How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | Page 6

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