However, it was evident that talking about it would not mend the matter, and all that could be said was, "The greater our danger, the more must our exertions be increased to counteract it." And increased they were. Every officer and man set-to again in earnest, to try to keep the ship together. One party was employed to nail down thick planks and spars upon the deck, fore and aft, over the broken part of the ship; others were busy bolting the ends of them into the sponson-beams, between the paddle-boxes; while another party, engineers and firemen, were busy strengthening the ship's sides below. To understand this latter part of the condition of affairs, it must be explained that, what in a wooden ship would be called the ribs, are, in an iron one, called the "angle-irons." They are, in fact, strong angular bars, extending up and down the ship's sides like ribs, having a flat surface, to which the plates of iron are bolted. These angle-irons, or ribs, are seventeen inches distant from each other, and at about the centre, between two of them, the crack had taken place in the plates of iron. The accident had occurred precisely in the weakest part of the vessel, amidships; and it would seem probable that, as there was a heavy cross sea in the Mozambique Channel when the misfortune happened, the head of the vessel was held firm in the hollow of one sea at the moment the top of another sea struck her heavily on the quarter. It made her frame quiver; and her length and shallowness rendered her the more liable to suffer injury from a similar blow.[6] As regards the temporary repairs, it was evident that two contrivances were necessary for holding the broken plate together in its proper position. In the first place, small blocks of wood were fixed across between the angle-irons from one to the other, in such a manner that they crossed each other like the letter X, and gave support against the working of the ship, and the tendency of the plates to overlap each other. Next, strong bolts or bars of iron were passed _through_ the angle-irons from one to the other, and tightened by means of a nut and screw at their extremities. By these means, the angle-irons, being now strongly connected together, were made to hold the edges of the broken plates in contact between them, which, as long as the bolts held good, would be quite sufficient as a temporary repair. But all these contrivances were adopted with extreme difficulty, and during a gale of wind, when all attempts of the kind appeared desperate. Fortunately, towards morning of the next day, the 26th, the gale slightly moderated; and these repairs being now completed as well as circumstances would permit, rendered her in all respects stronger, so that she strained much less than before.