The Seventeenth Century 21 



qui leur cause des frissons, & certains tremoussemens sympathiques de tous 

 leurs membres, & tels, que ie ne vous les sçaurois verbaUement exprimer; quoy 

 que par vn efiEect de ma curiosité, i'aye voulu subir cette peine; c'est pourquoy, 

 ie ne sçaurois consacrer à l'oubly, ce susdit procédé, quoy que risible, & du 

 tout inepte . . . 



(Guillaume Coppier. Histoire et voyage des Indes Occidentales; et de 

 plusieurs autres regions maritimes et esloignées, diuisé en deux liures. 

 Lyon, 1645. p. 47-48.) 



The decidedly rambling text needs no translation in full ( almost defies it ) ; may well be sum- 

 marized thus: I will say, gentlemen, that it is an unbroken rule for aU that have never passed the 

 Ras Blanchards [Pointe du Raz], the Peak of the Canaries, Cape Blanc, or the Tropics or the 

 equator, at each of those places to be baptised by a cupful of sea water dashed on his bare head. 

 This form of baptism is in the way of paying homage to or recognition of Neptune as if asking 

 him then and there to calm the waves and give us favoring winds to let us pass with no danger; 

 for these places are dangerous to approach, really prickly. I feel these ceremonies are rather real 

 bits of idolatry than prayers to God. We have grown used to such performances as reminders 

 of our having passed those places; and in our staging of such ceremonies, really tomf cileries. 

 I should not fail to speak about them as necessary on long voyages, though it annoys me to 

 blacken white paper vrith the tale of such excesses. They are planned and aimed at nothing more 

 than making fun for the participants, to whom you have to give something like bottles of brandy 

 or some other ardent hquor; which with us is divided among the ship's messes by sevens, five by 

 the English, three by the Flemings and others. Nobody can escape, not even tlie captain or the 

 puot, unless he has gone through it before. When staging the baptising they blacken your face 

 by a cross smudged on from the soot on bottom of the kettle. Stingy fellows are trussed up tightly 

 with ropes and then a sailor seated on a gun carriage empties on them, drop by drop, on the left 

 arm, a whole tank fuU of sea water and after an hour or so it congeals his blood, brings on 

 shivers all over and trembhngs of aU his members too severe for me to tell about. Out of 

 curiosity I wanted to undergo such a punishment, and as result I have something never to forget, 

 even if it is ludicrous and unfitting. 



In this account, just summarized, the drop-by-drop torture is unusual, indeed unique, so far 

 as I recall; and I wonder if the test really means to say that whenever you passed the Raz ( the exit 

 from the English Channel) or the Peak of the Canaries or Cape Blanche this full ordeal was 

 always inflicted? 



1654 



La troisième chose, est vne autant ancienne que ridicule & plaisante cou- 

 stume, pratiquée à l'endroit de ceux qui font de longs voyages sur mer. C'est 

 qu arriuant sous la hgne du Tropique du cancer ( ou deux fois l'année on a 

 le Soleu verticulement opposé, sans qu'à midy il puisse faire ombre à vne 

 chose droite. ) On fait de grands préparatifs, comme pour célébrer quelque 

 feste, ou plutost quelque Bachadale [misprint for Bachanale]. Tous les 

 officiers du nauire s'habillent le plus grotesquement et boufonnement qu'ils 

 peuuent. La pluspart sont armez de tridents, de harpons, et autres instriraiens 

 de marine: les autres courent aux poiles, broches, chaudrons, l'eschef rites, 

 et semblables vstensiUes de cuisine; ils se barbouillent le visage auec le 

 noir qu'ils prennent au dessous des marmittes, et se rendent si hideux et 

 si laids, qu'on les estimeroit de véritables demons. Le Pilote les met tous 

 en rang, & marche à la teste, tenant d'vne main vne petite carte marine, 

 & de l'autre vne astrolabe, ou baston de Jacob, qui sont les marques de sa 

 dignité. Cependant, les tamboxnrs & les trompettes sonnent en grande aUe- 



