The Cable which was recovered yesterday was strained, and lay twisted in hard curves, presenting a very different appearance from the easy ductile lines in which it lay in the tank. The defective portion of the Cable was not examined to-day, and divine service was postponed till 2·30, in order to give some time for sleep and rest to the exhausted and hard-worked staff and workers of all kinds on board the ship. The weather continued thick and hazy, a fresh breeze from the N.N.W. not dispersing the cold grey clouds and mist. The Terrible alone was in sight, and it was conjectured that the Sphinx must have passed on during the night, and that she would arrive in Heart’s Content before us. The sound and sight of the wheels and drums revolving again after so long a rest were very gratifying, and it was fondly hoped that this fault or dead earth would be the last, as it was now evident nothing else was to be feared, and nothing else humanly speaking could prevent the Cable being laid. In the Cable itself lay all the sources of mischief. If there were no faults or dead earth, the paying-out was a matter of the most easy routine and most positive certainty. When the operation had to be reversed, the whole condition of affairs was reversed also. A swerve of the helm, a rolling billow, an unseen weakness, a moment’s neglect, the accident of an instant, and down went the thread of thought between two continents, with all which depended on it, to rest and rust in the depths of the sea. My mind could never get rid of the image of the Great Eastern pulling at the Cable as if she were animated by a malevolent desire, when she caught some one off the watch, to use her giant’s strength to tear it asunder. Captain Anderson only expressed the feelings of all who watched the struggle whilst Cable and Ship were adjusting their mutual relations, when--admitting the task was more difficult than he had anticipated, in consequence of the obstacles to the management of the ship, arising from want of steerage way as soon as the engines were stopped--he said, “One feels so powerless--one can do so little to govern events while the affair of picking-up is going on.” The weather was favourable, the ship perfection, and yet here were these delays arising from causes no one could foresee or prevent or remedy in any but the one way, and that a way fraught with danger. A visit to the stern, where the Cable was rolling away into 2000 fathoms water as easily as the thread flies from the reel in a lady’s workbasket, always created a conviction that the enterprise must be carried out; and it was not till the machinery stopped and the words “another fault” recalled us to a sense of the contingencies on which it depended, that we could entertain a doubt of its speedy consummation. For the most indifferent somehow or another became soon interested in the undertaking. There was a wonderful sense of power in the Great Ship and in her work; it was