tter. And, if we inquire diligently, we shall find our Davy in
the Deva of the Indian mythology. The original Sanskrit meaning of Deva
was 'The Shining One,' but in the operation of what has been called 'the
degradation of Deities' in the Oriental religions, it became synonymous
with our devil. In fact, we owe the word 'devil' to this same Sanskrit
root; and it is noteworthy that while Deva meant the Good Spirit to the
Brahmans, it meant the Evil Spirit to the Parsees. In this root we may
also find the explanation of the gipsy word for God, which, curiously
enough, is Devel.

While it is easy to trace the transition from Deva to the sailor's Davy,
one may note another curious thing. The name of the fabulous Welshman,
Taffy, the thief, is a corruption of Dyved, which, as signifying an evil
spirit, is the Cymric form of Deva. This would almost suggest that the
addition of the apparent surname, Jones, was a Welsh performance. But
this is only an amusing conjecture, not without a certain aptness.

For the origin of Jones we must look to Jonah, who in nautical history
is regarded as the embodiment of malevolence at sea. The prophet Jonah
is not the only one who has been committed to the deep to appease the
storm-fiends, whose anger his presence was supposed to have aroused. It
is easy to account for this from the Bible narrative. 'The mariners were
afraid, and cried every man unto his God. And they said, every one to
his fellow, "Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose
cause this evil is upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon
Jonah. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the
sea ceased from her raging.'

The superstition of sailors is proverbial, and to this day they believe
in good or ill luck being brought to a vessel by persons and things. In
olden times there were many sacrifices to this Jonah superstition; and
even in comparatively recent times, Holcroft, the actor, on a voyage to
Scotland, narrowly escaped a watery grave, because the men took him for
'the Jonas.' And to this day 'He's a Jonah' is an expression often
enough heard on ship-board applied to some unwelcome passenger.

Here, then, we have the Sanskrit origin of Davy, and the Biblical origin
of Jones, both words embodying much the same idea to the mind of the
primitive seamen.

But what of the 'locker'?

This, of course, is a familiar piece of ship-furniture which it was not
difficult to transfer to the myt