MALTA AND SICILY. 
5 
connect the starboard, or right-hand engine, 
from the main shaft, and we proceeded by 
the power of one engine alone—our speed, 
however, was still about six miles an hour. The 
engineers, poor fellows, were toiling all the 
remainder of that day and a great part of the 
night in shortening the piston-rod by cutting 
off nearly half an inch of the top with cold 
chisels and hammers, an operation which the 
motion of the vessel made it very difficult to 
perform, causing the men frequently to miss 
their blows, and occasioning not a few sadly 
bruised fingers and bleeding knuckles. A 
portable blacksmith’s forge was brought upon 
deck, and one man was almost constantly 
employed in repairing the chisels broken or 
blunted in this most tedious chipping opera¬ 
tion. 
On going on deck the next morning we 
could see no land in any direction. The 
