70 Crossing the Line 



c. 1801, continued 



before — a variant so pleasant under the Equator that those who were exempt 

 by the rules of tlie game often, he says, voluntarily "partook of the bathing." 

 There were doubtless also seamen who enjoyed, even as victims, the rough- 

 and-tumble described by Falconer, the dressing up as Neptune and Amphi- 

 tiite, and the shaving and ducking which came to be practised in EngHsh 

 ships, as every schoolboy has heard. But when Neptune laid hands on pas- 

 sengers it happened once or twice that they were so deficient in the saving 

 grace of humour as to take legal proceedings as soon as they got ashore. I have 

 not found any record of such a case having been tried in England, but sep- 

 arated by an interval of fifty years, there were two in India, and perhaps the 

 uncommon nature of such an action at law may justify a brief recital of the 

 facts in those forgotten suits. 



Mr. Nathaniel Castleton Maw was a young man who, having obtained a 

 cadetship in the mihtary service of the East India Company, was in 1801 

 proceeding to Bombay to commence his duties. The ship in which he sailed to- 

 gether with some seven or eight other young gentlemen destined for the same 

 profession was called tlie Scaleby Castle: and when she was nearing the line 

 the sailors in accordance with custom announced that the passengers would 

 be expected to imdergo the ceremony of shaving and ducking at the hands 

 of Father Neptune. Mr. Maw from the first declared that he would not submit 

 to it: the others were disposed to tieat the matter as a joke, though that was 

 before they knew how far it would be carried. There was a particular reason 

 why Maw should have an objection to horseplay of the kind usual on such 

 occasions since he was afflicted with a withered arm or some deformity of 

 the kind. It could hardly have been of a serious nature or it would have stood 

 in the way of his soldiering, and as a matter of fact he was made a lieutenant 

 before 1802. But however slight his infirmity it was natviral tliat he should 

 shrink from anything likely to call public attention to it. Besides this private 

 reason another and a more general one was stated to have weighed with him 

 in resisting from the outset the threatened attack upon his dignity. With the 

 exception of the few British seamen who were intent upon the accustomed 

 ceremonial the whole of the crew were natives of India, and Mr. Maw thought 

 that the spectacle of an English officer being shaved and ducked by the fore- 

 castle would be hable to be misunderstood by orientals. 



Now it was usually a pleasing feature of the shaving and ducking rite that 

 exemption might be purchased for a pecuniary or a spirituous consideration 

 — possibly always much the same thing: at all events the English practice 

 so far as I am aware shows nothing similar to the pious use mentioned by 

 Osbeck of devoting a portion of the "collection" on these occasions to "the 

 Orphan House at Gothenburgh." Mr. Maw offered to pay the customary tax 

 and one can only suppose that he must either by excess of dignity or angry 

 words have rendered himself so obnoxious to the crew that they put him, so 

 to speak, out of court. Certain it is that on the morning of tlie 28th September 

 when the fine was crossed. Maw was walking about the deck armed with a 



