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
c