Here is the original text of Harrigan's "Buffalo," as it appeared in "Harrigan and Hart's Mulligan Guards Songster" (1873). No tune is given:

                            BUFFALO.
                   Written by NED HARRIGAN

   From Buffalo I've just come down
      On the good boat Danger;
   A long, long trip on the Erie, boys,
      I feel just like a stranger.
   We'd heavy fogs, aaf wlnud [sic] storms,
      Forget 'em I never shall;
   I'm every inch a sailor boy,
      On the E-ri-a Canal.
                  
                   CHORUS.
   For the Erie is a rising,
      And the gin is getting low;
   I hardly think you'll get a drink,
      Till we get back to Buffalo.

   We were loaded down with barley,
      When we bid good-bye;
   When a pirate bore upon us,
      With an awful wicked eye.
   I saw him through the spy-glass,
      I put up a flag of truce;
   I saw it was the Three Sisters,
      Four days from Syracuse.
                   For the Erie, &c.

   Three days' out we struck a rock,
      Of Lackawanna Coal;
   It gave the boat an awful shock,
      And stove in quite a hole.
   I halloed to the driver,
      On the tow-path's treaden dirt;
   He came aboard and stopped the leak,
      With his flannel undershirt.
                   For the Erie, &c.

In two years we reached the Hudson.
      We hadn't slept a wink;
The crew mutinized
      Because I refused to drink.
Keep up your courage, then I cried,
      I'll safely bring you in;
And when we strike a grocery store,
      We'll swim in barrels of gin.
                   For the Erie, &c.

The storm went down, we went ashore,
      Me and Sal and Hank;
Greased ourselves with tallow-fat
      And slid out on a plank.
Sal is in the Poor House, boys,
      The crew is all in jail,
I'm the sole surviving moke,
      Left to tell the tale.

SPOKEN:
   
So haul in your bow-line,
      Stand by your sorrel mule,
Low bridge, boys, dodge your heads;
      Don't act just like a fool.

This is a very abrupt ending. Its location at the very bottom of the page suggests that "For the Erie, &c." may have been omitted.

"Moke" means here a stupid or worthless person. (It may be the source of current "mook," idiot.)