struck up this chant:

"Oh, the bowline, bully bully bowline,
Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!"

At the last word every man threw his whole strength into the pull,--all
singing it in chorus, with a quick, explosive sound. And so, jump by jump,
the sheet was at last hauled taut.--I dare say this will seem very much
spun out to a seafarer, but landsmen like to hear of the sea and its ways;
and as more landsmen than seamen, probably, read the "Atlantic Monthly," I
have told them of one genuine sea-song, and its time and place.

Then there are pumping-songs. "The dismal sound of the pumps is heard,"
says Mr. Webster's Plymouth-Rock Oration; but being a part of the daily
morning duty of a well-disciplined merchant-vessel,--just a few minutes'
spell to keep the vessel free and cargo unharmed by bilge-water,--it is
not a dismal sound at all, but rather a lively one. It was a favorite
amusement with us passengers on board the ---- to go forward about
pumping-time to the break of the deck and listen. Any quick tune to which
you might work a fire-engine will serve for the music, and the words were
varied with every fancy. "Pay me the money down," was one favorite chorus,
and the verse ran thus:--

_Solo._ Your money, young man, is no object to me.

_Chorus._ Pay me the money down!

_Solo._ Half a crown's no great amount.

_Chorus._ Pay me the money down!