THE GREAT EASTERN 155 



in whom I expect you to be interested, as future 

 Great Eastern stories may be full of them : Theo- 

 philus 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 by and by 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 



