Among the best-known customs of the ocean is the ceremony that takes
place when ships cross the line. That, however, like many others of
olden days, is getting somewhat into disuse. Few of those who have
witnessed it, probably, have suspected that its origin dates as far back
as the times of the Phoenicians. As the ship approaches the imaginary
band which encircles the globe, a gruff voice hails her from alongside,
and demands her name and nation, whence she is from, and whither she is
bound. These questions being answered, she is ordered to heave to, when
no less a person than old father Neptune himself, with his fair wife
Amphitrite, and their attendant Tritons, climb up over the bows, and
take possession of the fore-part of the deck. Neptune generally wears a
crown formed out of a tin saucepan, with a flowing beard, a wig of
oakum, and a robe composed of some gay-coloured petticoat-stuff, stored
up for the occasion, or a piece of canvas, with curious devices painted
on it, while he carries in his band a trident, made out of a harpoon or
a boat-hook. The fair Amphitrite, who is more commonly known on board
as Bill Buntline, the boatswain's mate, is habited, like her lord, in
the gayest of gay attire, with a vast profusion of oakum locks, and bows
of huge proportions, although it must be confessed that she has very
little to boast of in the way of feminine delicacy or personal beauty,
while the Tritons are at all events very odd-looking fish.
The captain, surrounded by his officers, with the passengers behind him,
stands on the poop, and a spirited conversation, not altogether
destitute of humour, generally takes place between him and Neptune--when
the monarch of the main demands that every one on board who has not
before crossed that portion of his watery realm where the ship then
floats, shall be brought before him. None, whatever their rank, are
excused. Those who at once consent to pay tribute are allowed to escape
without undergoing any further ceremony, but those luckless wights who
refuse or have not the wherewithal to pay are instantly seized on by the
Tritons, lathered with pitch and grease, shaved with a rusty hoop, and
soused over head and ears in a huge tub, while from all quarters, as
they attempt to escape from the marine monsters, bucketfuls of water are
hove down upon them. Uproar and apparent confusion ensues; and usually
it requires no little exertion of authority on the part of the captain
and officers to restore order.
We might suspect, from the introduction of the names of Neptune and
Amphitrite, that this curious and somewhat barbarous custom must have a
classical origin. There can be no doubt that it is derived from those
maritime people of old, the Phoenicians. Ceremonies, to which those I
have described bear the strongest similarity, were practised by them at
a very remote period, whenever one of their ships passed through the
Straits of Gibraltar. That talented writer, David Urquhart, in his
"Pillars of Hercules," asserts that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians
possessed a knowledge of the virtues of the loadstone, and used it as a
compass, as did the mariners of the Levant till a late period.
The original compass consisted of a cup full of water, on which floated
a thin circular board, with the needle resting on it; this was placed in
a small shrine or temple in front of the helmsman, with a lantern
probably fixed inside to throw light on the mysterious instrument during
the night. The most fearful oaths were administered to the initiated
not to divulge the secret. Every means, also, which craft could devise
or superstition enforce was employed by the Phoenicians to prevent other
people from gaining a knowledge of it, or of the mode by which their
commerce beyond the Straits of Hercules was carried on, or of the
currents, the winds, the tides, the seas, the shores, the people, or the
harbours. A story is told of a Phoenician vessel running herself on the
rocks to prevent the Romans from finding the passage. This secrecy was
enforced by the most sanguinary code--death was the penalty of
indiscretion; thus the secret of the compass was preserved from
generation to generation among a few families of seamen unknown to the
rest of the civilised world. The ceremonies, especially, were kept up,
though in a succession of ages they have undergone gradual alterations.
The lofty shores which form the two sides of the Straits of Gibraltar
were known in ancient days as the Pillars of Hercules. Here stood the
temple of the god, and hither came the mariners before launching forth
on the more perilous part of their voyage, to pay their vows, and
probably to bind themselves by oaths to conceal the secrets to be
revealed to them. Perhaps in all cases the temple on shore was not
visited, but, at all events, the oaths were administered to the seamen
on board, ablutions were performed, and sacrifices offered up. The
introduction of Christianity did not abolish these observances, and
through the ignorance and superstition of the mariners of those seas
they were for century after century maintained, though the motive and
origin were altogether forgotten.
A traveller, who wrote as recently as the seventeenth century, describes
a ceremony which took place on board a ship in which he was sailing,
when passing through the straits. Just as the two lofty headlands were
in sight on either side of the ship, an old seaman came forward with a
book, and summoning all those whose names he declared not to be
registered in it, made them swear that they in future voyages would
compel their fellow-seamen to perform the same ceremonies in which they
were about to engage. Behind him appeared a band of veteran seamen
dressed up in a variety of fantastic costumes, with a drum and other
musical instruments. These forthwith seized on all whose names were not
registered as having before passed through the straits, and dragging
them forward, thrust them into tubs, and soused them thoroughly with
water. No one was altogether exempt, but those who had before passed
were allowed to escape a like process by the payment of a fine.
These same mariners, when they extended their voyages to the southern
hemisphere, very naturally postponed the ceremony which they were in the
habit of performing on passing the straits, till they crossed the line.
They also, not altogether abandoning classical allusions, changed the
name of their _dramatis personae_. Hercules, who had no connection with
the ocean, whatever he might have had to do with the Straits of
Gibraltar, had to give place to Neptune, the long-honoured monarch of
the main, and Amphitrite was introduced to keep him company. We
recognise in the duckings, the sacrificial ablutions, and in the shaving
and fining, the oaths and the penalty.
