1. WHITE-JACKET.
1. CHAPTER I.
It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all
conscience, as the sequel will show.
The way I came by it was this.
When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru—her
last harbor in the Pacific—I found myself without a grego,
or sailor's surtout; and as, toward the end of a three years'
cruise, no pea-jackets could be had from the purser's steward;
and being bound for Cape Horn, some sort of a substitute was
indispensable; I employed myself, for several days, in manufacturing
an outlandish garment of my own devising, to shelter
me from the boisterous weather we were so soon to encounter.
It was nothing more than a white duck frock, or rather
shirt; which, laying on deck, I folded double at the bosom,
and by then making a continuation of the slit there, 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 by Ovid. For, presto! the shirt
was a coat!—a strange-looking coat, to be sure; of a Quakerish
amplitude about the skirts; with an infirm, tumble-down
collar; and a clumsy fullness about the wristbands; and
white, yea, white as a shroud. And my shroud it afterward
came very near proving, as he who reads further will find.
But, bless me, my friend, what sort of a summer jacket is
this, in which to weather Cape Horn? A very tasty, and
beautiful white linen garment it may have seemed; but then,
people almost universally sport their linen next to their skin.
Very true; and that thought very early occurred to me;
for no idea had I of scudding round Cape Horn in my shirt;
for that would have been almost scudding under bare poles,
indeed.
So, with many odds and ends of patches—old socks, old
trowser-legs, and the like—I bedarned and bequilted the inside
of my jacket, till it became, all over, stiff and padded, as
King James's cotton-stuffed and dagger-proof doublet; and
no buckram or steel hauberk stood up more stoutly.
So far, very good; but pray, tell me, White-Jacket, how
do you propose keeping out the rain and the wet in this quilted
grego of yours? You don't call this wad of old patches a
Mackintosh, do you?—You don't pretend to say that worsted
is water-proof?
No, my dear friend; and that was the deuce of it. Water-proof
it was not, no more than a sponge. Indeed, with
such recklessness had I bequilted my jacket, that in a rainstorm
I became a universal absorber; swabbing bone-dry the
very bulwarks I leaned against. Of a damp day, my heartless
shipmates even used to stand up against me, so powerful
was the capillary attraction between this luckless jacket of
mine and all drops of moisture. I dripped like a turkey a'
roasting; and long after the rain storms were over, and the
sun showed his face, I still stalked a Scotch mist; and when
it was fair weather with others, alas! it was foul weather
with me.
Me? Ah me! Soaked and heavy, what a burden was
that jacket to carry about, especially when I was sent up
aloft; dragging myself up, step by step, as if I were weighing
the anchor. Small time then, to strip, and wring it out in a
rain, when no hanging back or delay was permitted. No,
no; up you go: fat or lean: Lambert or Edson: never mind
how much avoirdupoise you might weigh. And thus, in my
own proper person, did many showers of rain reascend toward
the skies, in accordance with the natural laws.
But here be it known, that I had been terribly disappointed
in carrying out my original plan concerning this jacket.
It had been my intention to make it thoroughly impervious,
by giving it a coating of paint. But bitter fate ever overtakes
us unfortunates. So much paint had been stolen by the
sailors, in daubing their overhaul trowsers and tarpaulins, that
by the time I—an honest man—had completed my quiltings,
the paint-pots were banned, and put under strick lock and key.
Said old Brush, the captain of the paint-room—“Look ye,
White-Jacket,” said he, “ye can't have any paint.”
Such, then, was my jacket: a well-patched, padded, and
porous one; and in a dark night, gleaming white, as the
White Lady of Avenel!
