The circumstance that thrust itself most obtrusively forward, demanding immediate notice, was that the main hatchway was gaping wide-open, with a tackle dangling down it from the main-stay, evidently for the purpose of hoisting cargo out of the hold.  All round the hatchway the deck was littered with bales and cases of every description, some of them intact, as they had come up out of the hold, while others had been ripped or wrenched open and their contents scattered hither and thither about the decks.  There was a cask lying on its bilge, its head knocked out, and perhaps a gallon or so of port wine still in it, while all round about it the deck was dark, wet, and reeking with the fumes of the spilt wine. But there were other and more sinister stains than those of wine on the planks--there were great splashes of blood here and there on bulwarks and deck, much of which was partially hidden by the scattered cargo; but the scene was not nearly so sanguinary or revolting as I had expected to find it, for there were no ensanguined, mutilated corpses to shock the eye, or harrow the imagination, by the sight of their hurts.