This, I Easily Accomplished,
For They Were Glad To Change The Scene By A Few Months On Shore,
And, Moreover, Escape The Winter And The South-Easters; And I Went
On Board The Next Day, With My Chest And Hammock, And Found Myself
Once More Afloat.
CHAPTER XXIII
NEW SHIP AND SHIPMATES - MY WATCHMATE
Tuesday, Sept. 8th. This was my first day's duty on board the
ship; and though a sailor's life is a sailor's life wherever it
may be, yet I found everything very different here from the customs
of the brig Pilgrim. After all hands were called, at day-break,
three minutes and a half were allowed for every man to dress and
come on deck, and if any were longer than that, they were sure
to be overhauled by the mate, who was always on deck, and making
himself heard all over the ship. The head-pump was then rigged,
and the decks washed down by the second and third mates; the chief
mate walking the quarter-deck and keeping a general supervision,
but not deigning to touch a bucket or a brush. Inside and out,
fore and aft, upper deck and between decks, steerage and forecastle,
rail, bulwarks, and water-ways, were washed, scrubbed and scraped
with brooms and canvas, and the decks were wet and sanded all
over, and then holystoned. The holystone is a large, soft stone,
smooth on the bottom, with long ropes attached to each end, by which
the crew keep it sliding fore and aft, over the wet, sanded decks.
Smaller hand-stones, which the sailors call "prayer-books," are used
to scrub in among the crevices and narrow places, where the large
holystone will not go.
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