THE CABLE SHIP ON EEPATRS. 309 



day and hour, decided by him to be about the time the ship 

 would fetch the buoy on her return. In the old days of single 

 cables the station whose end was buoyed was, per force, 

 in ignorance of all that might happen to the ship during 

 picking up and repairing, and only learnt the news upon her 

 return to the buoy after finishing the repair. The staff would, 

 accordingly, commence to keep watch after the specified hour, 

 generally preferring for this purpose the mirror instrument, in 

 which the beam of light thrown on the wall is an effective 

 means of attracting the attention, the slightest movement of 

 the beam being noticeable, without the necessity of always 

 being close to the instrument. Day and night the spot of 

 light would be watched, three men taking it in turn to relieve 

 each other during the twenty-four hours, and frequently, owing 

 either to bad weather or special diflficulties encountered by the 

 ship in picking up or localising, they might be kept at this for 

 several days, without any idea of how matters were progressing 

 at sea. "No signs of ship" was probably a more frequent entry 

 in the diary in those days than in the present days of duplicate 

 cables, for now the station whose end is cut and buoyed at sea 

 can still learn vid the duplicate cable what the ship is doing, 

 and by this means the time spent in keeping watch ia very 

 greatly reduced, for the ship does not reauire watch kept until 

 she notifies on the paid-out end by the other cable that she 

 is up to buoy. 



Speaking of interrupted communication, ""whether caused by 

 the ship cutting in for repairs or a break in the cable, there is 

 a very great contrast on important lines between the old regime, 

 say of 30 years back, with only one cable, and the present with 

 two or three to depend on. That curious experience for an 

 important foreign or colonial seaport town to undergo, namely, 

 to have its telegraphic communication with Europe and the 

 civilised world completely severed for days together, is now of 

 very rare occurrence, and we have grown so accustomed to 

 look into our papers for news of what has occurred only a few 

 hours ago in the remotest regions of the globe, and the com- 

 merce of the world is so largely controlled by telegraph that 

 the habit of rapid intercourse has become a second nature, 

 and a total interruption affects an increasingly large section 

 of the community. 



