"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 in a vessel to the Sandwich
Islands, 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.
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