- Hurrah, victory! for the present anyhow. Whilst in
our first dejection, I thought I saw a place where a flat roller
would remedy the whole misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape
Spartivento, hard, easily unshipped, running freely! There was a
grooved pulley used for the paying-out machinery with a spindle
wheel, which might suit me. I filled him up with tarry spunyarn,
nailed sheet copper round him, bent some parts in the fire; and we
are paying-in without more trouble now. You would think some one
would praise me; no, no more praise than blame before; perhaps now
they think better of me, though.
'10 P.M. - We have gone on very comfortably for nearly six miles.
An hour and a half was spent washing down; for along with many
coloured polypi, from corals, shells and insects, the big cable
brings up much mud and rust, and makes a fishy smell by no means
pleasant: the bottom seems to teem with life. - But now we are
startled by a most unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at
first to come from the large low pulley, but when the engines
stopped, the noise continued; and we now imagine it is something
slipping down the cable, and the pulley but acts as sounding-board
to the big fiddle.
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