to the after deck, where
the sailors were assembled, he opened one of his colossal books and
spread an old sea chart out upon the deck. "Hallo, helmsman," he
inquired, "what is your latitude and longitude?" The answer being
given, he grumbled something as he pulled his huge compass from his
boot, and having carefully measured his old chart, at last struck a
hole in it, as he exclaimed, "Here you are--all right--what course are
you steering?" "South, south-east!" "You must go four degrees to
westward--you will have a better wind," growled Neptune, and therewith
he doubled up the chart, and stuck the compass in his boot again. "I
must see after my new circumnavigators," he added in the same gruff
tone as he turned his eyes on the two before-mentioned boys and one
old sailor who, although he had followed the sea for twelve years, had
never, until now, crossed the equator; "we must make a nearer
acquaintance."

The name, birth, and age of each being inquired into, and duly
registered in one of the large books, each one after having his eyes
blindfolded, was led by the sailors to the forecastle and seated on a
plank, under which was placed a large tub of water. The next operation
was to shave them, and accordingly their faces were smeared over with
a horrible mixture of shoemaker's wax, train oil and soot, most
ungently laid on with a coarse painter's brush. Neptune then performed
the office of barber himself, taking a long piece of iron which had
once served as the hoop of a tun, he scraped their chins in the most
unmerciful manner.

No sooner was this operation ended, then they pulled away the props of
the plank on which the three tyros were seated, so that they fell over
head and ears in the tub of water below, and thus received what the
sailors call a "genuine Neptune's baptism." After all these ceremonies
he turned as if to go, but the young sea-god at this moment set up a
most fearful outcry--he bawled as loud and lustily as any mortal.
"Just listen," said Neptune; "now I cannot go back to my cave in
peace, but that cub will roar and bellow the whole night, so as to
disturb all the waves below,--nothing even quiets him but a stiff
glass of grog, for he likes that far better than sea water."

The captain understood the hint; he laughed and nodded to the steward.
Young Neptune continued his lamentation nearly a quarter of an hour; I
saw one of the cabin servants carrying a smoking bowl of punch to the
foredeck, and