230 THE SEA. 



satellites, in order that the officers should not know who enacted the leading roles. The 

 god wore a crown, and held out a trident, on which a dolphin, supposed to have been 

 impaled that morning, was stuck. He had a flowing wig and beard of oakum, and was, 

 in ail points, "made-up" for Neptune himself. His suite included a secretary of state, 

 his head stuck all over with long quills ; a surgeon, with lancet, pill-box, and medicines ; 

 his barber, with a razor cut from an iron hoop, and with an assistant, who carried a tub 

 for a shaving-box. Mrs. Neptune was represented by the ugliest man on board, who, 

 with sea- weed hair and a huge night-cap, carried a baby one of the boys of the ship 

 in long clothes; the latter played with a marline-spike, given it to assist in cutting its 

 teeth. The nurse followed, with a bucketful of burgoo (thick oatmeal porridge or pudding), 

 and fed the baby incessantly with the cook's iron ladle. Sea-nymphs, selected from the 

 clumsiest and fattest of the crew, helped to swell the retinue. As soon as the procession 

 halted before the captain, behind whom the steward waited, carrying a tray with a bottle 

 of wine and glasses, Neptune and Amphitrite paid submission to the former, as repre- 

 sentative of Great Britain, and the god presented him the dolphin. After the interview, 

 in which Neptune not unfrequently poked fun and thrust home-traths at the officers, the 

 captain offered the god and goddess a bumper of wine, and then the rougher part of the 

 ceremony commenced. Neptune would address his court somewhat as follows : " Hark 

 ye, my Tritons, you're here to shave and duck and bleed all as needs it; but you've got 

 to be gentle, or we'll get no more fees. The first of ye as disobeys me, I'll tie to a ten- 

 ton gun, and sink him ten thousand fathoms below, where he shall drink nothing but 

 salt-water and feed on seaweed for the next hundred years." The cow-pen was usually 

 employed for the ducking-bath; it was lined with double canvas, and boarded up, so as 

 to hold several butts of water. Marryat, in the first naval novel he wrote, says : " Many 

 of the officers purchased exemption from shaving and physic by a bottle of rum ; but none 

 could escape the sprinkling of salt water, which fell about in great profusion; even the 

 captain received his share. ... It was easy to perceive, on this occasion, who were 

 favourites with the ship's company, by the degree of severity with which they were 

 treated. The tyro was seated on the side of the cow-pen : he was asked the place of his 

 nativity, and the moment he opened his mouth the shaving-brush of the barber which was 

 a very large paint-brush was crammed in, with all the filthy lather, with which they 

 covered his face and chin; this was roughly scraped off with the great razor. The doctor 

 felt his pulse, and prescribed a pill, which was forced into his cheek; and the smelling- 

 bottle, the cork of which was armed with sharp points of pins, was so forcibly applied to 

 his nose as to bring blood. After this, he was thrown backward into the bath, and allowed 

 to scramble out the best way he could." The first-lieutenant, the reader may remember, 

 dodged out of the way for some time, but at last was surrounded, and plied so effectually 

 with buckets of salt water, that he fled down a hatchway. The buckets were pitched 

 after him, "and he fell, like the Roman virgin, covered with the shields of the soldiers." 

 Very unpopular men or officers were made to swallow half a pint of salt water. Those 

 good old times ! 



Pleasant is it to read of life on board a modern first-class man-of-war. Where 

 there are, perhaps, thirty officers in the ward-room, it would be hard indeed if one cannot 



