CABLE FISHING 149 



' Many men have been ashore to-day and have 

 come back tipsy, and the whole ship is in a state 

 of quarrel from top to bottom, and they will gossip 

 just within my hearing. And we have had more- 

 over three French gentlemen and a French lady 

 to dinner, and I had to act host and try to manage 

 the mixtures to their taste. The good-natured 

 little Frenchwoman was most amusing; when I 

 asked her if she would have some apple tart — " Mon 

 Dieu," with heroic resignation, '' je veux bien;^^ 

 or a little plombodding — " Mais ce que vous voudrez, 

 Monsieur / " 



^S.S. Elba, SOMEWHERE 

 NOT FAR FROM BoNA, Oct, 19. 



' Yesterday [after three previous days of useless 

 grappling] was destined to be very eventful. We 

 began dredging at daybreak and hooked at once, 

 every time in rocks ; but by capital luck, just as 

 we were deciding it was no use to continue in 

 that place, we hooked the cable : up it came, was 

 tested, and lo ! another complete break, a quarter 

 of a mile off. I was amazed at my own tran- 

 quillity under these disappointments, but I was not 

 really half so fussy as about getting a cab. Well, 

 there was nothing for it but grappling again, and, 

 as you may imagine, we were getting about six 

 miles from shore. But the water did not deepen 

 rapidly ; we seemed to be on the crest of a kind 

 of submarine mountain in prolongation of Cape 



