``I'm plaguy glad o' dat,'' said the cook. ``I was mighty 'fraid
he was a Fin. I tell you what, I been plaguy civil to that man all
the voyage.''
I asked him the reason of this, and found that he was fully
possessed with the notion that Fins are wizards, and especially
have power over winds and storms. I tried to reason with him about
it, but he had the best of all arguments, that from experience, at
hand, and was not to be moved. He had been to the Sandwich Islands
in a vessel in which the sail-maker was a Fin, and could do
anything he was of a mind to. This sail-maker kept a junk bottle
in his berth, which was always just half full of rum, though he
got drunk upon it nearly every day. He had seen him sit for hours
together, talking to this bottle, which he stood up before him on
the table. The same man cut his throat in his berth, and everybody
said he was possessed.
He had heard of ships, too, beating up the gulf of Finland against
a head wind, and having a ship heave in sight astern, overhaul,
and pass them, with as fair a wind as could blow, and all
studding-sails out, and find she was from Finland.
``Oh, no!'' said he; ``I've seen too much o' dem men to want to
see 'em 'board a ship.
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