On this passage the chief point of interest to me was on the evening I went to the skipper to announce the fact that I was “out of my time.” I then discovered for certain what I had long suspected to be the case, that the old man must be a Methodist with leanings towards the pulpit, for the sermon he gave me was long enough and dull enough to have run into “fourteenthly and lastly.” He wound up by advising me not to forget the night I was out of my time, and I have carried out that instruction religiously. We called off Bahia and received orders to go to New York to discharge our cargo. We arrived there without any further adventure, and as the crew were entitled to be paid off at the port of discharge the able seamen all left, only the mate and the cook remaining. What a sight did the hold present when the hatches were removed! Not a sound bag of coffee remained. The greater part of it was dug out with shovels, and altogether it was one of the most deplorable losses that I have come across at sea. New York in those days had a lawless atmosphere, and revolver shots could be heard on the river pretty frequently throughout the hours of darkness, for thieves were daring in the pursuit of plunder, and a night watchman if he did his duty on board a ship (ours did) had need be a very determined and plucky man to hold his own. We were not molested, however, and after our cargo was discharged we proceeded to load resin and timber of sorts, for the run home to London. Let me mention here as a matter of interest that during this visit to New York we saw the celebrated sailing-ship _Great Republic_. She was then laid up, but I well remember that her decks were temporarily covered with loose planks, in order to preserve them from the weather. She was an enormous vessel, and carried a crew of 100 men. She must then have been near the end of her career, for she was built early in the ’fifties and a life of fifteen years was a long one for a soft-wood ship.