Upon further reading I find the following passage, referring to a situation off Cape Horn: "He himself (meaning the Captain) worked with the sailors, cheering them and telling them to "pull for their lives"--and for the first and only time on the voyage I heard him break into a shanty, leading off with the first verse of "Baltimore Bell", the Seacond Mate taking up the alternate verses, as the men strained at the ropes to the rhythm of the chorus."