Volume 1
The world of wonders : a record of things wonderful in nature, science, and art.
- Date:
- 1883-1884
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The world of wonders : a record of things wonderful in nature, science, and art. Source: Wellcome Collection.
51/462 (page 35)
![WONDERS OF THE OCEAN. CURIOUS CUSTOMS. BEATING THE BOUNDS. The Christian custom of perambulating parishes in Rogation Week appears to have been derived from a still older pagan observance. Before the Reformation these parochial perambulations were conducted with great ceremony, says The Book of Days. The lord of the manor, with a large banner, priests in surplices and with crosses, and other persons with banners, hand-bells, and staves, followed by most of the parishioners, walked in procession round the parish, stopping at crosses, forming crosses on the ground, ' saying or singing gospels to the corn,' and allowing ' drinkings and good cheer,' which was remarkable, as the Rogation days were appointed fasts. From the different practices observed on the occasion, the custom received the various names of processioning, roga- tioning, pera7nbiilating, and gauging the bounda- ries j and the week in which it was observed was called Rogation Week [from the Latin Rogare, to beseech] ; Cross Week, because crosses were borne in the processions ; Grass Week, because the Rogation days being fasts, vegetables formed the chief por- tion of diet. At the Reformation a homily was prepared for the occasion, and the rector, vicar, or curate, and the substantial men of the parish, were to walk about the parishes, and on their return to the church pray together. Persons beating bounds were to be justihed in going over the old ground, utterly regardless of the wishes of the owners of the property over which they walked. If a canal were cut through the boundary of a parish, some one must pass through it; or if a house had been built on the line, it must be entered and walked through. A house in Buckinghamshire still exists with an oven passing over the boundary. A boy generally was placed inside ; but on one occasion the oven was found full of fagots—in fact, in a very advanced state for the process of baking. Finally, after frightening several boys by asking them to take up the usual position, the officers made one of them scramble over the top, and the boundary right was con- sidered upheld. At the beginning of this century, as the bounds were being beaten in the parish of St. George's, H anover Square, a nobleman's carriage, empty, was standing upon the boundary line. The principal churchwarden ordered the coachman to move on a httle, but he persisted in his right to remain where his master had ordered him. The churchwarden (who was himself a nobleman) opened the carriage door and coolly walked through, followed by the whole procession, amongst which were not only sweeps, scavengers, shoe-blacks, &c., but roughs of the worst description. THE SARGASSO SEA. There is a sea in the middle of the ocean! As- tonishing as the statement sounds, it is literally true. The limits of the sea are as well defined as those of any other known collection of water ; its characteristics are so special that no one can mis- take them. When Columbus, on his first voyage, had got some distance to the westward of the Canary Islands, he was amazed one morning to find his ships in an undulating meadow. As far as he could see, the water was covered with a greenish- yellow plant, which appropriated the surface of the sea as thoroughly and effectually as water-lilies cover a pond. The wind was light but steady ; there were not any birds to indicate the proximity of land, neither was there any apparent cause for such a collection of weed. The sailors, already scared by the persistence of the wind from one quarter—they had got into the trade-winds—looked upon the weed before them, behind them, and on either side of them, as infallible proof of their imminent des- truction. The Almighty, they said, was angry at their impious attempts to pry into his secrets in the west, and had given them over to the devil, who was causing a wind to blow that would for ever prevent their return to Spain, and now had brought them into a snare such as sailors most dread—shallows extending too far beyond the land to allow of ships or men being saved. The com- mander could not explain the sight he saw, and might have thought with his men that the weed was the cast-off clothing of some dangerous rocks which lay a short distance down, ready to tear and rend them. The deep sea lead-line was hove, but no bottom was found. The ships kept on their westerly course, still sounding and still getting nc bottom, till, in a few days they drew clear of the weed and came where the broad ocean was all around them again, unencumbered by aught but the ships of the explorers. Ever since the day Columbus saw the weed, and probably for thousands of years before he saw it, the Sargasso Sea—such is the name of the weedy sea—has existed. Its boundaries may be indicated by tracing a triangle, of which the three corners are represented by the Azores, the Canaries, and Cape de Verde. Within those limits the sea is still bottomless, and is clothed on its surface with a garment of vegetable material, so thick as .to retard the progress of vessels sailing through it. Steamers avoid it when they can do so, because of the fouling of their screws and paddles by the weed ; but sailing-vessels outward bound to the West Indies, South America, the Cape, &c., must needs pass through it. Sometimes a great storm, proceeding from some point outside the charmed](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21498581_0001_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
