Sailors, usually the boldest men alive, are yet not unfrequently the very abject slaves of superstitious fear. Nothing is more common than to hear them talk of noises, flashes, shadows, echoes, and other visible appearances, nightly seen and heard upon the waters. Andrews, in his Anecdotes, says, "Superstition and profaneness, those extremes of human conduct, are too often found united in the sailor; and the man who dreads the stormy effects of drowning a cat, of whistling a contra dance while he leans over the gunwale, will, too often, wantonly defy his Creator by the most daring execrations and licentious behavior." Dr. Pegge says that "sailors have a strange opinion of the devil's power and agency in stirring up winds, which notion seems to have been handed down from Zoroaster, who imagined that there was an evil spirit, called Vato, that could excite violent storms of wind." To lose a cat overboard, or to drown one, or to lose a bucket or a mop, is, at the present day, a very unlucky omen with common sailors.