V.

Of the 1869 cruise in the _Great Eastern_, I give what I am able; only sorry it is no more, for the sake of the ship itself, already almost a legend even to the generation that saw it launched.

‘_June_ 17, 1869.—Here are the names of our staff in whom I expect you to be interested, as future _Great Eastern_ stories may be full of them: Theophilus Smith, a man of Latimer Clark’s; Leslie C. Hill, my prizeman at University College; Lord Sackville Cecil; King, one of the Thomsonian Kings; Laws, goes for Willoughby Smith, who will also be on board; Varley, Clark, and Sir James Anderson make up the sum of all you know anything of. A Captain Halpin commands the big ship. There are four smaller vessels. The _Wm. Cory_, which laid the Norderney cable, has already gone to St. Pierre to lay the shore ends. The _Hawk_ and _Chiltern_ have gone to Brest to lay shore ends. The _Hawk_ and _Scanderia_ go with us across the Atlantic and we shall at St. Pierre be transhipped into one or the other.

‘_June_ 18. _Somewhere in London_.—The shore end is laid, as you may have seen, and we are all under pressing orders to march, so we start from London to-night at 5.10.

‘_June_ 20. _Off Ushant_.—I am getting quite fond of the big ship. Yesterday morning in the quiet sunlight, she turned so slowly and lazily in the great harbour at Portland, and bye and bye slipped out past the long pier with so little stir, that I could hardly believe we were really off. No men drunk, no women crying, no singing or swearing, no confusion or bustle on deck—nobody apparently aware that they had anything to do. The look of the thing was that the ship had been spoken to civilly and had kindly undertaken to do everything that was necessary without any further interference. I have a nice cabin with plenty of room for my legs in my berth and have slept two nights like a top. Then we have the ladies’ cabin set apart as an engineer’s office, and I think this decidedly the nicest place in the ship: 35 ft. × 20 ft. broad—four tables, three great mirrors, plenty of air and no heat from the funnels which spoil the great dining-room. I saw a whole library of books on the walls when here last, and this made me less anxious to provide light literature; but alas, to-day I find that they are every one bibles or prayer-books. Now one cannot read many hundred bibles. . . . As for the motion of the ship it is not very much, but ‘twill suffice. Thomson shook hands and wished me well. I _do_ like Thomson. . . . Tell Austin that the _Great Eastern_ has six masts and four funnels. When I get back I will make a little model of her for all the chicks and pay out cotton reels. . . . Here we are at 4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow morning.

‘_July_ 12. _Great Eastern_.—Here as I write we run our last course for the buoy at the St. Pierre shore end. It blows and lightens, and our good ship rolls, and buoys are hard to find; but we must soon now finish our work, and then this letter will start for home. . . . Yesterday we were mournfully groping our way through the wet grey fog, not at all sure where we were, with one consort lost and the other faintly answering the roar of our great whistle through the mist. As to the ship which was to meet us, and pioneer us up the deep channel, we did not know if we should come within twenty miles of her; when suddenly up went the fog, out came the sun, and there, straight ahead, was the _Wm. Cory_, our pioneer, and a little dancing boat, the _Gulnare_, sending signals of welcome with many-coloured flags. Since then we have been steaming in a grand procession; but now at 2 A.M. the fog has fallen, and the great roaring whistle calls up the distant answering notes all around us. Shall we, or shall we not find the buoy?

‘_July_ 13.—All yesterday we lay in the damp dripping fog, with whistles all round and guns firing so that we might not bump up against one another. This little delay has let us get our reports into tolerable order. We are now at 7 o’clock getting the cable end again, with the main cable buoy close to us.’

_A telegram of July_ 20: ‘I have received your four welcome letters. The Americans are charming people.’