Oh, the riot attendant upon the departure of a ship on a long voyage! The distraction and tumult are at some moments terrific, in spite of everything that has been written about a vessel’s being in perfect order to a sailor’s eye when leaving port. We have been on two large ships now when getting under way, and all I have to say on the subject is, that it is wonderful how much disturbance and disorder can be gathered into so small a space as a ship’s deck. We were told to be on board by nine o’clock, as the tide would serve soon afterward, and we would haul out about ten. At the stipulated hour, then, we went over the side and found that the crew had just come down. They were collected together in the waist, and in the centre of the group stood a hard-looking individual whom I took for the shipping-master. He was haranguing the men, who seemed to listen intently, though I couldn’t hear what was said; and when I strolled to the break of the poop to be nearer to him, he gruffly commanded me to “go way from there, will you.” Why he did so it is impossible to say, unless he was engaged in some unlawful transaction. This was, no doubt, the reason, as there is no attempt made by the United States authorities to enforce the laws relating to the shipping of seamen. By and by this creature took his disagreeable countenance over the side, and immediately those who were not too drunk were turned to at various odd jobs about the decks. Some of the men, however, were too far gone to even stand upright alone, so the two mates seized half a dozen of them and drove them forward and into the forecastle, the door of which was then locked, and the men were left to themselves to sleep off some of the effects of South Street grog. Those who come aboard in this condition generally have a bottle or two each of rum concealed about them, and after a vigorous search the mate found himself possessed of several quarts of very bad grog, which he hove into the river. Several of our relatives and friends had come down to see us off, and, seated aft by the wheel-house, they seemed to take deep interest in the rakish fellows who were to be our companions, as it were, for four or five months. On the whole, they were a very decent-looking crowd; but when the second mate sung out, “Come up here a couple of you, and give us a hand with this tow line,” and all hands came stumbling up the poop ladders and lumbered aft with that fixed, idiotic stare of half-intoxicated men trying to show how very sober they are, we observed that our relatives shuddered as they thought of our being imprisoned for maybe half a year with this company of ruffians, as they, no doubt, supposed the men to be.