124 Crossing the Line 



1829, continued 



when we all surrounded him, and plied him so effectually with buckets of 



water, that he was glad to run down the after-hatchway, and seek shelter in 



the gun-room; as he ran down, we threw buckets after him, and he fell, like 



the Roman virgin, covered witli the shields of the soldiers. 



The purser had fortified himself in his cabin, and v^dth his sword and 

 pistols vowed vengeance against all intruders; but the middies were not 

 to be frightened with swords or pistols: so we had him out, and gave him 

 a sound ducking, because he had refused to let us have more spirits than our 

 allowance. He was paraded to the main-deck in great form, his sword held 

 over his head; his pistols, in a bucket of water, carried before him; and having 

 been duly shaved, physicked, and soused into the cow-pen, he was allowed 

 to return to his cabin like a drowned rat. 



The first Ueutenant of marines was a great bore; he was always annoying 

 us with his German flute. Having no ear of his ovvm, he had no mercy on ours, 

 so we handed him to the bath; and in addition to all the other luxuries of 

 the day, made him drink half a pint of salt water, which we poured into his 

 mouth through his ovra flute, as a funnel. I now recollect that it was the 

 cries of the poor marine wliich brought down the first heutenant, who 

 ordered us to desist, and we served him as hath been related. 



(Frederick Marryat. . Frank Mildmay: or. The naval oÊBcer. Chapter 12. 

 p. 141-146 of the Illustrated Sterling Edition. Boston and New York: 

 Dana Estes & Company. The date of the Introduction by W. L. Courtney 

 is 1896.) 



Reference to "the good old King George" and tlie Prince Regent (1811) fixes the general 

 date of the story, but it seems just as well to set it here under 1829, the date of publication of this 

 first of Marryat's many stories that have held so many of us, young whether in spirit or years. 



The "deep tragedy," so long to be remembered by Mildmay has nothing to do with our part of 

 the story: man overljoard, Mildmay trying to save him in vain, nearly devoured by sharks, 

 and so on. 



1831 



October 29. A beautiful day, dined at 5 o'clock viath Gun-room officers. They 

 amused themselves with giving most terrific accounts of what Neptune would 

 do with me on crossing the Equator. Mr. Earl mentioned that some years ago 

 when after having crossed the Line they fell in with a ship all her sails set. 

 Not a man could they see on deck, but on boarding her & going below they 

 found every body, even the Captain & his wife, so very drunk that they could 

 not move. They had been making merry after Neptune's revels. 



(Charles Darwin's Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. "Beagle" edited from 

 the MS by Nora Barlow. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1934. p. 5.) 



1832 



A Man Overboard! The strange and almost savage ceremonies used at sea on 

 crossing the equator have been so often described that a voyager, at this time 



