cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand still and cry outright, regardless of all eyes.'
The Elba arrived at Bona on June 3, and Jenkin landed at Fort Genova, on Cape Hamrah, where some Arabs were building a land line. 'It was a strange scene,' he writes, 'far more novel than I had imagined; the high, steep bank covered with rich, spicy vegetation, of which I hardly knew one plant. The dwarf palm, with fan-like leaves, growing about two feet high, forms the staple verdure.' After dining in Fort Genova, he had nothing to do but watch the sailors ordering the Arabs about under the 'generic term "Johnny."' He began to tire of the scene, although, as he confesses, he had willingly paid more money for less strange and lovely sights. Jenkin was not a dreamer; he disliked being idle, and if he had had a pencil he would have amused himself in sketching what he saw. That his eyes were busy is evident from the particulars given in his letter, where he notes the yellow thistles and 'Scotch-looking gowans' which grow there, along with the cistus and the fig-tree.
They left Bona on June 5, and, after calling at Cagliari and Chia, arrived at Cape Spartivento on the morning of June 8. The coast here is a low range of heathy hills, with brilliant green bushes and marshy pools. Mr. Webb remarks that its reputation for fever was so bad as to cause Italian men-of-war to sheer off in passing by. Jenkin suffered a little from malaria, but of a different origin. 'A number of the Saturday Review here,' he writes; 'it reads so hot and feverish, so tomb-like and unhealthy, in the midst of dear Nature's hills and sea, with good wholesome work to do.'
There were several pieces of submerged cable to lift, two with their ends on shore, and one or two lying out at sea. Next day operations were begun
