n. Sign your name here, if you have one, and
can write." Whereupon, and the name (with infinite hard breathing) being
signed, the commissioner would proceed to fill in the man's appearance,
height, etc., on the official form. In this task of literary portraiture
he seemed to rely wholly upon temperament; for I could not perceive him
to cast one glance on any of his models. He was assisted, however, by a
running commentary from the captain: "Hair blue and eyes red, nose
five foot seven, and stature broken"--jests as old, presumably, as the
American marine; and, like the similar pleasantries of the billiard
board, perennially relished. The highest note of humour was reached in
the case of the Chinese cook, who was shipped under the name of "One
Lung," to the sound of his own protests and the self-approving chuckles
of the functionary.

"Now, captain," said the latter, when the men were gone, and he had
bundled up his papers, "the law requires you to carry a slop-chest and a
chest of medicines."

"I guess I know that," said Nares.

"I guess you do," returned the commissioner, and helped himself to port.

But when he was gone, I appealed to Nares on the same subject, for I was
well aware we carried none of these provisions.

"Well," drawled Nares, "there's sixty pounds of niggerhead on the quay,
isn't there? and twenty pounds of salts; and I never travel without some
painkiller in my gripsack."

As a matter of fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's
provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion,
he would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and
flitting from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from
Hood's Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides,
some mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over
which Nares would sometimes sniff and speculate. "Seems to smell like
diarrhoea stuff," he would remark. "I wish't I knew, and I would
try it." But the slop-chest was indeed represented by the plugs of
niggerhead, and nothing else. Thus paternal laws are made, thus they
are evaded; and the schooner put to sea, like plenty of her neighbours,
liable to a fine of six hundred dollars.

This characteristic scene, which has delayed me overlong, was but a
moment in that day of exercise and agitation. To fit out a schooner for
sea, and improvise a marriage between dawn and dusk, involves heroic
effort. All day Jim and I ran,