"Steersman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the steersman of a yacht came a wooing. For two years he had gone about and hugged his misery for her sake, and he got ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... Not a wave, not a ripple on its surface; not a breath of breeze to aid the untiring paddles. The little canoe, weighed down by men and provisions, had scarcely three inches of its gunwale over the water, and yet the steersman held his course far out into the glassy waste, leaving behind the marshy headlands ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... and knew she must be a large steamer. She was now motionless and we had to row to her. Just then day broke, a beautiful quiet dawn with faint pink clouds just above the horizon, and a new moon whose crescent just touched the horizon. 'Turn your money over, boys,' said our cheery steersman, 'that is, if you have any with you,' ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... overturned, so that the father lost everything, and was able to save only the clothes on his back. Thus that boat, which withstood so many buffetings of the sea without any harm, happened to overturn four brazas from shore, through the carelessness of its steersman. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... packet brought me my first grief. She came up behind us with her horses at the full trot. Their boat was down the canal a hundred yards or so at the end of the tow-line; and just before the boat itself drew even with ours she was laid over by her steersman to the opposite side of the ditch, her horses were checked so as to let her line so slacken as to drop down under our boat, her horses were whipped up by a sneering boy on a tall bay steed, her team went outside ours on the tow-path, and the passage was made. They made, as was always the case, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... caused great confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and heard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw that both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, and saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite frantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... ee.—Whee yo ee." The steersman gave "Whee," and was followed by the other men with a repetition of ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... on, with the rock nearer and nearer, as if coming out of the mist, till it stood out bright in the setting sunlight, and the mental vapour was dispersed by the feeling of exultation which surged through the steersman's breast. For all at once it seemed that safety was within touch; and, turning the boat head to wind, she glided slowly up to the opening in the rock, while the sail flapped and the two boys quickly ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... our hero stood near the binnacle talking to the steersman, a sturdy middle-aged sailor, whose breadth appeared to be ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... little that they want, that natur' has had to give. But as little does he know of the temper of a Red-skin, who has seen but one Indian, or one tribe, as he knows of the colour of feathers who has only looked upon a crow. Now, friend steersman, just give the boat a sheer towards yonder, low, sandy point, and a favour will be granted ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was the first problem to be solved, and of this there appeared to be no possible solution. There was no sun to guide them; no visible sky. Even had there been both, it would scarce have mended the matter. The steersman could not tell whether, on straying from the channel, he had drifted to the south or the north, the east or the west; and, indeed, an intellect less obtuse than that of Tipperary Tom might have been puzzled upon the point. It has been already mentioned, that the Solimoes ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Tom Cameron were the best pilots. The small iceboats were built so that two passengers could ride beside the steersman and sheet tender. So the girls took turns in racing up and down the smooth ice on the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... banks not a third of a mile apart, there is a wild river scene. Far ahead the paddlers can hear the roar of the swirl. Now the surface of the river rounds and rises in the eddies of an undertow, and the canoe leaps forward; then, a swifter plunge through the middle of a furious overfall. The steersman rises at the stern and leans forward like ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... native element; but presently it swam slowly in the direction of the turtle till out of sight; in a very short time the line was rapidly carried out, there was a jerk, and the turtle was fast. The line was handled gently for two or three minutes, the steersman causing the canoe to follow the course of the turtle with great dexterity. It was soon exhausted and hauled up to the canoe. It was a small turtle, weighing a little under forty pounds (40 lbs.), but the sucking fish adhered so tenaciously to it as to raise it from ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... he proclaimed vigorously after a while during which he had come to have confidence in the new steersman's knowledge and had been intrigued into conversation. "Don't I know? Black folks knows sooner'n white folks about ha'nts, Cap'n. Ain't I heered all the happenin's dat's done been an' gone an' transcribed on dis here deck? Ain't I seen nothin'? Ain't ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... and knighted the steersman of his boat in the morning, and hanged him in the evening of the same day. Fifty thousand people stood around the columns of the national capitol, shouting themselves hoarse at the presidential inaugural, and in four months so great were the antipathies that ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... our design to give any description of the galatea's crew. There were nine of them,—all Indians,—four on each side acting as rowers, or more properly "paddlers," the ninth being the pilot or steersman, standing abaft the tolda. ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... the captain, steersman, and ballaster of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, will carry only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... seventy-six benefices, M. de Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired to obtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. The government was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman, from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Little cared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of the regency," says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, without examination, as an act of homage to the late king, and a simple ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... choice voluntary full offerings to the Lord, like Abel son of Adam. A man with zealous entreaties to God, like Enoch son of Jared. A steersman full-sufficient for the ark of the Church among the waves of the world, like Noah son of Lamech. A true pilgrim with strength of faith and belief, like Abraham son of Terah. A man loving, gentle, forgiving of heart, like Moses son of Amram. A man patient and steadfast ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... whole, we found it was a French merchant-ship of three hundred tons, homeward-bound from Quebec, in the river of Canada. The master gave us a long account of the distress of his ship, how the fire began in the steerage by the negligence of the steersman; but, on his crying out for help, was, as everybody thought, entirely put out: but they soon found that some sparks of the first fire had gotten into some part of the ship, so difficult to come at, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... harsh voice broke into the song with the order to let go the anchor. As the ship swung to the tide the steersman, who wore neither coat nor waistcoat, could be seen idly handling the wheel still, though his duties were necessarily at an end. He was a young man, and a gay salutation of his unemployed hand toward ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... wind and rain. The soldiers in their hut did not see the light; but it was seen by the crew of a lugger, driving through the waves of the flowing tide before a rough but favouring gale. Accordingly, putting the helm down, their steersman drove the craft clear of the threatened danger that was prepared for the occupants below, and made her touch the land in the adjacent bay of Bonne Nuit, hid from observation by the interposing cliffs. Leaping to the shore, Alain Le Gallais, who was the sole passenger, climbing the western heights, ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... made a sling with them for the broken limb. They then collected five other seamen, by whose assistance they succeeded at length in getting the boat afloat; for it had grounded with the falling tide. Nisbet took one of the oars and ordered the steersman to go close under the guns of the battery, that they might be safe from its tremendous fire. Hearing his voice, Nelson roused himself, and desired to be lifted up in the boat that he might look about him. Nisbet raised him up; but nothing could be seen except the firing of the guns on shore, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... didn't remind Jimmy of a buckwheat cake. It made him think instead of a slowly turning wheel in the pilot house of a rotting old riverboat, a big, ghostly wheel manned by a steersman a century dead, his eye sockets filled with ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long
... who has not seen a rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with a nice wide shallow Thames lock may think ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... himself, received the suggestion with approval. Usually—for the craft, though, sturdy, was a small one—he was his own steersman and engineer. Now, he could enjoy the luxury of a crew, and the driver, who was a fairly good mechanic, was quite competent to ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... this was to be the sign of their escape. Phereclus, son of Amarsyas, according to Simonides, was pilot of the ship. But Philochorus says Theseus had sent him by Scirus, from Salamis, Nausithous to be his steersman, and Phaeax his look-out-man in the prow, the Athenians having as yet not applied themselves to navigation; and that Scirus did this because one of the young men, Menesthes, was his daughter's son; and this the chapels of Nausithous and Phaeax, built ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... small matter for a steersman in the midst of a storm to keep the rudder straight. Of little consequence ought it to be to us that we are judged by men. God is our only true judge, and it is He Who sees the secrets of our hearts, and all that is ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... steering-sweep. Then came the downward plunge into the trough and a second disappearance. Three times the boat leaped and buried itself, then those on the bank saw its nose take the whirlpool as it slipped off the Mane. The steersman, vainly opposing with his full weight on the steering-gear, surrendered to the whirlpool and helped the boat ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... on the following morning, Jack mounted the steersman's seat, and sent the Terror rolling to the place where the bandits were ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... exclaimed the steersman of the foremost boat, with a brutal oath. "Spring to your oars, lads! We must gain a footing before the guard turns out or it's all up with ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... rudder, the newcomer silently brought the vessel round, steering it towards the place where the waves dashed highest, and in an incredibly short space of time they came to an island, where the steersman motioned them to disembark. In awestruck silence the twelve men obeyed; and their surprise was further excited when they saw the stranger fling his battle-axe, and a limpid spring gush forth from the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... spell would not extend beyond the land of my birth. I took ship at Trieste for Venice. Scarcely were we out of port when a violent storm arose, and we were driven rapidly towards a rocky and dangerous coast. The steersman counted the seamen and passengers, and crossed himself. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... called the mate, speaking to him briefly and rapidly, and the sullen face of the Spaniard became alive. An order to the steersman and the course of the schooner was shifted more toward the west. It was evident to Robert that they were not running away from whatever it was out there. The slaver for the first time in a long ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... the tide. Hither the otter hunters steer, silent as shadows. The circle widens, deploys, forms a cordon round the outermost rim of the kelp fields. Suddenly a black object is seen floating on the surface of the waters—a sea-otter asleep. Quick as flash, the steersman lifts his paddle. Not a word is spoken, but so keen is the hearing of the sleeping otter, the drip of the lifted paddle has not splashed into the sea before the otter has awakened, looked and dived like lightning to the bottom of the sea before one of the Aleut hunters can hurl ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... But, fortunately, Luke's lines were cast upon the great waters, and he who fights the sea must learn to conquer, not by passionate effort, but by consistent, cool resolve. Those who worked with him feared him, and in so doing learnt the habit of his ways. The steersman, with one eye on the binnacle, knew always where to find him with the other; for Luke hardly moved during his entire watch on deck. He took his station at the starboard end of the narrow bridge when he came on duty, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... said, and Archilochus too, deserved to be hooted from the platform and thrashed. Even the main purport of his writings was differently interpreted. Some named his work 'The Muses,' as though it were chiefly a poetic vision; others named it 'The sure Steersman to the Goal of Life'; others, more ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... cold bed; but the storm blew out in the night, and the next day the sun was as hot as summer, and the wind a point to the east. Shalah once again was steersman, for we were inside some very ugly reefs, which I took to be the beginning of the Carolina keys. On shore forests straggled down to the sea, so that sometimes they almost had their feet in the surf; but now and then would come an open, grassy space running far inland. These were, the great savannahs ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... giving undivided attention to my combined duties as steersman and pilot, instead of neglecting them for other and more engrossing matters, I should, doubtless, have seen the dory before. As it was I had not seen it at all, nor heard the oars. It had sneaked up on the Comfort out of the darkness and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... smoke-stacks raking aft, and with one or two masts for showing signals, for they never hoisted a sail. Two huge paddle-boxes towered above the deck amidships, the wheels being of enormous size. No structure of any kind encumbered the deck. Even the steersman stood unsheltered at a wheel in the bow. They were painted dark gray, and at night could slip unseen along the water within a stone's-throw of the most watchful lookout on a man-of-war. They burned great quantities of a kind of coal that gave out no smoke, and when ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... steersman whirled us round with a sudden stroke of his oar, the prow reared up and then fell into the next furrow with a crash, throwing up masses of spray. As it did so, the stern in its turn was thrown up, and both the steersman, who let go his oar and clung with both hands to the gunnel, ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... rake of more than a league of water. As soon as everything was snug on board, the boat was lowered, and we pulled ashore, our new officer, who had been several times in the port before, taking the place of steersman. As we drew in, we found the tide low, and the rocks and stones, covered with kelp and seaweed, lying bare for the distance of nearly an eighth of a mile. Leaving the boat, and picking our way barefooted over these, we came ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... responsibility; free grace with a full reward; the cross of Christ once for all, with the saint's continual crucifixion; the Saviour's blood with the sinner's; and atonement with attainment; in short, salvation without works with no salvation without works. Deft steersman as the devil is, he never yet took his ship clear through those ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... chain of islands behind, and one morning struck out from the shore into the waste of waters, the prows of the canoes turned westward, the steersman guiding our course by the sun. For several hours we were beyond view of land, with naught to rest the eye upon save the gray sea, and then, when it was nearly night, we reached the shore, and beached our canoes at ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... along the river bank, either to help haul upon a line, or, in the case of the younger children and the dogs, simply to walk in order to relieve the craft of their weight and also for safety's sake, should the canoe overturn. The greatest danger is for the steersman to lose control and allow the canoe to get out of line with the current, as the least headway in a wrong direction is apt to ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... rowing with two oars, but the use of the single paddle is quite beyond my present skill. Mr. Thoreau had assured me that it was only necessary to will the boat to go in any particular direction, and she would immediately take that course, as if imbued with the spirit of the steersman. It may be so with him, but it is certainly not so with me. The boat seemed to be bewitched, and turned its head to every point of the compass except the right one. He then took the paddle himself, and, though I could observe nothing peculiar in his management of it, the Musketaquid ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the construction of the boat; it was so convenient, he said, because one person could so easily manage it with a pair of oars. She should herself learn how to do this; there was often a delicious feeling in floating along alone upon the water, one's own ferryman and steersman. