g round the funnel ought never to have been there.

After the catastrophe, the _Great Eastern_ kept on her course as though
nothing had happened, although the force of the explosion was sufficient
to have sent any other ship to the bottom. The damage was estimated at
5000 pounds. She arrived at Portland on the 10th, and remained there
for some time undergoing repairs. Afterwards she continued her trial
trip to Holyhead, where she arrived on the 10th of October. The results
of the trial, excepting, of course, the accident, were most
satisfactory. Her speed under disadvantageous circumstances had been
good, and her engines had worked admirably. Against a gale of head wind
she went as steadily as if in harbour, but with the wind a-beam she
rolled considerably. Altogether there was good reason to hope that the
_Great Eastern_ would fulfil the sanguine expectations of her warmest
admirers.

The following account of the continuation of her trial trip from
Portland to Holyhead, as gathered from the _Times_, is exceedingly
interesting:--When steam was up, and all ready for starting from
Portland, the crew were sent forward to heave up the anchor. Eighty men
sufficed to drag the _Great Eastern_ up to and over her moorings.
Bringing the anchor out of the ground, however, was not so easily
managed; and it was not till all the musical resources known to sailors
on such occasions were nearly exhausted that the tenacious gripe of
Trotman's patent was released, when a slow drift with the tide showed
that the great ship was again set free. In another minute, without
shouting, confusion, or hurry of any kind, and with less noise than is
made by a 100-ton coaster, a slight vibration through the ship, with a
thin line of foam astern, showed that the screw engines were at work and
the vessel once more under way. With such ease, with such perfect
quietness and good order was everything accomplished, that the
occasional cheering from the yachts and steamers was almost the first
token given to those on board that the trial trip had commenced. At a
quarter to four the "way" on the vessel was rapid; her head went round
like turning a pleasure-boat; and so little sign was given of the ship
being under steam, that it seemed rather as if the breakwater had got
adrift and was slowly floating past, than that the monster vessel was
really cleaving the blue waves with a force which, as yet, we have seen
no wind or sea to resist or check.