the power of expression. This same human phenomenon was, in
early life, shipwrecked on one of the hidden shoals with
which the north-east coast abounds, at the very moment when
he was taking from the girdle in the galley a hot cake he
had baked in celebration of his birthday, and as a
precaution against future calamities he ever after wore the
left foot stocking outside in; and although he has passed
through many dangers which nearly ended in disaster, he has
never again been shipwrecked. Hence his faith is unbroken in
the protecting virtue of this mode of wearing that article
of dress, and so is his reverent belief in black cats as
charms against evil fortune. I have never known a person
with a larger sense of genuine humour than this man
possessed, and yet one could never appear to slight _his_
peculiar superstitions without producing a paroxysm of fury
in him. He would watch for the appearance of a new moon with
touching anxiety, and although his finances were very
frequently in a precarious condition, he never allowed
himself to be without the proverbial penny to turn over
under the new moon as a panacea against hidden pecuniary
ills! If, in sailor parlance, a star "dogged the moon," that
was to him a disturbing omen, and great caution had to be
observed that no violation of nautical ethics took place
during the transit. It was never regarded as a transit, but
as a "sign" from which evil _might_ be evolved.

Amidst all this singular piety in externals (for it was
really a species of piety), this typical sailor never gave
up his belief in the efficacy of strong language, which,
among the worst of his class, was frequently indescribable;