10 Crossing the Line 



swears he will take care the same ceremony be observed, whenever he 

 is in the like circumstances: Then, by giving a little money by way of 

 gratification, he is discharged with a little sprinkling of water; otherwise 

 he is heartily drenched with streams of water poured upon him; and the 

 ship-boys are inclosed in a cage, and ducked at discretion. — The seamen, 

 on tlie baptizing a ship, pretend to a right of cutting off the beak-head, 

 unless redeemed by the captain. 



The quotations hereafter set forth come largely from French, English, 

 United States sources, with scattering others from Dutch, German, Russian. 

 They show quite soon how far back as to our time and how early as to the date 

 of quotation the ceremony is accepted as established tradition. Noteworthy 

 too is the lack of references to it by Italian or Spanish or Portuguese writers, 

 as compared with the French. 



In point of time Portuguese led all, none other hke Prince Henry the Navi- 

 gator. Spain followed hard apace with the change from 15th to 16th century. 

 Venice and Genoa have long maritime experience, with traditions of real 

 importance. Yet, on this point of sea lore we have few references to any such 

 ceremony from them. Italian ships did get to Bruges and to British ports now 

 and then, but tlie trips were not regular, scaicely occasional. 



An Italian naval officer notes that the Saint's day, the Santa Maria or Anna 

 or Trinidad whose name the ship bore, was usually, even invariably, marked 

 by a rehgious ceremony. Or, if not for the Saint's day, then that of the patron 

 of the home port of the ship. He notes too that the Church and the Inquisition 

 were stronger in Italy and Spain than in France, and we see here how much 

 oftener do we find clerical disapproval or forbidding of the usual ceremony 

 in the quotations from sources stemming from either of the two peninsulas. 



Moreover, recall that such notes of the "passaggio della Itnea" as we find in 

 later Itahan sources seem to indicate that the ceremony had been taken over 

 from the EngHsh. Italian steamships were made in England at first, manned 

 by British for the engineering force for a long time. 



So too comes the wonder why we have so few stories in fiction, so few from 

 whalers. Corbière, wTiting in the middle 'fifties of the last century, gives in 

 his tale of a slaver set in the time of the Empire, a vivid picture of the crossing. 

 He there pays high tribute to Eugene Sue and James Fenimore Cooper as 

 writers of sea tales, rating Cooper as peer of the craft. Most of us have enjoyed 

 Cooper, wdll give hearty support to Corbière, but wiU remind ourselves that 

 Cooper wTOte only about scenes he knew and had never been in south latitude. 



Melville and Moby Dick come to mind of course when thinking or talking 

 about whalers, but when I came to check impressions with the printed page 



