After the progress round the decks, a conference with the captain, and a libation in the form of a glass of brandy, to which the god and goddess vied with each other in devotion, the merriment began. Mock-shaving, or a fine paid, was necessary to admit the new comers to the good graces of their watery father; and while he was superintending the business, all the rest of the ship's company, officers and all, proceeded to duck each other unmercifully. None but women escaped, and that only by staying in my cabin. The officer of the watch, sentries, quartermasters, and such as are absolutely necessary to look after the ship, are of course held sacred; so that some order is still preserved. It seemed really that "madness ruled the hour;" but at the appointed moment, half past eleven, all ceased: by noon, every body was at his duty, the decks were dried, and the ship restored to her wonted good order. The whole of our gunroom officers dine with us, and we flatter ourselves that we shall end the day as happily as we have begun it.[41] [Note 41: Frezier, who crossed the line, March 5th, 1712, says, "When it was no longer to be doubted that we were to the southward of the line, the foolish ceremony practised by all nations was not omitted. "The persons to be so served are seized by the wrists, to ropes stretched fore and aft on the second deck for the officers, and before the mast for the sailors; and after much mummery and monkey tricks, they are let loose, to be led after one another to the main mast, where they are made to swear on a sea chart that they will do by others as is done by them, according to the laws and statutes of navigation: then they pay to save being wetted, but always in vain, for the captains themselves are not quite spared." Jaques le Maire, the first who sailed round Cape Horn, mentions in his Journal, 8th July, 1615, baptizing the sailors when he arrived at the _Barrels_.--Has this any thing in common with the ceremony of crossing the line?] 20th. The long tiresome calms, and the beautiful moonlight nights near the equator, have been talked of, and written of, till we know all about them. Mention but passing the line, and you conjure up a wide, apparently interminable, glassy dull sea: sails flapping, a solitary bird sinking with heat, or a shark rising lazily to catch a bait; or, at best, a calm warm night, with a soft moonlight silvering over the _treacherous_ deep, and rendering the beholders, who ought to be lovers if they are not, insensible of the rocks that may lurk below.--But our's was not the _beau idéal_ of crossing the line: we had fresh breezes in the day, and thunder and lightning at night; saw few tropic birds, and those very vigorous, and fish more nimble than sharks, or even sun-fish, of which, however, we met a due proportion. I had once been in a tropical calm, and I really, after trying them both, prefer the breezes and thunder-storms. The other night we had one, such as Milton talks of: