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the ignes fatui of superstition. I have thought proper to premise thus
much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered
rather the raving of a crude imagination, than the positive experience
of a mind to which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a
nullity.
After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18-- ,
from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java, on
a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went as
passenger--having no other inducement than a kind of nervous
restlessness which haunted me as a fiend.
Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons,
copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted
with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on
board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The
stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank.
We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days stood
along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to beguile
the monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with some of the
small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.
One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular,
isolated cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well for its color, as
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