THE ORDER CETACEA. 49 



men perform a similar initiatory ceremony on this occa- 

 sion, which perhaps may not prove un entertaining if I 

 describe it, inasmuch as it was witnessed by myself in 

 1 824, when I was duly baptized, and made one of sturdy 

 Neptune's sons.* After having undergone this laughable 

 custom, I was 



" Duly hailed a free-born British Tar, 

 The Sovereign of the Sea." t 



Previous to the ship leaving her port, the seamen 

 collected from their wives and other female friends a 

 profusion of gaudy ribands for " the garland," of which 

 great care was taken until a few days previous to the 

 first of May, when all hands (officers excepted) were 

 engaged in preparing the said garland, with a neat mo- 

 del of the ship. 



The garland was made of a hoop taken from one of 

 the beef casks, and fastened to a stock of wood of about 

 four feet in length, and the model of the vessel, which 

 had been made by the carpenter, so as to answer the 

 purpose of a vane. It was then hoisted on a rope, be- 

 tween the main and mizen masts, where it remained 

 the whole of the voyage. 



The first of May having arrived, the nautical tyros, 

 (or those who had not been previously to the Arctic 

 Seas) were kept from between the decks, and all intruders 

 excluded, whilst the principal performers got ready the 

 necessary apparatus and dresses. 



The barber who officiated on this important occasion 

 was an old weather-beaten Northumbrian seaman, one 

 George Brown, the boatswain, and his mate, John Put, 

 of Deptford, the cooper, who had fixed upon the grating 



* It is difficult to say whence this custom arose, or the time when it 

 was first practised ; in all probability it was co-eval with the commence* 

 ment of the whale-fishery. t Old Song. 



E 



