Robinson Crusoe - I Don't Want to Know Where These Pockets Are...
At the beginning of Robinson Crusoe, the main character decides to swim back to the ship he was a survivor from, to get some supplies. The author then describes how he strips naked, swims to the boat... and then fills his pockets with supplies...
Sailors have long used their pants as emergency life preservers by removing them, tying-off the legs, and then filling the legs with air. Therefore to first remove his clothes (pants), makes sense, as he could then tie the legs off and use them as a life preserver to assist in "swimming back to the ship" in which case the pants pockets would be available to use for "retrieving supplies."
This "slip-up" was published in a popular 1970s series called "The book of lists (I think it was book two). I looked for it at the time, in "Robinson Crusoe" and found it, but I managed to keep my wits about me and continue reading. A page or so after "pulling off his clothes", the narrator notices while collecting goods to bring off the boat that:
"While I was doing this, I found the tide begin to
flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my coat,
shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on the shore, upon the sand,
swim away. As for my breeches, which were only linen, and open-
kneed, I swam on board in them and my stockings."
I wrote the "book of lists" publishers at the time, but they never replied, and I was amused to find this little tidbit still circulating 30 years later. It's not at all ambiguous, he swam to the ship with his pants on, hence...Pockets!
Robinson Crusoe stripped "naked" meaning really (as they meant in those early days he stripped to his underwear)...In the book he says "I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt and waistcoat which I had left on shore upon the sand swim away; as for my breeches which were only linen and open kneed...I SWAM ON BOARD IN THEM AND MY STOCKINGS.He goes on to say "However this put me rummaging for clothes (meaning outerwear) of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use"...Thus explaining his pockets....(of course there may have been some kind of pocket in his breeches too!)
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