A hogshead filled with molasses is then hoisted over the hatchway, hung down, and the hose-tub is placed directly beneath; the bung is taken out, and the molasses passes through the hose to any cask in the hold that may be wished.

When the cask is filled the hose is shifted to another, and in this way the casks are all filled and the cargo stowed.

The process is tedious; and although a sweet, by no means a pleasant one, to those engaged in it.
It may be imagined that the crew, after working all day among molasses in that hot climate, should wish to bathe in the evening; and the river alongside, although the element was neither pure nor transparent, offered, at high or low water, a tempting opportunity.

To the very natural and proper inquiry whether the harbor of Demarara was infested with sharks a man-eating shark not being the most desirable "companion of the bath" we were told that a shark had never been seen in the harbor; that the river water, being turbid and fresher than the ocean water, was offensive to that much dreaded animal, which delights in the clear waters of the salt sea.

We were further told that up the river, in the creeks and pools which abound in that region, alligators were met with in large numbers; some of them of large size, and had been known to attack a man in the water; but they never ventured down the river among the shipping.
The reports being thus favorable, the crew of the Dolphin, being good swimmers, were indeed, whenever it was "slack water" of an evening, to take a swim in the river; and the crews of other American vessels followed the example.