Agamemnon of several of her coal-bunkers, and in order to make up for this deficiency, as well as to endeavor to counterbalance the immense mass which weighed her down by the head, a large quantity of coals had been stowed on the deck aft. On each side of her main deck were thirty-five tons, secured in a mass, while on the lower deck ninety tons were stowed away in the same manner. The precautions taken to secure these huge masses also required attention as the great ship surged from side to side. But these coals seemed secure, and were so, in fact, unless the vessel should almost capsize--an unpleasant alternative which no one certainly anticipated then. Everything, therefore, was made "snug," as sailors call it, though their efforts by no means resulted in the comfort which might have been expected from the term. The night, however, passed over without any mischance beyond the smashing of all things incautiously left loose and capable of rolling, and one or two attempts which the Agamemnon made in the middle watch to turn bottom upward. In all other matters it was the mere ditto of Sunday night, except, perhaps, a little worse, and certainly much more wet below. Tuesday the gale continued with almost unabated force, though the barometer had risen to 29.30, and there was sufficient sun to take a clear observation, which showed our distance from the rendezvous to be 563 miles. During this afternoon the Niagara joined company, and the wind going more ahead, the Agamemnon took to violent pitching, plunging steadily into the trough of the sea as if she meant to break her back and lay the Atlantic cable in a heap. This change in her motion strained and taxed every inch of timber near the coils to the very utmost. It was curious to see how they worked and bent as the Agamemnon went at everything she met head first. One time she pitched so heavily as to break one of the main beams of the lower deck, which had to be shored with screw-jacks forthwith. Saturday, the 19th of June, things looked a little better. The barometer seemed inclined to go up and the sea to go down; and for the first time that morning since the gale began, some six days previous, the decks could be walked with tolerable comfort and security. But alas! appearances are as deceitful in the Atlantic as elsewhere; and during a comparative calm that afternoon the glass fell lower, while a thin line of black haze to windward seemed to grow up into the sky, until it covered the heavens with a somber darkness, and warned us that, after all, the worst was yet to come. There was much heavy rain that evening, and then the wind began, not violently, nor in gusts, but with a steadily increasing force, as if the gale was determined to do its work slowly but do it well. The sea was