One of our fellow-passengers was an old German lady, who was returning from a visit to her fatherland. She was very lively, and informed us she had not told her husband she was returning by this ship, intending, as she said, “to catch him on de hop,” but she did not know that the passengers’ names were all sent on by the mail, which went faster than we did; so when we got to the port her husband, “Shemmy” (Jemmy), as she called him, had come out with the pilot, and was very near catching her on “de hop,” for she was a very lively old lady. One morning, while we were in the Tropics, upon getting on deck, we found the old lady dressed from head to foot in scarlet! It was too much, with the thermometer at 101° in the shade, so a deputation waited upon her and begged her to shade her glory, for it was too overpowering.
CHAPTER II.
After being a month at sea the sailors performed the ceremony called “Burying the Dead Horse,” the explanation of which is this: Before leaving port seamen are paid a month in advance, so as to enable them to leave some money with their wives, or to buy a new kit, etc., and having spent the money they consider the first month goes for nothing, and so call it “Working off the Dead Horse.” The crew dress up a figure to represent a horse; its body is made out of a barrel, its extremities of hay or straw covered with canvas, the mane and tail of hemp, the eyes of two ginger beer bottles, sometimes filled with phosphorus. When complete the noble steed is put on a box, covered with a rug, and on the evening of the last day of the month a man gets on to his back, and is drawn all round the ship by his shipmates, to the chanting of the following doggerel:—
BURYING THE DEAD HORSE.
You have come a long long way,
And we say so, for we know so.
For to be sold upon this day,
Poor old man.You are goin’ now to say good-bye,
And we say so, for we know so.
Poor old horse you’re a goin’ to die,
Poor Old Man.
Having paraded the decks in order to get an audience, the sale of the horse by auction is announced, and a glib-mouthed man mounts the rostrum and begins to praise the noble animal, giving his pedigree, etc., saying it was a good one to go, for it had gone 6,000 miles in the past month! The bidding then commences, each bidder being responsible only for the amount of his advance on the last bid. After the sale the horse and its rider are run up to the yard-arm amidst loud cheers. Fireworks are let off, the man gets off the horse’s back, and, cutting the rope, lets it fall into the water. The Requiem is then sung to the same melody.
Now he is dead and will die no more,
And we say so, for we know so.
Now he is gone and will go no more;
Poor Old Man.