"Nautical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... model before my eyes now while I write. It is dusty with age; the paint on it is cracked; the ropes are tangled; the sails are moth-eaten and yellow. The hull is all out of proportion, and the rig has been smiled at by every nautical friend of mine who has ever looked at it. Yet, worn-out and faulty as it is—inferior to the cheapest miniature vessel nowadays in any toy-shop window—I hardly know a possession of mine in this world that I would not sooner part with ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... of a gardener of Galloway. He had taken to the sea at a very early age, and had finally settled in Virginia. At the breaking out of the war he offered his services to congress, and a commission was given him, under which he cruised among our West India Islands, where he made many prizes. His nautical skill and his success were so great that he acquired the name of the best of all corsair captains. In 1777 he was appointed to the command of a French-built ship under American colours, and he then proceeded upon a cruise to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... gate. The fine old doorway, brass-knockered, arched by a spray of crimson rambler, was flanked on one hand by a great conch-shell, on the other by an enormous specimen of branch-coral, thus subtly intimating to passers-by that the owner of the house had been in "foreign parts." A distinctly nautical atmosphere was lent to the broad, deck-like verandah by a ship's barometer, a chart of Cape Cod, and a highly polished brass telescope mounted on a tripod so as to command the entire expanse of the bay. Here Cap'n Bryant, a retired New Bedford ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... first importance in the geographical distribution of the empire that the five principal divisions, the United [Sidenote: Divisions.] Kingdom, South Africa, India, Australia and Canada are separated from each other by the three great oceans of the world. The distance as usually calculated in nautical miles: from an English port to the Cape of Good Hope is 5840 m.; from the Cape of Good Hope to Bombay is 4610; from Bombay to Melbourne is 5630; from Melbourne to Auckland is 1830; from Auckland to Vancouver is 6210; from Halifax ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... had a compass, a quadrant, a copy of Bowditch's 'Navigator,' and a Nautical Almanac, and the captain's and chief mate's boats had chronometers. There were thirty-one men all told. The captain took an account of stock, with the following result: four hams, nearly thirty pounds of salt pork, half-box of raisins, one hundred pounds of bread, twelve ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the voyage is beguiled by watching the graceful movements of the wandering albatross, the fateful bird of nautical romance, which is sure to be seen in considerable numbers below the thirtieth parallel of south latitude. The peculiarities of this sea-bird's flight are a constant marvel, for it scarcely ever plies its wings, but literally ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... show how contact between the two languages has taken place, or the particular reasons which have brought about the borrowing. A Chinese word cannot suddenly make its appearance in Anglo-Saxon, though it may quite well do so in modern English. No nautical terms have reached us from the coast of Bohemia (Winter's Tale, iii. 3), nor is the vocabulary of the wine trade enriched by Icelandic words. Although we have words from all the languages of Europe, our direct borrowings ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... lightly across the waters, and bounded so merrily through their sparkling ripples, that she seemed more like a fairy craft than a real yacht of boards and canvas. "I'd give a good deal to be in her!" exclaimed Hall, one of our party, a sea captain's son, to whom on all nautical matters we accorded the amplest deference. "So would I," said Hutton. ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... considerable distance into the sea, and another ledge of the same aspect, lies still farther seaward; consequently the course of a careful pilot, is to hold his way free through the channel between them. If a lands-*man may be permitted to make an observation on a nautical point, I would say that our steersman kept the peak of the Corbiere exactly on a level with the adjacent precipices, till we were directly abreast of the headland, and then stood abruptly in-shore till within a few fathoms ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... and will cut his cable and run before the wind as soon as he can get off,' called Demi, with 'a nice derangement of nautical epitaphs', as he came up ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... The New York Nautical School on board the ship St. Mary's must not be confounded with the school-ship Mercury, which formerly existed at this port; the latter was a floating reformatory, while the former was established for the purpose of training American ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... skirts of the village, on a green bank a little back from the road, with a small garden in front stocked with kitchen herbs and adorned with a few flowers. The whole front of the cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. On the top was a ship for a weathercock. The interior was fitted up in a truly nautical style, his ideas of comfort and convenience having been acquired on the berth-deck of a man-of-war. A hammock was slung from the ceiling which in the daytime was lashed up so as to take but little room. From the centre of the chamber hung a model ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... I do not cast anchor there so long, that you will find the best thing will be to cut the cables, send me adrift, and thus get rid of me," replied the old sailor, delighted at her addressing him in nautical phrase. "Your appearance here has belied half the stories I heard; so now that you have given me permission, I shall set sail to discover the truth ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... what we nautical Men shout to one another as we pass in our Ships. The Answer is generally only an Echo; but you will have to tell me something more. I find it rather disgusting to set you an example by telling of my Doings; for it is always the same thing over and ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... about, to be sure—here, there, everywhere; and how proudly Dick aired the small amount of nautical language he had managed to pick up! Rough men turned and smiled half unconsciously as the two blithe figures flitted past and their merry laughter rang out in the frosty air. They seemed so happy, and the hearts hardened ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... in the second volume, in which a French frigate is attacked by two English line-of-battle ships, one of which she sinks, and receives in return the entire point-blank broadside of the other, a three-decker; which broadside, we in our ignorance of nautical matters, should have thought sufficient to blow her either out of the water or under it. It has not that effect, however, and the frigate is captured; the captain of her, when he has hauled down his flag in order to save the lives of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... wind, often light, and sometimes for days and weeks sunk into utter calm, the provincial vessels, in many cases, suffered the extremest hardships, in passages, which at the present day seem to have been incredibly protracted. There is on record in some collections of nautical disasters, an account of one of these ships, which, starting on a voyage whose duration was estimated at ten days, spent four months at sea, and indeed never again entered harbor, for in the end she was cast away. Singular to tell, this craft never encountered ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Lilliput all the dimensions are scientifically computed on a scale one-twelfth as large as that of man; in Brobdingnag, by an exact reversal, everything is twelve times greater than among men. But the long list of technical nautical terms which seem to make a spirited narrative at the beginning of the second of Gulliver's voyages is merely ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... sure, were of earlier date, such as the Van Kortlandts, the Van Zandts, the Ten Broecks, the Harden Broecks, and others of Pavonian renown, who gloried in the title of "Discoverers," from having been engaged in the nautical expedition from Communipaw, in which they so heroically braved the terrors of Hell-gate and Buttermilk-channel, and discovered ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... our thanks to the Rev. E. Warre, of Eton College, for certain corrections on nautical points. In particular, he has convinced us that the raft of Odysseus in B. v. is a raft strictly so called, and that it is not, under the poet's description, elaborated into a ship, as has been commonly supposed. The translation ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... more head sail," answered Fanny, using an expression she had borrowed from the nautical speeches of ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... compatriot; and, as he was getting dinner, he had several nice dishes, from which he treated his new friend. But the pilot's services were soon needed in the pilot-house. He spoke a little English, consisting mainly of nautical terms. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... little kingdom of Gombroon down into the tropics, 10 deg., I think, south of the line. Now, at least, I was on the right side of the hedge, or so I flattered myself; for it struck me that my brother never would degrade himself by fitting out a costly nautical expedition against poor little Gombroon; and how else could he get at me? Surely the very fiend himself, if he happened to be in a high arctic latitude, would not indulge his malice so far as to follow its trail into the tropic of Capricorn. And what was to be got by such a freak? There ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... much died as "slipped his wind"—a nautical expression that conveys the idea of an easy exit. He went off, quiet and genteel. He was past eighty, and had lived fast. His servant called him at seven in the morning. "I will shave at eight," said Mr. Cibber. John brought the hot water at eight; but his master had taken advantage ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... have no calling, may offer an opinion either about seamanship or about diseases—whether as to the manner in which physic or surgical instruments are to be applied to the patient, or again about the vessels and the nautical implements which are required in navigation, and how to meet the dangers of winds and waves which are incidental to the voyage, how to behave when encountering pirates, and what is to be done with the old-fashioned galleys, if they have to fight with others of a similar build—and ...
— Statesman • Plato
... gets his navigation aboard ship knows his business. Got mine there; yes, sir! Did'nt know a Bowditch from a Bible when I went aboard ship. Can do my amplitude and variations now without looking at a nautical ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Danube and Theiss, have a generic word for herd, csorda, and special terms for herds of cattle, horses, sheep, and swine.[71] While the vocabulary of Malays and Polynesians is especially rich in nautical terms, the Kirghis shepherd tribes who wander over the highlands of western Asia from the Tian Shan to the Hindu Kush have four different terms for four kinds of mountain passes. A daban is a difficult, rocky defile; an art is very high and ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... was on an English war vessel,—the vessel of a nation professing a high state of civilization. We blush to say it, it was no better on an American man-of-war, if nautical writers of high authority are to be believed, and, even to-day, the brute often holds a commission in the American army and navy. Although flogging is of the past, punishment equally severe is inflicted. The necessities ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... family. So we all had to help him as much as we could. He was an Englishman named Arundel, and was in some Government employment in Rangoon. I do not remember exactly what it was, but think he was connected with maritime matters, for I remember that he had many nautical books, and used to go away frequently in the Government steamers to Perak and Singapore. I can scarcely remember my mother, for she died when I, who was the youngest of the family, was about six years old. But I think she was of Dutch-Javanese parentage, for sometimes she ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... arrival the party turned their thoughts to nautical affairs. Shelley had already done a good deal of boating with Williams on the Arno and the Serchio, and had on one occasion nearly lost his life by the capsizing of their tiny craft. They now determined to build a ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... coast of Peru, but that was all he certainly knew of his position. The storm had struck the ship in the morning, before he had taken his daily observation, and his room, which was on deck, had been carried away, as well as every nautical instrument on board. He did not believe that the storm had taken him far out of his course, but of this he could not be sure. All that he knew with certainty was that to the eastward lay the land, and eastward, therefore, they pulled, a little compass ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... sails, that stood out on each side like great bat's wings; while all this mass of sail was dark in shadow against the western glow. As the spectators watched her, those among them who knew a little about nautical matters guessed that this must be a man-of-war from the rapidity with which she began to furl her sails—letting the golden light shine along between her spars; while they further concluded, from the fact that only a kedge was thrown out at ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... from Charleston, bound to Havre-de-Grace. All the letters we could find on board were very unceremoniously broken open, and nothing having transpired that could identify the cargo as enemy's property, we were bundling over the side, when a nautical-looking subject, who had attracted my attention from the first, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the yacht to Gualtier. He was found without any difficulty, and brought before the chief. It seems he was a common broker, who had bought the vessel at auction, on speculation, because the price was so low. He knew nothing whatever about nautical matters, and hated the sea. He had hardly ever been on board of her, and had never examined her. He merely held her in his possession till he could find a chance of selling her. He had sold her for more than double the money that he had paid for her, and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... population of Italy; as to the towns, it has declined on account of the new channels of commerce which nautical discovery has opened, to the prejudice of the marts and ports of the middle ages. In spite of this, however, he says, "that the provinces have increased both in riches and inhabitants, and the population ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... the court the sun blazed—within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and they were fiercely distinct in the half-light of the big court-room where the audience seemed composed of staring shadows. They wanted facts. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... troops; a rampart is the embankment surrounding a fort, on which the parapet is raised; the word rampart is often used as including the parapet. Bulwark is a general word for any defensive wall or rampart; its only technical use at present is in nautical language, where it signifies the raised side of a ship above the upper deck, topped by the rail. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... side with noiseless step, and sweet timidity; her hair was prettily adjusted, and a soft blush mantled on her damask cheek. Mr. Somerville accompanied the ladies, and introduced me regularly to them. There were many kind inquiries and much sympathy expressed, on the subject of my nautical accident, and some remarks upon the wild scenery of the neighborhood, with which the ladies seemed ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... town, and hearing nautical terms frequently used, I had always supposed this term to mean an old vessel, {127} with sheers, or spars, erected upon it, for the purpose of masting and unmasting ships, and was led to attribute the use of it, by Sir W. Scott and other writers, for a vessel totally dismasted, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... delightful suggestions from his meetings with frank, unconscious, and individual people of tastes and life unlike his own. I have heard it told with a polite, self-satisfied scorn, that he was in the habit of visiting now and then a tavern patronized by 'longshore-men and nautical veterans, to listen to their talk. I can well believe it, for it is this sort of intercourse that a person of manly genius, with a republican fellow-feeling for the unrenowned, most covets. How well he gives the tone of these old sea-dogs, when he writes: "The blast will put in its word among ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... enter into a comparison of the contents of our Nautical Almanack with those of its rival, the Connaissance des Temps; but we shall defer it for the present. The Nautical Almanack for 1851 will contain Mr. Adams's paper 'On the Perturbation of Uranus'; and when it comes, in due course, before the public, we are ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... which I have seen in portrait needlework came to light at the Baltimore Exhibition, and was a piazza group of five figures, a burly sea-captain seated in a rocking chair in a nautical dress and his own grayish hair embroidered above his ruddy face, his wife in a white satin gown seated beside him, and his three daughters of appropriately different ages grouped around, while the ship Constance ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... and saw two sailors bearing down upon him (to use a nautical phrase) with arms locked, and evidently with more liquor aboard than they could ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the last three pages of the letter. It was doubtless intentionally omitted by Ramusio, though it would be difficult to say why. Some of the readings are apparently corrupt; nor, ignorant as we are of nautical science, was it in our power to correct them. There are also some slight mistakes, which must be attributed ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... steamer, amongst the crowd, he bustled about, never still for a moment, "dragging his anchors," in nautical speech, gesticulating, making friends with everybody, and biting his nails nervously. He was one of those original beings whom the Creator invents in a moment of fantasy, and of whom He immediately breaks ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... important character and the title of a nautical burletta by E. Fitzball, based on the novel so called by J. Fenimore Cooper, of New York. "The pilot" turns out to be the brother of Colonel Howard, of America. He happened to be in the same vessel which was taking out the colonel's wife and only son. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... be my helmswoman, I can imagine nothing more delightful than the excursion you propose. But I am inland bred, and must place myself at the mercy of your nautical experience." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... the codeclination as given in the Nautical Almanac. The mean value decreases by about ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... df were formed in one piece, and were pivoted at the crown d on a bolt passing through the forked shank ab. The points or pees e, f, to the palms g were blunt. This anchor had an excellent reputation amongst nautical men of that period, and by the committee on anchors, appointed by the admiralty in 1852, it was placed second only to the anchor of Trotman. Later came the self-canting anchor, which, passing through successive improvements, became the improved Martin anchor (fig. 2) made of forged iron. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... securely fastened. Looking down from the skylight into the cabin Rodman saw that the cooper had not yet come to, and therefore no danger need be apprehended from him. Sending Wray below, the rifles, ammunition, and nautical instruments were passed up on deck and handed down into the boat. Then, leaving Porter on guard to watch the cooper, Rodman and the others went for'ard with a couple of axes and slashed away at the standing fore-rigging on both sides; they then cut half-way ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... sure also that Conrad, at his very best, is not so good as Melville, at his best, in nautical narrative; as Melville in, say, the first day of the final chase of Moby Dick; I question whether he is as good in sea narrative as Cooper in the famous passage of Paul Jones's ship through the shoals. Such comparisons are, of course, rather futile. They differentiate ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... schooner, and when they entered the harbor at Nassau, he was glad to find the "Foam" at anchor there. As the schooner glided past the "Foam," Paul loudly hailed her. Captain Balbo protruded his red head through the gangway. When he recognized Paul, he greeted, him with a burst of semi-nautical and semi-scriptural eloquence and shouted: "Oi'll sind a boat afther ye. Come aboard ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... boy's generous words; and though a man not at all demonstrative, he was observed to be taken as if with a sudden cold in his head, to judge by the vigorous use of his pocket handkerchief; but all he said was conveyed in a single nautical phrase,—"The youngster is on the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... held the lines, was obliged to jerk the boat's head sharply round to avoid a barge or an anchored vessel. It seemed to Racksole that vessels were anchored all over the stream. He looked about him anxiously, but for a long time he could see nothing but mist and vague nautical forms. Then suddenly he said, quietly enough, 'We're on the right road; I ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... not himself attribute the first volume of 'Robinson Crusoe' to Lord Oxford. The following is the passage to which Byron refers ('Naufragia', vol. i. pp. 12, 13): "But before I conclude this Section, I wish to make the admirers of this Nautical Romance mindful of a Report, which prevailed many years ago; that Defoe, after all, was not the real author of Robinson Crusoe. This assertion is noticed in an article in the seventh volume of the 'Edinburgh Magazine' [vol. vii. p. 269]. Dr. Towers, in his 'Life' of Defoe in the 'Biographia', ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... years of which we have records of their voyages, although the Dutch navigators' work, compared with that done by Cook and his successors, was of small account, yet, considering the state of nautical science, and that the ships were for the most part Dutch East Indiamen, the Dutch names which still sprinkle the north and the west coasts of the continent show that from Cape York in the extreme north, westward of the great Australian Bight in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... (Distances in nautical miles, supplied by Hydrographic Office, Navy Department; land routes in statute miles ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... moon's distance and motion are accurately known, and may be taken from the Nautical Almanac, being all embodied in the moon's parallax or semi-diameter, and in the declination and right ascension; but for the most important element,—the moon's mass, we in vain look to astronomy. In fact, it may be averred that the importance attached ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... or four hours' sail Geoffrey and Lionel acquired much nautical knowledge. They learned the difference between the mainmast and the mizzen, found that all the strong ropes that kept the masts erect and stiff were called stays, that the ropes that hoist sails are called halliards, and that sheets is the name given ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... daughter and younger son in the new country; that was after the Loyalists and their Indian allies had destroyed the Farmer's house at Pine Hill, after his wife had fled to Westchester with her two children, and had died there soon after, leaving them unprotected. But all this must, in nautical phrase, "go by the board," including the novel founded upon the episode. Nor can we linger over Crevecoeur's entry into polite society, both in the Norman capital and at Paris. Fancy the returned prodigal—if one may so describe him—in the salon of Madame d'Houdetot, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Dewey s door a waiter from one of these, who bore on a salver before him a supper covered with a napkin. Zerrilla had admitted them, and at her greeting a young fellow in the shabby shore-suit of a sailor, buttoning imperfectly over the nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not rise, but began a shrill, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that of Dante as the adventures of Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. The author of Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing. We are not ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... Charles Kent, who led, or rather cleared the way, Forster following with a smiling modesty, as if he sought to avoid too much notice. His rotund figure was swathed in a tight fitting paletot, while a sort of nautical wrapper was round his throat. He fancied no doubt that many an eye was following him; that there was many a whisper, "That is the great John Forster." He passed on solemnly through the hall and out at the door leading ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... long and exceptionally well-written book by this prolific author. It is full of interest and strong situations. The date of the events is supposed to be early in the eighteenth century, and of course all matters nautical are under sail (or oars). That date is ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... emperor or his descendants, Bertheville ceased to be known under any other denomination than that of Dyppe, a Norman word, expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told that Dieppe became the principal port in the duchy. That politic sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the improving of it. It was at Dieppe that he embarked the troops, which ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... surveyors and nautical cartographers to achieve standardization in nautical charts and electronic chart displays; to provide advice on nautical cartography and hydrography; to develop the sciences in the field of hydrography and techniques ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... in the nautical sense, Juve took his duckings with equanimity: a bit of a pitch and toss ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... like-mindedness but not an evidence of a common purpose. The difference between an animal herd and a human crowd is that the crowd, what Le Bon calls the "organized crowd," the crowd "in being" to use a nautical term, is dominated by an impulse to achieve a purpose that is common to every member of the group. Men in a state of panic, on the other hand, although equally under the influence of the mass excitement, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... boat. The helm has to be shifted to meet this change. Almost always the tiller has to be carried to the weather side of the boat. Do you know which the weather side of the boat is, fellows?" asked the expounder of nautical matters. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... days, and Captain Bligh had, by his careful calculation, and determination to give each man only that equal portion they had agreed to accept, made it last for fifty days, during which time they had come three thousand six hundred and eighteen nautical miles. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... songs quoted in "The Hammers" are taken from 'Songs: Naval and Nautical, of the late Charles Dibdin', London, John Murray, 1841. The "Hanging Johnny" refrain, in "The Cremona Violin", is borrowed from the old, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... whole scheme of things here sets the nervous system on edge from morning till night. There is a cannon somewhere in this steamer, and it will fire in a moment; for no reason, that I can see, except a nautical love of unnecessary noise. These ships cannot come to a place or depart again without firing ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... From the northern spurs of that mountain the dividing line ran in a north-westerly direction towards the Victoria Nyanza. The same agreement recognised the authority of the Sultan of Zanzibar as extending over the island of that name, those of Pemba and Mafia, and over a strip of coastline ten nautical miles in width; but the ownership of the district of Vitu north of Mombasa was left open[432]. (See map at the close ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... by the vessels of this and other clubs. There is also a TOWN REGATTA held about the same time, for the purpose of giving encouragement to the skilful and deserving watermen: the sailing matches being between the wherries of the place, which are of a large size, and esteemed by nautical men to be the finest sea-boats in the kingdom: and as the race is confined to a circuit which can be distinctly seen from the whole of the Pier, there is as much interest excited as if the prizes were contested between ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... laid down with the most minute attention to truth; but the distance at which he was obliged to keep, although it did not prevent him from laying the coast line down with an accuracy of outline sufficient for all nautical purposes, did not allow him to perceive openings which, though doubtless of little consequence to shipping, yet present the most serious obstacles to travellers by land; and of which, if they had been laid down in the chart, I should have hesitated to have ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... was not absolutely ignorant of nautical phraseology, promptly ported his helm and at the same moment stopped the engines, by which manoeuvre the Flying Fish glided close past the object so slowly that it was easily distinguishable as ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... fresh, sculling with his arms bare, a cigarette in his mouth, a monocle in his eye, and a pith-helmet, such as is worn in India. The young ladies used to gather on the sands to watch him as he struck the water with the broad blade of his scull, near enough for them to see and to admire his nautical ability. They thought all his jokes amusing, and they delighted in his way of seizing his partner for a waltz and bearing her off as if she were a prize, hardly allowing her to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... four-in-hand for her one day. Fred used to be a sea-captain in his early days and, although he could make all kinds of splices with a rope, he had never tackled a four-in-hand. He was game, however, and, after a hard tussle, accomplished what is known in nautical parlance as a 'clove hitch.' Fred's sister wore it night and day for a week and then cut it off ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... recording a general impression. There is no specific evidence, unless we take Cassio's language in his drink (II. ii. 105 f.) to imply that Iago was not a 'man of quality' like himself. I do not know if it has been observed that Iago uses more nautical phrases and metaphors than is at all usual with Shakespeare's characters. This might naturally be explained by his roving military life, but it is curious that almost all the examples occur in the earlier scenes (see e.g. I. i. 30, 153, 157; I. ii. 17, 50; I. iii. 343; ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... of the nautical incidents of this book, we have endeavoured to be as exact as our authorities will allow. We are fully aware of the importance of writing what the world thinks, rather than what is true, and are not conscious of any very palpable errors of ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the valuables; therefore while Mahomet, in a nervous state in the ferry-bath, was being towed towards the east, Achmet turned in another direction and fled towards the west. Mahomet having been much frightened by the nautical effort he had been forced to make, was in an exceedingly bad temper upon the arrival on the opposite bank, and having at length succeeded in climbing up the steep ascent, in shoes that were about four sizes too large for him, he arrived on the lofty plateau of our camp, and ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... born at Edinburgh in 1798. Early evincing a predilection for a seafaring life, he was enabled to enter a sloop of war, with the honorary rank of a midshipman. After accomplishing a single voyage, he was necessitated, by the death of his father, to abandon his nautical occupation, and to seek a livelihood in Edinburgh. He now became, in his sixteenth year, apprentice to a grocer; and he subsequently established himself as a coffee-roaster in the capital. He died in 1827. Of amiable dispositions, he was an agreeable and unassuming member ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... down. The sailor rolled along with an independent air, not looking to see whether those he had offered to guide were following him; now and then, when passing an old shipmate it might be, or other nautical acquaintance, he gave a nod of recognition without taking his hands from his pockets or his pipe from ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... to use a nautical expression, we had repaired damages, and we began to fall into the usual routine of scholastic business: but it was full a week before our master made his appearance in the school-room, and he did so then with a green shade over his eyes, to conceal the green shades under them. He came in at the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of national prosperity. To assist him in the prosecution of these his favourite studies, he invited, from Majorca, a person named Diego, or James, who was singularly skilful in the management of the instruments then employed for making astronomical observations at sea, and in the construction of nautical charts. Some traces of nautical discoveries along the western coast of Africa still remained in ancient authors; particularly of the reported voyages of Menelaus, Hanno, Eudoxus, and others. From ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... slipping-over under his sway—no finger-at-nose connivance between the pilot-house and the chief engineer's grille platform. No, Captain Wass was not that kind of a man, though the fog had held in front of him two days, vapor thick as feathers in a tick, and he had averaged not much over six nautical miles an hour, and was bitterly aware that the rate of freight on steel rails was sixty-five ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, United States Navy, and the fact of special interest in Massachusetts is that both Rice and Ware were born in that State, the Captain receiving his training for the sea in the Massachusetts Nautical School and the Lieutenant being ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... laugh at my imagination's too vivid power of portrayal. A figure did certainly present itself, but one of sufficient bulk to convince me of its substantiality. This was the captain of the 'Diana,' a cheery-looking personage of a thoroughly nautical type, who, approaching me, lifted his cap ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... said it was no wonder they were sickly, for they had been sixty days at sea. This excited Nelson's derision—not unjustly. "From the circumstance of having been longer than that time at sea, do we attribute our getting healthy. It has stamped with me the extent of their nautical abilities: long may they remain in their present state." The last sentence reveals his intuitive appreciation of the fact that the Spain of that day could in no true sense be the ally of Great Britain; for, at the moment he penned ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... what they represented themselves to be, when they demanded charity, two wrecked seamen, who were travelling to a northern port to obtain employment; but had these fellows been questioned by a sailor, he would soon have discovered, by their total ignorance of anything nautical, that they were impostors. Perhaps there is no plan more successful than this, which is now carried on to an enormous extent by a set of rogues and depredators, who occasionally request charity, but too often extort it, and add to their spoils by robbing ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... have played some part in the misunderstanding, for it was undeniable that there was a sprightliness, a joyant brightness, in the flowing red scarf on Ignatius Aloysius's nautical breast, which was nowhere paralleled in Patrick's more subdued array. And the tenth commandment seemed very arbitrary to Patrick, the star of St. Mary's Sunday-school, when he saw that the red silk was attracting nearly all the attention of his female ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Nugent for a brief excursion on that portion of the Atlantic Ocean which sends its breakers up on the beach of Sandport. But he had found it difficult, nay, impossible, just now, to bring him back, for the wind had gradually died away until there was not a breath of it left. Mr. Nugent, to whom nautical experiences were as new as the very nautical suit of blue flannel which he wore, rather liked the calm. It was such a relief to the monotony of rolling waves. He took out a cigar and lighted it, and then ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... speed of some sharpies, as does certain correspondence in Forest and Stream. A large sharpie was reported to have run 11 nautical miles in 34 minutes, and a big sharpie schooner is said to have averaged 16 knots in 3 consecutive hours of sailing. Tonging sharpies with racing rigs were said to have sailed in smooth water at speeds of 15 and 16 knots. Although such reports may be exaggerations, ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... Harry had kept the nautical instruments which they carried over the deserts of Northern Africa, and they amused themselves by taking daily observations and calculating the ship's position. Sometimes they were wrong, and sometimes they were right, Ned naively remarking that "the wrongs ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the French court opposite our own coast naturally attracted a number of our countrymen, among whom was Captain Saumarez, who was induced to cross the Channel probably by a secret wish to examine the nautical projects of our rivals, to counteract which, might at some future period become his duty. This was eventually the case in 1793, when he captured the French frigate Reunion off that very harbour, from which she had sailed only a few hours before ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... praetors, and finally determined by the Code of Justinian. Persons of illustrious rank were confined to the moderate profit of four per cent.; six was pronounced to be the ordinary and legal standard of interest; eight was allowed for the convenience of manufactures and merchants; twelve was granted to nautical insurance, which the wiser ancients had not attempted to define; but, except in this perilous adventure, the practice of exorbitant usury was severely restrained. [165] The most simple interest was condemned by the clergy of the East and West; [166] but the sense of mutual benefit, which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... had gone to his cabin for his log book, the ship's papers, and his nautical instruments. As he came out the red sun showed for an instant above ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... I soon afterwards saw a horseman appear from the direction of Spanish Town and ride by towards the big house two miles or more away. He was beyond doubt one of Vetch's gang: 'twas impossible to mistake the thick ungainly figure, and the exceedingly nautical way he had of sitting his horse. 'Twas lucky indeed that we had not already begun the crossing, for he must have seen us, the road being straight: and for that same reason I deemed it well to delay a little, lest he should chance to look back. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... "TAFFRAIL" will find matter very much to their mind in his latest book, A Little Ship (CHAMBERS). I do not wish to institute any invidious comparisons between the marine mixture as provided by "TAFFRAIL" and that of other nautical writers, but this much I may say with perfect confidence: the men to be found in "TAFFRAIL'S" stories are true human stuff, sturdy, dogged in doing their duty, and brave almost beyond recklessness; but they are men all the time, and not solemn and consecrated angels. That ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... of Mme. Flamand, although less pretentious than many others that had sheltered us, was clean and comfortable, the lower deck and companionway were freshly sanded,—the whole house had a decidedly nautical air about it,—and the captain's state-room on the upper deck, a second-floor room, was large and well-lighted, although the ceiling might have been a trifle too low for the governor, and the bed a ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... real for every dollar by the week—in other words, a simple interest of twenty per cent, by the month, or two hundred and fifty per cent, per annum! His clients being all fishermen, will account for the nautical character of the "pledges" that ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... lofty perch a sailor swung spider-like among the network of sheets and halyards that clung about the mainmast, its meshes clearly defined against the pure blue of the sky, while below there, on the bridge, the big brass nautical instruments gleamed, and the caps of the Captain and his lieutenants showed white in the sun. As Blythe glanced down and away from this stirring outlook, she could just distinguish among the dark figures of the steerage the small white face of the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... a gallant gentleman, but of the old, slow, and pompous school of naval worthies, who have grown up amid rules, forms, and etiquette which were adopted full-blown from the British navy into ours, and are somewhat too cumbrous for the quick spirit of to-day. This order of nautical heroes will probably go down, along with the ships in which they fought valorously and strutted most intolerably. How can an admiral condescend to go to sea in an iron pot? What space and elbow-room can be found for quarter-deck ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eligible residence on your left. It has a little door, nearly six feet high, and a real glass window, with a little curtain. Inside, there is a bunk, six feet long, together with an ingenious folding washhand-stand, of the nautical variety, and a flap-table. The walls, which are painted pale green, are decorated with elegant extracts from the "Sketch" and "La Vie Parisienne." Outside, the name of the villa is painted up. It is in Welsh—that notorious ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... classic style, with pillars and porticos, which (to my own taste, and, I fancy, to that of the old sailors) produce but a cold and shivery-effect in the English climate. Had I been the architect, I would have studied the characters, habits, and predilections of nautical people in Wapping, Rotherhithe, and the neighborhood of the Tower, (places which I visited in affectionate remembrance of Captain Lemuel Gulliver, and other actual or mythological navigators,) and would have built the hospital in a kind of ethereal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... where the forces are simple enough to admit of prediction. The distinction is of course invalid in a scientific sense. Almighty power can interfere as easily with the events which are, as with those which are not, in the Nautical Almanac. One cannot suppose that God retreats as science advances, and that he spoke in thunder and lightning till Franklin unravelled ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... They copied his rolling walk, His method of draining rummers, His emblematical talk. For his dress and his graceful breeding, His delicate taste in rum, And his nautical way, were the talk of the day In the ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... will be to present the public, with the utmost rapidity and at the cheapest possible rate, the best of those works in Popular Literature which are appearing abroad in serials, or in separate chapters. With this view, we print in the first number the initial portions of the brilliant nautical romance now in course of publication in Blackwood's Magazine, under the title of "The Green Hand," by the author of the most celebrated fiction of its class in English literature, "Tom Cringle's Log;" and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... flagstaffs. They were reared on artificial mounds of earth that were ten feet high. The base of each staff was surrounded by short posts, painted white and connected by heavy chains. The staffs themselves were like ships' masts, with topmasts spliced on in true nautical fashion, with shrouds, ratlines, gaffs, and flag-halyards. From the gaff of one, two gay flags hung limply, one a checkerboard of blue and white squares, the other a white pennant centred with a red disc. It was the ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... taken the eye of the Three Hours for Lunch Club. The club's interest in nautical matters is well known and it is always looking forward to the day when it will be able to command a vessel of its own. Now it would be too much to say that the club expected to be able to buy the Hauppauge (the first thing ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... day we were all rejoiced by the appearance of two United States gunboats from Aspinwall, which point was reached by our other boat, after a rough experience; the waves having capsized her during the passage, and swallowed up the provisions and nautical instruments. ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... have a show. So we parted. I reported for examination next day, but was put off—same the next day. But to-day I was told to come, and sat down to a stock of foolscap, and had a pretty stiff exam. I am only just through. I had seamanship, gunnery, navigation, nautical astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, curve tracing, differential and integral calculus. I had only three questions out of five to answer in each branch, but in the first three I answered all five. After ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Erebus Bay. But the boat was an absolute necessity and could not be abandoned. There is no doubt, however, that everything superfluous had been dropped from time to time, until nothing remained that could possibly be dispensed with, and such books as they had, besides the Nautical Almanac and Ephemeris, if indeed under the circumstances they would even carry them, were probably the most important records of ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... hot that they boiled their pork in it as well as over the fire. At the Island of Monaca they took from the bushes with their hands near two hogsheads full of birds in three or four hours. These, it is useless to say, were probably not the "barnacle geese" which the nautical travelers used to find, and picture growing upon bushes and dropping from the eggs, when they were ripe, full-fledged into the water. The beasts were fearless of men. Wild birds and natives had to learn the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a series of nautical and shore incidents, to do with Ben Burton and his family. During the course of the story he goes from being born, to a senior Naval rank. Shortly after he is born they come across a dinghy drifting with an ayah and a small white girl, who grows up in parallel with Ben, though she is spared some ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... that ship for twenty francs. Before the orchestrion that accompanied the merry-go-round had accomplished the first strain of Strauss's waltz I should have been feebly calling for the steward. I observed that those silly youngsters with nautical proclivities who did scramble into the swaying ship, got out with livid lips, and did not ask to ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... notices of domestic manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the advantage which will accrue, if our little craft, cymbula sutilis, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing specimens, preserved in my own cabinet of natural ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... have had my fears, that you might faint in the apparently unequal conflict. Thank God, he has delivered you—he has enabled you to stand at the helm, and to steer the Old Ship into smoother water. But we may rest assured that our foes are not dead. I only wish you may manifest as much nautical skill in a calm, as you have in the long storm, and I doubt not but all ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of the precise nautical terms used, but the result was a sudden and extensive reduction of canvas; and not a moment too soon, for the operation had scarcely been completed when the squall struck the ship, almost capsized her, and sent her careering over the billows "like ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... contest had, at its close, become intense; and every spot, whence the candidates might be seen or heard, was crowded in the extreme. A sailor, anxious to acquire a view of the scene of action, after all his exertion to push his way through the crowd had proved fruitless, resorted to the nautical expedient of climbing one of the poles which supported a booth directly in front of the hustings, from the very top of which Jack was enabled to contemplate all that occurred below. As the orator ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... galleys, though a much larger number doubtless were rendered unfit for service. This disparity affords good evidence of the inferiority of the Turks in the construction of their vessels, as well as in the nautical skill required to manage them. A large amount of booty, in the form of gold, jewels, and brocade, was found on board several of the prizes. The galley of the commander-in-chief alone is stated to have contained one hundred and seventy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... a wary eye for dangers and obstacles, and on the whole the donkeys followed docilely enough in his wake. Israel's post as captain was behind at the tiller-ropes, whence he shouted exact instructions with nautical exactitude, such as "A point to the west, Neddy!" Or, pathetically, "DID I say ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... also to abandon the geological collection, which was too heavy to be carried any farther. Then I had to abandon all the books which were necessary for working out my astronomical observations, such as Norrie's Navigation and The Nautical Almanac, and all possible articles which ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... second brother of Alexander III., headed the infantry advance in the direction of Rustchuk, and served with marked distinction in command of one of the corps in the army of the Lom. A younger brother, the Grand Duke Alexis, the nautical member of the imperial family, had charge of the torpedo and subaqueous mining operations on the Danube, and was held to have shown practical skill, assiduity, and vigour. Prince Serge of Leuchtenberg, younger brother of the Leuchtenbergs ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... am not exactly a sailor; though I may say I have worked as one before the mast both out and home. That was my first experience; and I suppose one takes longer than that to get the regular nautical manner." ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... contour of the coast with deep interest, till it became an old story, and then whistled for a breeze to take them along more rapidly towards their port of destination. The fleet was now fully in the Skager Rack, or Sleeve, as it is also called on the British nautical charts. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... The nautical phrases, unintelligible to ears unused to the sound of the sea, seemed to put fresh energy into the oars; they kept time together, the rhythm of the movement was still even and steady, but quite unlike the previous manner of rowing; it was as ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... was the son of a small landowner in the parish of Burness, Orkney, where he was born in 1790. He had the misfortune to lose both his parents ere he had completed his twelfth year, and was led to choose the nautical profession. At the age of twenty-two, he obtained the rank of captain of a vessel, in which he performed several voyages to Greenland. In 1815, he entered the revenue service as first officer of an armed cruiser, and in five years afterwards was raised ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of "the boat," which was his thought from morning to night. A light gig, that had once belonged to the custom-house, was polished and painted under his special directions, (often did we sigh for one of King's worst "fours!") and the fishermen marvelled at such precocious nautical talent. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... boat of from four to six tons burthen, properly rigged and ballasted; also buy a red shirt, a small low-crowned straw hat, some tar to smear over your hands, and learn the first stanza of 'The sea! the sea!' to make every thing seem more nautical and ship-shape. Hoist jib and mainsail, and venture out. After you have drifted a mile or two, it will fall a dead calm, and the boat (Gazelle? Wave? Gull?) will float two or three hours, the sun flashing back ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... port south of 60 degrees south are subject to inspection by Antarctic Treaty observers (see Article 7); The Hydrographic Committee on Antarctica (HCA), a special hydrographic commission of International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), is responsible for hydrographic surveying and nautical charting matters in Antarctic Treaty area; it coordinates and facilitates provision of accurate and appropriate charts and other aids to navigation in support of safety of navigation in region; membership of HCA is open to any IHO Member State whose government ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... ever manifested at the death of one of its members. Then not only the immediate connexions of the deceased attended his funeral, but every member of his circle, and many also of the lower classes. It has more than once happened that a young man has fallen a victim to his rashness and nautical inexperience, and met with an untimely fate whilst sailing on Melville water. I myself twice narrowly escaped such a calamity, as perhaps I may hereafter narrate. Every boat belonging to the place is immediately engaged in search of the body, and many of the boatmen ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the neighbourhood of Wapping, observing that most part of his audience were in the seafaring way, very naturally embellished his discourse with several nautical tropes and figures. Amongst other things, he advised them "to be ever on the watch, so that on whatsoever tack the evil one should bear down on them, he might be crippled in action." "Ay, master," said a son of Neptune, "but let me tell you, that will depend upon your having the weather ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... the Rover, When millions in looting he'd made, Built libraries grand on the jolly mainland To honor success and "free trade"; If he founded a college of nautical knowledge Where Pirates could ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... scattered far and wide. The Wasp sighted several of them in the moonlight but, fearing they might be war vessels, followed warily until morning revealed on her leeward side the Frolic. Jacob Jones promptly shortened sail, which was the nautical method of rolling up one's sleeves, and steered ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... of the matrimonial ocean, there appears a slight chronic, intermittent affection, not unlike the toothache. Here, I see, you stop me to ask, "How are we to find the longitude in this sea? When can a husband be sure he has attained this nautical point? And ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... presence of that important functionary, a pilot. Perhaps a captain's greatest anxiety is, when his vessel, having braved a thousand perils on the deep, is about to enter on the termination of its voyage. On the broad expanse of ocean, or, in nautical phrase, with plenty of sea-room, if his bark is in good condition, he fears little or nothing, but when his vessel approaches its goal, visions of disaster arise before him, and he becomes ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... wretched "bugala" (i.e. Sambuk), and in that perfect tub, the Palinurus, was somewhat like tempting Providence,—if such operation be possible. No wonder that "in this Gulf, in a course of only ninety miles, the nautical mishaps were numerous and varied." The surveyor, however, neglected a matter of the highest interest and importance, namely, to ascertain whether there be any difference of level between the heads of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... way you've sized it up so far I should be inclined to back your fancy," I admitted frankly. "I take it, from your diagnosis, that our nautical friend came ashore here, went up on to the cliff, and glued his eye to the dining-room window. When he saw we were at dinner, and it was getting dusk—in fact, almost dark—he took off his sea-boots ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... by the crowding of the oar and the haul of the rope. His muscles swelled tense and rigid—the sweat poured from his face; but he laughed when Lincoln, with reckless drollery, began to shout a few nautical words. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... it, with a shingle or a chip, or if he could not find either of these, with a floating leaf. Many a time I have found him long after he was supposed to have gone to bed sitting on the bath-room floor singing a roysterous nautical song like "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," or "A Life On the Ocean Wave," while he pushed a floating soap dish filled with ants, spiders and lady-bugs up and down that overflowing tub; and later in ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... chiefly to agriculture and navigation. But rude and imperfect are their implements for field labor, as well as their nautical vessels. To a stranger nothing can appear more extraordinary than their mode of ploughing. As to a regular plough, I do not believe such a thing is known in Chiloe. If a field is to be tilled, it is done by two Indians, who are furnished with long poles, pointed at ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... unintermittent surges; and being not far from the island of Majorca, as the third night began to close in, wrapt in clouds and mist and thick darkness, so that they saw neither the sky nor aught else, nor by any nautical skill might conjecture where they were, they felt the ship's timbers part. Wherefore, seeing no way to save the ship, each thought only how best to save himself, and, a boat being thrown out, the masters first, and then the men, one by one, though the first-comers sought ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... fair-watered Eurotas, flourishing in reeds, or the sacred founts of Dirce, and came, and came to the inhospitable land, where the daughter of Jove bedews her altars and column-girt temples with human blood? Of a truth by the surge-dashing oars of fir, worked on both sides, they sailed in a nautical carriage o'er the ocean waves, striving in the emulation after loved wealth in their houses. For darling hope is in dangers insatiate among men, who bear off the weight of riches, wandering in vain speculation on the wave and o'er barbarian cities. But to some[58] there ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... made at the same time at Greenwich; and in July 1811, the necessary authority was obtained from the Board of Longitude. A considerable delay hence arose, and it was prolonged by the Greenwich observations being found to differ so much from the calculated places of the sun and moon, given in the Nautical Almanacks of 1801, 2 and 3, as to make considerable alterations in the longitudes of places settled during the voyage; and a reconstruction of all the charts becoming thence indispensable to accuracy, I wished also to employ ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... crooks, like the dubious Mr. Hopkins, new fire-eaters, new cranks, new sots, were always dropping in from different corners of the globe to spread their infection among the more recent crowd of curio-hunters, gentlemen of commerce, nautical wrecks, decayed missionaries, painters, authors and other vagrant riff-raff who frequented the premises. There were rows going on all the time—insignificant rows, mostly about newspapers and gambling debts. Mr. Samuel got his eye blacked over a harmless game of ecarte; Mr. White, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Great Central Naval Training Station Tyler's nearest approach to the nautical life had been when, at the age of six, he had sailed chips in the wash tub in the back yard. Marvin, Texas, is five hundred miles inland. And yet he had enlisted in the navy as inevitably as though he had sprung from a long line of Vikings. In his boyhood ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the route through the recently discovered Bass Straits than to run the hazard of capture by crossing the Indian Ocean. It was just a lucky accident that the enemy's admiral was a nervous gentleman who was afraid to take risks. General Decaen, a fine soldier, openly cursed his nautical colleague; but nothing could strike a spirit of vigorous initiative into the breast of Linois. He was always afraid that if he struck he would be struck at—in which view he ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... women's hospital, the foundling institution, the admirable Hospicio de San Juan de Dios for men, and the lunatic asylum. Gratuitous instruction is given to a large number of children, and there are several mathematical and commercial academies, maintained by different commercial corporations, a nautical school, a school of design, a theological seminary and a flourishing medical school. The museum is filled for the most part with Roman and Carthaginian coins and other antiquities; the academy contains ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... poetry, seems to me to contrast curiously with the light, trifling philandering of the English; indeed, as far as I remember, we have almost no love-songs in English, of the same class as this one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either of the genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), or of the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, the finest love-song in our or in any language; the love being affectionate more than passionate, love in possession ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... entitled to an inside seat, if I could find one, about the stove of any shoemaker's shop in the Cove. The Banks were revisited in memory, and all the old fog experiences were brought out, amplified and elongated as far as possible, but it was conceded that we had established a new record in the nautical traditions of the Cove. It took several years for me to inch my way back to physical solvency from the effects of my exposure, and this delayed the carrying out of my plans, to which my fishing trips had ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... nautical, Captain? Something yachty, if I may suggest. . . . I've a neat thing here in yachting caps." Mr Benny selected and displayed one, turning it briskly in his hands. "The Commodore. There's a something about that cap, sir,—a what shall I say?—a distinction. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... hundred separate articles. It established a zone "between the 20th parallel of north latitude, and the 22nd parallel of south latitude, and extending westward to the Atlantic and eastward to the Indian Ocean and its dependencies, comprising the islands adjacent to the coast as far as 100 nautical miles from the shore,'' within which the importation of firearms and ammunition was forbidden except in certain specified cases, and within which also the powers undertook either to prohibit altogether the importation and manufacture of spirituous ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... rooms is known as the Chart-room. Here can be found in perfect order and sequence, each on its roller, the newest charts of all nations, with a library of nautical literature describing to the last detail the harbors, lights, rocks, shoals, and sailing directions of every coast-line shown on the charts; the tracks of latest storms; the changes of ocean currents, and the ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... Mill briefly analysed. Authorities for the Story. Letters. A Journal. The Wesley Ghost. Given Critically and Why. Note on similar Stories, such as the Drummer of Tedworth. Sir Waller Scott's Scepticism about Nautical Evidence. Lord St. Vincent. Scott asks Where are his Letters on a Ghostly Disturbance. The Letters are now Published. Lord ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... descriptions of the scenery in "We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter XII., and she owed to the same kind helpers also the accuracy of her nautical phrases and her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of the tale is full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the materials had been made into two books instead of one. There are more than enough characters and incidents to have developed ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... it out two days, though buffeted by a terrible sea; but, at nightfall of the third day, the tempest abating not, nay, waxing momently, they felt the ship open, being then not far off Majorca, but knowing not where they were neither availing to apprehend it either by nautical reckoning or by sight, for that the sky was altogether obscured by clouds and dark night; wherefore, seeing no other way of escape and having each himself in mind and not others, they lowered a shallop into the water, into which the officers cast ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... come to the end of my blockade-running yarns. I have endeavoured to avoid giving offence to anyone: to the American officers and men who manned the cruisers I can, as a nautical man, truly and honestly give the credit of having most zealously performed their hard and wearisome duty. It was not their fault that I did not visit New York at the Government's expense; but the old story that 'blockades, to be legal, must be efficient,' is a tale for bygone ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... drawings in the vein of farce rather than of comedy. The intention was to depict various types of artists rather as fancy might paint them than as they really are. The "Marine Artist," for example, with his canvas slung from davits and the entire furniture of his studio of extremely nautical design, was a purely fanciful conception. The "Pot-Boiler," spending his days in painting one solitary subject over and over again ad infinitum, comes nearer to life, though his portrait again is an exaggerated fancy rather than a study ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson |
