If he had been the Devil himself, they couldn't have acted more scared.

I had to send him below out of sight, or there would have been a general stampede.

The men are afraid of him.

I don't understand exactly why they should be." None of us did at the time; but we learned subsequently that the Esquimaux attribute all their ill-luck to a certain fiend, or demon, in the form of a huge black man.

We have, therefore, accounted for their strange fear and aversion to the negro on that ground.