Such long trails and tedious detours to avoid watercourses and marshes must have appeared very aggravating at times to those natives living on the shores facing INDIAN NOTES BOROUGH OF each other across the waters of East river. Hell Gate offered an obstruction to free passage which led to the tradition among the natives of the region to the effect that at some remote period it had been possible for their predecessors to cross the dangerous rapid by stepping from one exposed rock to another.

A folk-story of much the same imaginative character is related by Robert Bolton, regarding the Stepping Stones rocks off Pelham neck. That legend recorded the pursuit by the natives of "Manetto," the Evil Spirit, through Westchester county to the Sound shore, where, escaping to City island, he stepped across to a safe retreat on Long Island by the use of the Stepping Stones, leaving the imprint of one foot which may still be seen upon a bowlder near Eastchester.

He is said to have landed from his leap over the Sound in Flushing bay, on great rocks which were splintered by the impact.