I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin.

There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos.

But could it be possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise?
I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day.

I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life.

I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck.
I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat.