"Acclivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... north is dark, lofty Blomidon—whose name is probably a memorial of a Portuguese voyager—with its overhanging cliff under which the tumultuous tides struggle and foam. Here, in a meadow close by, is a long row of Lombardy poplars, pointing to another race and another country. There, on a slight acclivity, among the trees, is a pile of white college buildings, there a tall white spire {52} rises into the pure blue sky. We see cottages covered with honeysuckle and grapevine; with their gardens of roses and ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... crack of our skirmishers' rifles, confirmed us in the belief; an army face to face with its enemy does not employ cavalry to watch its front. True, they might be a general and his staff. Crowning this rise we found a level field, a quarter of a mile in width; beyond it a gentle acclivity, covered with an undergrowth of young oaks, impervious to sight. We pushed on into the open, but the division halted at the edge. Having orders to conform to its movements, we halted too; but that did not suit; we received an intimation to proceed. I had performed this sort of service ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... dusk to the sick chamber of a countryman, I realized the shadows of life in Paris. From the dazzling Boulevard the cab soon wound through dim thoroughfares, up a deserted acclivity, to a gloomy porch. A cold mist was falling, and I heard the bell sound through a vaulted arch with desolate echoes. When the massive door opened, a lamp suspended from a chain revealed a paved entresol and broad ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... arrived at Baton Rouge, 127 miles on our journey; a pretty little town, on the east side, and the first rising ground we had seen, being delightfully situated on a gradual acclivity, from which is a fine view of the surrounding flats. The fine barracks close to it, contain a few companies of troops. We here stopped to take in some ladies, who continued with us till the end of the voyage. To this place the levee, or artificial banks, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... acclivity that overlooked the field, a new line was forming directly beneath us, it being supposed that the advance of the enemy had already been driven in upon his main body, and the great attack was just on ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... most frightful precipices. But the utmost precaution did not always prevent the corps from losing their way. Sometimes men, at the head of a battalion, would continue to follow the windings of a deafening torrent, instead of turning abruptly to the right or left, up some rocky acclivity, over which lay their proper course; whilst others who chanced to be right, would pursue the proper track. The line was so drawn out, that there were unavoidably many intervals, and it was easy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... marshy hollow, beyond which was a tract of high ground, reaching to the fort and serving as the garden of the garrison.[517] Logs and fascines in large quantities were thrown into the hollow, and hurdles were laid over them to form a causeway for the cannon. Then the sap was continued up the acclivity beyond, a trench was opened in the garden, and a battery begun, not two hundred and fifty yards from the fort. The Indians, in great number, crawled forward among the beans, maize, and cabbages, and lay there ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... were to be considered as a correct judge, this venerable pile, composed of hard flint-stone, intermixed with brick, would perhaps claim precedence, on the score of antiquity, over most of the castles of the middle ages. A deep moat, now dry pasture land, with a bold acclivity before you, should seem to bid defiance, even in times of old, to the foot and the spear of the invader. There are circular towers at the extremities, and a square citadel or donjon within. To the north, a good deal of earth has been recently thrown against the bases of the wall. The day ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the sunny world now, and, with a gay smile, turned her horse into a narrow trail and called back to him: "We climb here." He followed, admiring the strength and grace of her rounded figure as her horse zigzagged up the steep acclivity. She was troubled by no problems at this moment. She was rather a daughter of the mountains, a ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... resumed their climb; and after a further three-quarters of an hour of arduous labour—the steepness of the acclivity and the looseness of the soil rendering progress exceedingly slow and difficult—they finally reached their goal, to find themselves standing, as it were, upon the rim of a huge basin about a third of a mile in diameter and some three hundred feet deep, the inner sides sloping almost perpendicularly, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... he had ever seen." It is situated about four miles to the north of Chirk, at the crossing of the Dee, in the romantic vale of Llangollen. The north bank of the river is very abrupt; but on the south side the acclivity is more gradual. The lowest part of the valley in which the river runs is 127 feet beneath the water-level of the canal; and it became a question with the engineer whether the valley was to be crossed, as originally intended, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... the farther slope, the acclivity of which was much less abrupt. The anchors were thrown out from the car and one of them, coming in contact with the branches of an enormous nopal, caught on it firmly. Joe at once let himself slide down the rope and secured it. The silk ladder was then lowered to him and he remounted ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... regarded as classic ground in the ancient and modern history of the country. It will be remembered that the steep acclivity, though bravely defended, was stormed and captured by a mere handful of Americans under General Pillow during the war of 1847. In the rear of the hill, to the southward, less than two miles away, is the field where the battle ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... same number and extent, within the shores of the Sister Island. It was situated upon the rise of a steep hill, at the foot of which ran a clear shallow stream, from whose margin, up to the top of the acclivity, ran two irregular rows of houses, wide apart, and scattered at unequal distances, on the two sides of the high road. They were principally hovels, of a single story in height; a great proportion of them formed of nothing but turf, with no other window but a hole covered with ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... several hours of light remaining, Roswell, still attended by Stimson, each armed with a sealing spear or lance, not only as a weapon of defence but as a leaping-staff, set out to climb as high up the central acclivity of the island as circumstances would allow him to go. He was deceived in the distances, however, and soon found that an entire day would be necessary to achieve such an enterprise, could it be performed at all; but he did succeed in reaching ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... river is so abrupt as to render the summit completely inaccessible even to a pedestrian, except in a very few places, where he may ascend by taking hold of the bushes and rocks that cover the slope. In general the acclivity is made up of precipices arranged one above another, some of which are a hundred and fifty ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... tree. Now a second shot struck her and she charged fiercely up the sloping part of the wall, clearly recognizing the whole situation and determined to destroy that hunter. She came snorting up the steep acclivity wounded and raging, only to receive a final shot in the brain that sent her rolling back to lie dead at the bottom of Pocket Gulch. The hunter, after waiting to make sure, moved to the edge and fired another ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... walked down the hill to Mouse-hole, breasted slowly the steep acclivity which leads therefrom toward the west. Presently he turned, where a plateau of grass sloped above the cliffs into a little theater of banks ablaze with gorse. And here his thoughts and the image they were concerned with perished before reality. Framed in a halo of golden furze, her ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... town was crossed, then the path, as it reached the rising ground, plunged into a deep belt of heavy woods that stretched away on each side for the distance of a mile or more; at the end, the trail crested a rather sharp acclivity before emerging from the trees and linking up with a graveled path that circled a kitchen garden in the rear ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... with a shout that was half a scream, called attention to the holes they had noticed at the foot of the acclivity. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... coagmentation or knitting of the joints is so close, that they are scarce discernible to a curious eye; and that which adds grace to the whole structure, though it makes the passage the more slippery and difficult, is the acclivity or rising of the ascent. The height of this gallery is 26 feet" (Professor Smyth's careful measurements show the true height to be more nearly 28 feet), "the breadth of 6.870 feet, of which 3.435 feet are to be allowed for the way in the midst, which is set and bounded on both sides with two banks ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... you gather together at random; which stones, when they are whited over with mortar, will have a handsome appearance, and be beautiful to the sight. Let the ascent to it be not by steps [16] but by an acclivity of raised earth. And let there be neither an altar nor a temple in any other city; for God is but one, and the nation of ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... summer's morning, and the little birds had begun to chirp their matins, and the lark to brush the dew from her speckled breast, waiting for the first gaze of the sun. The old man pressed the infant closer to his bosom as he drew nigh to the steep acclivity, the solitary dwelling of the eagle. He kissed the babe; then looking round, fearful of intruders, he laid the wicker cradle at the foot of the precipice, and sprang into a dark thicket close by, as if to watch for the descent of the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... part very steep; the streets of it, or main street and secondaries, running off level enough from the River and Bridge; rising by slow degrees, but at last rapidly against the high ground or cliffs, just mentioned; a stiff acclivity of streets, till crowned by the so-called Castle, the 'Augustus Burg' in those days, the 'Friedrich-Wilhelm Barrack' in ours. It was on this crown of the cliffs ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... was approaching the station. The cab horse soon slackened its pace to climb the acclivity of the Rue d'Amsterdam; and shortly afterward the vehicle drew up in the courtyard of the railway station. Faithfully observing the directions which had been given her, the worthy woman had her trunks taken to the baggage-room, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... blended with night when Wildeve ascended the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young innkeeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... he sat at the outer gate, looking sadly on the broad, bright river which flowed calmly beneath, he became aware of the presence of a stranger, who seemed to toil wearily up the steep acclivity on the summit of which the castle is situated. The stranger—an unusual sight within those walls then—soon reached the spot where Ulric sat, and, greeting the youth in the fashion of the times, prayed him for shelter ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... that here a young Dacota mother, goaded by jealousy,—the husband [sic] of her children having taken another wife,—unmoored her canoe above the Great Fall, and seating herself and her children in it,—sang her death song, and went over the foaming acclivity in the face and amid the shrieks of her tribe. And often, the Indian believes, when the nights are calm, and the sky serene,—and the dew-drops are hanging motionless on the sprays of the weeping birch on the island,—and the country far and wide is vibrating to the murmur of the ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... had hardly ceased, when I was again watching Meg Hawkes on the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the acclivity, on the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might be brought safely there. Vain prayer of an agonised heart! Meg's journey was already frustrated: she was not to reach ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... monster's way, but he turns not aside—through the sacred inclosure—on, on he goes. There are situated many tombs, stretching up the slope of a gentle acclivity, from the dark soil of which the white monuments stand forth with white and ghastly gleaming, and on the summit of the hill is the church ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... weary minute passed after minute, without bringing relief. During these anxious moments, she became more than usually conscious of the insulated situation in which he and all who were dearest to her heart were placed. The feelings of a wife prevailed. Quitting the side of the acclivity, she began to walk slowly along the path her husband had taken, until apprehension insensibly urged her into a quicker movement. She had paused only when she stood nearly in the centre of the clearing, on the eminence where her father had halted that evening to contemplate the growing improvement ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... building the city. They could set apart a sufficient space of level ground around the foot of the hill for the houses—inclosing the whole with a wall—while the top of the hill itself might be fortified to form the citadel. The wall and the steep acclivity of the ground would form a protection on three sides of the inclosure, while the morass alone would be a sufficient defense on the part toward the river. Then Romulus was specially desirous to select this ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... detour to keep themselves in the concealment of the woods brough Fortner and Harry out upon an acclivity that almost overhung the ford, and those gathered around it. The two Unionists crawled cautiously through the cedars and laurel to the very edge of the cliff and looked down upon their enemies. They were so near that everything was plainly visible, and the hum ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... equally against every part, being now relinquished, they all incline their forces towards one point; in that direction straining every effort both with their bodies and arms, they forced a passage by forming a wedge. The way led to a hill of moderate acclivity; here they first halted: presently, as soon as the higher ground afforded them time to gain breath, and to recover from so great a panic, they repulsed them as they advanced up; and the small band by the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... eightieth station. On coming to the creek found it running too strong for us to ford it; went along by its side a short distance, and were fortunate to find a tree extending across it, upon which we got over; found the grass as high as our shoulders, crossed a small gully and ascended a slight acclivity, which brought us to the site of the camp; a bare spot of ground indicated the exact locality; this spot was strewed with portions of books, all of a religious or scientific character; found no manuscripts; parts of harness, leather belts, pieces of cedar boxes in ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... north-east of Apoona, which forms the eastern extremity of the island, is low and flat; the acclivity of the inland parts is very gradual, and the whole country covered with cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees. This, as far as we could judge, is the finest part of the island, and we were afterward told ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... baggage and our cattle. Among the rocks of this stupendous defile, our men pitched their tents, and toiled on again day after day, over a wretched road, covered with loose flint-stones, surmounting, at first by a scarcely perceptible ascent, and afterwards by a difficult acclivity, the great Brahoo chain of hills. The Bolan Pass is nearly sixty miles in length. The passage was accomplished in six days. They were days of drear discomfort, but not of danger. A resolute enemy might have wrought mighty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... breath grew short. She refused to burden her husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. At last, she sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity. ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Sicily are still to be seen the magnificent remains of a castle, which formerly belonged to the noble house of Mazzini. It stands in the centre of a small bay, and upon a gentle acclivity, which, on one side, slopes towards the sea, and on the other rises into an eminence crowned by dark woods. The situation is admirably beautiful and picturesque, and the ruins have an air of ancient grandeur, which, contrasted with ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... over to the Chateau a couple of hundred yards distant. Taking a lad who lounged about the inn, to show me the way, I sauntered up the path, pausing a while at a long-disused spring, and idly plucked an apple from a branch which over-hung it. A little further up, and mounting the steep acclivity, I stood ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... chapel stands (O'er Rubaconte, looking lordly down On the well-guided city,) up the right Th' impetuous rise is broken by the steps Carv'd in that old and simple age, when still The registry and label rested safe; Thus is th' acclivity reliev'd, which here Precipitous from the other circuit falls: But on each hand the tall cliff presses close. As ent'ring there we turn'd, voices, in strain Ineffable, sang: "Blessed are the poor In spirit." Ah how far unlike to these The straits of hell; ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... precipitous crag, stood the mountain seat of Escondido. Vines and parasitical plants, mingled with scarlet creeping geraniums, made a living wall of dewy green and red on the face of the hoary rock, falling over here and there at some projecting acclivity in leafy torrents, and then forming a glowing green cornice along the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to site nothing can be more beautifully picturesque than the town of Santa Cruz. It stands in the centre of a spacious bay, on a gentle acclivity surrounded with retiring hills, and the noble promontory of the Peek rising majestically behind it, dignifies the scene beyond description, being continually diversified with every vicissitude of the surrounding atmosphere, emerging ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... marching about. The spires of two churches were visible, one, the oldest, being seated on the low land, in the heart of the place, and the other on the height at no great distance from the fort; or about half-way up the acclivity, which forms the barrier to the inner country, on that side of the river. Both these buildings were of stone, of course, shingle tenements being of very rare occurrence in the colony of New York, though common enough ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... to state; but I believe that in point of cleanliness it is superior to many. It is situated on both banks of the Narenta, in a gorge which opens out into two small plains, at its N. and S. extremities. The eastern and larger part is built on an acclivity, and contains the bazaar, government offices, and the houses of the traders and the richer inhabitants. The western part is occupied by the poorer classes, who are for the most part Catholics, and are employed in agricultural pursuits. The gardens, which supply the town with ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... children; showing that they felt confident of victory, and came prepared to take possession of the territories they hoped to conquer. At length, after passing through a dark gorge, and climbing a steep acclivity, we once more began to descend; when, from the height on which we stood, we looked down upon the vast army of the Inca, collected on a plain, or rather wide valley, between ranges of ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... would stop. By this time one of the rollers would come out behind, and Marco would take it up and carry it round forward, and place it under the bow, and Forester would then say, "Ahead with her!" again, and the boat would immediately advance again up the acclivity. ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... night air drum in Trevison's ears. The big black slowed as he came to a section of broken country surrounding the ancient city, but he got through it quickly and skirted the sand slopes, taking the steep acclivity leading to the ledge of the pueblo in a dozen catlike leaps and coming to a halt in the shadow of an adobe house, heaving deeply, his rider flung himself out of the saddle and ran along the ledge to the door of the chamber where he had ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... splendor of this great esplanade by the sea where the review had been held. The pavement of costly mosaic stretched along the coast, guarded by the lofty tower which jutted out upon the sea; while the other side of this unusual piazza was dominated by the famous Citadel which climbed the steep acclivity with intricate windings of crenellated walls, dotted with sentry towers where banners were floating. In that clear atmosphere distance was not appreciable, and the castellated slopes seemed to lead up to the highest peak of the Troodos, whose snow-crowned summit ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... began to ascend the steep sides of the acclivity. Fortunately for them, a dense mist had arisen, which rolled down the skirts of the hills and filled the valley through which they moved. As soon as they left its cover and were revealed to the Moors a shower of balls and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... required direction, and he, too, fancied he saw something in motion on the margin of the bank. At the point where the wreck lay, the beach was far from wide, and her flying jib-boom, which was still out, projected so near the low acclivity, where the coast rose to the level of the desert, as to come within ten feet of the bushes by which the latter was fringed. Although the spar had drooped a little in consequence of having lost the support of the stays, its end was still sufficiently high to rise above the leaves, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... lumbering stage-coach came up just at evening, more heavily laden than usual, and top-heavy with trunks piled up on the roof. The driver dashed along with his customary recklessness, the six horses breaking into a canter as they turned to come up the rather steep acclivity to the house. The coach was drawn about a foot from its usual rut, one of the wheels struck a projecting stone, and over went the huge vehicle, passengers, trunks, and all. The driver took a terrible leap and was stunned. The horses stopped ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... famous in story, stands upon the Notch road nestling under the steep acclivity of Mount Willey, which rises some two ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... admonitions did not restrain him. Springing from his foaming and panting steed, and taking the bridle in his hand, he descended the side of the acclivity. Ever and anon a rustling among the grass told him that a snake, with which description of reptile the spot abounded, was gliding away from him. His horse, which had hitherto been all fire and impetuosity, now began to manifest symptoms of alarm, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... order," our hero addressed himself to the scaling of the enemy's height. Half the ascent accomplished brought him almost to the brow of the hill, where its slower slope abruptly ended in the steep acclivity which he had just scaled, and here he could distinguish a faint murmur of voices from above. He was slowly bringing himself over the turn between precipice and slope, when a large stone, from which but now he had lifted his foot, supposing it to be the projecting ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... such prodigious speed, running to the height of a sea as though she meant to dart from that eminence into the air, that the slope of each following surge swung like a pendulum under her, and though her sail was becalmed in the trough, her momentum was so great that she was speeding up the acclivity and catching the whole weight of the wind afresh before there was time for her ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... a list of all the famous Thomases in history. The place is full of his memories. His favourite walk was a mile of field-road and lane which leads from the house to a lodge on the highway; and his favourite point of view in that walk was a slight acclivity, whence the traveller from Leicester catches his first sight of Rothley Temple, with its background of hill and greenwood. He is remembered as sitting at the window in the hall, reading Dante to himself, or translating it aloud as long as any listener cared to remain within ear-shot. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... under them to recover their wind. But in spite of every indulgence, it was disheartening to see the perspiration dripping, like a fountain, from the flanks and stomachs of the animals, while they panted for breath. Toiling up the acclivity, we arrived, at last, at the summit of the mountain; and although the elevation must have been several thousand feet above the level of the sea, a plain of great extent, inclining slightly downwards to the north-west, and without the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... near the Happars, I pushed up the acclivity, and soon gained its summit. It tapered to a sharp ridge, from whence I beheld both the hostile valleys. Here I sat down and rested for a moment, refreshing myself with my cocoanuts. I was soon again pursuing my ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... day, what we had never suspected, that at one place our brook turned and came back almost to the road. All that summer it had supped silently through that brushy corner which for some reason we had never penetrated. We discovered, too, a little to one side of our former excursions, a rocky acclivity, a place of pretty hemlock-trees and seclusion—a spot for ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... level haugh beside the Garry, under the house of Runraurie, now called Urrard, with the deep and rapid river in their rear. On this haugh the tourist sees the tall standing stone which, since 1735 at least, has been known as "Dundee's stone." From the haugh rises a steep acclivity, leading to the plateau where the house of Runraurie stood. Mackay feared that Dundee would occupy this plateau, and that the fire thence would break up his own men on the haugh below. He therefore seized the plateau, which was an unfortunate manoeuvre. He ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... less from heat than might be expected. The rate of travelling, too, is much improved from what it used to be. I really believe that on level ground we compassed six miles an hour, and if we did creep as often as a trifling acclivity came in view, it must not be forgotten, that there were but four horses to drag the ponderous load. With respect, again, to our fellow-passengers, they seemed to me to be made up of individuals from many lands. There was an Austrian ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... was a very lonely spot. The cab had stopped before some partially-constructed houses. Beyond that lay vacant lots, on either side. In front, showed a clump of trees, and, at the back of them on a slight acclivity, a ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... been the first exponent of Chinese pictorial art in Japan. In the year A.D. 470, there was another arrival of artisans, this time from Wu (China), including weavers and clothiers. They landed in the province of Settsu, and to commemorate their coming a road called the "Kure-saka" (Wu acclivity) was constructed from that port to the Shihatsu highway. The descendants of these immigrants were organized into two hereditary corporations (be) of silk-clothiers, the Asuka no Kinu-nui-be and the Ise no Kinu-nui-be. Two ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the landscape a sort of copperplate effect, but still the forms of things, though but sketched, as it were, with China ink, were calculated to produce interesting impressions. After ascending, by a gentle acclivity, into a picturesque and romantic pass, we entered a spacious valley, and, in the course of little more than half an hour, reached this town; the largest, the most populous, and the most superb that I have yet seen. But what are all its warehouses, ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... a cottage peeps out among the trees, the winding path that leads to it being now lost to sight in the thick foliage, now visible again as a thin serpentine line of soft grey. Midway on the slopes appear the gardens of Looe, built up the acclivity on stone terraces one above another; thus displaying the veritable garden architecture of the mountains of Palestine magically transplanted to the side of an English hill. Here, in this soft and genial atmosphere, the hydrangea is a common flower-bed ornament, the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... from one to the other. But the chasm between was stupendous. I grew dizzy as I looked downward and saw the endless zigzags yet to be traversed step by step before the bottom of the canyon could be reached, and then the equally interminable zigzags up the acclivity beyond, all of which I must trace, still step by step, before I could hope to arrive at the camp which, from where I stood, looked to be almost ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... varying the pebbles and sand; a clayey spot, where a shallow brook runs into the river, not with a deep outlet, but finding its way across the bank in two or three single runlets. Looking upward into the deep glen whence it issues, you see its shady current. Elsewhere, a high acclivity, with the beach between it and the river, the ridge broken and caved away, so that the earth looks fresh and yellow, and is penetrated by the nests of birds. An old, shining tree-trunk, half in and half out of the water. An island of gravel, long and narrow, in the centre ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... a very small group, lost now in the immensity of the colossal acclivity as we move onward, lighted partly by the wan moon, partly by the red lanterns we hold in our hands, floating at the ends of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... noon, we set out for the Capitol, and after going up the acclivity (not from the Forum, but from the opposite direction), stopped to look at the statues of Castor and Pollux, which, with other sculptures, look down the ascent. Castor and his brother seem to me to have heads disproportionately large, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... throughout the whole day, till my spirits had exhausted themselves by indulgence; and, wearied alike by mental excitement and bodily exertion, I turned, with slow steps, towards the house. As I ascended the gentle acclivity on which it stood, I saw a figure approaching towards me: the increasing shades of the evening did not allow me to recognize the shape until it was almost by my side; it ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Hans, I do believe, if there was no way round it," said Considine, as he gazed in admiring wonder at his tall friend driving his oxen up an acclivity that threatened destruction to waggon, beasts, ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... smoke stacks of three or four transports were visible above the weed stalks and bushes, and the course of one or two more could be traced by a distant, trailing line of smoke as they steamed down toward Savannah. The opposite bank rises from the river a steep acclivity, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet in perpendicular height, down whose sides of brownish yellow clay narrow roadways showed out to the landings below. Cresting the bluff, woods overlooked the whole, and shut in the scene far ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ascended a gentle acclivity, and presently reached what appeared to be a tract of moory undulating ground. It was now tolerably light, but there was a mist or haze abroad which prevented my seeing objects with much precision. I felt ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... advantages that he had obtained over the wilderness, and already the bushes and briers were springing up afresh, as if the plow had never traced furrows through the mold which nourished them. Frances felt her spirits invigorated by these faint vestiges of the labor of man, and she walked up the gentle acclivity with renewed hopes of success. The path now diverged in so many different directions, that she soon saw it would be useless to follow their windings, and abandoning it, at the first turn, she labored forward towards ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the back door of the cabin and swiftly ascended the little trail that rose at a sharp acclivity to the spring. At some height above the cabin, they crouched behind boulders and watched the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... plantation towards a wall running along the foot of the hill. Here a long halt was made in order to reorganize the attack, and when the word was given the men pressed forward and threw-themselves upon the rough front of the acclivity after a rush across an open slope. The crest was attained and carried without much difficulty; for all but a few stalwarts had quitted it when they saw the British bayonets pricking upwards ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... relieved in one direction by a chain of excessively bold, detached, well-wooded, rocky, pyramidal mountains, which stood forth in grand relief. In advance the picture was bounded by forest and mountain; one bold acclivity, in shape of a dome, standing prominent among its fellows. It was a lovely evening: the sky, overcast and gloomy, threw an interesting, wild, mysterious coloring over the landscape. I gazed forth upon the romantic scene before me with intense delight, and felt melancholy and sorrowful at passing ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... fall of a few inches is sufficient to diversify the prospect; there is always some gentle acclivity to be surmounted, which cheats the sense with the expectation of finding a novel scene beyond: the sand-hills in the distance also range themselves in wild and fantastic forms, many appearing like promontories ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... British band remained undaunted, still they prepared boldly for the final rush. Presently, with renewed energy the three gallant regiments, steadily and determinedly as ever, started off, scaled the wall, clambered up the steep acclivity, and finally, with a rush and a roar as of released pandemonium, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... lead; whispering to Hal to be sure and keep by my side, whatever might happen; we spurred our horses up the steep acclivity; our rifles cocked, and ready at the word to pour a ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... short rest we started for the final climb, first up a steep acclivity, covered with low shrubs and stones, and then across a wide hollow, where several springs of deliciously cold water break out. Less than an hour's easy work brought us to the highest point of a ridge which fell northward in a precipice, and our Kafirs declared that ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... be a frame-work, apparently of silver wire. We now comfortably seated ourselves, when two large wings struck out from it like those of some great condor. We moved rapidly over the acclivity. This is a new way of crossing the mountains, thought I; I will have to introduce it in ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... him, where he was standing, the easy slope went back for a hundred yards or so, covered with short, wild grass, with here and there a stunted tree. Turning round, he saw the land rising by a steep acclivity towards the heights which bordered on the sea in such tremendous cliffs. Over the heights, and along the crest of those cliffs, were flying great flocks of sea-gulls, which kept up one incessant chorus of harsh, discordant screams. In front of him spread out a broad ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... much as possible until the sun was high in the heavens; when becoming weary with their hard ride, and faint for want of food, they halted in a spot where a cool spring gushed from beneath a huge boulder that looked as if it had been hurled from a rocky acclivity above to its bed. Tethering their horses where they could feed, they set a guard and began with all haste to eat such as their provision bags afforded. Cooking was out of the question, for the smoke would point out the exact spot where they were, a thing they were ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... evening, filled the whole valley with a wreath of silvery vapour, dimly lighted by the thin fragment of a moon that appeared as if resting at the time on the hill-top. The wreath stretched out its grey folds beneath him, for he had climbed half-way up the acclivity, when suddenly what seemed the figure of a man in heated metal—the figure of a brazen man brought to a red heat in a furnace—sprang up out of the darkness; and after stalking over the surface of the fog for a few seconds—in which, however, it traversed the greater part ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... around for a stick. He readily found one, and began to push the blazing roll up the acclivity; but as fast as he pushed it up, it rolled down again, and all his ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... Tamasese fled by night from Mulinuu, they carried their wandering government some six miles to windward, to a position above Lotoanuu. For some three miles to the eastward of Apia, the shores of Upolu are low and the ground rises with a gentle acclivity, much of which waves with German plantations. A barrier reef encloses a lagoon passable for boats: and the traveller skims there, on smooth, many-tinted shallows, between the wall of the breakers on the one hand, and on the other a succession of palm-tree capes and cheerful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of some chosen soldiers of Isabel's own body-guard, after traversing the camp, winding along that part of the mountainous defile which was in the possession of the Spaniards, and ascending a high and steep acclivity, halted before the gates of a strongly fortified castle renowned in the chronicles of that memorable war. The hoarse challenge of the sentry, the grating of jealous bars, the clanks of hoofs upon the rough pavement of the courts, and the ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book III. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... minutes to sunset, and I was anxious to get back to my quarters before dusk fell. Therefore I hurried up my boy, who was drawing the rickshaw, telling him to cross the Canal by the Wu-men Bridge. He ran fleetly in that direction, and we were actually come to the steep acclivity of the bridge, when suddenly the boy dropped the shafts and fell down on his knees, hiding his face in ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... occasion, was proceeding more slowly than before—in fact, owing to a slight acclivity in that part of the street, the horses were leisurely walking past the inn window at the moment the stranger raised it. The noise of the ascending sash reached Miss Gourlay (for it was she), who, on looking up, crimsoned deeply, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Academy and the Colonos, the retreat of OEdipus during his banishment, a little to the right; they then entered the Olive Groves, crossed the Cephessus, and came to an open, well-cultivated plain, extending on the left to the Piraeus and the sea. Having ascended by a gentle acclivity through a pass, at the distance of eight or ten miles from Athens, the ancient Corydallus, now called Daphnerouni, they came, at the bottom of a piney mountain, to the little monastery of Daphne, the appearance and situation of which are in agreeable unison. The monastery was then fast verging ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt |
