180 Crossing the Line 



ca. 1910, continued 



Reprinted with permission of the executor of the will of the late Lord Frederic Hamilton, 

 through Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son of London. 



1911 



On the fourteenth of July we approached "the line," said by geographers 

 to be imaginary, but proving to us very real. The first indication of it was at 

 dinner time, when a deep voice from the bow called "ship ahoy, any novices 

 on board?" There were; and we were warned that Neptune would be on 

 board about three o'clock. As six bells struck, sure enough, old grey-bearded 

 Neptune, trident in hand, appeared from the bow, followed by his buxom 

 fair-haired wife, his daughter fresh from a marine ballet, his bibulous doctor, 

 and a crew of minions. After parading the deck, these ancient celebrities 

 mounted a throne on the after-deck and called for the novices. Each man 

 was called up before Neptune, who questioned him as to his purposes in 

 entering his realm. Next we were examined by the "doctor," who always 

 prescribed some of his yellow, pink or blue liquids or watersoaked biscuits, 

 which remedies were administered down the back or up the sleeve. Then the 

 candidate was seized by the minions and taken to the "barber," who lathered 

 with a whitewash brush, shaved with the great two-foot wooden razor, and 

 powdered with soot. During this the victim was seated on the edge of the 

 tank, and as the process was nearing completion, was tmnbled head over 

 heels into the water, rising to meet the full force of the ship's hose as he 

 came up. We all went through this with the others, including a couple of 

 sailors and stewards, whüe tihe assembled steerage fairly gloated over us; 

 until at the end the hose was turned upon them. Then Neptune and his fol- 

 lowing, assisted by the initiates, plunged into the water and the ceremony 

 was over. Later each of us received an illuminated certificate assigning us 

 to various fish families, and entitling us to rove at pleasure over the seven 

 seas. 



How old the ceremony is I do not know, but a Spanish traveler in the early 

 part of the seventeenth century describes just such a ceremony as the 

 "rescate" or ransom, differing from the above only in that the duckings, etc., 

 were imposed because the novices would not give satisfactory reasons for 

 entering Neptune's domain, and the captain was fined a dinner for the whole 

 crowd. It is doubtless a mockery of the ancient custom of sacrificing to the 

 god of the sea to propitiate him when the early voyagers entered his realm; 

 but it must have been a deep rooted custom to have survived with so much 

 detail and uniformity. It is only on the palatial passenger boats that the 

 ceremony is dying out. 



( Frederick Brewster Loomis. Hunting extinct animals in the Patagonian 

 pampas. New York, 1913. p. 17-18 with half-tone plate of the ceremony. ) 



One more unanswered question. Who is the early 17th century Spanish traveler who describes 

 such a ceremony as the "rescate" or ransom? 



Reprinted with permission of Dodd, Mead & Company, publishers. 



