"Bay of Biscay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quarters than if you came into the great house, as my poor mansion is called, but a mighty deal more comfortable than many I've had to put up with. I remember bivouacking in a wet cave on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. I was in command that day of the army of observation. Carlos was on the heights of St Sebastian, and I was tired of reconnoitring: I bivouacked, I tell you, in a cave—no blankets, no counterpane, and covered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the side of beauty, and there is no animal of its size which conveys a higher idea of intelligence and dignity, than the so-called Newfoundland dog. All are semi-palmate, and dive, swim, and keep longer in the water than any others of their tribe. One was picked up in the Bay of Biscay, out of sight of any other vessel, fatigued and hungry, and which, judging from the circumstances, must have been there for many hours. Their fidelity, their courage, their generosity, are proverbial, and yet it is whispered that ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... ft. in the Pacific. But the highest waves have been reported off the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, where they have been observed, on rare occasions, from 30 to 40 ft high; and 36 ft. has been given as the admeasurement in the Bay of Biscay, under very exceptional circumstances. In the voyage round the world the Venus and Bonite record a maximum of 27 ft., while the Novara found the maximum to be 35 ft. But waves of 12 to 14 ft. in shallow seas are often more trying than those of larger dimensions in deeper water. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... Acadia near the island of Canseau. Fourteen of the passengers, including Noyrot and a lay brother, Louis Malot, were drowned. Lalemant escaped with his life, and took passage on a trading vessel for France. This ship, too, was wrecked, near San Sebastian in the Bay of Biscay, and ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... privations and suffering, and encountering the extreme dangers to which their frail barks were necessarily exposed from the surges which roll in perpetually from the broad Atlantic Ocean upon the coast of Spain and into the Bay of Biscay, they arrived safely on the shores of Britain. They landed and explored the interior. They found the island robed in the richest drapery of fruitfulness and verdure, but it was unoccupied by any thing human. There were wild beasts roaming in the forests, and the remains of a race of ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... chaplain, and was accepted, though with some caution. He evidently thought me too young to be trusted with a sermon; the Church of England prayers I might read, and he put into my hands a book with a sermon for any Sunday and holy-day in the year. I took the book and said I would look through it. The Bay of Biscay was calm when we crossed it, but on Sunday morning we were tumbling about off the Rock of Lisbon. As I could hardly keep my legs, I did not think we should have had service; but we crowded into the smoking-saloon (we were afraid to venture below, for sickness), and I read prayers. Next Sunday ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... the only attempt made to stop Drake in English waters; and he was shortly afterward safely in the Bay of Biscay. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... sea-sick, at intervals, during the whole passage. We were nine weeks and two days at sea, during which period we experienced only one day of contrary wind. We had a brisk breeze 'right aft' all the way from the Bay of Biscay (which we never entered) to the 'calm latitudes;' that is to say, to the space about five or six degrees broad near the equator, where the trade-winds cease, and where it is no unusual thing for a ship to lie becalmed for a month or six weeks, frying ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... centre of the northern Atlantic, and gave us ample time to get our ship in good condition before we drew in with the land. Shortly after the affair, the wind came out light at northeast, forcing us down nearer to the Bay of Biscay than was at all convenient, when bound to London. The weather grew foggy, too, which is not usual on the coast of Europe, with the wind at east, and the nights dark. Just a fortnight after the action, I was awakened early one morning by a rough shake of the shoulder from Marble, who ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... to carry the English contingent to their destination. They were ships belonging to the maritime nations of Italy—the Venetians, Genoese, Pisans, etc.; for England at that time had but few of her own, and these scarcely fitted for the stormy navigation of the Bay of Biscay. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Douglas was in the Bay of Biscay; but even to Joanna it was not a sorrowful day, for did not Herbert on that day crawl back into his sitting-room, full dressed for the first time, holding tight by her shoulder, and by every piece of furniture ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this assertion, as to most concerning nature, there are exceptions. Mediterranean fishes slip out of the Straits of Gibraltar, and up the coast of Portugal, and, once in the Bay of Biscay, find the feeding good and the wind ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Philip and Alva could not effectively resent and hardly dared to protest against the treatment, because they felt themselves powerless. As so often, the island kingdom was protected by the ocean and by the proved superiority of her seamen. After a score of petty fights all the way from the Bay of Biscay to the Pacific Ocean, Spanish sailors had no desire for a trial of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of a vessel, and marking the presence of a dangerous shoal, known by the most appropriate and significant name of "The Shambles." Inside this lay a long and turbid ridge of angry water, where the Race of Portland ran, and where a deep rolling swell, like the Bay of Biscay on a reduced scale, kept tumbling and breaking into spray like drifts of snow against the high, gaunt cliffs. It, however, required no actual watching of the low green mounds of water, which seemed butting against ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... sun etched our shadows on the whitewashed wall behind us. Acres of grain and gorse turned the moorland golden under a windy blue sky. In front of us the Bay of Biscay burned ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... and stupendous. The whole Mediterranean world was brought under one government; ancient barriers of religion, speech, and custom were overthrown in every direction; and innumerable barbarian tribes, from the Alps to the wilds of northern Britain, from the Bay of Biscay to the Carpathian mountains, were more or less completely transformed into Roman citizens, protected by Roman law, and sharing in the material and spiritual benefits of Roman civilization. Gradually ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... scornfully. "Did I not come from Scotland hither, braving the perils of the sea and of the wilderness, the stormy Bay of Biscay, and the desert of Alemtejo, teeming with robbers and wild beasts? With no guardian but old Moodie, whose chief merit is that of being a suspicious old Scot, with the fidelity ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... he will probably have passed through the district of the Landes, and will have had an opportunity of observing the formation of "dunes" on a grand scale. What are these "dunes"? The winds and waves of the Bay of Biscay have not much consciousness, and yet they have with great care "selected," from among an infinity of masses of silex of all shapes and sizes, which have been submitted to their action, all the grains of sand below a certain size, and have ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... left Munich for Switzerland for the winter sports, and in the spring Archie conceiving the idea that he wanted to do Dutch landscape, they went to Holland for a few weeks. That summer they rented a small villa along the Bay of Biscay and had Sadie Paul and her Count as their guests for a time. The second winter of their marriage they spent in Paris, and by this time were rather hard-pressed for ready money, as neither had relaxed in wanting things and Adelle especially still had the habit of buying whatever ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... that the weather was stormy in the Bay of Biscay, and for the first fortnight her brother suffered terribly. The captain supported him on to the deck as they passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, that he might not lose the sight. He recovered, as we know, sufficiently to write ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... arising, Sunday morning, September 3rd, that we were in the Bay of Biscay and two cruisers were circling around and gradually escorting us into the port of Bordeaux. We were told subsequently that the wireless apparatus has been disconnected and we had been chased ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... the French side of the Channel. The northern end of the island has been fretted by the waves into detached tower-like masses of rock of very remarkable appearance. In the Channel the sea was green, and opposite Ushant it was a brighter green. On Wednesday evening we committed ourselves to the Bay of Biscay. The roll of the Atlantic was full, but not violent. There had been scarcely a gleam of sunshine throughout the day, but the cloud-forms were fine, and their apparent solidity impressive. On Thursday morning the green ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... was seen for the first time in European waters, when a little squadron of three ships set sail from Nantes in France, and after cruising on the Bay of Biscay went twice around Ireland and came back to France with fifteen prizes. As France had not then acknowledged our independence, they were ordered to depart. Two did so; but one of them, the Lexington, was captured by the British, and the other, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... undisturbedly to the task of dying. There is an amazing normality about him. You find him in towns, ancient with chateaux and wonderful with age; he is absolutely himself, keenly efficient and irreverently modern. Everywhere, from the Bay of Biscay to the Swiss border, from the Mediterranean to the English Channel, you see the lean figure and the slouch hat of the U.S.A. soldier. He is invariably well-conducted, almost always alone and usually gravely absorbed in himself. The excessive gravity ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... whaler, from Biarritz or St. Jean de Luz, wandered into these seas in search of fish, when, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, he and his fellows had killed out all the Right Whales of the Bay of Biscay? And had he, missing the Bocas, been wrecked and perished, as he may well have done, against those awful walls? At last we turned to re-ascend—for the tide was rising—after our leader had congratulated us on being, perhaps, the only white men who had ever seen Ance ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... two Telegraph plants, were taken in a portable box with glass cover, and never let out of sight. In the Mediterranean they encountered bitter cold for the first time and nearly succumbed. They were unhappier still in the Bay of Biscay, and when they reached London there was a sharp frost. They had to be kept in a drawing room lighted by gas, the deadly influence of which was discovered the next morning when all the plants were found to be apparently killed. Two had been killed, and the other two were brought round after much ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... pitched and swayed. And all the time the sands in the hour-glass of my uncle's fortunes were streaming out. Misery! Amidst it all I remember only one thing brightly, one morning of sunshine in the Bay of Biscay and a vision of frothing waves, sapphire green, a bird following our wake and our masts rolling about the sky. Then wind and rain close in ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the risk of snapping the dredge rope by the rolling and pitching of the vessel, the dredge has been worked deeper and deeper, until at last, on the 22nd of July, 1869, H.M.S. Porcupine being in the Bay of Biscay, Captain Calver, her commander, performed the unprecedented feat of dredging in 2,435 fathoms, or 14,610 feet, a depth nearly equal to the height of Mont Blanc. The dredge "was rapidly hauled on deck at ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Basques" lies to the south of the town, bordered with high cliffs, which in turn are surmounted with terraces of villas. The charm of it all is incomparable. To the northwest stretches the limpid horizon of the Bay of Biscay, and to the south the snowy summits of the Pyrenees, and the adorable bays of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Fontarabie, while behind, and to the eastward, lies the quaint country of the Basques, and the mountain trails into Spain in all their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... have picked up a memory at every mile if the past had not been eclipsed by the tremendous actuality. We saw the signs of it in the emptiness of the Mediterranean, the aspect of Gibraltar, the misty glimpse in the Bay of Biscay of an outward-bound convoy of transports, in the presence of British submarines in the Channel. Innumerable drifters flying the Naval flag dotted the narrow waters, and two Naval officers coming on board off the South Foreland, piloted ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... In September the poet was staying with his sister and son at Le Croisic, a picturesque village at the mouth of the Loire, at the end of the great salt plains which stretch down from Guerande to the Bay of Biscay. No doubt, in lying on the sand-dunes in the golden September glow, in looking upon the there somewhat turbid current of the Loire, the poet brooded on those days when he saw its inland waters with her who was with him no longer save in dreams and memories. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... the head of the Bay of Biscay the quantity of these marching sands is so great that at one time they jeopardized the agriculture of a large district. The French Government has now succeeded, by carefully planting the surface of the country with grasses and ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... attracted his attention. It was drawn by hand in Indian ink, a red line and accompanying arrow heads followed the coast and strung together such inland places as were marked upon the blank. The line started from Southampton and reached the Mediterranean by the Bay of Biscay; it shot inland to the great cities of Italy, returning always to the sea. It skirted Greece, wound in and out of the Ionian islands, touched at Constantinople, ringed the Bosporus and the Black Sea, wheeled to Moscow ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky; the night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into each branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... north-east carried the fleet rapidly across the Bay of Biscay, and it proceeded on its way, keeping well out of sight of the coast of Portugal. The three fastest sailers of the fleet were sent on ahead as soon as they rounded Cape St. Vincent, with orders to capture all small vessels which ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... induced to risk their money upon such representations?* Oh, the dreariness, the loneliness, of that first night at anchor in the Bay of Biscay! The misgivings that filled my heart! Who was right? What should I find over there? Surely these statesmen, capitalists, journalists, legislators, should know what they ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... Senor Miguel, and had been entertained by him in his beautiful Saracenic house at Ronda with Eastern hospitality. This he requited by giving them the opportunity of sailing for England in a vessel laden with Xeres sack; but the misery of the voyage across the Bay of Biscay in a ship lit for nothing but wine, was excessive, and creatures reared in the lovely climate and refined luxury of the land of the palm and orange, exhausted too already by the toils of the mountain ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to annihilate the political power of the Huguenots,—for Richelieu cared more for this than for their religious opinions,—it was necessary that he should possess himself of the city of La Rochelle, on the Bay of Biscay, a strong fortress, which had resisted, during the reign of Charles IX., the whole power of the Catholics, and which continued to be the stronghold of the Huguenots. Here they could always retire and be safe, in times of danger. It was strongly fortified by sea, as well as by ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... captured the Spanish ship in the Bay of Biscay, after all resistance was over and the heat of the battle had cooled, he ordered his crew to bind the captain and all of the crew and every Spaniard aboard—whether in arms or not—to sew them up in the mainsail and to fling them overboard. There were some ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... Norris was one of the most gallant and skilful seamen of his time; but an expedition in which he had had the command had lately proved fruitless. He had been instructed to cruise about the Bay of Biscay, in the hope of intercepting some of the Spanish treasure-ships; but the weather had been so uninterruptedly stormy that he had been compelled to return to port without having even seen an enemy. The following lines were addressed to him ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... world. The strong wind blows endlessly and the great grey waves are always rolling on monotonously one after another, one after another, in huge hillocks. So we plough down the English Channel and across the Bay of Biscay, which is no rougher than anywhere else, though people ask with bated breath, "When shall we be in the Bay?" "Are we through the Bay yet?" as if there was no other bay ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton |
