"Ravine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no chance for me to flesh my maiden lance, and I began to despair of adding a single head to the number slain, when I caught sight of a solitary fugitive stealing away through a stony ravine much to the left of the line which the rest had taken, and from his action I concluded that he had met with a wound which materially interfered with his speed. With an unequivocal disposition to refuse taking any other course than the one he was pursuing, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of the golden lyre Fraught with the Dorian fire, Oh! fair-haired child of Leto, come again; And if no longer smile Delphi or Delos' isle, Come from the depth of thine Aetnean glen, Where in the black ravine Thunders the foaming green Of waters writhing far from mortals' ken; Come o'er the sparkling brine, And bring thy train divine — The ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... and failing and hanging on by our finger nails, the way began to be easier. We came to level, clear stretches with only an occasional boulder or ravine, and the rock became less cruel to our bleeding feet. The relief came almost too late, for by that time every movement was painful, and we made but ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... with her hands, as if she almost saw the little girl falling, down, down to the ravine so far below the path, and was trying to shut out the picture. Nancy, still striving to quiet her fear, heard some one telling what ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... the steamer alongside again, and recommenced coaling. Called to see the ladies at the Admiral's after dinner, and walked through their quite extensive garden, winding up a ravine with a rapid little stream of water ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... winding trail, brown and springy from its thick mat of pine needles, shaded always by the massive, seamy-barked trees, took us over the extremity of Buckskin. Then we faced down into the head of a ravine that ever grew deeper, stonier and rougher. I shifted from side to side, from leg to leg in my saddle, dismounted and hobbled before Satan, mounted again, and rode on. Jones called the dogs and complained to them of the ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... dam yielded at three o'clock, it did so in a break of 300 feet wide. Trees and rocks were hurled high in the air, and the vast, boiling flood rushed down the ravine like an arrow from a bow. It took one hour to empty the reservoir. In less than five minutes the flood reached South Fork, and thence, changing the direction of its rush, swept through the valley of the Conemaugh. With the procession ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... out of our way to see wild pine-apples in a sandy spot, or 'Arenal' in a valley beneath. The meeting of the stiff marl and the fine sand was abrupt, and well marked by the vegetation. On one side of the ravine the tall fan-leaved Carats marked the rich soil; on the other, the sand and gravel loving Cocorites appeared at once, crowding their ostrich plumes together. Most of them were the common species of the island {202a} in which the pinnae of the leaves grow in fours and fives, and at different ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... soldiers remounted and fled along the ridge toward Reno's position; but they were followed by our warriors, like hundreds of blackbirds after a hawk. A larger body remained together at the upper end of a little ravine, and fought bravely until they were cut to pieces. I had always thought that white men were cowards, but I had a great respect for ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... great ravine at Barnstaple, and the scene was so fine, that I gave mental thanks to the glaciers which, in the ice age, had so tastefully scooped out all this down-country into graceful curves and majestic cliffs. After leaving ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... shelter of a ravine the party took time to eat supper, their first meal since leaving home, and it was after dark when they finished. The negroes, who were thoroughly tired, were for spending the night here, but Esteban, more cautious than they, would not have it so. Accordingly, the men remounted their weary horses, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... geological feature at this cape; you do not perceive it until you have forced your way through a belt of firs, which grow at the bottom and screen it from sight. It is a ravine in which the rocks are pouring down from the top to the bottom, all so equal in size, and so arranged, as to wear the appearance of a cascade of stones; and when, half blinded by the mosquitoes, you look upon them, they appear as if ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... five o'clock in the morning he was on his feet and ready to return to the combat. Three or four hours after his arrival on the battlefield the Emperor was overcome by an irresistible desire for sleep, and, foreseeing the issue of the day, slept on the side of a ravine, in the midst of the batteries of the Duke of Ragusa, until he was awaked with the information that ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the cliffs are imposing, on one of the highest points near the town being the Lookout. A hundred yards or so farther on is Little Durley Chine, beyond which is a considerable ravine known as Great Durley Chine, approached from the shore by Durley Cove. The larger combe consists of slopes of sand and gravel, with soft sand hummocks at the base; while on the western side and plateau is a mass of heather and gorse. ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... specimen of this new species of Ptychohyla was discovered by Dale L. Hoyt, who found the frog on a rock at midday. At night on August 5, 1960, numerous individuals were found calling from leaves of plants growing on the slopes of the ravine by the streams. None was more than two meters above the ground. Tadpoles were found in the fast-flowing stream, where they were holding onto rocks with their mouths. Little is known of the herpetofauna of these mountains that are the home of the Chamula Indians. ...
— Descriptions of Two Species of Frogs, Genus Ptychohyla - Studies of American Hylid Frogs, V • William E. Duellman
... it was hot in that ravine. Labouring under the excitement of the man-hunt, and suffering from loss of sleep and the weariness of the siege we had undergone in the steamer, the heat ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... ape-man stretched his giant limbs, ran his fingers through his thick hair, and swung lightly down to earth. Immediately he took up the trail he had come in search of, following it by scent down into a deep ravine. Cautiously he went now, for his nose told him that the quarry was close at hand, and presently from an overhanging bough he looked down upon Horta, the boar, and many of his kinsmen. Un-slinging his bow and selecting an ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... are not my country's hills, Though they seem bright and fair; Though flow'rets deck their verdant sides, The heather blooms not there. Let me behold the mountain steep, And wild deer roaming free— The heathy glen, the ravine deep— O ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... from the table, he glanced again toward Sokwenna's cabin. A solitary figure had climbed up out of the ravine and stood against the sun on the clough-top. Even at that distance, with the sun in his eyes, he ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... country sown with jewels, but simply a rocky ravine, where ferns waved in the wind, clinging to the rocks, and catching the spray from the water as it bubbled and hissed and fell in ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... long incline, carefully noting every set of bush, such as George declared he had passed through at the time he was deposited in the "hole." When the bottom of the ravine was reached he turned to the right, working his ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... of an hour later they all stopped at the foot of a ravine in front of a small tributary of the Amazon. But a bridge of lianas, made of "bejucos," twined together by their interlacing branches, crossed the stream. The cipo, dividing into two strings, served for a handrail, and passed from one bank ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... two companions scarcely less repulsive in appearance, who wheeled their steeds to the right. Without any exchange of word or signal, they sped down the ravine and in less than a minute the two parties were lost to ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... cleft of the headland, where a burn came down from the hills through a long gorge, we turned up the ravine and mounted the heights. No sooner were we up there, however, than we found that the birds were all below us on ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... in the month of May, the remains of a human body, partly devoured by wild animals, were found in a woody ravine, near a solitary road passing between the mountains west of the village of Stockbridge. It was supposed that the person came to his death by violence, but no traces could be discovered of his murderers. It was only recollected ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... our young hunter and trapper sets out in search of the most lonely ravine which he can find among the mountains. He would reach if possible, some solitary stream which no white man's eye had ever beheld. He has no road, no trail to guide him. He rides his pony and leads his mule. Over the prairie, through the forest, across the streams, in silence and in a ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... in every nation, greater or less according to the nature and cultivation of the nation, or race of men; but a perfectly fixed quantity annually, not increasable by one grain. You may lose it, or you may gather it; you may let it lie loose in the ravine, and buried in the sands, or you may make kings' thrones of it, and overlay temple gates with it, as you choose: but the best you can do with it is always merely ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... foreseen, occurred. In spite of the stoutest resistance the wing which the king commanded in person broke the Roman line and huddled the infantry together into a clayey ravine, where it could make neither a forward nor a lateral movement and was cut to pieces without pity. The king indeed was dangerously wounded by a Roman centurion, who sacrificed his life for it; but the defeat ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... started off again. When they reached the high bank of a deep and swift-flowing river, the S'iring scratched the boy with his long nails. Straightway the boy felt so tired that he could no longer stand on his legs, and then he dropped down into the ravine. He fell on the hard rocks, so that his bones were broken, and his ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... at Chautauqua is the habit of impromptu eating in the open air. Every one invites you to go upon a picnic. You take a steamer to some point upon the lake, or take a trolley to a wild and deep ravine known by the somewhat unpoetic name of the Hog's Back; and then everybody sits around and eats sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and considers the occasion a debauch. This formality resembles great good fun,—especially as there are girls who laugh, and play, and threaten to disconcert ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... leaning over a stone wall and looking down into the ravine below. Suddenly Malachi pricked ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... of the wheels, proceeded, with a shout, to drag and hold up our cart. And, indeed, it is a dangerous road; on the right were masses of snow hanging above us, and ready, it seemed, at the first squall of wind to break off and drop into the ravine; the narrow road was partly covered with snow, which, in many places, gave way under our feet and, in others, was converted into ice by the action of the sun by day and the frosts by night, so that ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... and then the Union cannon which had apparently been silenced by the Confederate fire began to pour death and destruction into their ranks. Whole rows of men were mowed down by the awful cannonade, but their comrades pressed forward undismayed, halting for a moment under cover of a ravine to re-form their ranks and then springing on again with a heroism unsurpassed in the history of war. A hail of bullets from the Union trenches fairly staggered them, yet on and on they charged. Once they actually halted in the face of the blazing breastworks, deliberately fired a volley and came ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... them, and upon reaching it the travellers beheld a magnificent prospect before them. The mountain spur sloped away steeply from their feet, plunging down until it was lost in a wide, densely wooded ravine about a mile in width, beyond which the ground again rose somewhat irregularly in a wide sweep of upland, gradually merging into foothills which, viewed from that distance, appeared to be the advance guard of the towering ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... remained inactive, but the next they rose earlier than 1 usual, and set out betimes, for they had a ravine to cross, where they feared the enemy might attack them in the act of crossing. When they were across, Mithridates appeared again with one thousand horse, and archers and slingers to the number of four thousand. This whole body he had got by request ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... watched. Yes, there was one of them, and there was another, and another. One rose from behind a rock and came forward at a shambling run, making bestial sounds. Then two more lumbered into sight, and in a moment the ravine was alive with them. They were almost upon him when Kalvar Dard pressed in the thumbpiece of the bomb; they were clutching at him when he released it. He felt a ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... forming the British right, occupied this mountain. On the other side of the ravine formed by the river, just beyond Vimiera, was another strong and narrow range of heights. There was no water to be found on this ridge, and only the 40th Regiment and some pickets were stationed here. It was vastly better to be attacked in such a position than to be compelled ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... more hopeful than the face. At one of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen rock and loose sand. The grey weather had brought on the dark prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine was blocked by an unscalable nose of rock. Here Old Bill whistled, and there was a reply from above. Round the corner of the nose ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... of the piazza they walked alongside a deep natural gorge which divided Fossato from the open country. This immense ravine was a fearsome place, with a sheer descent of many hundreds of feet; its jagged rocks were clothed with bushes and creepers, and clefts and the openings of caves could be seen amongst the greenery. The girls leaned on the low wall ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... madness muzzled, every serpent passion kill'd, Every grim ravine a garden, every ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... Boristhenes. Their mutual surprise turned in the first instance to the advantage of Bagration, who cut off a whole regiment of his light cavalry. At that time Bagration had with him 35,000 men, Davoust 12,000. On the 23d of July, the latter chose an elevated ground, defended by a ravine, and flanked by two woods. The Russians had no means of extending themselves on this field of battle; they, nevertheless, accepted the challenge. Their numbers were there useless; they attacked like men sure of victory; they did not even think of profiting ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... with black horror did the ayre appall: Thereout a strange beast with seven heads arose, That townes and castles under her brest did coure*, And seem'd both milder beasts and fiercer foes Alike with equall ravine to devoure. Much was I mazde to see this monsters kinde In hundred formes to change his fearefull hew; When as at length I saw the wrathfull winde, Which blows cold storms, burst out of Scithian mew, That sperst these cloudes; and, in so short as thought, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... troops; but the succour came too late, and this regiment was charged by the English light dragoons and the hussars, and immediately gave way with some little loss. The charge was then continued against a battery of eight pieces of cannon behind a small ravine, which was soon carried; and, with equal rapidity, the heavy cavalry rushed on to attack a battery of fourteen pieces of cannon, placed on an eminence behind a very steep ravine, into which many of the front ranks ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... place he plunged into a deep narrow ravine filled with tangled undergrowth that constantly threatened to tear Dermot from his seat. Indeed, only the continual employment of the latter's kukri, with which he hacked at the throttling creepers and ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 5 The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea. Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 10 Stands up and takes the morning: but in front The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal Troas and Ilion's column'd ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... wife in the space of a few years; that after these pangs of the heart, he had had to bear the blows of fortune, and that of all the domain of his fathers, nothing now remained to him but the old dismantled tower on the edge of the ravine, the garden, orchard, and meadow, with a few acres of unproductive land. These he ploughed himself, with two miserable cows; and was only distinguished from his peasant neighbors by the book which he carried to the field, and which he would sometimes hold in one hand, while the other directed ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... and fairly swung her across a gulley; and again, as she gathered herself to jump, his powerful arm slipped around her body and he lowered her to the moss below, leaving her with red cheeks and a rapid heart to climb the laurel-choked ravine beside him. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... Twigs and crackling leaves seemed to evade his feet; eye and ear were ever alert. Though he knew he was alone in the bush, the way of a lifetime refused to sleep within him. By a circuitous route he approached a tangle of trees that hung out from a steep projection in the rising sides of the ravine. His eyes were flitting now about at his feet, and sometimes he carefully passed a boot over marks only he could detect. Once, whistling in soft surprise, he scattered a ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Anquera-Coating of stamped gilt leather, edged with little bells, which covers the back of the horses. Arriero-Muleteer. Arroba-Spanish weight of twenty-five pounds. Azotea-The flat roof of a house. Barranca-Ravine. Botica-Apothecary's shop. Calle-Street. Cargadores-Men who carry loads. Chinguirito-Spirit made from sugar-cane. Chile-Hot peppers. Compadre and Comadre-Godfather and Godmother; names by which two persons address ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... that scarce a wild vine dare cling to, with its feeble, delicate tendrils, is all exquisite, and full of living repose; and turning to descend the mountain, just where a brook drops headlong with clattering leap into a steep black ravine, and comes out over a tiny green meadow, sliding past great granite rocks, and bending the grass-blades to a shining track, you see suddenly at your feet the beautiful mountain valley of the Farmington river, trending away in hill after hill,—rough granite ledges crowned with cedar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... "A deep ravine, over which grey-stemmed purtris stretched out afar their gnarled trunks, laden with deep green foliage, speckled with the warm gleam of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Friends may meet him, but with a wave of the hand, and shouting "Goel! Goel!" he rushes on with fleet footstep. Parched with thirst in the hot noonday, he turns a longing eye on the ripe grapes that are hanging in purple clusters on the wayside, or on the water trickling down the narrow ravine. But he dare not pause. Knowing full well that the Avenger is in close pursuit, he hurries on with unabated ardor. Happy sight, when he sees at last, on some mountain slope, the longed-for shelter! Happy, when, weary and footsore, covered with dust, the portals of the city close him in. A ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... carriage-road is built out from the almost perpendicular wall of the Gourzy. We draw nearer, and at length I cross, high above the stream, by a rude wooden bridge, and rejoin the main road. The slope I have quitted steepens now into a precipice, and the two sides of this ravine move closer and closer together, their bare limestone brows a thousand, two thousand, feet above the road. I vividly recall the Via Mala in Switzerland, as I lean over the stone parapet and push down a heavy stone to crash upon the rocks of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... lost his life by falling from one of the precipices of the Helvellyn mountains. Three months afterwards his remains were discovered at the bottom of a ravine, and his faithful dog, almost a skeleton, still guarding them. Sir Walter ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... growths of the wooded slopes. The darkness added to the difficulties of the progress, but the posse were inured to hardships, and went onward and upward resolutely. Despite the necessities of the detour, they came surprisingly soon to a height from which they looked across a small ravine to the level space where the still perched by the stream. A few whispered words from the leader, and the company crept with increased care across the ravine. From the ridge beyond, three of the men passed ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... a ravine cut by the Mohawk River through a spur of the Adirondack Mts. The town is picturesquely situated on the sides of the gorge overlooking the rapids and falls. The Mohawk here descends 45 ft. ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... dynasty, and stood on a green bank, overshadowed by trees, from which it peeped forth upon the Great Tappan Zee, so famous among early Dutch navigators. A bright pure spring welled up at the foot of the green bank; a wild brook came babbling down a neighboring ravine, and threw itself into a little woody cove, in front of the mansion. It was indeed as quiet and sheltered a nook as the heart of man could require, in which to take refuge from the cares and troubles of the world; ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... "Yes. Up first ravine toward left edge of middle butte, half a mile to lode," Lennon quoted the last directions that he ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... cool—was borne to us through the dense screen of waving foliage. Lady Meadowcroft was so delighted at having got clear away from those murderous and saintly Tibetans that for a while she almost forgot to grumble. She even condescended to admire the deep-cleft ravine in which we bivouacked for the night, and to admit that the orchids which hung from the tall trees were as fine as any at her florist's in Piccadilly. "Though how they can have got them out here already, in this outlandish place—the most fashionable kinds—when we in England ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the military and police were scouring the country far and wide, in search of arms, which compelled us to change our route and take an easterly direction. We crossed several miles of bog, and had to pass many a ravine; but the worst trial was before us. We applied in several houses for the means of preparing our dinner, having travelled at least twenty miles over moor and mountain. We applied in twenty places in vain. At last, half by force and half by entreaty, we prevailed on a woman, whose circumstances ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... just beyond the low gap, Dan made his way down the mountain side into the deep ravine, below Sammy's Lookout, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... time reached the ravine, which was bordered with brambles and hedges. I had already seen a movement on its farther side, like the motion of a cornfield in the wind, and the thought struck me that the Russians, with their lances and sabres, were there, although I could scarcely believe it. But when our skirmishers reached ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... would be at the ball as an attendant in the ladies' cloak-room. It bade him meet her that night at eleven on the old bridge that spanned a ravine behind the hotel, where a back street ended at the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... stop them. The horses that were left were so wretched that Roland felt there was no chance of out-distancing the dragoons by their help, so he resolved to fly on foot, thus avoiding the open roads and being able to take refuge in every ravine and every bush as cover. He therefore hastened with Grimaud and four other officers who had gathered round him towards a small back gate which opened on the fields, but as there was, besides the troops ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the eagle ravine-eager, Raven of my race, to-day Better surely hast thou catered, Lord of gold, than for thyself; Here the morn come greedy ravens Many any a rill of wolf (1) to sup, But thee burning thirst down-beareth, Prince ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... crime was fixed for that night. Hiley, Courceuil, and Boislaurier led and placed their men. Hiley hid in ambush with Minard, Cabot, and Bruce at the right of the Chesnay forest; Boislaurier, Grenier, and Horeau took the centre; Courceuil, Herbomez, and Lisieux occupied the ravine to the left of the wood. All these positions are indicated on the ground-plan drawn by the engineer of the government survey-office, which is ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... roofs of Lhassa at a stated period and blowing enormous trumpets, making the most hideous midnight din imaginable. The reason given for this was that in former days the city was terrorized by demons who rose from a deep ravine and crept through all the houses, working evil everywhere. After the priests had exorcised them by blowing these trumpets, the town was troubled no more. In Africa the same demonstration of trumpet blowing occurs at an eclipse of the moon; and, to draw the theory out to a thin ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... mile farther on he overtook her. Rather, he sighted her in the trail, saw her duck in amongst the rocks and scattered brush of a small ravine, and spurred after her. It was precarious footing for his horse when he left the road, but John Doe was accustomed to that. He jumped boulders, shied around buckthorn, crashed through sagebrush and so brought the ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... occupies a narrow strip of land between the precipitous heights of Cape Diamond and the river. It is connected with the upper town by means of a steep street, built in a ravine, which is commanded by the guns of a ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... at three o'clock, there was a sound like tremendous and continued peals of thunder; rocks, trees and earth were shot up into mid-air in great columns, and then the wave started down the ravine. A farmer, who escaped, said that the water did not come down like a wave, but jumped on his house and beat it to fragments in an instant. He was safe upon the hillside, but his wife and two children were killed. At the present time the lake looks like a cross between ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... hear his heavy tread and his panting breath. We emerged; had passed him. He was taller now. He seemed confused at our sudden scampering activity. He checked his forward rush, and ran around the twin boulders. But we had squeezed into a narrow ravine. He could not follow. He threw a rock: to us it was a boulder. It crashed behind us. To him, we were like scampering insects; he could not tell which way we were about ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... Here is a downward path to the abode of Hades, and the headland of Acherusia stretches aloft, and eddying Acheron cleaves its way at the bottom, even through the headland, and sends its waters forth from a huge ravine. And near it ye will sail past many hills of the Paphlagonians, over whom at the first Eneteian Pelops reigned, and of his blood they boast ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... along the side of this acclivity, at a considerable distance above the brook on our left, their hoofs making no noise in the soft, black earth, when I was startled by the braying of an ass somewhere in the ravine. ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... born a slave of Charley Bryant, near Liberty, Texas. She lives in Beaumont, and her little homestead is reached by a devious path through a cemetery and across a ravine on a plank foot-bridge. Liza sat in a backless chair, smoking a pipe, and her elderly son lay on a blanket nearby. Both were resting after a hot day's work in the field. Within the open door could be seen Henry Jones, Liza's husband for sixty years, a tall, gaunt Negro who is helpless. Blind, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Infinite were the varyings of light and shade, from a dazzling gleam on the middle water, to the dense obscurity of leafy nooks. On either hand was a wood, thick with undergrowth; great pines, spruces, and larches, red-berried rowans, crowding on the steep sides of the ravine; trees of noble stature, shadowing fern and flower, towering against the sunny blue. Just below the spot where Piers and Irene rested, a great lichened hazel stretched itself all across the beck; in the upward direction a narrowing vista, filled with every ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... city stands at the head of a landlocked arm of the sea, surrounded by forest-clad hills, and approached through narrow ravine-like straits. Cervera had come there to obtain coal and supplies. If he had made it only a temporary base, and had been able to coal immediately, and put to sea to attack the American cruisers scattered ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... up near the edge of the great ravine—in the front seats! The signal was given, and seven hundred pieces of artillery began a conversation that was enough to bring the blood from your ears. Well, to do justice to one's enemies, I must admit that the Russians let themselves ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... descended by a narrow and steep ravine, the termination of which brought them to a small brook. This they crossed, and again commenced a sharp and troublesome ascent. The mighty Pendle rose up before them, huge and dark, engrossing half the hemisphere. To ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... alone in this once happy spot. Not a voice, not a sound. Oh, Wallace!" cried he, throwing up his venerable arms, "thy house is left unto thee desolate, and I am to be the fatal messenger." With the last words he struck into a deep ravine which led to the remotest solitudes of the glen, and pursued his way in dreadful silence. No human face of Scot or English cheered or scared him as he passed along. The tumult had so alarmed the poor cottagers, that with one accord they fled to their kindred on the hills, amid those ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... day of their sojourn, as Ben Jones, John Day, and others of the hunters were in pursuit of game, they came upon an Indian camp on the open prairie, near to a small stream which ran through a ravine. The tents or lodges were of dressed buffalo skins, sewn together and stretched on tapering pine poles, joined at top, but radiating at bottom, so as to form a circle capable of admitting fifty persons. Numbers of horses were grazing in the neighborhood ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... he could look down upon the broader valley beneath, with its quiet river flowing through the midst, reflecting white villages, forges, long rows of poplars, an occasional bridge, and here and there a long low island; or descending, he would find himself in some narrow ravine, cleft between grey rocky heights overgrown with brushwood and trailing plants, the road leading beside a marshy brook, full of rushes and forget-me-nots, and disappearing amongst the forest trees. All day long Graham wandered about that pleasant land, and it was long past the four o'clock ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... by he heard the roar of water and pushing on faster came to a foaming creek that plunged down a stony ravine. A bridge crossed the gorge, and leaving the track he clambered down the rocky bank. Where the spray had fallen there were patches of ice, but Foster felt that he must get a drink. When he was half-way ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... towers, a miserable earthen citadel of five bastions, which commands the Orcha road, and a wide ditch, which serves as a covered way. Some outworks and the suburbs intercept the view of the approaches to the Mohilef and Dnieper gates; they are defended by a ravine, which, after encompassing a great part of the town, becomes deeper and steeper as it approaches the Dnieper, on the ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... no sign of the coach, but its fresh track was visible leading along the bank of the ravine towards the intersection of the road they should have come by, and to which the coach had indubitably returned. Mr. Boyle drew a long breath. They were comparatively safe from any invisible attack now. At the end of ten ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Gad was attracted by these heights and valleys, tribes of people lived here in their simplicity, yet in sin. The land seemed not different from other lands. Here were towering wooded mountain, rocky ravine, and strong-flowing fountain; here the beast prowled among the rocks, the bird nested in the trees, and the sweet-scented flowers graced all the landscape. The storms beat upon the mountains and the waters rushed ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... part that had been torn off when Phil seized the paper from the old man's assailant. On the reverse of the paper, written in a laborious and cramped hand, was the following inscription: "The lost mine lies 100 paces from the spot marked 2. The land mark noted on the map as figure 1, is a ravine, exactly two miles east of the Shohela River, at the point where it makes a sharp turn above the town of Jennings. Start at the mouth of that ravine and travel directly north for about two miles and one-half, until you ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... already confused your mind. You were searching probably for the weapon from which he had fired the bullet. You did not realise that he would naturally have taken it with him and thrown it somewhere into a ravine or river beside the railway track between here and Venice. How could you think for a moment that he would leave it behind him, here in his room, or dropped in the garden? But this was doubtless due to the confusion ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... advance-column, had just passed a wide and bushy ravine that crossed their path, and the van of the main column was on the point of entering it, when the guides and light horsemen in the front suddenly fell back; and the engineer, Gordon, then engaged in marking out the road, saw a man, dressed like an Indian, but wearing ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... villages, and then crossed the river. Our thirst was extreme. M—— had dreadful cramps, so that I had to hold him on the horse. I was very uneasy about him. The day before I saw the drummer's wife eating chupatties, and asked her to give a piece to the child, which she did. I now saw water in a ravine. The descent was steep, and our only drinkingvessel was M——'s cap. Our horse got water, and I bathed my neck. I had no stockings, and my feet were torn and blistered. Two peasants came in sight, and we were frightened and rode ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... strikes near at hand. They were on the down-grade approach to the mouth of Shonoho Canyon, and they could not see beyond the gentle curve to the left, where the smaller gulch found its intersection with the main ravine. When they were within a hundred yards of the curve the stretch below came into view. Blount had a momentary glimpse of some barrier—a pine-tree, as it proved to be—lying across the main road. Seeing it, he realized at the same instant that ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Algonquins and Abenakis, clustered round the ship in their birchen canoes with fruit and vegetables from the land, which brought fresh life to the scurvy-stricken soldiers. Thence the ship tacked on up the river past Mal Bay, the Ravine of the Eboulements and the Bay of St. Paul with its broad valley and wooded mountains all in a blaze with their beautiful autumn dress, their scarlets, their purples, and their golds, from the maple, the ash, the young ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... They had nothing for it, day having dawned, but to return to their master, and inform him, that they had lost the whole flock of lambs, and knew not what was become of one of them. On our way home, however, we discovered a lot of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine, and the indefatigable Sirrah standing in front of them, looking round for some relief, but still true to his charge. The sun was then up, and when we first came in view, we concluded that it was one of ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the situation was critical and demanded his greatest energy, and, with one hand offering bribes to the Sphakiot chiefs, with the other he hurried his military preparations. Leaving his second in command, Mehmet Pasha, at Krapi, the ravine which approached Sphakia from the east, he marched all his remaining forces round to the west, hoping, as he said, to sweep all the rebels and their Greek allies into the mountains and either starve or otherwise compel them to submission. The chiefs ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... near his heart was that of purchasing from the municipal authorities a small piece of ground, divided from La Mura by a ravine clothed with olive and other trees, "on which stood an unfinished building"—the words are Mrs Bronson's—"commanding the finest view in Asolo." He desired much to have a summer or autumn abode to which he might turn with the assurance of rest in what ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... against the invading force, it was tolerably certain they would discover how Pasmore and his companions had overpowered their guards, and swift vengeance was sure to follow. As they looked down the precipitous sides of the ravine they could see that only four men—two breeds and two Indians held the narrow pass. These men, while they themselves were comparatively safe, could easily hold a large ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... was dexterously turned into a cough by a punch in his ribs from Mr. Trimble's elbow, and they trudged on in silence until they reached Buck Snort Gully, a deep ravine running from the prairie into a stretch of heavy timber beyond, known as ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... bursting into tears entered the house. She threw herself on her knees before an image of the Virgin and prayed ardently. In the meanwhile Falcone walked some two hundred paces along the path and only stopped when he reached a little ravine which he descended. He tried the earth with the butt-end of his carbine, and found it soft and easy to dig. The place seemed to ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the rivers. The poor creatures were so terrified that they left their houses, as in small-pox, and scarcely dared bury their dead. In one instance they paid a very strong man to carry the dead on his back to a steep hill, and throw them into the ravine at the bottom. The food enjoyed by the Dyaks, rotten fish and vegetables, no doubt inclined them to get cholera. The first time of its visitation was after a great fruit season when durian, that rich and luscious fruit, had been particularly abundant. A durian is somewhat larger than ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... reservoir is the Upper Park. This has been less improved than the Lower Park, but is naturally very beautiful. A large part of it is taken up with the great ravine formerly known as McGowan's Pass. It was through this wild glen that the beaten and disheartened fragments of the American army escaped from the city of New York after their