Both of these are halyard shanties & Hugill got both from the same shipmate & shantyman Harding the Barbarian. Hugill says, as far as he knows neither have ever been in print, though Dana refers to John Kanaka in his Two Years Before The Mast (1840) as being sung by a Hawaiian & Hugill thinks that there's a possibilty that the refrain is Samoan & that Essequibo River is either from the West Indies or Guiana. Myself, I don't see much of a connection aside from being used for the same line. Barry