se than blame before; perhaps now they think better of me,
though.

"10 P.M.--We have gone on very comfortably for nearly six miles. An
hour and a half was spent washing down; for along with many coloured
polypi, from corals, shells, and insects, the big cable brings up much
mud and rust, and makes a fishy smell by no means pleasant: the bottom
seems to teem with life.--But now we are startled by a most
unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at first to come from the
large low pulley, but when the engines stopped, the noise continued;
and we now imagine it is something slipping down the cable, and the
pulley but acts as sounding-board to the big fiddle. Whether it is
only an anchor or one of the two other cables, we know not. We hope it
is not the cable just laid down.

"_June 19._

"10 A.M.--All our alarm groundless, it would appear: the odd noise
ceased after a time, and there was no mark sufficiently strong on the
large cable to warrant the suspicion that we had cut another line
through. I stopped up on the look-out till three in the morning, which
made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes dozing about, though,
most of the day, for it is only when something goes wrong that one has
to look alive. Hour after hour I stand on the forecastle-head, picking
off little specimens of polypi and coral, or lie on the saloon deck
reading back numbers of the _Times_--till something hitches, and then
all is hurly-burly once more. There are awnings all along the ship,
and a most ancient, fish-like smell beneath.

"_1 o'clock._--Suddenly a great strain in only 95 fathoms of
water--belts surging and general dismay; grapnels being thrown out in
the hope of finding what holds the cable.--Should it prove the young
cable! We are apparently crossing its path--not the working one, but
the lost child; Mr. Liddell _would_ start the big one first, though it
was laid first: he wanted to see the job done, and meant to leave us
to the small one unaided by his presence.

"3.30.--Grapnel caught something, lost it again; it left its marks on
the prongs. Started lifting gear again; and after hauling in some 50
fathoms--grunt, grunt, grunt--we hear the other cable slipping down
our big one, playing the self-same tune we heard last night--louder,
however.

"10 P.M.--The pull on the deck engines became harder and harder. I got
steam up in a boiler on deck, a