I satisfied him on that point by saying that he could speak no
language but the German and English.

"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 at 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.

"Oh ho!" said he; "I've seen too much of them men to want to see 'em
'board a ship. If they can't have their own way, they'll play the
d---l with you."

As I still doubted, he said he would leave it to John, who was the
oldest seaman aboard, and would know, if anybody did. John, to be