aiting to receive some
two-and-a-half miles of the cable, with which she was to proceed to the
shore. The barge resembled a huge Noah's Ark, having a canvas awning to
protect the cable, which was very sensitive to heat.

A measure of anxiety is natural at the beginning of most enterprises,
and there were some who dreaded a "hitch" with superstitious fear, as if
it would be a bad omen. But all went well.

"Now then, boys--shove her along; push her through," said an experienced
leader among the cable-hands, who grasped the great coil and guided it.
The men took up the words at once, and, to this species of spoken
chorus, "shove her along, push her through," the snaky coil was sent
rattling over the pulley-wheels by the tank and along the wooden gutter
prepared for it, to the paying-out wheel at the Chiltern's stern, whence
it plunged down into the barge, where other experienced hands coiled it
carefully round and round the entire deck.

It is difficult to describe the almost tender solicitude with which all
this was done. The cable was passed carefully--so carefully--through
all the huge staples that were to direct its course from the fore-tank
to the wheel at the stern. Then it was made to pass over a wheel here
and under a wheel there, to restrain its impetuosity, besides being
passed three times round a drum, which controlled the paying-out. A man
stood ready at a wheel, which, by a few rapid turns, could bring the
whole affair to a standstill should anything go wrong. In the fore-tank
eight men guided each coil to prevent entanglement, and on deck men were
stationed a few feet apart all along to the stern, to watch every foot
as it passed out. Three hours completed the transfer. Then the barge
went slowly shoreward, dropping the cable into the sea as she went.

It was quite a solemn procession! First went a Government steam-tug,
flaunting flags from deck to trucks as thick as they could hang. Then
came the barge with her precious cargo. Then two boats full of
cable-hands, and an official gig pulled by a Chinaman, while the
steam-launch Electric kept buzzing about as if superintending all.

When the tug had drawn the barge shoreward as far as she could with
safety, the smaller "Electric" took her place. When she also had
advanced as far as her draught allowed, a boat carried to the shore a
hawser, one end of which was attached to the cable. Then the
cable-hands dropped over the sides of the barge up to