Some officers have been so driven to find work for
the crew in a ship ready for sea, that they have set them to
pounding the anchors (often done) and scraping the chain cables.
The ``Philadelphia Catechism'' is
``Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh,-- holystone the decks and scrape the cable.''
This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape
of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have
seen the decks washed down and scrubbed when the water would have
frozen if it had been fresh, and all hands kept at work upon the
rigging, when we had on our pea-jackets, and our hands so numb that
we could hardly hold our marline-spikes.
I have here gone out of my narrative course in order that any who
read this may, at the start, form as correct an idea of a sailor's
life and duty as possible. I have done it in this place because,
for some time, our life was nothing but the unvarying repetition
of these duties, which can be better described together. Before
leaving this description, however, I would state, in order to show
landsmen how little they know of the nature of a ship, that a
ship-carpenter is kept constantly employed, during good weather,
on board vessels which are in what is called perfect sea order.
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