During the summer he enjoyed another telegraph cruise in the Mediterranean, a sea which for its classical memories, its lovely climate, and diversified scenes, is by far the most interesting in the world. This time the Elba was to lay a cable from the Greek islands of Syra and Candia to Egypt. Cable-laying is a pleasant mode of travel. Many of those on board the ship are friends and comrades in former expeditions, and all are engaged in the same venture. Some have seen a good deal of the world, both in and out of the beaten track; they have curious 'yarns to spin,' and useful hints or scraps of worldly wisdom to bestow. The voyage out is like a holiday excursion, for it is only the laying that is arduous, and even that is lightened by excitement. Glimpses are got of hide-away spots, where the cable is landed, perhaps. on the verge of the primeval forest or near the port of a modern city, or by the site of some ruined monument of the past. The very magic of the craft and its benefit to the world are a source of pleasure to the engineer, who is generally made much of in the distant parts he has come to join. No doubt there are hardships to be borne, sea-sickness, broken rest, and anxiety about the work--for cables are apt suddenly to fail, and the ocean is treacherous; but with all its drawbacks this happy mixture of changing travel and profitable labour is very attractive, especially to a young man. The following extracts from letters to his wife will illustrate the nature of the work, and also give an idea of Jenkin's clear and graphic style of correspondence:--May 14.--'Syra is semi-eastern. The pavement, huge shapeless blocks sloping to a central gutter; from this base two-storeyed houses, sometimes plaster, many-coloured, sometimes rough-hewn marble, rise, dirty and ill-finished, to straight, plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless of windows, with signs in Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, baggy, Zouave breeches and a fez, a few narghilehs, and a sprinkling of the ordinary continental shop-boys. In the evening I tried one more walk in Syra with A----, but in vain endeavoured to amuse myself or to spend money, the first effort resulting in singing DOODAH to a passing Greek or two, the second in spending--no, in making A---- spend--threepence on coffee for three.' Canea Bay, in Candia (or Crete), which they reached on May 16, appeared to Jenkin one of the loveliest sights that man could witness. May 23.--'I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed, which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very cool, and the little ones hold batteries capitally. A handsome young Bashi-Bazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer is the servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill till I'm black in the face with heat, and come on board to hear the Canea cable is still bad.'