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.’
