It was 10·30 a.m., Greenwich time, when the Cable came in over the bow. We were now in very deep water, but had we been a few miles more to the west we should have been over the very deepest part of the Atlantic Plateau. It was believed the fault was only six miles away, and ere dead nightfall we might hope to have the fault on board, make a new splice, and proceed on our way to Heart’s Content, geographically about 600 miles away. The picking-up was, as usual, exceedingly tedious, and one hour and forty-six minutes elapsed before one mile of Cable was got on board; then one of the engines’ eccentric gear got out of order, and a man had to stand by with a handspike, aided by a wedge of wood and an elastic band, to aid the machinery. Next the supply of steam failed; and as soon then as the steam was got up, there was not water enough in the boiler, and so the picking-up ceased altogether. But at last all these impediments were remedied or overcome, and the operation was proceeded with before noon. Let the reader turn his face towards a window and imagine that he is standing on the bows of the Great Eastern, and then on his right will be the starboard, on his left the port side of the ship. The motion of the vessel was from right to left, and as she drifted, she tugged at the Cable from the right hand side, where he seemed to be anchored in the sea. There was not much rolling or pitching, but the set of the waves ran on her port-bow. There are in the bows of the Great Eastern two large hawse-pipes, the iron rims of which project beyond the line of the stem; against one of these the Cable caught on the left-hand side whilst the ship was drifting to the left, and soon began to chafe and strain against the bow. The Great Eastern could not go astern, lest the Cable should be snapped, and without motion there was no power of steerage. At this critical moment, too, the wind shifted, so as to render it more difficult to keep the head of the ship up to the Cable. As the Cable chafed so much that there was danger of its parting, a shackle, chain, and rope belonging to one of the Cable-buoys were passed over the bows, and secured in a bight below the hawse-pipe to the Cable. These were then hauled so as to bring the Cable to the right-hand side of the bow, the ship still drifting to the left, and the oblique strain on the wires became considerable, but it was impossible to diminish it by veering out, as the length of Cable after it was cut at the stern for the operation of picking-up left little to spare. In the bow there is a large iron wheel with a deep groove in the circumference (technically called a V wheel), by the side of which is a similar but smaller wheel on the same axis. The Cable and the rope together were brought in over the bows in the groove in the larger wheel, the Cable being wound upon a drum behind by the picking-up machinery, which was once more in motion, and the rope being taken in round the capstan.