"Seaman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Captain, Wm. Sketchley, an experienced seaman having crossed the Atlantic 132 times—very attentive to the wants of ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... a rag of clothing was in sight, and no cajolery or promise of reward could persuade the ship's men into supplying his need. He received consignments of food; short rations they would be, he judged, for an able-bodied seaman. But inactivity and confinement to the fo'cas'le soon worked havoc with his physique, so that appetite, and even desire of life itself, temporarily disappeared ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... said another seaman. "It was about spillin' some tar on the deck, an' now the Dago's got to stop up this arternoon an' holystone it clean in his ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Naow, lidy, aw will not deceive you, thow the mistike his but netral. Awm wanne of the missionary's good works, lidy—is first cornvert, a umble British seaman—countrymen o yours, lidy, and of is lawdship's. This eah is Mr. Renkin, the bust worker in the wust cowst vawnyawd. (Introducing the judge) Mr. Renkin: is lawdship Sr Ahrd Ellam. (He withdraws discreetly ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... representatives without restraint; that no freeman should suffer but by judgment of his peers; that all trials should be by a jury of twelve men; that no tax should be levied without the consent of the Assembly; that no seaman or soldier should be quartered on the inhabitants against their will; that there should be no martial law, and that no person professing faith in God by Jesus Christ should be disquieted or questioned on account of religion. Two years later ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... chewed—practices that intoxicate in another form, and lead nearly as many to the grave as excess in drinking. Thus all the accessories about this singular being, partook of the character of her recent life and duties. Her walk was between a waddle and a seaman's roll; her hands were discolored with tar, and had got to be full of knuckles, and even her feet had degenerated into that flat, broad-toed form that, perhaps, sooner distinguishes caste, in connection with outward appearances, than any one other physical ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... scene on the quarter-deck; as if this Mr. Rigs was a great merchant living in a marble house in Lafayette Place. But I was not very long in finding out, that at sea all officers are Misters, and would take it for an insult if any seaman presumed to omit calling them so. And it is also one of their rights and privileges to be called sir when addressed—Yes, sir; No, sir; Ay, ay, sir; and they are as particular about being sirred as so many knights and baronets; though their titles are not hereditary, as is the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... insults over-sufficient E'en to my plaints fere Fate begrudges ears that would hear me. 170 Jupiter! Lord of All-might, Oh would in days that are bygone Ne'er had Cecropian poops toucht ground at Gnossian foreshore, Nor to th' unconquered Bull that tribute direful conveying Had the false Seaman bound to Cretan island his hawser, Nor had yon evil wight, 'neath shape the softest hard purpose 175 Hiding, enjoyed repose within our mansion beguested! Whither can wend I now? What hope lends help to the lost one? Idomenean mounts shall I scale? Ah, parted by whirlpools Widest, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... sharp enough as it was; and as he rasped, he looked straight before him at the great rugged cliff. But he was not thinking of it in the least; his thoughts were half a mile away, at the most precipitous part of the coast—a spot avoided by shore-goer and seaman alike, from the ill name it bore, and the dangers said to attend those who ventured to go near, either ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... or his strong, brown hand, would have established the captain's calling. Whereas Mr. Pettifer—a man of a certain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent—looked no more like a seaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... exterior corresponded with the death and despair reigning within. It is supposed that eleven thousand American seaman perished in her. None came to relieve their woes. Once or twice, by order of a stranger on the quarter-deck a bag of apples was hurled promiscuously into the midst of hundreds of prisoners, crowded as thick as they could stand, and life and limb were endangered in the struggle. The prisoners ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... high approval. He took off his sou'wester, slatted it over the after-bitt to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. "You'll see nothing cleaner than that in this harbor to-day, fellows, and you'll see some pretty fair work at that. That fellow—he's an able seaman." ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... beggar, do you mean to say that you've passed yourself off as a seaman or sailor ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... her commander is received like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never seen before. There is a cool parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars, writing implements, a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months' passage out of a seaman's heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the ship remains in harbour, by the daily visits of the water-clerk. To the captain he is faithful like a friend and attentive like a son, with the patience of Job, the unselfish ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the information I could from the communicative seaman, I hurried on with the satisfactory intelligence to the works, where I found my father leaning on his spade, pretty well tired out by his unusual exertions. The light of the lantern I brought, however, enabled us to proceed, and he recommenced ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... days, and have saved all records, observations, papers, instruments, etc. Enclosed