gone clean through the centre of the stomach, and it was a subject of surprise that he had been able to reach the place in which he was found. The manner in which this and the Kalingur tiger met their death, and the arm that laid them low, are well known in Bengal.

CROSSING THE LINE.

THE ceremonies customary among sailors in crossing the equator, have, we believe, been more than once described, but yet are not perhaps well known to a large portion of the public. The following account of them is the composition of a gentleman who has actually witnessed, and borne a part (that of a sufferer) in them :

I sailed from Portsmouth, in April 1814, in an East India vessel of a thousand tons. There were seventeen passengers besides myself—the only youth amongst them. The most conspicuous of the number was an old corpulent general, who regularly took his two bottles of port every day after dinner, and then strutted upon deck with an extremely comical oscillation of gait. He was accompanied by his wife, a pretty, lively creature of seventeen, happy in her recent emancipation from boarding-school control. Jokes innumerable were shot off at the old gentleman, who, with a fat good-nature, was always the first to laugh at them himself. Even when these were practical, they did not put him out of humour. For instance, a waggish officer observing that, in his afterdinner walks, he was in the habit, when the weather was warm, of leaving his hat on the capstan, took it up slily, and covered the lining with tar. Soon after, a breeze getting up, the general took up his hat, and put it on, and then continued his parade between the mainmast and the cuddy. In time, the heat melted the tar, which began to stream down his cheeks in unequal lines, to the great amusement of all who beheld it, and were aware of the

cause. Conceiving it to be merely the natural perspiration, he frequently lifted his hat to wipe his forehead, but without discovering the nature of the unguent. Finally, he went down to tea, and took his seat at table with the greatest gravity, when the bursting laughter of the company at length led to a detection of the trick. None laughed more heartily than his own volatile spouse; and in a little while he was able to enjoy the joke himself, though I must confess that, for the first five minutes, he seemed a little grave. Another of the passengers was a Scotchman, a captain of the Bombay Native Infantry, greatly given to the use of long pompous-sounding words, and whose wife, with good-looks and good-nature, was perpetually exciting the mirth of the company by silly remarks. There was nothing singular about the rest of the company.

We reached latitude 0 without a single adventure of the least consequence. In the morning of the day on which we were to gain that point, the last-mentioned lady asked if she could have a sight of the line through a telescope. A silk thread was fastened across the bottom of the glass, and she was desired to take the instrument into her own hands, and look out for it. She immediately exclaimed that she saw it, and after a time, having satisfied her curiosity, gave back the telescope, apparently quite contented.

We were previously made aware that, on this day, according to ancient usage, the sailors were to be indulged in unrestrained licence, and that they were to employ the privilege in performing a well-known piece of mummery, in the course of which the passengers would be entirely abandoned by the master of the vessel as subjects for their uncouth and outrageous sport. I was not, therefore, surprised to receive in my cabin, before I had risen, a visit from the ship-armourer's deputy, a tall, rough-looking fellow, with a countenance already inflamed above its ordinary red by an extra portion of grog. From his pocket he pulled out three thick pieces of iron, shaped like razors, which he laid upon the table. The edge of

the first was jagged like a coarse saw; the next was somewhat less rough; and the third had comparatively a smooth edge.

'There, young man,' said he, which of these beautifully-tempered implements of my trade-for I am the mighty Neptune's barber—would you prefer being used about the worst part of your fair-weather countenance— number one, two, or three? They are all admirable shavers, and will take off a beard like yours to a hair.?

Alas! I had scarcely then a beard to my chin. 'Why,' I answered in a tone of extreme modesty and good-temper, 'as you are so polite as to offer me a choice, I should much prefer the instrument with the smoothest edge.'

'That razor,' replied my visitor, 'cannot be used upon mortal chin, unless the privilege of being shaved with it is well paid for. It is daily applied by me to the immortal face of my great master Neptune. You cannot of course expect to have the beard taken off yours with the same heaven-tempered article, unless you pay a handsome fee for the honour.'

'Oh, very well,' said I, and placed a guinea in his grimy palm.

