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.