is the muster roll of the expedition. No scurvy as yet and no deaths. Our sick are William Hawes, carpenter, arctic fever, serious; David McPherson, seaman, ulceration of left foot, serious. The general condition of the rest of the men is fair, though much weakened by exposure ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... shaver my father was a seaman, captain of a ship; but his whole fortune consisted of his vessel, his wife and son. Mother and I often used to go with him on his trips, but for some reason he left me at home the last time he set sail, and he never came back. New Orleans was his port. Yellow fever broke out while he was ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the Doctor—"dear me, dear me! What a nuisance money is, to be sure! Well, never mind. Perhaps if I go down to the seaside I shall be able to borrow a boat that will take us to Africa. I knew a seaman once who brought his baby to me with measles. Maybe he'll lend us ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... with alacrity. "I am Dr. Seaman," I responded. "I have just moved into the block." And I indicated my ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... little, she stripped off her stockings and pumps, while he changed from a flivver-driver into a young viking, with bare white neck, pale hair ruffled about his head, trousers rolled up above his straight knees—a young seaman of the crew of Eric ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... prone upon the deal table—this latest of the river's dead—dressed in rough sailor garb, and, to all outward seeming, a seaman of nondescript nationality—such as is no stranger in Wapping and Shadwell. His dark, curly hair clung clammily about the brown forehead; his skin was stained, they told me. He wore a gold ring in one ear, and three fingers of ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... our devious party courses, and the Tariff Reformers have still to capture us. Weston Massinghay was comparing them the other night, at a dinner at the Clynes', to a crowded piratical galley trying to get alongside a good seaman in rough weather. He was very funny about Leo Maxse in the poop, white and shrieking with passion and the motion, and all the capitalists armed to the teeth and hiding snug in the hold until the grappling-irons ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... books took place I have no means of being accurately informed: but I should think not anterior to the year 1673, or 1674; for, in the year 1676, to the best of my recollection, the catalogue of the Library of Dr. SEAMAN was put forth; to which is prefixed an address to the reader, wherein the custom of selling books by auction is mentioned as having been but of recent origin in our country.[358] It was, however, no sooner introduced ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... practices, they reflect Defoe's growing concern with problems of poverty and wealth in England. In his preface to the first volume of the General History of the Pyrates, Defoe argued that the unemployed seaman had no choice but to "steal or starve." When the pirate, Captain Bellamy, boards a merchant ship from Boston, he attacks the inequality of capitalist society, the ship owners, and most of ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... to climb towards the north. It had been impossible to hold him back. Pencroft called him in vain. The reporter prepared to follow him, but Pencroft stopped him. "Do you want to cross the channel?" he asked. "Yes," replied Spilett. "All right!" said the seaman; "wait a bit; Neb is well able to carry help to his master. If we venture into the channel, we risk being carried into the open sea by the current, which is running very strong; but, if I'm not wrong, it is ebbing. See, the tide is going ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... after Drake had completed his voyage, another English seaman, Sir Walter Raleigh, sent out an expedition to find a good site for a settlement in North America. The explorers reached the coast of North Carolina and returned with glowing accounts of the country, which was named Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen." But Raleigh's colonies ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... the diet of sailors consisted chiefly of salt pork, scurvy was a dread scourge which often disabled whole ship crews and sent many a poor seaman into "Davy Jones' locker." The cooking of animal foods destroys the vitamines which they contain. Infants suffer from scurvy when fed on sterilized or pasteurized milk. There is good reason for believing that pellagra is due to a deficiency ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... cannon still defying, and her colors flaming, flying, In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead, Soared the Orient into darkness with her living and her dying: "Yet our lads made shift to rescue three-score souls," the seaman said. ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... better founded than the prescription. I may be lame; but I shall never be a duck, nor deal in the garbage of the Alley. I envy your Strawberry tide, and need not say how much I wish I was there to receive you. Methinks, I should be as glad of a little grass, as a seaman after a long voyage. Yet English gardening gains ground here prodigiously-not much at a time, indeed—I have literally seen one, that is exactly like a tailor's paper of patterns. There is a Monsieur Boutin, who has ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Ford could see, both the sky and the water looked clean enough, but Dick was right about the weather. In fact, if Captain Dabney Kinzer had been a more experienced and prudent seaman, he would have kept the "Swallow" inside the bar, that day, at any risk of Ford Foster's good opinion. As it was, even Dick Lee's keen eyes hardly comprehended how threatening was the foggy haze that was lying low on the water, miles and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... invaders. But her strong fortifications, by which she was girt and linked to her principal haven, gave her, in those ages, almost all the advantages of an insular position. Pericles had made her trust to her empire of the seas. Every Athenian in those days was a practised seaman. A state, indeed, whose members, of an age fit for service, at no time exceeded thirty thousand, could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held by devoting and zealously training all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... enacts unrighteous laws. For instance, a little more than a year ago, John Hancock's sloop, Liberty, arrived from Madeira with a cargo of wine. The Custom House officer went on board. He was followed by half a dozen seaman belonging to one of Hancock's other vessels, who locked the officer into the cabin, unloaded the vessel, all except a few pipes of wine, and carted the cargo away. The next morning the captain of the vessel made oath that half a dozen casks was all the wine he had to deliver for payment ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... and kept up a good head of steam; and in the chill of dawn he and the mate cast off warps and (with the pilot) worked the steamer out through the ship lock, practically unaided. The mate, when not in liquor, was a first-class seaman; and Bill, left alone between the furnaces and the engines, perspired in all the ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with the help of the sea and the wind. In fifteen days, if this state of things lasted, she might reach Tristan d'Acunha. Captain Len Guy left the working of the ship to James West, and well might he do so; there was nothing to fear with such a seaman as he. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... blew it is folly to attempt describing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... may chance it awhile with the girls like that, if you please; But you want a woman to trust when you settle down with a wife; And a seaman's thought of growin' old at his ease Is a snug little house on the land to shelter the rest of ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... upon our bluff old man, and it is not the spirit of contrariety alone which makes me invariably take his part. Coarse he may be, and not one whom the owners would have chosen to command the Lady Jermyn; a good seaman none the less, who brought us round the Horn in foul weather without losing stitch or stick. I think of the ruddy ruffian in his dripping oilskins, on deck day and night for our sakes, and once more I must needs take ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua Higgins by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by capacity, he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and selfish and cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen, and a bully over ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... good a man as he;" Bligh, seizing a cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of concessions; now why did this fellow consider himself as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a tenth part as good. As brave a man? no, nor a tenth part as brave; and of these facts he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and seamanship stood for nothing with him, as they still stand with thousands of his class; Bligh was not genteel ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Margaret there was a good view of it between the stern of one hulk and the bow of another. Here, then, Peter and Margaret sat themselves down behind the bulwark, and watched with fears such as cannot be told, while a sharp-eyed seaman climbed to the crow's-nest on the mast, whence he could see over much of the city, and even the old Moorish castle that was then the Holy House of the Inquisition. Presently this man reported that the procession had started, for he saw its banners and the people crowding ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Pellew the frigate. The choice of the one led to the duties of a division commander, that of the other to the comparative independence of detached service, of the partisan officer. In the one, love of the military side of his calling predominated; the other was, before all, the seaman. The union of the two ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... pleasant for forty days successively; but on the forty-first night the wind became contrary, and so boisterous that we were nearly lost. I gave orders to steer back to my own coast; but I perceived at the same time that my pilot knew not where we were. Upon the tenth day a seaman, being sent to look out for land from the masthead, gave notice that he could see nothing but sky and sea, but that right ahead he ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... the wheel. A fat and very sleepy seaman put up the side-lights, and the little schooner, detaching itself by the aid of boat-hooks and fenders from the neighbouring craft, moved slowly down with the tide. The men, in response to the captain's fervent orders, ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... shown so many a daring deed Of courage fine and skill, Though unrecorded still. And many a seaman's head A wreath of sea-weed wore when dead, Whose name should shine in gold Among ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... that "no British seaman could be capable of neglecting his duty for the sake of increasing the gains of the station." But nothing could be more absurd than this. Can the direct and inevitable tendency of the head-money system be doubted? Are cruisers the only ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... worthies kept themselves concealed in the secret parts of the island, until the departure of the two vessels. When Sir George Somers revisited the island, in quest of supplies for the Virginia colony, these culprits hovered about the landing-place, and succeeded in persuading another seaman, named Edward Chard, to join them, giving him the most seductive pictures of the ease and abundance in which ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... winning immortal glory by his victory at Trafalgar must convince the most sceptical that his seamen for the most part were little better than galley slaves. Life on board these frigates was well-nigh unbearable. The average life of a seaman, Nelson reckoned, was forty-five years. In this age before processes of refrigeration had been invented, food could not be kept edible on long voyages, even in merchantmen. Still worse was the fare on men-of-war. The health of a crew ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... these distempers may be said to have ended. Blessed are the peacemakers. Hand had perhaps averted a collision. What is more certain, he had offered to the world a perfectly original reading of the part of British seaman. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of wheels, and the same clink of horses' feet. It was not for nothing that they made the burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really the first throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to hear them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp a hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. They have the freshness of the daylight life about them. You can hear the carters cracking their whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in Pillau, Prussia, whose heroism of character certainly rises into the gigantic, or whose intrepidity, to say the least, appears to be unprecedented. This woman, by a truly generous daring, is the widow of a seaman, with whom, for upwards of twenty years, she made long voyages; and, since his death, she has devoted her life, for his memory's sake, to the noble and perilous task of carrying aid to the drowning. Her name is Katherine Klenfoldt. Whenever a storm arises, whether by day or night, she embarks ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... shot out of the harbour of Barfleur, there was not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, and the oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... worthy friend, prevented me from taking such a step. I am a young man and a young officer, and must win my character in the service; no, it is impossible to fly; an older and more tried seaman than myself might have done so, but I must fight; if a shot finishes me, will you, my dear friend, deliver this portfolio to my poor mother, whose only support ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... that we must be near land, for my dog smelt game. This occasioned a general laugh; but that did not alter in the least the good opinion I had of my dog. After much conversation pro and con, I boldly told the captain that I placed more confidence in Tray's nose than I did in the eyes of every seaman on board; and therefore boldly proposed laying the sum I had agreed to pay for my passage (viz., one hundred guineas) that we should find game within half an hour. The captain (a good hearty fellow) laughed again, desired Mr. Crawford, the surgeon, who was prepared, to feel my pulse. He ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... you mean; the New Zealand dodge? Just look between my shoulders," and the seaman turned a broad bare back, whereon were designs of curious ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... But his eyes did not bear out the resemblance. An Irish blue; bright, unravaged; clear beacon lights in a rough and storm-battered countenance. Gunner Moran wasn't a gunner at all, or even a gunner's mate, but just a seaman who knew the sea from Shanghai to New Orleans; from Liverpool to Barcelona. His knowledge of knots and sails and rifles and bayonets and fists was a thing to strike you dumb. He wasn't the stuff of which officers ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the boat, "They are lost! they are all dead!" When at last the gale moderated and we got safely ashore, they saluted us warmly, as after a long absence. From this time we trusted implicitly to the opinions of our seaman, John Neil, who, having been a fisherman on the coast of Ireland, understood boating on a stormy coast, and by his advice we often sat cowering on the land for days together waiting for the surf to go down. He had never seen such waves before. We had to beach the boat every night ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... he's sailing under new colors. Who would have thought of his hoisting a petticoat for a flag?" said Blunt Harry, an old, fat seaman, who is esteemed the ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... for the seaman's perplexity, for the closet in which he stood, apart from the fact of its being only ten feet long by six broad, had been arranged by the tasteful sisters after the manner of a lady's boudoir, with a view to captivate some poor sister of very limited means, ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... importance of the first incident at the time. We were steaming along at good speed, hoping to make New York before too late for quarantine, when a hail came from the forward lookout. I was on watch and I went forward to see what was the matter. The lookout was Louis Green, an able bodied seaman and a good one, but a confirmed drunkard. I asked him what the trouble was and he turned toward me a face that was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... lofty stern I found hanging therefrom a tangle of ropes and cordage whereby I contrived to clamber aboard, and so beheld a man in a red seaman's bonnet who sat upon the wreckage of one of the quarter guns tying up a splinter-gash in his arm with hand and teeth; perceiving me he rolled a pair of blue eyes ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... sailors from three obols a day to four. Alkibiades, who could with difficulty pay his men even three obols, went to Caria to levy contributions, leaving in command of the fleet one Antiochus, a good seaman, but a thoughtless and silly man. He had distinct orders from Alkibiades not to fight even if the enemy attacked him, but such was his insolent disregard of these instructions that he manned his own trireme and one other, sailed to Ephesus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be overlooked. However, I determined to act on the idea. I started at once in this harmless seaman's rig and inquired at all the yards down the river. I drew blank at fifteen, but at the sixteenth—Jacobson's—I learned that the Aurora had been handed over to them two days ago by a wooden-legged man, with some trivial directions as to her rudder. 'There ain't naught amiss with her rudder,' ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... directly led. La Mothe Fenelon was well aware that Admiral Winter, besides his public commission, had been furnished with a secret order, authorizing him to assist La Rochelle, signed by Elizabeth's own hand, without which the wary old seaman absolutely refused to go, doubtless fearing that he might be sacrificed when it suited his mistress's crooked policy. What the order contained was no mystery to the French envoy.[643] Neither party in this solemn farce was deceived, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Done, who was watching developments with keen interest, saw a Scandinavian seaman named Jorgensen steal over the side, and slip into the sea like a porpoise. Jorgensen struck out for the shore, swimming under water for the most part, till he had covered a distance of about two hundred yards from the ship. Others, including the armed sailors, had witnessed ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... or Robert Kidd, as he is sometimes called, was a sailor in the merchant service who had a wife and family in New York. He was a very respectable man and had a good reputation as a seaman, and about 1690, when there was war between England and France, Kidd was given the command of a privateer, and having had two or three engagements with French vessels he showed himself to be a brave fighter and ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... the fashion of most Colonial governors, was willing enough to dull his wits to the extent of accepting the English seaman's story, disregarding any evidence that might belie it. He shared the hatred so richly deserved by arrogant, overbearing Spain that was common to men of every other nation from the Bahamas to the Main. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... light, lord of the golden day, That, bursting through the sable clouds again, Dost cheer the seaman's solitary way, And with new splendour deck the lucid main! And lo! the voyage past, where many a palm,[75] Its green top only seen, the prospect bounds, Fringing the sunny sea-line, clear and calm; Now hark the slowly-swelling human sounds! Meantime ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... demand almost unqualified commendation. It was by sobriety, by diligence in the concerns of his employers, and by a tried integrity, that he early raised himself from the humble station of an ordinary seaman to the command of a vessel. When placed in authority over others, he showed himself humane and considerate; his treatment of his prisoners was exemplary, his veracity unimpeached, his private life religiously pure and spotless. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... have the wounded seaman brought to the saloon, and it was found that he was not seriously injured. After the wound was dressed, orders were given to set the regular watch. Little progress was made during the night, owing to the heavy ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... counsel on the matter with Captain King, a bluff, tawny-bearded seaman, who was devoted to ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... object of general attention; that every feminine eye, at any rate, was on him; and that the watch would be all the closer in the absence of his betrothed No, he did not want to dawdle away a week (off duty) at Hale Castle. Never before had he so yearned for the rough freedom of Major Seaman's shooting-quarters, the noisy mirth of those rude Homeric feasts, half dinner, half supper, so welcome after a long day's sport, with a quiet rubber, perhaps, to finish with, and a brew of punch after a recondite recipe of the Major's, which he was facetiously declared to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Great Armada. In 1595 he set out on another voyage to the Spanish Main; and in the January of the following year died off Porto Bello and was buried in the waters where he had made his name as the greatest seaman of ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... seaman turned to the list as soon as the newspaper was placed in his hand, and ran his finger down it, name by name. The finger suddenly stopped at this line: "Sea-view Cottage; Mr. Noel Vanstone." Kirke of the merchant-service repeated the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... cannibals when devouring the flesh of their enemies. Certainly, if the cannibal nations have the same feeling towards their enemies which sailors have against sharks, I do not wonder at their adhering to this custom, for there was a savage delight in the eyes of every seaman in the ship as they assisted to cut to pieces and then devour the brute who would have devoured them. It was the madness of retaliation—an eye for an eye, and a tooth for ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... heaving up her stern and sinking her bows down so deep into the hollow of the sea, that it appeared as if she would have dived down underneath the waves; but she was a fine vessel, and the captain was a good seaman, who did what he considered best for the safety of his vessel, and then put his trust in that Providence who is ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... feelings, great perils, and the gushes that crowned all of holy triumph when the boats came in with the dripping and saved, and man for a moment looked greater than the sea and the wind and death, this seaman poured hot from his own manly heart into quick and womanly bosoms, that heaved visibly, and glowed with admiring sympathy, and fluttered ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... of the man who escaped was William Hoffman, seaman on the Chicopee. He did his duty well, and deserves a ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... did his best to wake the mate up, that is to say, he chaffed him without mercy, but it was poor fun to laugh by oneself, and he came to the conclusion that, drunk or sober, Bananas was no fit companion for a white man. But he was a good seaman and the captain was shrewd enough to know the value of a mate he could trust. It was not rare for him to come aboard, when they were sailing, fit for nothing but to fall into his bunk, and it was worth something to know that he could stay there till he had slept his liquor off, since Bananas ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Arrival at Ulietea. Astronomical Observations. A Marine deserts, and is delivered up. Intelligence from Omai. Instructions to Captain Clerke. Another Desertion of a Midshipman and a Seaman. Three of the chief Persons of the Island confined on that Account. A Design to seize Captains Cook and Clerke discovered. The two Deserters brought back, and the Prisoners released. The Ships sail. Refreshments received at Ulietea. Present and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... that one in my mind. And I forgot it till twenty-six or seven years afterwards I came upon the very thing in a shabby volume picked up outside a second-hand book-shop. It was the life story of an American seaman written by himself with the assistance of a journalist. In the course of his wanderings that American sailor worked for some months on board a schooner, the master and owner of which was the thief of whom I had heard in my very young days. I have no doubt of that because there could hardly have ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... Drake, his relative, is extolled as "a man borne for the honour of the English name.... Neither did the West of England yeeld such an Indian Neptunian paire as were these two Ocean peeres, Hawkins and Drake." So writes the old chronicler, Purchas, and all England was of his thinking. A hardy seaman, a bold fighter, overbearing towards equals, but kind, in his bluff way, to those beneath him, rude in speech, somewhat crafty withal, and avaricious, he buffeted his way to riches and fame, and died at last full of years and honor. As for the abject humanity stowed between the reeking decks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... realised, except, indeed, that the anguish was not brief, for it lasted twelve terrible hours—a long communion face to face with Death! The bark sailed May 17, 1850. Captain Hasty, 'so fine a model of the New-England seaman,' inspired the passengers with cheerful confidence, and for a few days all went prosperously. But early in June, Captain Hasty died of confluent small-pox. The child Angelino caught it, but recovered, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... I was very glad, for I had longed for that word of his. For never, since I could remember, was a time when I knew not all that a boy might learn, for his years, of sea and the seaman's craft; and the sea drew me, calling me as it were with its many voices, even as it ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... Academy, as poor a show as ever I had seen, I thought; only Millais attracted me: a Boy with a red Sash: and that old Seaman with his half-dreaming Eyes while the Lassie reads to him. I had no Catalogue: and so thought the Book was—The Bible—to which she was drawing his thoughts, while the sea-breeze through the open Window whispered of his old ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... the morning two six-inch shells hit the Hardinge near the southern entrance of the lake. They first damaged the funnel, and the second burst inboard. Pilot Carew, a gallant old merchant seaman, refused to go below when the firing opened and lost a leg. Nine others were wounded, one or two merchantmen were hit but no lives were lost. A British gunboat was struck. Then came a dramatic duel between the Turkish big gun, or guns, ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... attention from any judicious spectator. His figure was short, broad, and prodigiously muscular; his limbs, though stunted, appearing knotty and (in woodman's language) gnarled; at the same time that the trunk of his body was lusty—and, for a seaman, somewhat unwieldy. In age he seemed nearer to seventy than sixty; but still manifested an unusual strength hardened to the temper of steel by constant exposure to the elements and by a life of activity. The colour of his hair was probably white; that is, per se, and with ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... waves breaking on the shore, there was great difficulty in embarking. Fearing that Elise might receive some harm should I attempt to hold her while getting into the boat, I committed her to the charge of a seaman, an officer he seemed of some sort, who told me he was going off with us. A considerable number of other people were about to embark in the same vessel, and were crowding down to the edge of the water, ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... time, then, as I was off the purser's books. Good bye to you; I only hopes as you may get a better seaman to stick to you and be your walley de sham nor Jack Pringle, that's all the harm I wish you. You didn't call me no seaman in the Bay of Corfu, when the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... fee-bil lamp me brither-in, Some poor sail-er tempest torst, Strugglin' 'ard to save the 'arb-er, Hin the dark-niss may be lorst, So let try lower lights be burning, Send 'er gleam acrost the wave, Some poor shipwrecked, struggling seaman, You may rescue, you ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... shall, Captain Sharkey," said the old seaman, "for I have done my duty so far as my power lay. But before I go over I would say a word in ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... round the chest, and weighed about 14 stone. He learnt to swim when about seven years old, and was trained as a sailor on board the Conway training-ship in the Mersey, where he saved the life of a fellow seaman. In 1870 he dived under his ship in the Suez Canal and cleared a foul hawser; and, on April 23, 1873, when serving on board the Cunard steamer Russia, he jumped overboard to save the life of a hand who had fallen from aloft, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Mr. Collison emerged from his quarters in the deck-house beneath the bridge and ran up the ladder to relieve Mr. Swain. At the same time a seaman came from forward and ascended by the other ladder. Later Mr. Swain and the man whose trick at the wheel was ended left the bridge, the latter to go forward to his rest, Mr. Swain to turn into ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... track left by the passage of an army. If any hold that men are not created so dense and unambitious as has just been represented, let him look nearer home in our own merchant service. The able-bodied seaman goes to sea all his life, but he never gets any nearer navigating the ship—and he ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... it?" asked Seaman Jones of Seaman Smith. "Better strike while the grog's 'ot. A double-prick o' baccy and a gallon o' four-'arf, evens, on the Griller. I ain't never 'eard o' the Griller till we come 'ere, and I never 'eard o' t'other bloke neether—but I 'olds by the Griller, cos of 'is name and I backs ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... and women depend for existence on the earth and on the sky that makes earth fertile; and man's last act will be, as it was his first, to till the soil. All empires, cities, tumults, civil and religious wars, are transitory in comparison. The slow toil of the farm-laborer, the endurance of the seaman, outlast them all. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shaking the boat in its sturdy battling against the forces of the sea. The Seminole rolled heavily, yet there was nothing at all alarming in her actions, and West felt no premonition of illness, or fear as to the sea-worthiness of the little craft. Whoever was handling her was evidently a seaman, quite capable of conquering a storm of this magnitude. No noise came to him from the cabin, yet he had no thought it could be deserted. Hogan would certainly retain a guard there, and probably others—with no duties of seamanship weighing on them—would seek refuge there from ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... they had been driven; but they saw that, while for the most part it was iron-bound, there was a shelving sandy bay at one point on to which it might be possible to run her ashore. The Revised Version gives a much more accurate and seaman-like account than the Authorised Version does. The anchors were not taken on board, but to save time and trouble were 'left in the sea,' the cables being simply cut. The 'rudder-bands'—that is, the lashings which had secured the two paddle-like rudders, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... about terms," laughed our host graciously. "Sailor or seaman or deckhand will do just ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... most desperate struggle, the fleets of France and Spain had been defeated by that of England, whose admiral, the famous Nelson, had been killed; taking to his grave a reputation as the finest seaman of the epoch. On our side we lost Rear-admiral Magon, a very fine officer. One of our vessels blew up; seventeen, as many French as Spanish, were captured. A severe storm which arose toward the end of the battle, lasted all night and ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... stretch which, tracking along the Southern Seas, due east, was to land us in New Zealand, I was actually walking with some slight help, and from that time onwards I improved to such an extent that I was able to take my turn now and again with one of the watches as an able seaman. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... carried a fair wind out of the Clyde, and for near upon a week we enjoyed bright weather and a sense of progress. I found myself (to my wonder) a born seaman, in so far at least as I was never sick; yet I was far from tasting the usual serenity of my health. Whether it was the motion of the ship on the billows, the confinement, the salted food, or all of these together, I suffered from a blackness of spirit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I was fond of the water—instinctively so. Had I been born a duck, or a water-dog, I could not have liked it better. My father had been a seaman, and his father before him, and grandfather too; so that perhaps I inherited the instinct. Whether or not, my aquatic tastes were as strong as if the water had been my natural element; and I have been told, though I do not myself remember it, that when still but a mere child, it ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... mariners are furnished with charts of every sea, every rock is pointed out, every shoal set down, and every channel buoyed. Pilots are to be found at the entrance of every port, and all that science, indefatigable labour, and liberal expenditure can effect, to warn the seaman of his danger, and to prevent vessels from being wrecked,—all has long, and ardently, and ably been studied ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... galleys on the sea Until, as gunner, in Persia they set him free To fight their foes. Of Prester John he saith Astounding things. But Queen Elizabeth He worships, and his dear Lord on Calvary. Quaint is the phrase, ingenuous the wit Of this great childish seaman in Palestine, Mocked home through Italy after his release With threats of the Armada; and all of it Warms me like firelight jewelling old wine In some ghost inn hung with ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... pleasant-tempered captain and crew, who had been shut up with us in the little craft during our seventeen days' tossing, and gave a farewell of especial warmth to the fatherly mate, whose rough exterior covered the warm heart of a seaman and the delicate feelings of a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the mists the snow lies draped in stainless purity waiting for the dawn. Then I know that Harry, who is only a tiller of the soil, had learned in the book of nature to grasp the message of that scene, and interpret it through the close of a seaman's ballad. ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... removed to the TRIUMPH, seventy-four, then stationed as a guard-ship in the Thames. This was considered as too inactive a life for a boy, and Nelson was therefore sent a voyage to the West Indies in a merchant-ship, commanded by Mr. John Rathbone, an excellent seaman, who had served as master's mate under Captain Suckling in the Dreadnought. He returned a practical seaman, but with a hatred of the king's service, and a saying then common among the sailors—"Aft the most honour; forward the better man." Rathbone had probably ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the Elizabeth lay waiting for her company. Yet, even then, dark presentiments so overshadowed Margaret, that she passed one anxious hour more in hesitation, before she could resolve to go on board. But Captain Hasty was so fine a model of the New England seaman, strong-minded, prompt, calm, decided, courteous; Mrs. Hasty was so refined, gentle, and hospitable; both had already formed so warm an attachment for the little family, in their few interviews at Florence and Leghorn; Celeste Paolini, a young Italian girl, who had engaged to render ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... experiment was made, a seaman being selected for the critic. A kinsman, a namesake, and an old messmate of the author, one now in command on a foreign station, was chosen, and a considerable portion of the first volume was read ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... The seaman's first movement, and not an unnatural one, considering he was at the Havannah and the day not yet broken, was to half draw his cutlass from its scabbard, but the next moment he let it drop back again. The appearance of the person who addressed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... the Hogue behaved extraordinarily [Transcriber: original 'extraordinarly'] well, obeying orders even when in the water swimming for their lives, and I witnessed many cases of great self-sacrifice and gallantry. Farmstone, an able seaman of the Hogue, jumped overboard from the launch to make room for others, and would not avail himself of assistance until all the men near by were picked up. He was in the water about ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... Cook carried on the first thorough British exploration of Australia, and took possession of it and New Zealand for the British Crown. In 1788, just a century after its first exploration by a British seaman, Australia was actually occupied by Great Britain, "the First Fleet" founding a settlement on the shores of Port Jackson, by the side of a little creek called the Tank Stream. That was the beginning of Sydney, at present one of the greatest cities ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... exclaimed Davis, the merchant seaman's horror of breaking into cargo showing incongruously forth on board that stolen ship. 'There was never any good came of games ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was so plainly heard in the cabin, that Oliver tried to raise himself up, but sank back with a sigh of pain, for the rough usage he had met with from the Papuans had made him lie back half fainting and speechless. But he was conscious of the words shouted by the seaman to the mate, and of the latter's orders as he ran out ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... broad-shouldered fellow in a suit of blue seaman's cloth, the trousers of which were tucked inside a pair of Wellington boots. His complexion was brown as a nut, and he wore rings in his ears: but the features were British enough. A perplexed, ingratiating and rather silly smile ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the little warlike world within! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy, The hoarse command, the busy humming din, When, at a word, the tops are manned on high: Hark to the boatswain's call, the cheering cry, While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides Or schoolboy midshipman that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe, as good or ill betides, And well the docile crew ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... that I lost even my intellectual sense of it; and now first I understood practically and feelingly the anguish of hope alternating with disappointment, as it may be supposed to act upon the poor shipwrecked seaman, alone and upon a desolate coast, straining his sight for ever to the fickle element which has betrayed him, but which only can deliver him, and with his eyes still tracing ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... no pay. Lucky charms free. Her magic image is now in full operation." No. 3.—"The Gipsey Woman has just arrived. If you wish to know all the secrets of your past and future life, the knowledge of which will save you years of sorrow and care, don't fail to consult the palmist." No. 4.—"Cora A. Seaman, independent clairvoyant, consults on all subjects, both medical and business; detects diseases of all kinds and prescribes remedies; gives invaluable advice on all matters of life." No. 5.—"Madame Ray is the best clairvoyant and astrologist in the city. She tells your very thoughts, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... village?" demanded the old man, in the Pawnee language, after examining the paint, and those other little signs by which a practised eye knows the tribe of the warrior he encounters in the American deserts, with the same readiness, and by the same sort of mysterious observation, as that by which the seaman ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Venetian Squadron grappled blindly with the aggressive men of the Ottoman Empire. There were ten children in the family and little Carlo was named after the Emperor Charles IV, who sent a retainer to the baptism of the future seaman, saying, "I wish the child well. He has a brave and noble father and I trust that ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... opinion, the most dashing of all the Amazons in the Bois de Boulogne. The Chevalier de Sainte-Foy brought her to visit my studio last autumn, and I am making a life-size portrait of her on her famous horse, Seaman, the winner of the great steeplechase at Liverpool, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet |
