the leg near the knee for some two or three inches. It pained me a
little, but not much, still I knew from experience that, however slight
and comparatively painless at the time, I should be laid up the next day
and possibly for several days.

"My warm-hearted, generous friend, Sir William O'Shaughnessy, was on
board, and, being a surgeon, he at once took it in hand and dressed it,
tell Susan, in good hydropathic style with cold water. I felt so little
inconvenience from it at the time that I assisted throughout the day in
laying the cable, and operating through it after it was joined, and had
the satisfaction of witnessing the successful result of passing the
electricity through twenty-five hundred miles at the rate of one signal
in one and a quarter second. Since then Dr. Whitehouse has succeeded in
telegraphing a message through it at the rate of a single signal in three
quarters of a second. If the cable, therefore, is successfully laid so as
to preserve continuity throughout, there is no doubt of our being able to
telegraph through, and at a good commercial speed.

"I have been on my back for two days and am still confined to the ship.
To-morrow I hope to be well enough to hobble on board the Agamemnon and
assist in some experiments."

The accident to his leg was more serious than he at first imagined, and
conditions were not improved by his using his leg more than was prudent.

"_August 3, eleven o'clock A.M._ I am still confined, most of the time on
my back in my berth, quite to my annoyance in one respect, to wit, that I
am unable to be on board the Agamemnon with Dr. Whitehouse to assist at
the experiments. Yet I have so much to be thankful for that gratitude is
the prevailing feeling.