disastrous rout at ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... hue, Yellow and white and red and blue. But all is fairer still by night: Each rock reflects a softer light, When the whole mount from foot to crest In robes of lambent flame is dressed; When from a million herbs a blaze Of their own luminous glory plays, And clothed in fire each deep ravine, Each pinnacle and crag is seen. Some parts the look of mansions wear, And others are as gardens fair, While others seem a massive block Of solid undivided rock. Behold those pleasant beds o'erlaid ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... afternoon I made a sketch of the bridge taken from the ravine. It occupied me four hours, as the scene was of the most elaborate character. We dined at four o'clock, and then strolled to the lake, which was at some distance. Two boats were lying in a small stream which emptied itself into the lake, so ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... mantle of deep snow To frame a winding-sheet." The mountain knew him, Nor dared refuse, and with his sword Canute Cut from his flank white snow, enough to make The garment he desired, and then he cried, "Old mountain! death is dumb, but tell me thou The way to God." More deep each dread ravine And hideous hollow yawned, and sadly thus Answered that hoar associate of the clouds: "Spectre, I know not, I am always here." Canute departed, and with head erect, All white and ghastly in his robe of snow, Went forth into great silence and ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... one favorite spot in a little ravine, where a copious spring of clear, cold water gushed out from the sandy bank, and joined the larger stream. This was the Paradise Spring, which deserves much more than its present celebrity for the absolute purity of its waters. Of late years the brook has been better known ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... suddenly, so suddenly that Pocahontas behind him could not stop quickly enough and fell against him and almost down into a ravine that lay beneath, but Nautauquas caught her ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... while it was roofed with a thick dark thatch, tightly fastened down with ropes, and still further secured by slabs of stone to prevent its being carried away by the fierce blasts which are wont to sweep up and down the ravine ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... hills,—yellow this morning, with lines of deep violet where the clefts and valleys were. She followed the sidewalk to the depot at the south end of the town; then took the road east to the little group of adobe houses where the Mexicans lived, then dropped into a deep ravine; a dry sand creek, across which the railroad track ran on a trestle. Beyond that gulch, on a little rise of ground that faced the open sandy plain, was the Kohlers' house, where Professor Wunsch lived. Fritz Kohler was the town tailor, one of ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... slow and cautious. He spoke in whispers, and Rod followed his example. Frequently the two would stop and scan the openings for signs of life. Twice they set fox traps where there were evident signs of runways; in a wild ravine, strewn with tumbled trees and masses of rock, they struck a lynx track and set a trap for him at each end of the ravine; but even during these operations Mukoki's interest was divided. The hunters ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... the position which extends from what was known as the Ravine, to a point exactly opposite Hill 60. At some places the lines were less than forty yards apart and it was possible to throw hand grenades back and forth. It required the entire day to familiarize ourselves ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... it would not be safe for us to permit any possible pursuit to pass by us up the river unseen. Sam professed himself as unwearied by the night's work, and willing to stand the first watch; and my eyes followed his movements as he scrambled across the intervening ravine, and disappeared within a fringe of woods bordering the shore of the river. Shortly after I lay down in the tree shade, and must have fallen asleep almost immediately. I do not know what aroused me, but I immediately ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... anxious than ever to reach the summit of the butte. There was a flock of wild sheep upon it, and from these they hoped to replenish their larder. As they proceeded, every crevice or ravine that seemed to lead up the cliff was carefully examined; but upon all its southern front no practicable ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... highway between Grenoble and Gap parts company from the turbulent Drac, and after crossing the ravine of Vaulx skirts the plateau of La Motte with its magnificent panorama of forests and mountain peaks, a narrow bridle path strikes off at a sharp angle on the left and in wayward curves continues its length through the woods upwards to the hamlet of Vaulx ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... unfortunately, bad weather came on before I reached the Tibetans, from whom I obtained a guide in consequence. From this place a ride of about four miles brought me to the source of the Chachoo, in a deep ravine, containing the terminations of several short, abrupt glaciers,* [De Saussure's glaciers of the second order: see "Forbes' Travels in the Alps," p. 79.] and into which were precipitated avalanches of snow and ice. I found it impossible to distinguish the glacial ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of neither the lambs nor Sirrah could they obtain the slightest trace. "We had nothing for it," says the shepherd, "but to return to our master, and inform him that we had lost his whole flock of lambs. On our way home, however, we discovered a body of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine, and Sirrah standing in front of them, looking all around for some relief. We concluded that it was one of the divisions of the lambs which Sirrah had been unable to manage until he came to that commanding situation. But what ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... follow!' There was now a clattering of hoofs and a rattling of sabre sheaths—the fire of the enemy's guns was partly drawn by Lieutenant Ridgely, and the next moment we were sweeping like the wind up the ravine. I was in a squad of about nine men, who were separated by a shower of grape from the battery, and we were in advance, May leading. He turned his horse opposite the breastwork, in front of the guns, and with another shout 'to follow,' ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... later a horde of brigands of ferocious aspect rushed up to the temple of Hsiang Shan. Miao Shan cried for help, rushed up the steep incline, missed her footing, and rolled down into the ravine. Shan Ts'ai, seeing her fall into the abyss, without hesitation flung himself after her in order to rescue her. When he reached her, he asked: "What have you to fear from the robbers? You have nothing for ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... for night; but when darkness came he was still more terrified and thought that every stone was a lurking villain. A couple of wild asses nearly frightened him out of his senses, and made him scuttle like a hedgehog into a ravine. When he arrived in the darkness of night at the main camp, the night watchman took him for a stranger and raised his gun. But Oerdek shouted and waved his arms, and when he got to his tent he lay down and slept heavily ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... "In the valley of the Lar, I made a study of the subterranean habitations excavated in the rock and made a plan of the very ancient castle, Molla-Klo, which once defended the pass of Vahn. Finally, in the ravine called Ab—pardma, I discovered in the alluvion some stone instruments presenting very ancient paleolithic characters. At Amol, I studied the ruins of the ancient city and gathered some interesting collections containing quite a number ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... which Morestal and his friend followed first makes a bend and climbs the wooded side of a ravine. It was formerly used for foresting purposes and is still paved with large stones which are covered with mud after a rainy day and make ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... rich ravine between the Libyan sands and the Arabian desert. Its depth is several hundred meters, its length six hundred and fifty miles, its average width barely five. On the west the gently sloping but naked Libyan hills, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... flower grow profusely. We then begin to mount the bare foot-hills, among which are curious masses of red rock as large as city churches, and washed by the storms of ages into various fantastic forms. We then enter a ravine or canon through which flows Bear Creek, a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... of Thermopylae was not a ravine among mountains, but a narrow space between mountains and the sea. The mountains landward were steep and inaccessible; the sea was shoal. The passage between them was narrow for many miles along the shore, being narrowest at the ingress and egress. ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to the gap where they expected to look over the pass, but it was blotted out by a mist, not in itself visible though hiding everything, and they were turning to go home when, in the ravine near at hand, the white ruggedness of the Wildstrube ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Reved or Read came into the possession of the Nowell family in the time of Edward III., and extended on one side, within a mile of Whalley, from which township it was divided by a deep woody ravine, taking its name from the little village of Sabden, and on the other stretched far into Pendle Forest. The hall was situated on an eminence forming part of the heights of Padiham, and faced a wide valley, watered by the Calder, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... they went on. They stopped on the middle of the bridge, and looked down over the balustrade into the ravine. The ravine was very deep, and there was a little brook at the bottom of it, and a sort of road or street along the side of ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... noisy way among steep stony banks, clothed scantily with pines and a few scattered silver-barked poplars. And now they became bewildered by two paths leading in opposite directions; one upward among the rocky hills, the other through the opening gorge of a deep ravine. ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... that, I could have died without a murmur. But with my life as a physician is bound up the knowledge of great secrets and the future of man. This it was, when we missed the caravan, tried for a short cut and wandered to this desolate ravine, that ate into my soul, and, in five days, has changed my ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... is very rich for all purposes; near the harbor there are two rivers: one large,[308-2] and another of moderate breadth somewhat near it; the water is of a very remarkable quality. On the bank of it is being built a city called Marta,[308-3] one side of which is bounded by the water with a ravine of cleft rock so that at that part there is no need of fortification; the other half is girt with a plantation of trees so thick that a rabbit could scarcely pass through it; and so green that fire will never ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... perceived, in a narrow valley or ravine, with rugged black walls rising sheer on either side. The silvery light of the crescent moon fell upon the rank jungle that covered the narrow floor of the canyon, which rose and dwindled as ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... more than once already. Here were a couple of men with torches, waiting for them behind a rock, who had come down from the village, a mile farther on, to bring them up the difficult stony path that was the only means of access to it. The track went up a ravine, with a rock-wall rising on their left, on which the light of the torches shone, and tumbled ground, covered with heather, falling rapidly away on their right down to a gulf of darkness whence they could hear the sound of the torrent far ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... a wild gorge ten miles off, with a brook in it. We can take Hodge's mare, put up at a house, and work down the ravine. It's not so bad as the last place, nor so good for fish." I agreed, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... plateau, the soft soil of which is covered with flowers of sulphur and creviced with smoke holes from which scalding steam keeps escaping. Having got up in two days, we descended rapidly to the smiling little town of Orotava, built amidst the most lovely vegetation in a sort of ravine opening out on the sea. The female population of Orotava has a well-deserved reputation for beauty, and we were very kindly met by an invitation to make sure of the fact by being present at an afternoon dance, a sort of "garden party" got up in our honour—a great temptation ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... wall, I will take care to cross the open spaces when his back is turned. I will then come straight here for you, and we will make for the wall behind the governor's house. There is no sentry on that side, for that steep ravine covers it from attack there. However, there are six or eight feet of level ground between the foot of the wall and the edge of the ravine. The walls are twenty feet in height. With fifty feet of that rope I will make a ladder, and will get hold of a piece of iron ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty |
