The Elba had run her nose on a sandbank. After trying to force her over it, an anchor was put out astern and the rope wound by a steam winch, while the engines were backed; but all in vain. At length a small Turkish steamer, the consort of the Elba, came to her assistance, and by means of a hawser helped to tug her off: The pilot again ran her aground soon after, but she was delivered by the same means without much damage. When two-thirds of this cable was laid the line snapped in deep water, and had to be recovered. On Saturday, June 4, they arrived at Syra, where they had to perform four days' quarantine, during which, however, they started repairing the Canea cable.
Bad weather coming on, they took shelter in Siphano, of which Jenkin writes: 'These isles of Greece are sad, interesting places. They are not really barren all over, but they are quite destitute of verdure; and tufts of thyme, wild mastic, or mint, though they sound well, are not nearly so pretty as grass. Many little churches, glittering white, dot the islands; most of them, I believe, abandoned during the whole year with the exception of one day sacred to their patron saint. The villages are mean; but the inhabitants do not look wretched, and the men are capital sailors. There is something in this Greek race yet; they will become a powerful Levantine nation in the course of time.'
In 1861 Jenkin left the service of Newall & Co., and entered into partnership with Mr. H. C. Forde, who had acted as engineer under the British Government for the Malta-Alexandria cable, and was now practising as a civil engineer. For several years after this business was bad, and with a young family coming, it was an anxious time for him; but he seems to have borne his troubles lightly. Mr. Stevenson says it was his principle 'to enjoy each day's happiness as it arises, like birds and children.'
In 1863 his first son was born, and the family removed to a cottage at Claygate, near Esher. Though ill and poor at this period, he kept up his self-confidence. 'The country,' he wrote to his wife, 'will give us, please God, health and strength. I will love and cherish you more than ever. You shall go where you wish, you shall receive whom you wish, and as for money, you shall have that too. I cannot be mistaken. I have now measured myself with many men. I do not feel weak. I do not feel that I shall fail. In many things I have succeeded, and I will in this.... And meanwhile, the time of waiting, which, please Heaven, shall not be so long, shall also not be so bitter. Well, well, I promise much, and do not know at this moment how you and the dear child are. If he is but better, courage, my girl, for I see light.'
He took to gardening, without a natural liking for it, and soon became an ardent expert. He wrote reviews, and lectured, or amused himself in playing charades, and reading poetry. Clerk Maxwell, and Mr. Ricketts, who was lost in the La Plata, were among his visitors. During October, 1860, he superintended the repairs of the Bona-Spartivento cable, revisiting Chia and Cagliari, then full of Garibaldi's troops. The cable, which had been broken by the anchors of coral fishers, was grapnelled with difficulty. 'What rocks we did hook!' writes Jenkin. 'No sooner was the grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a business: ship's engines going, deck engine thundering, belt slipping, tear of breaking ropes; actually breaking grapnels. It was always an hour or more before we could get the grapnels down again.'
In 1865, on the birth of his second son, Mrs. Jenkin was very ill, and Jenkin, after running two miles for a doctor, knelt by her bedside during the night in a draught, not wishing to withdraw his hand from hers. Never robust, he suffered much from flying rheumatism and sciatica ever afterwards. It nearly disabled him while laying the Lowestoft to Norderney cable for Mr. Reuter, in 1866. This line was designed by Messrs. Forde & Jenkin, manufactured by Messrs. W. T. Henley & Co., and laid by the Caroline and William Cory. Miss Clara Volkman, a niece of Mr. Reuter, sent the first message, Mr. C. F, Varley holding her hand.
In 1866 Jenkin was appointed to the professorship of Engineering in University College, London. Two years later his prospects suddenly improved; the partnership began to pay, and he was selected to fill the Chair of Engineering, which had been newly established, in Edinburgh University. What he thought of the change may be gathered from a letter to his wife: 'With you in the garden (at Claygate), with Austin in the coach-house, with pretty songs in the little low white room, with the moonlight in the dear room upstairs—ah! it was perfect; but the long walk, wondering, pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and the horrid fusty office, with its endless disappointments, they are well gone. It is well enough to fight, and scheme, and bustle about in the eager crowd here (in London) for awhile now and then; but not for a lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for talk.'
The liberality of the Scotch universities allowed him to continue his private enterprises, and the summer holiday was long enough to make a trip round the globe.
The following June he was on board the Great Eastern while she laid the French Atlantic cable from Brest to St. Pierre. Among his shipmates were Sir William Thomson, Sir James Anderson, C. F. Varley, Mr. Latimer Clark, and Willoughby Smith. Jenkin's sketches of Clark and Varley are particularly happy. At St. Pierre, where they arrived in a fog, which lifted to show their consort, the William Cory, straight ahead, and the Gulnare signalling a welcome, Jenkin made the curious observation that the whole island was electrified by the battery at the telegraph station.
Jenkin's position at Edinburgh led to a partnership in cable work with Sir William Thomson, for whom he always had a love and admiration. Jenkin's clear, practical, and business-like abilities were doubtless an advantage to Sir William, relieving him of routine, and sparing his great abilities for higher work. In 1870 the siphon recorder, for tracing a cablegram in ink, instead of merely flashing it by the moving ray of the mirror galvanometer, was introduced on long cables, and became a source of profit to Jenkin and Varley as well as to Sir William, its inventor.