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... five," says the man. The pilot, with all his energy, is telegraphing to the steersman. This is a very close and complicated piece of navigation, I should think, this running up the Mersey, for every moment we are passing some kind of a signal token, which warns off from some shoal. Here is a bell buoy, where the waves keep the bell always tolling; here, a buoyant lighthouse; ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... borders, gossiping round their fires, and bivouacking in the open air. They are dextrous boatmen, vigorous and adroit with the oar and paddle, and will row from morning until night without a murmur. The steersman often sings an old traditionary French song, with some regular burden in which they all join, keeping time with their oars; if at any time they flag in spirits or relax in exertion, it is but necessary to strike ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... again; wider and wider would the distance grow between them; higher and higher would swell the waves as they sped on their separate courses; the one light and buoyant with her freight of noble hopes and dauntless steersman at the helm, the other without sail or ballast, drifted about at the ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of the paddles, as guided by the point of the spear; the canoe whirls on its axis with an almost dizzing velocity, or the sudden dash of the spear, followed by the struggles of the transfixed fish, or perhaps the characteristic "Eh," from the Indian steersman. In this manner, sometimes fifty or sixty fish of three or four pounds are speared in the course of a night, consisting of black bass, white fish, and sometimes a noble maskimongi. A little practice soon enables the young settler to take an active ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... belaying pin he had grasped hold of at the sight of the struggle in the waist, he incontinently scuttled up the mizzen shrouds, displaying an agility of which one would have never thought him capable. The steersman followed his example; while the lookout man forward, hearing the yells and groans of his comrades, and seeing what was up, took refuge in the foretop, thus leaving the seven remaining Greeks, one or two of whom had suffered in the fray, practically ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; From the sails the dew did drip— Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... in the darkness and involved an increased drain on our small store of matches. It was the rule that one match must serve when the Primus was being lit. We had no lamp for the compass and during the early days of the voyage we would strike a match when the steersman wanted to see the course at night; but later the necessity for strict economy impressed itself upon us, and the practice of striking matches at night was stopped. We had one water-tight tin of matches. I had stowed away in a pocket, in readiness for a sunny day, a lens from one of the telescopes, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman no less a character ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... maturity. He gazed at the burning embers as if in a reverie, and as he gazed he thought he had seen, either by actual vision or by the 'second sight,' in which he was a firm believer, the form of a canoe with a single sable steersman coming to his rescue. He felt tempted to communicate the vision to his sleeping partner; but, thinking it unkind to disturb her slumbers, he desists from his resolution, reclines on the ground, and without intending it, he falls fast asleep. But imagine his astonishment ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and all around wet air and splashing grey sea, the stem ploughing it up silver and white and green, and away aft under the bend of the sail there would be Jason and the steersman, possibly Medea, with the curl out of her hair, and perhaps just a touch of the golden fleece, just a fleck of pale yellow to enliven the minor tints! Round the bows there would be men listening to the song, watching the stem pound into the green hollows—now, I remember! I have seen this—I'd ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... generally carries six or seven Indians; two of which are placed in the head and stem, who steer the vessel alternately with a paddle, according to the tack she goes on, be in the stern being the steersman; the other Indians are employed either in baling out the water which she accidentally ships, or in setting and trimming the sail. From the description of these vessels it is sufficiently obvious, how dexterously they are fitted for ranging ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... seen, the lads hardly dared to breathe till the gilded stern of the naga had passed; and even then it seemed as if the steersman was looking back straight through the hanging leaves so that he ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... there!" sang out Captain Brisco angrily to the steersman. At the same time there rang out ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... Marshall. "Now, steersman, up with your helm, and shave past as close under his stern as you can without touching. Starboard gunners, be ready to pour your shot into his stern as we pass! Musketrymen and archers, pick off as many men as you can see, and especially ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... boy was on the canal-packet speeding homeward at the highest pace of the three-horse team, and the Boy's Town was out of sight. He could not sleep for excitement that night, and he came and spent the time talking on quite equal terms with the steersman, one of the canalers whom he had admired afar in earlier and simpler days. He found him a very amiable fellow, by no means haughty, who began to tell him funny stories, and who even let him take the helm for a while. The rudder-handle was of polished ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray, Be the spirit that breathes in us life more strong, Though the prow reel round and the helm point wrong, And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way. 1290 For the steersman time sits hidden astern, [Ant. 1. With dark hand plying the rudder of doom, And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn The foam of our lives that to death return, Blown back as they break to the gulfing gloom. What ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... rapids—"sauter les rapides," as our French voyageurs say—she sat up all alert and laughed as the spray splashed athwart. Old Allemand, the pilot, who was steersman on this canoe, forgot the ill-humour of his gin thirst, and ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... lest the exercise should cause their hands to tremble. A clever man was put to the steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden to sing out whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It was in action, and in action only, that the captain had command over his men. The steersman endeavoured to keep the masts of the quarry in a line, and to approach her from astern. The marksmen from the bows kept up a continual fire at the vessel's helmsmen, if they could be seen, and at any gun-ports ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... A steersman who has captured a very curious specimen carries it off carefully to press between the leaves of his signal-book, like a flower. Another sailor, passing by, taking his small roast to the oven in a mess-bowl, looks at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... vessel was then within half pistol-shot, and her forward guns were beginning to bear. From his station on the quarter-deck Barney shouted to his steersman in stentorian tones,— ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to the flooded gutters. Here were rivers, lakes, and oceans for navigation; easy pilotage, for the steersman had but to wade beside his craft and guide it with a twig. Jane's timely boat was one of the first to reach ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... said the designer to the steersman; and he pulled out his watch with exactly the same look of calm interest he showed when presiding over the trial of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... again became rough and impetuous, and was chafed and broken by numerous rapids. These grew more and more dangerous, and the utmost skill was required to steer among them. Mr. Crooks was seated in the second canoe of the squadron, and had an old experienced Canadian for steersman, named Antoine Clappine, one of the most valuable of the voyageurs. The leading canoe had glided safely among the turbulent and roaring surges, but in following it, Mr. Crooks perceived that his ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the island, not altogether without nautical skill, she rowed some distance out to sea, and then hoisted sail, and cast away oars and tiller, and let the boat drift, deeming that a boat without lading or steersman would certainly be either capsized by the wind or dashed against some rock and broken in pieces, so that escape she could not, even if she would, but must perforce drown. And so, her head wrapped in a mantle, she stretched ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... insulated intervals, is spent in a passive state of the intellectual powers. Thoughts come and go, as chance, or some undefined power in nature may direct, uninterfered with by the sovereign will, the steersman of the mind. And often the understanding appears to be a blank, upon which if any impressions are then made, they are like figures drawn in the sand which the next tide obliterates, or are even lighter and ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... did not wrench herself from that forbidden embrace. She let those lips kiss hers as never mortal man had kissed her before. But an instant later, when Montesma's attention was distracted by his duties as steersman, and he let her go, she slipped away in the darkness, and melted from his sight and touch like a modern Undine. He dared not leave the helm and follow her then. He sent one of the sailors below a little later, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... very high; it skimmed a few hundred feet above the banked darknesses of cumulus that hid the world, ready to plunge at once into their wet obscurities should some hostile flier range into vision. The tense young steersman divided his attention between the guiding stars above and the level, tumbled surfaces of the vapour strata that hid the world below. Over great spaces those banks lay as even as a frozen lava-flow ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... the boat about, and assisted his dripping shipmate on board again. The ducking he had received did not operate very favorably upon Ben's temper, and he roundly reproached his companion for his carelessness. The steersman replied with becoming spirit to this groundless charge, telling him he had better keep his eyes open the rest of the night. Wet and chilly as he was, Ben couldn't help growling; and both evidently realized that the affair was not half as romantic as ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... galionji[obs3], marine, jolly, midshipman, middy; skipper; shipman[obs3], boatman, ferryman, waterman[obs3], lighterman[obs3], bargeman, longshoreman; bargee[obs3], gondolier; oar, oarsman; rower; boatswain, cockswain[obs3]; coxswain; steersman, pilot; crew. aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist[obs3], airman, aviator, birdman, man-bird, wizard of the air, aviatrix, flier, pilot, test pilot, glider pilot, bush pilot, navigator, flight attendant, steward, stewardess, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... to all of us to be out thus in the freedom of the night and the sea—not least to the great noble-headed hound sitting up on his haunches, keen and watchful by the steersman's side. What a strange waste of a life so short to be sleeping there on the land, when one might be out and away on ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... eye. Such as they formed the best ambush for Indian canoes watching to pounce upon the immigrant boats coming down the Ohio. Whenever he saw the entrance of a tributary he always had the boat steered in toward the opposite shore, while all except the steersman sat with their rifles across their knees until the dangerous ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... miles distant. Holding straight onward up into the land he heads first for the famous little island where, nowadays, in their halo of thrilling recollection, the walls of Sumter, rising sheer from the bosom of the water, drowse idle. Close under the lee of Sumter, the incoming steersman brings his ship about and chooses, probably, the eastward of two huge tentacles of the sea between which lies the city's long but narrow peninsula. To the steersman it shows a skyline serrated by steeples, fronted by sea, flanked southward by sea, backgrounded by an estuary, and looped ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the boat in which Egypt is sailing through the river of eternity are gods," replied Mefres, with solemnity; "but the steersman is the Highest Lord of existence. The oarsmen stop frequently, or turn the boat so as to avoid dangerous eddies which we do not even notice. In such cases we need only patience and obedience, for which, later or earlier, a liberal reward ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... angle of this obstruction, not without difficulty to its crew of one, and swung into the rapid shoreward rush, as was evidently planned for by the steersman, who now paddled against the tide with all his might to keep from being borne too far down stream for ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... only by the monotonous and murmured chant of a Gaelic song, sung in a kind of low recitative by the steersman, and by the dash of the oars, which the notes seemed to regulate, as they dipped to them in cadence. The light, which they now approached more nearly, assumed a broader, redder, and more irregular splendour. It appeared ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... o'clock in the afternoon the slide was ready. Many hands had made light work, and Frans had proved an admirable engineer. He now took his place on the long sled as steersman and captain of the whole affair. Decima, rolled in her mother's red shawl, was placed in the midst of the group of merry boys, Nono's willing arms holding her as firmly as it was possible to grasp such an uncertain kind of ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... numbers are employed in carrying "tibbin" from the farms to the larger towns. "Tibbin" is the chopped straw upon which horses and cattle in the towns are mainly fed, and it is loaded on to the boats in a huge pyramidical pile carried upon planks which considerably overhang the boat's sides. The steersman is placed upon the top of this stack, and is enabled to guide his vessel by a long pole lashed to the tiller, and it is curious to notice that the "tibbin," though finely chopped, does not appear ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... these occasions, when he wished to visit the Abbey of St. John the Baptist, on the River Dee, he appointed eight crowned kings to pull the oars of his barge, while he himself acted as steersman. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... The launch split her way swiftly toward the north. By the vague, ghostly shimmer of light upon the waters, a tense smile appeared on the steersman's lips. In his dark eyes gleamed the joy which to some men ranks supreme above all other joys—that of bending others to his will, of dominating them, of making them the puppets ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... like boards, the tremulous fluttering of the flying jib, and occasional gybing of the spanker, showing how close up to the wind the vessel was being steered. "You couldn't luff her a bit more, McCarthy, could you?" he added, after another glance at the compass and a murmured "steady!" to the steersman. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... the boats' crews were busily employed in getting their respective boats and gear ready for action. Each boat had a harpooner, who pulled the bow oar, a steersman, next to him in rank, who steered, and a line-manager, who pulled the after or stroke oar; and besides them were two or three seamen who ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... or two six-pounders in the bow, one four-pounder stern-chaser, and a number of swivels, besides musketry, spears, and swords. The boat is divided into three sections, and fortified with strong planks, one behind the bow, one amidships, and one astern, to protect the steersman. The women and children are crammed down below, where the unhappy prisoners are likewise stowed away during an action. Their principal plan is boarding a vessel, if possible, and carrying her by numbers; and certainly if a merchantman fired ill, she would inevitably ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... looking outside. Could I get some fresh air on one of the sun-porches?" he asked his steersman. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... so expert a Thames waterman, that he was quite able to manage the boat without a steersman, and Charley was nearly his equal. But there is some amusement in steering, and Katie was allowed to sit between ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... midnight I struggled on deck, to get a breath of fresh air before turning in. The night was fine and clear, but the sea around black as ink, with great foaming white rollers. The decks, a foot deep in snow, were deserted save by Z—— and the steersman, whose silhouettes stood out black and distinct against the starlit sky as they paced the rickety-looking little bridge flanked by red and green lights. The Enzelli lighthouse was no longer visible. The latter is ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... of the most distinguished Grecian heroes came to Jason's aid, while Argus, the son of Phrixus, under the guidance of Athena, built the ship, inserting in the prow, for prophetic advice and furtherance, a piece of the famous talking oak of Dodona. Tiphys was the steersman, and Orpheus joined the crew to enliven the weariness of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... our own," was the answer of the steersman, "and I think we're catching up to the yellow car again. If we pass that I'm not so sure but what we can come in ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... to the open sea they went, all except the steersman hanging over the side of the craft and enjoying the amazing sights in the clear depths below. Bob excitedly pointed out a group of six or eight big tarpon lazily wallowing about fifty feet beneath them. And less than two minutes afterward, Paul, in no ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... that he was entirely capable of assisting his son Allen in the trading expedition to New Orleans. For Abraham, on the other hand, it was an event which must have opened up wide vistas of future hope and ambition. Allen Gentry probably was nominal supercargo and steersman, but we may easily surmise that Lincoln, as the "bow oar," carried his full half of general responsibility. For this service the elder Gentry paid him eight dollars a month and his passage home on a steamboat. It was the future President's ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... captain went aft with me to listen to arguments of the dissatisfied passengers and the obstinate steersman, as to whether we should take our chances in the clouds, or tail off and run for the opposite horizon; but on approaching the wheel, we found both helmsman and passengers in a condition of profound astonishment, rolling their eyes about towards every point of the compass, and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Herbert took turns for a spell of two hours each at the helm. The sailor trusted Herbert as he would himself, and his confidence was justified by the coolness and judgment of the lad. Pencroft gave him his directions as a commander to his steersman, and Herbert never allowed the "Bonadventure" to swerve even a point. The night passed quickly, as did the day of the 12th of October. A south-easterly direction was strictly maintained. Unless the "Bonadventure" fell in with some unknown current she would ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... old fable of the Grecian mythology transplanted into Christian soil. The runner who turned aside to pick up the golden apple was disappointed of his hopes of the radiant fair. The ship, at the helm of which is a steersman who has either a feeble hand or does not understand his business, and which therefore keeps yawing from side to side, with the bows pointing now this way and now that, is not holding a course that will make the harbour first in the race. The people that to-day are marching with their ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... launching of boats by blind men, but the story of the stranger is soon told. She, too, is a slaver, a Spaniard, the "Leon," and on her, too, every soul is blind from opthalmia originating among the slaves. Not even a steersman has the "Leon." All light has gone out from her, and the "Rodeur" sheers away, leaving her to an unknown fate, for never again is she heard from. How wonderful the fate—or the Providence—that directed that upon all the broad ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... hour when an effort to that end was made by the occupants. A large canoe, made from the straight trunk of a mahogany tree, is described as having been five feet in width and seventy-five feet long. This craft was propelled by twenty-five oarsmen on each side, a steersman in the stern, and a lookout at the prow. This was a cacique's barge, in which he made visits of state along ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... of the Coromantee, the Catamaran was fast coming round towards the wind,—and so shortening the distance between the swimmer and the craft,—when an object came under the eye of her steersman that caused him to drop the oar as if either his arm had become suddenly paralysed, or the piece of rounded ash grasped between his hands had become transformed into ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... roving; and when Omund heard he was back, he set to and built a vast ship, whence, as from a fortress, he could rain his missiles on the enemy. To manage this ship he enlisted Homod and Thole the rowers, the soils of Atyl the Skanian, one of whom was instructed to act as steersman, while the other was to command at the prow. Ring lacked neither skill nor dexterity to encounter them. For he showed only a small part of his forces, and caused the enemy to be attacked on the rear. Omund, when told of his strategy by Odd, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... mate Tom Turner, an engineer and two assistants, two steersman and a cook—eight men all told—formed the crew of the aeronef, and proved ample for all the maneuvers required in aerial navigation. There were arms of the chase and of war; fishing appliances; electric ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... what you are driving at, Bill. Next the steersman got down with the mumps, then you took the shingles, and another sailor got lumbago, while the third mate had to crawl around with a boil on his foot as large as a cabbage. I heard about that affair—read about it ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... watched through the night. The silent steersman heard him frequently rustling papers on the chart table or clumping to the bridge or lolling on the port sills—a restlessness that had about it something of ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... hopes of escaping from the enemy's sword were urged on by the affrighted multitude into the rapid stream, and thus perished. On the river, to the right and left, is seen a Portuguese coasting vessel, called Hyate; in the centre is a wine-boat of the Douro, with a raised platform for the steersman. The foreground of the view is the shore of Villa Nova, adjoining the quay. The chief article of export is wine;[5] and here is the grand depot for this commodity, which is stowed in long, low ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... assumed the office of helmsman, and pushed the boat off from the pier; whilst the others took the oars, which were muffled, and rowed with all precaution till they attained the middle of the river; they then ceased their efforts, lay upon their oars, and trusted to the steersman for keeping her in ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... on our way home from Troy, on good terms with one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens, Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of Menelaus' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his hand, and Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites. ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... know, my lads," said the old man, "a scow goes no faster than the river runs. Here's the great oar—twenty feet it is in length—made out of a young tree. The steersman uses that to straighten her up betimes. But there's nothing to make the boat run saving the current, do ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... teeth as he steered so as to get every foot of speed possible out of the cutter, while, sheet in hand, Tom May sat eagerly watching the steersman, ready to obey the slightest sign as the boat's crew sat fast with the oars in the rowlocks ready to dip together and pull for all they were worth, ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... everywhere, but no fog. We were sitting up here and looking out to sea. Just beyond the end of Dunker Rock a large motor-boat came in sight through the haze. She was about sixty feet long, with a low cabin forward, a cockpit aft, and a raised place for the steersman amidship—a good-looking craft, and evidently very speedy. She carried no flag or pennant. She came driving on, full tilt, straight toward us. We supposed of course she would turn east through the narrow channel to Winterport, or sheer off to the west into the Southern Way ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... Forward the boat was a mere smudge, the men curled up asleep and no longer visible. All that stood out with any distinctness of outline was the lug sail, stiff as a board. I endeavored to turn my head, without disturbing the slumbering girl, to gain view of the steersman. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... when they fare to the sea, The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree And load the canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat; And all day long on the sea the jaws are crushing the meat, The steersman eats at the helm, the rowers munch at the oar, And at length, when their bellies are full, overboard with the store!" Now was the word made true, and soon as the bait was bare, All the pigs of Taiarapu raised their snouts in the air. Songs ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time; we came up to them, and took them all in, there being no less than sixty-four men, women, and children. It was a French merchant ship of three hundred tons; homeward bound from Quebec in the river of Canada. The master informed me how, by the negligence of the steersman, the steerage was set on fire: that, at his outcry for help, the fire was, as we thought totally extinguished; but, that some sparks getting between the timber, and within the ceiling, it proceeded into the hold, where there was no resisting it; & then they got into their ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... field, had noted, as he stepped out in the street, the intangible shifting of relations in his surroundings incident to the mere passage of time in the few days of his obliteration, now felt, as a blind man feels the mountain in his approach, or as the steersman in a Newfoundland fog apprehends the nearing of the iceberg, some subtle alteration in the attitude toward him of the young woman by his side. Instantly he was on ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... as though the fog had got in its throat; and the pale glare of a lantern, fastened aloft somewhere, lighted up the white issuing steam for a moment. There was no wind; one was conscious of motion, but all sense of direction and position—save to the steersman—was lost. Helwyse could see the red end of his cigar, and very cosey and friendly it looked; but ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... marriage they have a number of exogamous sections or vargas, the names of which in some cases indicate a military calling, as Dalai, from Dalpati, commander of an army, and Senapati, commander-in-chief; while others are occupational, as Maharana (painter), Dwari (gatekeeper) and Mangual (steersman of a boat). The latter names show, as might be expected, that the caste is partly of functional origin, while as regards the military names, the Hatwas say that they formerly fought against the Bhonslas, under one of the Uriya chiefs. They say that they have the perpetual privilege of contributing ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas's throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below again with tears ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and a few minutes later Lavinia saw his trim brown launch, with its awning and steersman in gleaming white, rushing through the bay ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... was divided into an engine-room, a kitchen, combination dining-room and parlor, bunk rooms, and a conning tower, or place for the steersman. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... October, arrived here the ship Endraght of Amsterdam; the first merchant, Gilles Mibais, of Luyck; Captain Dirk Hartog; of Amsterdam; the 27th ditto set sail for Bantam; undermerchant Jan Stoyn, upper steersman, Pieter Dockes, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc |
