Describes Several Important Events.  
The laying of this thick shore-end of the cable was an important point in the great work.
 
By that time Robin and cousin Sam had been regularly installed as members of the expedition, and were told off with many others to assist at the operation.
 
The Chiltern carried the great coil in her tanks. After rounding Colaba Point into Back Bay, she found a barge waiting to receive some two-and-a-half miles of the cable, with which she was to proceed to the shore. The barge resembled a huge Noah’s Ark, having a canvas awning to protect the cable, which was very sensitive to heat.
 
A measure of anxiety is natural at the beginning of most enterprises, and there were some who dreaded a “hitch” with superstitious fear, as if it would be a bad omen. But all went well.
 
“Now then, boys—shove her along; push her through,” said an experienced leader among the cable-hands, who grasped the great coil and guided it. The men took up the words at once, and, to this species of spoken chorus, “shove her along, push her through,” the snaky coil was sent rattling over the pulley-wheels by the tank and along the wooden gutter prepared for it, to the paying-out wheel at the Chiltern’s stern, whence it plunged down into the barge, where other experienced hands coiled it carefully round and round the entire deck.
 
It is difficult to describe the almost tender solicitude with which all this was done. The cable was passed carefully—so carefully—through all the huge staples that were to direct its course from the fore-tank to the wheel at the stern. Then it was made to pass over a wheel here and under a wheel there, to restrain its impetuosity, besides being passed three times round a drum, which controlled the paying-out. A man stood ready at a wheel, which, by a few rapid turns, could bring the whole affair to a standstill should anything go wrong. In the fore-tank eight men guided each coil to prevent entanglement, and on deck men were stationed a few feet apart all along to the stern, to watch every foot as it passed out. Three hours completed the transfer. Then the barge went slowly shoreward, dropping the cable into the sea as she went.
 
It was quite a solemn procession! First went a Government steam-tug, flaunting flags from deck to trucks as thick as they could hang. Then came the barge with her precious cargo. Then two boats full of cable-hands, and an official gig pulled by a Chinaman, while the steam-launch Electric kept buzzing about as if superintending all.
 
When the tug had drawn the barge shoreward as far as she could with safety, the smaller “Electric” took her place. When she also had advanced as far as her draught allowed, a boat carried to the shore a hawser, one end of which was attached to the cable. Then the cable-hands dropped over the sides of the barge up to waist, chest, or neck, (according to size), and, ranging themselves on either side of the rope and cable, dragged the latter to the shore, up the trench made for its reception, and laid its end on the great stone table, where it was made fast, tested by the electricians, as we have said, and pronounced perfect.
 
A few more days had to pass before the insatiable Great Eastern was filled with coal and reported ready for sea. Then, as a matter of course, she wound up with a grand feast—a luncheon—on board, at which many of the leading authorities and merchants of Bombay were present, with a brilliant company which entirely filled the spacious saloons.
 
“Owing to circumstances,” said Sam to Robin that day, “over which we have no control, you and I cannot be included among the guests at this approaching feast.”
 
“I’m sorry for that, Sam,” said our hero.
 
“Why so, Robin? Does a morbid devotion to chicken and ham, or sweets, influence you?”
 
“Not at all, though I make no pretence of indifference to such things, but I should so much like to hear the speeches.”
 
“Well, my boy, your desire shall be gratified. Through the influence of our, I might almost say miraculous, friend, Frank Hedley, we shall be permitted to witness the proceedings from a retired corner of the saloon, in company with crockery and waiters and other débris of the feast.”
 
At the appointed time the company assembled, and enjoyed as good a luncheon as money could procure.
 
“How some people do eat!” murmured Robin from his corner to Sam, who sat beside him.
 
“Yes, for it is their nature to,” replied Sam.
 
After the first toast was drunk the company braced themselves to the mental work of the afternoon, and although, as a matter of course, a good deal of twaddle was spoken, there was also much that threw light on the subject of ocean telegraphy. One of the leading merchants said, in his opening remarks: “Few of those present, I daresay, are really familiar with the history of ocean telegraphy.”
 
“Ah!” whispered Robin to Sam, “that’s the man for me. He’s sure to tell us a good deal that we don’t know, and although I have been ransacking Bombay ever since I arrived, for information, I don’t yet feel that I know much.”
 
“Hold your tongue, Robin, and listen,” said Sam.
 
“Mind your foot, sir,” remonstrated one of the steward’s assistants, who had a lugubrious countenance.
 
Robin took his foot out of a soup tureen, and applied himself to listen.
 
“When I reflect,” continued the merchant, “that it is now fourteen years since the first ocean telegraph of any importance was laid,—when I remember that the first cable was laid after an infinity of personal effort on the part of those who had to raise the capital,—when I mention that it was really a work of house-to-house visitation, when sums of 500 pounds to 1000 pounds, and even 10,000 pounds were raised by private subscription, with a view to laying a telegraph cable between England and America, when I reflect that the Queen’s Government granted the use of one of its most splendid vessels, the Agamemnon (Hear! hear! and applause), and that the American Government granted the use of an equally fine vessel, the Niagara—” (Hear! hear! and another round of applause, directed at the American Consul, who was present.)
 
(“Five glasses smashed that round,” growled the lugubrious waiter.)
 
“When I reflect,” continued the merchant, “that the expedition set out in 1857 with the greatest hopefulness, but proved a total failure—that the earnest men (Hear! hear!) connected with it again set to work the following year, and laid another cable (Applause), which, after passing through it a few messages of great importance t............