Hats, caps, and even the temporary apologies for such articles of costume, were given unwittingly and most unwillingly to the waves.

A sudden flaw of wind, the flap of a sail, an involuntary jerk of the head, often elicited an exclamation of anger or a torrent of invectives from some unfortunate being who had been cruelly rendered bareheaded, attended with a burst of laughter from unsympathizing shipmates.
The inimitable Dickens, in his best production, says, with all the shrewdness and point of a practical philosopher, "There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat." But, unfortunately, on shipboard, if a man's hat is taken off by the wind, he cannot chase it and recover it; nor is it swept from his sight into the DEPTHS of the sea.

On looking astern, he will see it gracefully and sportively riding on the billows, as if unconscious of any impropriety, reckless of the inconvenience which such desertion may cause its rightful proprietor, and an object of wonder, it may be, to the scaly inhabitants of old Neptune's dominions.
Before we reached Demarara every hat and cap belonging to the ship's company, with a single exception, had been involuntarily given, as a propitiatory offering, to the god of Ocean.

This exception was a beaver hat belonging to the captain; and this would have followed its leaders, had it not been kept in a case hermetically sealed.

After the captain's stock of sea-going hats and caps had disappeared he wore around his head a kerchief, twisted fancifully, like a turban.