Part of the Highlander's cargo on home-voyage was five hundred emigrants, to accommodate whom the "between-decks" was fitted up with bunks, rapidly constructed of coarse planks, and having something the appearance of dog-kennels. The weather proved unfavourable, the voyage long, the provisions of many of the emigrants (who were chiefly Irish) ran short, and the consequences were disorder, suffering, and disease. Once more upon his own ground, and telling of things which he knows, and has doubtless seen, Mr Melville again rises in our estimation. His details of emigrant life on board are good; and so is his account of the sailors' shifts for tobacco, which runs short, and of Jackson's selfishness, and singular ascendency over the crew. And also, very graphic indeed, is the picture of the steerage, when the malignant epidemic breaks out, and it becomes a lazar-house, frightful with filth and fever, where the wild ignorant Irishmen sat smoking tea leaves on their chests, and rise in furious revolt, to prevent the crew from taking the necessary sanitary measures of purification, until at last favourable breezes came, and fair mild days, and fever fled, and the human stable (for it was no better) was cleansed, and the Highlander bowled cheerily onwards, over a pleasant sea, towards the much-desired haven. Two incidents of especial prominence occur during the voyage--one at its outset, the other near its close. Whilst yet in the Prince's Dock, three drunken sailors are brought on board the Highlander by the crimps. One of them, a Portuguese, senseless from intoxication, is lowered on deck by a rope and rolled into his bunk, where the crimp tucks him in, and desires he may not be disturbed till out at sea. There he lies, regardless of the mate's angry calls, and seemingly sunk in a trance, until an unpleasant odour in the forecastle arouses attention, and Jackson discovers that the man is dead. Yet the other sailors doubt it, especially when, upon Red Max holding a light to his face, "the yellow flame wavered for a moment at the seaman's motionless mouth. But then, to the silent horror of all, two threads of greenish fire, like a forked tongue, darted out from between the lips; and in a moment the cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of wormlike flames. The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went out, which covered all over with spires and sparkles of flame, that faintly crackled in the silence; the uncovered parts of the body burned before us, precisely like a phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea." Spirit-drinking, the seaman's bane, had made an end of Miguel the Portuguese. What shocked Redburn particularly, was Jackson's opinion "that the man had been actually dead when brought on board the ship; and that knowingly, and merely for the sake of the month's advance, paid into his hand upon the strength of the bill he presented, the body-snatching crimp had shipped a corpse on board the Highlander."