"Becalmed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possible to obey the doctor forever, and that this exquisite rest and oblivion could last, I am like a ship becalmed on a summer sea in a summer night. Mind and body are ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... that had headed us off fell away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us—in less than two the sky was entirely overcast—and ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... that island, we may follow the current, in its direction south-east and south-south-east towards the coast of Africa, between Cape Cantin and Cape Bojador. In those latitudes a vessel becalmed is running on the coast, while, according to the uncorrected reckoning, it was supposed to be a good distance out at sea. Were the motion of the waters caused by the opening at the straits of Gibraltar, why, on the south ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... Royal," he said, as Harwin was explaining that he had asked her because she happened to be on the proper side for a bride, "let us make an effective tableau for the amusement of these mariners, who, since they are becalmed themselves, persist in wanting ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... we touched at several islands, where we sold or exchanged our goods. One day, while under sail, we were becalmed near a small island, but little elevated above the level of the water, and resembling a green meadow. The captain ordered his sails to be furled, and permitted such persons as were so inclined to land; of this number I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... last, while becalmed off Cape Algulhas, caught a number of very fine fish on the Algulhas banks. One kind was called "Cape Salmon;" another species was known at Cape Town by ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting, we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints, in the Brasils, in about twenty-two days; meeting nothing remarkable in our passage but this, that about three days after we sailed, being becalmed, and the current setting strong to the N.N.E. running, as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something out of our course; and once or twice our men cried Land, to the westward; but whether it was the continent, or islands, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Golden Hinde with the majority of the people, the little frigate Squirrel weighted down by artillery stores but under command of Gilbert himself, because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore. To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking. Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship Delight, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little watching for ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... fell lighter and lighter, and on Friday the little fleet lay becalmed within sight of Ferro. But on Saturday evening north-east airs sprang up again, and they were able to make nine leagues of westing. On Sunday they had lost sight of land; and at thus finding their ships three lonely specks in the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... delight to see river.' We came suddenly upon Brother Tigris, basking in beautiful sunlight, becalmed in bays beneath lofty bluffs. In this dreadful land water meant everything; we had had experiences of thirst, not to be effaced in a lifetime. Away from the river men grew uneasy. The river meant abundance ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... observations of twelve days may be laid down on double the natural scale, would be very suitable for the purpose.[4] The projection of each day's observations would occupy but a short time; and should circumstances on any occasion prevent the execution of it, when the ship was becalmed or leisure otherwise afforded, it would form an interesting and useful occupation, and serve to beguile some of the tedium often experienced ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt
... one hundred and seventy men. December and January (1564-5) he spent in picking up freight, and by sickness and fights with the Negroes he lost many of his men. Then at the end of January he set out for the West Indies. He was becalmed for twenty-one days, but he arrived at the Island of Dominica March 9. He traded along the Spanish coasts and on his return to England he touched at various points in the West Indies and sailed along the coast of Florida. On his ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... champagne was ordered, and enthusiastic reception instituted in the smoking room, and everybody flocked thither to shake hands with the conqueror. The wheelman said afterward, that the Admiral stood up behind the pilot house and "ripped and cursed all to himself" till he loosened the smokestack guys and becalmed the mainsail. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... entrance. The term of her probation was eight days. Evening after evening during this time I read by the light of a candle on deck. There was no wind at all, and the sea became smooth and monotonous. For three days I saw a full-rigged ship on the horizon, also becalmed. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Montcalm faced the struggle in America. For him sad days were to come and his sunny, vivacious, southern temperament caused him to suffer keenly. At first, however, all was full of brilliant promise. So eager was he that, when his ships lay becalmed in the St. Lawrence some thirty miles below Quebec, he landed and drove to the city. It is the most beautiful country in the world, he writes, highly cultivated, with many houses, the peasants living more like the lesser gentry of France than like ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... mysticism. In the Byzantine Empire of the East the same cause produced the same effect; the evolution of ascertained truth in medicine, begun by Hippocrates and continued by Herophilus, seemed lost forever. Medical science, trying to advance, was like a ship becalmed in the Sargasso Sea: both the atmosphere about it and the medium through which it must move resisted all progress. Instead of reliance upon observation, experience, experiment, and