before, you come to a wild cluster of steep ravines, branching like the fingers of one's hand, converging toward the south-eastward, and overgrown with magnificent forestry. It is a spot sacred to Pan, or rather Satan, for he took from here his twenty-mile leap to Port Tobacco over the open country lying stretched before you; and moreover, according to one account he is even yet to be dreaded hereabout by sinners late o' nights, for he has not lost his agility. This curious fragment of a tale and the local name, the Devil's Jump, have lasted for at least a