belief that it was the Divine
will he had carried out. This faith was strengthened by the
vessel never having been heard of again after sailing the
second time. I never heard of the owner showing any
vindictiveness to the poor captain, who was, no doubt, the
victim of a strange hallucination.

It would be unfair to impute a monopoly of superstition to
the seafarer. Sailors have superstitions which are not now
exclusively theirs, though they may have been the
originators of them; for instance, placing a loaf of bread
upside down, spilling the salt (and nullifying the mischief
by throwing a few grains over the left shoulder); these, as
well as the leaving of stray leaves and stalks in teacups
are considered sure indications of past or coming events,
even by the large and enlightened public who pass their
lives on dry land. There are few things more comical than to
see the nautical person studiously avoid passing under a
shore ladder. The penalty of it has a terror for him; and
yet his whole life is spent in passing to and fro under rope
ladders aboard ship without any suspicion of evil
consequences. But the landsman's belief in mystic tokens and
flighty safeguards is faint indeed compared with that which
permeates and saturates the mind of the typical sailor. A
gentleman with whom I was long and closely associated held
definite opinions on symbolic apparitions. His faith in
black cats was immovable; but this only extended to those
who actually crossed his path, and to him that was a sign
indicative of good fortune. I have seen him go into
ecstasies of joy over an incident of this kind; and woe unto
the person who interrupted the current of his happiness. He
would curse him with amazing fluency until resentment choked
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