Ixxiv MEMOIR 



CHAPTER V. 



1858 TO 1873, 



BUT it is now time to see Jenkin at his life's work. I have 

 before me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, 

 c at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important 

 and what is not ' : the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the 

 betrothal ; the later to Mrs. Jenkin the young wife. I should pre- 

 mise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving 

 out and splicing together, much as he himself did with the Bona 

 cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will 

 fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed 

 as they were to her whom he called his ' dear engineering pupil,' 

 they give a picture of his work so clear that a child may under- 

 stand, and so attractive that I am half afraid their publication 

 may prove harmful, and still further crowd the ranks of a pro- 

 fession already overcrowded. But their most engaging quality 

 is the picture of the writer ; with his indomitable self-confidence 

 and courage, his readiness in every pinch of circumstance or 

 change of plan, and his ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web 

 of human experience, nature, adventure, science, toil and rest, 

 society and solitude. It should be borne in mind that the writer 

 of these buoyant pages was, even while he wrote, harassed by re- 

 sponsibility, stinted in sleep and often struggling with the pros- 

 tration of sea-sickness. To this last enemy, which he never 

 overcame, I have omitted, in my search after condensation, a good 

 many references ; if they were all left, such was the man's temper, 

 they would not represent one hundredth part of what he suffered, 

 for he was never given to complaint. But indeed he had met this 



