_Saturday, August 5th._--There was no change in the weather. A grey mist enveloped the Great Eastern from stem to stern, blanket-like as sleep itself. The haze--for so it was rather than a fog--got lighter soon after 12 o'clock, but it was quite out of the question to attempt an observation of a longitudinal character. The steam-whistles pierced the fog-banks miles away. Shoals of grampuses, black fish, porpoises, came out of the obscure to investigate the source of such dread clamour, and blew, spouted, and rolled on the tops of the smooth unctuous-looking folds of water that undulated in broad sweeping billows on our beam. Our great object was to get sight of the buoy, and by that means make a guess at our position. At 12·30 p.m. the Terrible was sighted on the port beam, and our fog music was hushed. At 2·30 o'clock, p.m., the Terrible signalled that the buoy was three miles distant from her. This was quite an agreeable incident. Every eye was strained in search of the missing buoy, and at last the small red flag at the top of the staff was made out on the horizon. At 3·45 o'clock, p.m., the Great Eastern was abreast of the buoy, which was hailed with much satisfaction. It bore itself bravely, though rather more depressed than we had anticipated, and it was like meeting an old friend, to see it bobbing at us up and down in the ocean. It was resolved to steer N.W. by N. for 5 or 6 miles, so as to pass some miles beyond the Cable, and then, if the wind answered, to drift down and grapple. The Great Eastern signalled to the Terrible, "Please watch the buoy;" and, under her trusty watch and ward, we left the sole mark of the expedition fixed on the surface of the sea, and stood towards the northward. The wind, however, did not answer, and the grapnel was not thrown overboard.
_Aug. 6th, Sunday._--It was very thick all through the night--fog, rain, drizzle alternately, and all together. When morning broke, the Terrible was visible for a moment in a lift of the veil of grey vapour which hung down from the sky on the face of the waters. The buoy was of course quite lost to view, nor did we see it all day. At 10·45 a.m. Captain Anderson read prayers in the saloon. At noon it was quite hopeless to form a conjecture respecting the position of the sun or of the horizon, but Captain Moriarty and Captain Anderson were ready to pounce upon either, and as the least gleam of light came forth, sextants in hand, like the figures which indicate fine weather in the German hygrometers. The sea was calm, rolling in lazy folds under the ship, which scarcely condescended to notice them. She is a wonder! In default of anything else, it was something to lie on a sofa in the ladies' saloon, and try to think you really were on the bosom of the Atlantic,--not a bulkhead creaking, not a lamp moving, not a glass jingling. Under the influence of an unknown current, the Great Eastern was drifting steadily against the wind. When the circumstance was noticed, it could only be referred to the "Gulf Stream," which is held answerable for a good many things all over the world. At 4 p.m. the buoy was supposed to be 15 miles N.W. ½ N. of us, the wind being E.S.E., but it was only out of many calculations Captain Moriarty and Captain Anderson created a hypothetical position. There had been no good observation for three days, and until we could determine the ship's position exactly, and get a good wind to drift down on the Cable, it would be quite useless to put down the grapnel.