Fair pedant warning, me Grandpa Conchy was the last of the red-hot telodynamic engineers:

heave, ho, hal, tow &c.:
Note how in Ilya Repin's famous painting the 'tow rope' leads to the masthead (truck.)

If it's fixed at one end… it's a “cable.” ie: anchor or mooring. If both ends are free to move about… it's a “hawser” (root = to raise.) In both cases, gravity acting on the catenary betwixt the two ends does most of the moving or holding as the case may be.


“Boatmen”
By the time the song and painting came around there was no familiar translation for burlak in most Western languages. 'Chantey' same problemo. Canto de los remeros del Volga is “rowers.”

Ye olde canal boat Englishe would be the long gone and forgotten: hobbler. In all of southern Europe's Roman era, the yoke or collar was a helcium; boatmen were helciarii; and chantey the chorus helciariorum.