Note B — Chapter XIV · THE EXPEDITION OF 1865.
Reading edition
"All during the night the process of picking up was carefully carried on, the Big Ship behaving beautifully, and hanging lightly over the cable, as if fearful of breaking the slender cord which swayed up and down in the ocean. Indeed, so delicately did she answer her helm, and coil in the film of thread-like cable over her bows, that she put one in mind of an elephant taking up a straw in its proboscis."—Russell.