Herman Melville

“ It is something like life in a large manufactory. The bell strikes to dinner, and hungry or not, you must dine.
Your clothes are stowed in a large canvas bag, generally painted black, which you can get out of the "rack" only once in the twenty-four hours; and then, during a time of the utmost confusion; among five hundred other bags, with five hundred other sailors diving into each, in the midst of the twilight of the berth-deck. In some measure to obviate this inconvenience, many sailors divide their wardrobes between their hammocks and their bags ”

“ My top-mate's contrivance was this--he ought to have got out a patent for it--each of his mittens was provided with two thumbs, one on each side; the convenience of which needs no comment. But though for clumsy seamen, whose fingers are all thumbs, this description of mitten might do very well, White-Jacket did not so much fancy it. For when your hand was once in the bag of the mitten, the empty thumb-hole sometimes dangled at your palm, confounding your ideas of where your real thumb might be ”

“ It must be known, that sailors, even in the bleakest weather, only cover their hands when unemployed; they never wear mittens aloft, since aloft they literally carry their lives in their hands, and want nothing between their grasp of the hemp, and the hemp itself.--Therefore, it is desirable, that whatever things they cover their hands with, should be capable of being slipped on and off in a moment. ”