“We were steering for the Jetty, and the junk having way enough on her, had lowered our huge mat-sail, when a chop-boat ran foul of us, and we were constrained to hoist it again.

This was done by us Europeans; and the task which would have taken the Chinese crew some time to perform, we dispatched in a few minutes.

The young American sailor brought the clumsy halyards to the windlass, and manning a handspike, gave the cheering song to Mr. Dobbs and us Middies, of –

“Heave-ho-ye-o!”

Into which he threw a falsetto, with a voice of such force, fervour, and beauty, that it suspended the performance of a band of music in a pleasure-boat floating at a distance in the moon-light, who were working their bugles at the vulgar tune of Paddy O'Carrol.

It was really glorious to behold the sail go up the junk's mast, as it were by the transporting magic of the young sailor's chant.

“Heave and paul,” [sic] cried Mr. Dobbs; “we have got a taut leech on the sail–if a mat deserves the name….”
[Jack Ariel or Life on Board an Indiaman, v.III, 1847]