126 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
and paddlewheels. It was now taking on about five hundred 
men and large supplies of coal and food. ‘The amazed Lon- 
doners saw a live cow go on board for the milk supply; also 
twenty pigs, a hundred and twenty sheep, a dozen oxen, and 
large flocks of ducks, geese, and chickens. Some one estimated 
that her total load, including machinery, was almost as great 
as could have been carried by the entire fleet with which 
Nelson fought at Trafalgar. To pull up the huge anchor re- 
quired the united strength of almost two hundred men. It 
is sad to reflect that such a fine ship proved too big for the 
ordinary shipping work of her day, and was eventually dis- 
mantled as useless. 
Many interested persons, realizing that history was being 
made, asked permission to sail as passengers but were refused. 
Field and Professor ‘Thomson were allowed to sail, also one 
newspaper man, the veteran W. H. Russell (later Sir W. H. 
Russell) of the Times, and two artists (O’Neill and Dudley) 
to depict the scenes of the voyage. Field was the only Ameri- 
can. The discipline and formality were strict. ‘The rather 
haphazard spirit of the earlier expeditions had been replaced 
by rigid system. Russell’s book The Atlantic Telegraph gives 
an excellent account of the daily routine. 
At last all preparations were completed, and the giant ves- 
sel steamed away on its difficult mission. On the Irish coast, 
the special shore section of the cable was fastened several miles 
from the former place, in order to have the advantages of 
quiet water under secluded cliffs. As the Great Eastern was 
too large for shore maneuvering, a smaller vessel laid the 
twenty-seven miles of extra-heavy end to which the main cable 
was spliced. The splicing was completed on Sunday evening, 
July 23, 1865, ready to begin the contest with the ocean 
depths. 
The starting of an important undertaking on a Sunday was 
considered a good omen by the sailors, who would have been 
suspicious of a start made on a Friday. Henry Field, with a 