When the hardy seamen of Great Britain first began to steer their ships
across the line, they were undoubtedly accompanied by pilots and
mariners of the Mediterranean. These, of course, taught them the
ceremonies they had been in the habit of performing. The English, as
may be supposed, made various additions and alterations suited to their
rougher habits and ideas, and what at one time probably retained
somewhat of the elegance of its classical origin, became the strange
burlesque it now appears.
Another nautical custom still in vogue is also derived from remote
antiquity. At the present day, with doubtful propriety, in imitation of
the rite of baptism, we christen a ship, as it is often called, by
breaking a bottle of wine on her bows as she glides off the stocks. The
custom is of thoroughly heathen origin. A similar ceremony was
practised by the ancient Greeks when they launched a ship. We ornament
our vessels with flags; they decked theirs with garlands. At the moment
the ship was launched forth into the deep the priest of Neptune raised
to his lips a goblet of wine, and after quaffing from it, he poured the
remainder out as a libation to his deity. The modern Greeks still
perform the ceremony much in the manner of their ancestors. Clearly,
the custom we have of breaking a bottle of wine is derived from the
libations of the ancients. In most instances, at the present day, the
ship is named at the moment she is launched by a young lady, who acts
the part of the priest or priestess of old.
Of late years a religious service is usually performed at the launch of
a man-of-war. The heathen libation is not, however, omitted, and the
whole ceremony presents a curious jumble of ancient and modern forms
suited to the tastes of the day. Still we are bound heartily to pray
that the gallant sailors who will man the stout ship may be protected
while in the performance of their duty to their country; and, still
more, that they may be brought to a knowledge of the Gospel.
The Greeks invariably gave feminine names to their ships, choosing,
whenever possible, appropriate ones; while the less courteous Romans
bestowed masculine names on theirs. Though we may not have followed the
Greek rule, we to the present day always look upon a ship as of the
feminine gender.
The mariner's compass, the most important instrument used in navigation,
demands further notice. The magnet, or loadstone, was known to the
ancient Greeks many centuries before the Christian era. The legend
runs, that one Magnes a shepherd, feeding his flocks on Mount Ida,
having stretched himself on the ground to sleep, left his crook, the
upper part of which was made of iron, lying against a rock. On awaking,
and rising to depart, he found, when he attempted to take up his crook,
that the iron adhered to the rock. Having communicated this
extraordinary fact to some neighbouring philosophers, they called the
rock after the name of the shepherd, Magnes, the magnet.
The Chinese, of still more ancient date, so their traditions affirm,
discovered a mountain rising out of the sea possessing an intensity of
attraction so great that the nails and iron bands were drawn out of
their ships, causing their immediate wreck. Those sea-arabs whom we
call Phoenicians had, at a very early date, made use of their knowledge
of the property of the loadstone to turn towards the North Pole; though,
like many other discoveries, as I have just mentioned, it was kept a
profound secret among a select few, and concealed from the public by
having an air of religious mystery thrown over it. Lumps of loadstone
formed into balls were preserved in their temples, and looked upon with
awe, as possessing mystic properties. With these round stones the point
of a needle was rubbed, as often as it required fresh magnetising.
I have already described the compass used by the Phoenicians, and how,
long after Islamism had gained the ascendency, it was possessed by their
descendants. At length the secret was divulged, and it came into
general use among the mariners of the Mediterranean in the tenth and
eleventh centuries. Its original form was unaltered for nearly four
centuries, when, in 1502, Flavio Gioja of Positano, near the town of
Amalfi, on the coast of Calabria, a place celebrated for its maritime
enterprise, improved upon the primitive rude and simple instrument by
suspending the needle on a centre, and enclosing it in a box. The
advantages of his invention were so great that his instrument was
universally adopted, and hence he gained the credit of being the
inventor of the mariner's compass, of which he was only the improver.
Long before the compass was used at sea, it had been employed by the
Chinese to direct the course of their caravans across the desert. For
this purpose a figure, placed in a waggon which led the caravan, was so
constructed that the arm and hand moved with perfect freedom, the
magnetic needle being attached to it; the hand, however, pointed to the
south, the negative end being fixed in it. The Chinese also used a
needle which was freely suspended in the air, attached to a silken
thread, and by this means they were able to determine the amount of the
western variation of the needle. It is possible that both the Chinese
and Arabs discovered the magnetic powers of the loadstone, although the
latter in their long voyages may have allowed the knowledge they
possessed to have been drawn from them by the astute Chinese; or, _vice
versa_, the Arabs may have obtained the knowledge which the Chinese
already possessed, and kept it secret from the western nations. We all
remember the wonderful adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, as narrated in
the Arabian Nights--how the ship in which he sailed was attracted by a
magnetic mountain, which finally drew all the iron bolts and nails out
of her. Now it happens that the author places Sinbad's mountain in the
same part of the world in which the Chinese say their magnetic mountain
exists. Ptolemy, in his geography, also describes a magnetic mountain
existing in the Chinese Seas. We may therefore, I think, come to the
conclusion, that the mariner's compass was known to the ancients long
before the Christian era, and that although disused for centuries, the
knowledge was never altogether lost.