MAY-DAY CEREMONIES. 
35 
were all busily engaged in the performance of 
their various parts in the humours of the day. As, 
however, it may serve to show the taste of the 
sailors for dramatic effect, and something of their 
originality and wit, I shall transcribe an account 
of the transactions of May-day morning, from my 
journal of 1820, when the occasion was celebrated 
with remarkable spirit. 
The proceedings commenced on the striking of 
eight bells at midnight, by the suspension in the 
rigging of a garland (very gaily decorated with 
ribbons, and surmounted with a representation of 
Neptune, and emblems of the fishery), by the hand 
of that individual among the crew who had most 
recently entered into tin: state of wedlock. Ano¬ 
ther sailor, strangely metamorphosed in a garb 
studiously extravagant, was then heard to hail the 
ship, ordering the main-yard to be braced aback, 
and a rope to be given for his boat; and imme¬ 
diately afterwards the odd figure, representing 
Neptune, with his wife, a barber, and his mate, as¬ 
cended the deck over the bows of the ship. All 
hands were now summoned by this assumed ma¬ 
rine potentate ; when each individual, as he passed 
before him, received from the barber distinguish¬ 
ing patches of black and white upon his face. His 
marine majesty then went below, and entered in¬ 
to a division screened off from the ’tween-decks, for 
