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ceremony."
John Joseland on the Salsette in 1853, described a more typical performance: 'At ten o'clock
the crew, with their faces blackened, or painted, and dressed in all sorts of colours, headed by
one of the stewards in a red shirt, with a black feather in his cap, part of a newspaper as a
book, a stick as a pen in his hand to perform the part of barber's clerk; then the boatswain
disguised and attired in a most fantastic style, riding on the backs of some of the sailors... in the
character of Neptune, went all round the ship before the performance of shaving, etc,
commenced... The barber stands before the tub, upon which the person sits who is acted upon.
His clerk sits by the side to put down what he says... Clerk: "Where do you come from?" He
opens his mouth to speak and in goes the barber's lather brush! "Where were you bom?" In
goes the brush again... If the person does not answer, the clerk gives him a stripe or two with a
wet "swob" which is a kind of mop they use to dry up the decks after washing them... The clerk
then tells him he must "be shaved" which operation the barber performs with tar and grease
generally... He then gives him a push and over he goes head over heels in a sheet of water a
few feet below... Where there are two waiting to dunk him!'
Those passengers who wished to be excluded paid a fine, in this case a bottle of brandy.
The Doldrums, a wide area of ocean usually beset with calm seas and little wind, covered the
area of the Equator for hundreds of miles.
John Fenwick: 'Still a dead calm - sea literally as smooth as glass, not a ripple on its placid
surface.' Dr Lightoller, in 1878: 'Almost total calm, and a blazing hot sun. The temperature in the
shade is 85 degrees, but it seems as if it was over 100 degrees. Everyone is boiling with
perspiration. The sky is very thick and hazy.' Fanny Davis: 'It is so hot downstairs that we are
afraid to go to bed... We lay and toss about for hours with our clothes dripping wet with
perspiration and of course cannot sleep.'
Men were able to sleep on deck - and go for a swim.
A sailor recorded in 1S53: The mate jumped overboard for a lark after which the passengers
did the same and then the mate put the boys overboard.' A few days later: 'Part of the crew had
a bathe over the side, some with life preservers and life buoys.'
Bathing on deck was also a male privilege. Male passengers were soused by buckets of salt
water, wearing thin pairs of drawers, or in the nude when hidden from female eyes.
None of such activities is mentioned by the Rev John Mereweather as having occurred on
board the Lady McNaghten. But his diary obviously omitted to remark on much of what
happened. From now on the entries are fewer and shorter, as if the heat or some affliction were
sapping his energies and literally laying him low.
'30 March: Saw the Southern Cross. "Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend." Was much
disappointed with it. One of the four stars is much fainter
than the other three, and not placed opposite its opposite. 1 should hardly have noticed it, if it
had not been so celebrated in prose and verse.
'Easter Day: In latitude 4°22"S. Sea rising. Some rain prevented me from having a service on
deck. Went down below and read the first lesson, the litany and the communion service to the
end of the Prayer for the Church Militant: then baptized two children; and afterwards
administered the Holy Communion to four persons - two men and two women. A cuddy
passenger lent me his cabin (a stern cabin) for the purpose. I dressed altarwise a small table
which I found there, using my own pocket communion service, and spreading out two cambric
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