This is the usual resource upon a rainy day, for then it
will not do to work upon rigging; and when it is pouring down in
floods, instead of letting the sailors stand about in sheltered
places, and talk, and keep themselves comfortable, they are
separated to different parts of the ship and kept at work picking
oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about in different parts of
the ship, so that the sailors might not be idle in the snatches
between the frequent squalls upon crossing the equator. 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.
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