Dear Listers, I have recently been sent a transcript of a diary of a crewman aboard the Carmanian, a Workington sailing ship. The diary refers to "Neptune coming aboard" on the 23rd March 1900, when the ship was bound from New York (departed 18th February) for Hong Kong (arrived 9th July). Coincidentally, a photograph of a "Crossing the Line" ceremony aboard the Carmanian has been published by the Newcastle NSW Museum, but with no date given. http://collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au/keemu/pages/nrm/Display.php?irn=28789&QueryPage=%2Fkeemu%2Fpages%2Fnrm%2FQuery.php <http://collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au/keemu/pages/nrm/Display.php?irn=28789&QueryPage=%2Fkeemu%2Fpages%2Fnrm%2FQuery.php> I am trying to tie the diary to the photo. The sender of the diary has a different photo of the Carmanian's crew at San Francisco in December 1900, and clearly some people are in both photos. http://www.mightyseas.co.uk/marhist/gallery/wkton/carmanian_crew_1900.jpg What interests me is that three of the people in the "Crossing the Line" photo have numbers drawn on their shirts, 44, 45 and 46. Could this be the lines of Longitude where the Equator was crossed - 45 W, just off the coast of Brazil ? This would make sense in terms of time and sailing ship routes, and would mean that the photo could be tied to the diary. Could any Mariners familar with the age old ritual confirm this is the meaning of the numbers? Or provide explanations for other features in the photo, such as the blackened faces, the objects being held, or why some are in turbans. Or explain why, since the woman on the gallery is clearly a woman, Mrs.Neptune is played by, judging by the moustache, a sailor ? Best Wishes, Tim Latham www.mightyseas.co.uk Regards..........Len

Nice pictures. I like the fact that one of the apprentices in the group is holding the ship's cat for the photo! I see they've borrowed one of the lifebuoys from the poop deck - you can see there are two in the crossing the line picture, but in the group photo there's a gap where it should be. In my reading of various forms of this initiation ceremony Neptune's Queen, like a pantomime dame, always seems to be played by a man, usually one of the tallest and least feminine available. Even if a woman was available to play the part, one might guess that the rather robust horseplay meted out to the greenhorns (such as "shaving", dosing with noxious concoctions, ducking (and sometimes half-drowning), and painting or tarring) might appeal more to a man. Dressing up seems to have been de rigeur for all of Neptune's entourage, and with a shortage of suitable costumes, "blacking up" and putting on a funny hat and improvised whiskers would be the easiest way for an AB to transform himself into some strange sea-denizen. This was probably necessary in order to distance the perpetrator from his everyday persona and give him licence to do dreadful things without too many hard feelings afterwards. Perhaps there's a PhD in it.... I don't recall coming across any mention of numbers being significant, but your guess may well be right. I have to say that to my eye the numbered jackets look far too small for the people wearing them, and I fancy (this may just be an over-active imagination) that there's something slightly Chinese about them.... might they perhaps have been "liberated" from some stevedores in a Chinese port? In which case, the numbers might have already been painted on to identify the members of a work gang. The guys wearing them (plus a chap in a white shirt) seem to be Neptune's guards as all are armed (one with what looks like a home-made cutlass, and one with a belaying pin). I wonder whether the chap on the left is the bishop? All he'd need to find would be a dog-collar made from a bit of spare canvas..... -----Original Message----- From: mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Tim Latham Sent: 05 April 2011 00:02 To: MARINERS@rootsweb.com Subject: [MAR] Crossing the Line in the Carmanian Dear Listers, I have recently been sent a transcript of a diary of a crewman aboard the Carmanian, a Workington sailing ship. The diary refers to "Neptune coming aboard" on the 23rd March 1900, when the ship was bound from New York (departed 18th February) for Hong Kong (arrived 9th July). Coincidentally, a photograph of a "Crossing the Line" ceremony aboard the Carmanian has been published by the Newcastle NSW Museum, but with no date given. http://collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au/keemu/pages/nrm/Display.php?irn=28789&Quer yPage=%2Fkeemu%2Fpages%2Fnrm%2FQuery.php <http://collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au/keemu/pages/nrm/Display.php?irn=28789&Que ryPage=%2Fkeemu%2Fpages%2Fnrm%2FQuery.php> I am trying to tie the diary to the photo. The sender of the diary has a different photo of the Carmanian's crew at San Francisco in December 1900, and clearly some people are in both photos. http://www.mightyseas.co.uk/marhist/gallery/wkton/carmanian_crew_1900.jpg What interests me is that three of the people in the "Crossing the Line" photo have numbers drawn on their shirts, 44, 45 and 46. Could this be the lines of Longitude where the Equator was crossed - 45 W, just off the coast of Brazil ? This would make sense in terms of time and sailing ship routes, and would mean that the photo could be tied to the diary. Could any Mariners familar with the age old ritual confirm this is the meaning of the numbers? Or provide explanations for other features in the photo, such as the blackened faces, the objects being held, or why some are in turbans. Or explain why, since the woman on the gallery is clearly a woman, Mrs.Neptune is played by, judging by the moustache, a sailor ? Best Wishes, Tim Latham www.mightyseas.co.uk Regards..........Len ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MARINERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message