“August 1. When I wrote the finishing sentence of my last letter I was suffering a little from a slight accident to my leg.  We were laying out the cable from the two ships, the Agamemnon and Niagara, to connect the two halves of the cable together to experiment through the whole length of twenty-five hundred miles for the first time.  In going down the side of the Agamemnon I had to cross over several small boats to reach the outer one, which was to take me on board the tug which had the connecting cable on board.  In stepping from one to the other of the small boats, the water being very rough and the boats having a good deal of motion, I made a misstep, my right leg being on board the outer boat, and my left leg went down between the two boats scraping the skin from the upper part of 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.

“Seven o’clock. All the ships are under way from the Cove of Cork.  The Leopard left first, then the Agamemnon, then the Susquehanna and the Niagara last; and at this moment we are off the Head of Kinsale in the following order:  Niagara, Leopard, Agamemnon, Susquehanna.  The Cyclops and another vessel, the Advice, left for Valencia on Saturday evening, and, with a beautiful night before us, we hope to be there also by noon to-morrow.