After the gale the _Great Eastern_ started on her return trip to Southampton, which she reached in safety on the morning of the 3rd November. In this, as in her previous experiences, the mighty ship was well tested, and her good and bad points in some degree proved. At the very outset the steam gear for aiding in lifting the anchors broke down, and one of the anchors refusing to let go, was broken in half. The condenser of the paddle engines seems to have been proved too small in this trip. For some time she went against a stiff head-wind and sea-- which is now well known to be the great ship's forte--with perfect steadiness; but on getting into the channel she rolled slowly but decidedly, as if bowing--acknowledging majestically the might of the Atlantic's genuine swell. Here, too, a wave actually overtopped her towering hull, and sent a mass of _green_ water inboard! But her roll was peculiarly her own, and wonderfully easy. The vessel made eighteen knots an hour. She was under perfect command, even in narrow and intricate channels, and, despite her varied mishaps and trials, passed through this stormy period of her infancy with credit. _Disaster to "Great Eastern" in September 1861_.--Having made three successful voyages to America, the Great Eastern, after all her troubles, was beginning to establish her reputation, to confirm the hopes of her friends and silence the cavils of her enemies, when the bad fortune that has been her portion from the cradle once more overwhelmed her, and shook, if it did not altogether destroy, the confidence in her capabilities which the public had been beginning tardily to entertain.