thought, attention was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the Golden Rod lay becalmed close to the Cape La Hague, with the Breton coast extending along the whole of the southern horizon. On the third morning, however, came a sharp breeze, and they drew rapidly away from land, until it was but a vague dim line which blended with the cloud ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it the next morning, just before passing Hellgate, at the head of East River, New York. On the passage down Long Island Sound she met with an accident. She ran into the schooner Resurrection, which was lying becalmed across her course, carrying away most of the schooner's bowsprit, but doing no serious damage. This, however, was not the worst. On arriving in New York, it was found that one of the passengers was missing! He had fallen overboard ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Harris, our third mate last voyage, as many and many a time telled us all about it. You see he were becalmed off Chatham Island (that's in the Great Pacific, and a warm enough latitude for mermaids, and sharks, and such like perils). So some of the men took the long-boat, and pulled for the island to see what it were like; and when they got near, they heard a ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Madeira I had read about in the distance, and that the Bay of Funchal of which I had seen pictures in books; and that the little nautilus or "Portuguese man-of-war" floating by the side of the vessel, now almost becalmed, with its cigar-shaped shell boat and pink membraneous sail all glowing with prismatic colouring? Was it an actuality that I saw all these things with my own eyes; or, was I dreaming? Was it really I, Allan Graham, standing there on the deck of the good ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... from Cape Pillar. The atmospheric changes during this day were curious. The morning broke hazy, with a moderate breeze from North-North-East, which gradually subsiding and veering at the same time to East-South-East, left us becalmed for three or four hours; thick impenetrable fogs meanwhile passed at intervals to the South-West; and whenever this obstruction to our vision was removed, could be seen a dark heap of clouds collecting, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... months Crosson waited about, becalmed in the doldrums. There was little to interest him in town except a helpless espionage on Irene's loyalty to Drury Boldin. Her troth defied both time and space. She went every day to the post-office to mail a heavy letter and to receive the heavy letter ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... is mostly the case in this latitude, to keep the vessel moving, bringing refreshing coolness to the sailor, and spreading life and healthful motion over the sea; not less uncomfortable is the condition of a vessel when becalmed, as is not seldom the case for many weeks together. With heavy heart the mariner sees the breeze that so lately rippled the waves, gradually die away, and leave the bosom of the ocean calm as a slumbering lake. The sails hang flapping ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... in case we get becalmed?" suggested Eunice, as they all finally rested on the piazza, and tried to think of something else ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... the coast of Florida. On her last trip she was nearing the coast, when she fell in with a fishing-smack, and was warned that a Federal gunboat was not far away. Still she kept on her course until sundown, when the breeze went down, and she lay becalmed. The gunboat had been steaming into inlets and lagoons all day, and had not sighted the schooner. When night came on, she steamed out into the open sea, within a quarter of a mile of the blockade-runner, and, putting out all lights, lay to for the night. Those on the schooner could ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole. .. Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... her moorings, made of the stalks of water-lilies, the fairy bark of a spiritual life. Each lake hath its hanging terraces of immortal green, that along her shores run glimmering far down beneath the superficial sunshine, where the poet in his becalmed canoe, among the lustre, could fondly swear by all that is most beautiful on earth, and air, and water, that these three are one, blended as they are by the interfusing spirit of ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... giant's death, Mr. Scrawler, one day when the ship was becalmed, and the sailors wished to be amused, fell into a poetic frenzy, and produced the following song, which all hands sung, (rather slowly) when Mr. Nabbum was not present, to the tune of ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... thirst by plunging into the sea, but as we were fully aware that the water all around was infested with sharks, none of us was rash enough to follow their example, though if, as seems likely, we remain long becalmed, we shall probably in time overcome our fears, and feel constrained to indulge ourselves with ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... rattle. We had joined a large convoy, and were entering the Sound, when, as usual, it fell calm, and out came the Danish gunboats to attack us. The men-of-war who had charge of the convoy behaved nobly; but still they were becalmed, and many of us were a long way astern. Our ship was pretty well up; but she was too far in-shore; and the Danes made a dash at us with the hope of making a capture. The men-of-war, seeing what the enemy were about, sent boats to beat them off; but it was too late to prevent ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and morbid as his own. Panting, struggling, drenched with a cold perspiration, he would struggle back into a brief and miserable consciousness. With scarcely any respite his diseased imagination would seize him again, and now the ship, with tattered sails and broken masts, would be becalmed in the centre of a cyclone. All around him was the whirling tornado from which the vessel had passed into awful silence and deceptive peace. Although viewless, a resistless volume was circling round him, a revolving torrent of air that might at ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... white sailors fell ill and were unfit for work, and the bold missionary had to depend almost entirely on himself. Ocean currents hindered the progress of the Lady Nyassa, and for twenty-five days she was becalmed, for the coal had to be used sparingly, and when the sails hung limp from the mast there was nothing to be done but to exercise patience. Fortunately there was sufficient food and drinking water, and Livingstone was accustomed to opposition and useless waiting. He had to ride out two violent ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... would be the best, sir; for a puff that one thinks nothing of, one way or the other, when a craft has way; will take her over wonderfully when it catches her becalmed." ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... aviators nervous and unhappy. It was like the sailor who, bowling along under full pressure of canvas for weeks, in the old days of the sailing vessel, suddenly found himself in the "doldrums," and becalmed for what might be an indefinite period—it was apt to wear upon a nervous ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... concluded Mr. Cruger's business, and on the thirtieth of the month he weighed anchor, in company with many others, and set sail for St. Croix. He started under a fair breeze, but a mile out the wind dropped, and he was until midnight making the harbour of Christianstadt When they were utterly becalmed the sun seemed to focus his hell upon the little sloop. It rolled sickeningly in the oily wrinkled waters, and Alexander put his Pope in his pocket. The sea had a curious swell, and he wondered ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... falls early and the noon is dulled And the last warm days are over, Unlock the store and to your table bring Essence of every blossom of the spring. And if, when wind has never ceased to blow All night, you wake to roofs and trees becalmed In level wastes of snow, Bring out the Lime-tree-honey, the embalmed Soul of a lost July, or Heather-spiced Brown-gleaming comb wherein sleeps crystallised All the hot perfume of the heathery slope. And, tasting ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... agitated, touched by the other's pain, half ashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss to her, no gain to Molly. In the sudden becalmed stillness of the hot afternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... of coming out and standing to N.W. I instantly made the signal to weigh, and having looked into the Bays of Fort Royal and St. Pierre, I made signal for a general chase, and before day-light came up with the enemy under Dominique, where both fleets were becalmed, and continued so for some time. The enemy first got the wind, and ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... We lay becalmed opposite Sheerness the whole of the second day. At dusk a sudden squall came up, which drove us foaming towards the North Foreland. When I went on deck in the morning, we had passed Dover and Brighton, and the Isle of Wight was rising dim ahead of us. The low English coast on our right was bordered ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... of his expedition had returned after a fruitless voyage of misadventure. Hein however was not the man to turn back. He determined to try what he could effect at Bahia by a surprise attack. He reached the entrance to the bay on March 1, 1627, but was unluckily becalmed; and the Portuguese were warned of his presence. On arriving before San Salvador he found thirty ships drawn up close to the land; sixteen of these were large and armed, and four were galleons with a considerable number of troops on board. ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Lady Byron astonished the world, which believed him a reformed man as to his habits, and a becalmed man as to his remorses. He had written nothing that appeared after his marriage till the famous "Fare thee well," which had the power of compelling those to pity the writer who were not well aware that he was not ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... For, on the morning of August 23rd, when in the vicinity of Cape Clear, the Richard sent three boats, and afterwards a fourth, to take a brig that was becalmed in the northwest quarter—just out of gun-shot. It proved to be the Fortune, of Bristol, bound from Newfoundland for her home-port with whale-oil, salt fish, and barrel staves. Manned by a ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... stream of his thought and experience has flowed down through auriferous soil. "We sail on his memory into the ports of every nation," says Mr. Emerson admirably in his Introduction to Goodwin's Plutarch's "Morals." No doubt we are becalmed pretty often, and yet our old skipper almost reconciles us with our dreary isolation, so well can he beguile the time, when he ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... with a quotation from this author: "The watches came out of the contest with honour. They had borne heat and cold, they had been becalmed, they had endured shocks as well as the vessel which carried them when it was wrecked at Antigua, and when it received charges of artillery. In a word, they fulfilled the hopes we had indulged, they deserve the confidence of navigators, and lastly they are of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... to get themselves on board the man-of-war, so they curbed their ardor and enthusiasm, and waited until nightfall before approaching nearer. As soon as it became dark enough they slowly and quietly paddled toward the great ship, which was now almost becalmed. There were no lights in the boat, and the people on the deck of the vessel saw and heard nothing on the ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... lugger opened another bay, one wider and almost as deep as that on which Porto Ferrajo stands, and here she took the breeze without the intervention of any neighboring rocks, and her speed was essentially increased. Hitherto, her close proximity to the shore had partially becalmed her, though the air had drawn round the promontory, making nearly a fair wind of it; but now the currents came fully on