"Oh, for a fair wind when we sail again!" said I. "I would beg, borrow, or steal one, if I knew where such commodities were to be had."
"'Tis a pity you are not a subject of King Eric-with-the-Windy-Cap," replied Hislop, while making up a cigarito. "See how clumsily those lubbers sheer that brig to her anchor! Why the deuce don't they keep the current right ahead, and lessen the strain on the chain-cable? I shouldn't like to have my fingers between it and the hawse-pipe just now. Why, she's forging broadside on!"
"Who was King Eric-with-the-Windy-Cap?" I asked.
"Did you ever read Olaus Magnus?"
"No; the name would seem enough for me. Moreover, we don't read Scotch poetry at Eton."
"He was one of the oldest annalists of Scandinavia, and you lose a deal in not reading him."
"Well, but this Eric——" I resumed.
"Was King of Sweden. He was surnamed Waderhat, and was deemed in his time a great sorcerer,—so great, that he ranked second to none in that kind of craft. He was on the most familiar terms with all kinds of goblins and evil spirits, and constructed a peculiar cap, which by spells he endowed with such extraordinary power that the wind would blow from whichever way he chose to turn it. Our old Scotch fishermen in Orkney and Shetland, who are half Norsemen, can spin yarns by the hour about King Eric Waderhat; and it was by his aid, says Olaus, and thus being able to have always a fair wind, that the great pirate, Regner, King of Denmark, who was his nephew, carried the terror of his name to the uttermost parts of Europe. But now, Dick, as the bones of the galina are picked clean, as the wine is drunk, and the sun in the west, let us be off to see this famous old bit of arboriculture,—the Dragon Tree of Caora. Ah! that brig has got her anchor apeak at last; the port-tacks are close aboard, and the jib hoisted, and—by George! if her stupid fiddle-head is long in paying off she'll be foul of that polacca! But here comes the senor de casa."
We asked the landlord, who entered at that moment, where the famous tree stood; on which he politely offered to accompany us; and certainly our visit was not time wasted.
In the garden of a Senor Franqui (whose father showed it to Humboldt), we saw this gigantic specimen of the many-headed palm, the aged Dragon Tree of Caora.