How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | Page 5

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