To say that "Way Sing Sally" was "rarely if ever sung by sailors at the halliards" is to say that he himself never heard it sung at the halliards.

Harlow's melody seems absolutely authentic. He would not have invented a shanty, accompanied it with an explanation that it wasn't used at sea, and then created a tune to go with it. He must have learned it from a living person, as he implies. The tune is much like "Hilo John Brown." The second chorus begins on the "Hilo" note and is followed by a straight modal descent.

It's altogether likely that Harlow heard his Caribbean shanties when he sailed to Georgetown shortly after his 1875-76 voyage on the Akbar.

We don't know if he jotted his shanties down in the '70s or merely recollected them later. (Hugill's technique.) If he recollected them, the words may not be entirely accurate, but at least they're largely informed by a genuine 1870's sensibility. In other words, the older Harlow must have been satisfied that his lyrics were correct in spirit and that his nineteenth-century shipmates would have approved of them. That's not the same as having had a cassette recorder on board, but it's of some historical significance.

Had he messed consciously and seriously with the lyrics, he'd have said so. Why not? He could then have claimed credit for "improving" the songs and making them "fit to print."

Harlow's texts, by the way, seem to me to be slightly less bowdlerized than others. And, like Hugill, he identifies the songs he's bowdlerized. He didn't claim to possess a twenty-first century critical sensibility, but I see no reason at all to doubt Harlow's basic honesty in presenting what he knew and what he'd read or been told.