'Nay, young gentleman, that is the price of number two. I never apply number three to the chin of a mortal for less than two guineas and a pint of rum.'

I immediately gave him the two guineas and a bottle of brandy, with which he professed to be content.

This nautical Figaro now quitted me, and went to a young man in the steerage, who was on his passage to Bombay as a free merchant.

'Well, my fine fellow,' said the royal barber, 'how do you find yourself in this here latitude? how's your beard? for you'll be shaved to-day, as sure as my name's Ben Bartlett. But don't mind; it will be done nicely, for you are in capital hands. Can you pay to be scraped genteelly, for you know we don't shave in this here latitude for nothing?'

'I have crossed the line before, so that I am not a candidate for the honour you would confer upon me?'

When did you cross the line? You look too much like a land-lubber to have had my master Neptune's certificate of having passed his borders. Don't think to gammon older heads than that curly skull which wags so jauntily upon those spare shoulders.'

'Do you doubt my word?'

6 Words, Mr What-d'ye-call-'um, are a sort of coin that don't pass current in these here parts: we only take pieces with the king's head upon 'em. And as to your having crossed the line, you won't get anybody on the other side on't to believe it. I must let you into a little bit of a secret. Our king, brother to the great Jupiter, but this very morning went up in a water-spout to the realms of old Father Saturn, and looked over the register, kept in the Rolls Court of his dominions, to see who had paid the fee of passage over the borders of Neptune's empire, but he saw no such name as yours upon the rolls, and you know it must have been recorded had you crossed. Come, your money, or as sure as you've a beard upon your chin, it will be rasped with number one.'

Thus ended the colloquy; and the poor young free merchant, who, I verily believe, had crossed the line two several times, having determined to resist the levy of the fictitious Neptune and his accessories, was set down by the imperial shaver upon the list of candidates for the saw-edged razor.

To every passenger in both parts of the vessel the delegate paid a similar visit. Some, who had crossed the line before, and were vouched for by the captain, escaped impost, but with difficulty, for this was a fact about which Neptune's officers seemed remarkably inclined to be sceptical. The Scotch captain was the only man in our cabin who neither substantiated a former passage nor submitted to the impost, and the barber left him with many ominous grumblings. After the round had been completed, and a register made, specifying the respective candidates for numbers one, two, and three, an order was given for the passengers to go below, in such a peremptory tone, that I really began to fancy that the

command of the ship had been resigned to the counterfeit Neptune.

When assembled in the steerage, we were desired to wait there patiently until summoned upon deck into the presence of ocean's king. We had all taken care to dress ourselves in coloured cotton jackets and trousers, to avoid adding the sacrifice of a good suit of clothes to that of the coating of our chins. While stuffed under hatches, we heard the bustle of preparation above, and looked forward with feverish anxiety to the moment when the first of us should be summoned upon deck. It was really a painful state of anxiety, and I well remember to this day the extreme agitation I endured whilst under the torture of suspense. Some of the party affected to laugh at the thing as a good joke, but there was an expression on every countenance not to be mistaken, which explicitly told that it would turn out an agreeable joke to none.

I listened to the din overhead, and a rumbling noise soon convinced me that the mummery had begun. When it was ascertained that the ship was near the line, a loud shout was raised by the submarine aristocracy, arrayed in their official robes, and decorated with their respective badges. At noon, the presence of the mighty Neptune was announced by the blowing of a long tin horn from the forecastle. This summons was answered by the officer of the watch through a speaking-trumpet. The potentate of the deep was then drawn forward upon a gun-carriage to the quarter-deck, where the captain was ready to receive him. Neptune upon this occasion was personated by the ship's armourer, a tall, strapping blacksmith, whose limbs were cast in a mould of Herculean proportions. He stood at least six feet three inches out of his shoes, and was altogether a fine fellow, possessing a coarse, but shrewd and ready wit, and performing his part, in spite of deep potations of grog, in a manner by no means unworthy of the majesty which he represented. He bore in his hand a trident, the head of which, formed by his own ingenuity and labour, was