White Jacket: Or, The World on a Man-of-War: Original Text

It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequelwill show.The way I came by it was this.When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru-her last harbour in thePacific-I found myself without a grego, or sailor's surtout; and as, toward the end ofa three years' cruise, no pea-jackets could be had from the purser's steward: andbeing bound for Cape Horn, some sort of a substitute was indispensable; Iemployed myself, for several days, in manufacturing an outlandish garment of myown devising, to shelter me from the boisterous weather we were so soon toencounter.It was nothing more than a white duck frock, or rather shirt: which, laying ondeck, I folded double at the bosom, and by then making a continuation of the slitthere, opened it lengthwise-much as you would cut a leaf in the last new novel.The gash being made, a metamorphosis took place, transcending any related byOvid. For, presto! the shirt was a coat!-a strange-looking coat, to be sure; of aQuakerish amplitude about the skirts; with an infirm, tumble-down collar; and aclumsy fullness about the wristbands; and white, yea, white as a shroud. And myshroud it afterward came very near proving, as he who reads further will find.