her beam, and with much more power. She hauled down her tacks, flattened in her sheets, luffed, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Truxton, of which Andrew was cook, found herself becalmed in the China Sea, midway between Manila and Hong Kong, her nose to the North. She was a smart clipper of sixty tons burden, with a slightly uptilted stern, and as clever a line forward as a pleasure yacht. She was English, comparatively new, and, properly used by the weather, was as swift and sprightly ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... out and ran on deck. "Here, boys!" he cried, "we didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on the evening of the sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as you've done with these chests," he added, "you can turn to and roll out beef and water-breakers; it'll look more ship-shape—like as if we were getting ready ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sympathetic in town, had grown steadier and clearer in the open air. His short curly beard and yellow hair had reddened in the sun and wind. The pleasant vigor of his person was always delightful to her, something to signal to and laugh with in a world of negative people. With Fred she was never becalmed. There was always life in the air, always something coming and going, a rhythm of feeling and action,—stronger than the natural accord of youth. As she looked at him, leaning against the sunny wall, she felt a desire to be frank with him. She was not ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... nearly filled the sheet before him, unconscious of any observers. The vessel lay becalmed, scarcely moving on the quiet waters, and the men had been stretched lazily about, or leisurely mending sails, or washing their clothing in true sailors' fashion. Drawn on by Brimstone's beckoning finger, a group had silently gathered round Blair, ready for any wild frolic at the ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... for a walk," he announced, and went off toward the shore where the fishing-boats were drifting in becalmed. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... one night when the blackness of the skies was so dense that it could almost be felt, it chanced that he and his companions were far out at sea in their little smack, which lay becalmed between two darknesses—the darkness of the rolling water, and the darkness of the still heaven. Little waves lapped heavily against the boat's side, and the only glimpse of light at all was the yellow flicker of the lamp that hung from the mast of the vessel, casting a tremulous ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... effective scene, and proceed with the wonders of their art. Soon the bathers return. They have been only a little way down the narrows, and come back to dinner at one. The fishermen come in from three to four, unless they happen to be becalmed; there is a bustle then of getting out ice; of slitting and weighing and packing fish, and loading them into wagons to be carted to the railway. Then there is a lull until the sailing-parties return, perhaps at five, perhaps at six, perhaps not until the turn of the tide or the evening ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... another tedious night on board, owing to our being becalmed within the Needles, I stepped upon the same landing stone from which I first embarked for a country, where, in the centre of proscriptions, instability and desolation, those arts which are said to flourish only in the regions of repose, have, by their ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... been two days almost totally becalmed, when, a brisk gale rising as we were in sight in Dunkirk, we saw a vessel making full sail towards us. The captain of the privateer was so strong that he apprehended no danger but from a man-of-war, which the sailors discerned this not to be. He therefore struck his ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... sir, but I'll say this she can't sir, till there's some wind, and that's why it is. The captain has either took the schooner or give it up; and then, as he was coming back to pick us up, he's been and got becalmed. When the crew has whistled enough and the wind come, he'll make all sail, but whether he'll find any of us left to pick up is more'n I ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... turned towards the shore. Onward she came. Now she rose to the summit of a huge wave, now plunged downwards. For an instant the sail flapped, becalmed by another ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... Turkish craft of all sizes and shapes, darting here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland, was lying becalmed in his yacht one day in sight of Cape Breton Island, and began to dream of a plan for uniting his savage diocese to the mainland by a line of telegraph through the forest from St. John's to Cape Ray, and cables across the mouth of the St. Lawrence from Cape Ray to Nova Scotia. St. John's was ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... Sublette found them, in a manner becalmed, or rather run aground, at the little frontier town of Independence, in Missouri, and kindly took them in tow. The two parties travelled amicably together; the frontier men of Sublette's party gave ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... April, we were before Malta, and being there becalmed, our Maister caused the two ship boates to be had out, and they towed the ship, till we were out of sight of the Castle of Malta. The 9 day of April we came to Zante, and being before the towne, William ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... absent, yet, of late years, a placid one. She might have been dwelling upon far-off islands which excited in her no desire to be there. She was too cognisant of the infinite riches of time that may be supposed to make up eternity. If she was becalmed here in Addington, some far-off day a wind would fill her sails and she might seek the farther seas. And, like her son, she ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... two days, was done; and five of us went a-fishing in the jolly-boat, in the direction of Point Pinos; but leave to go ashore was refused. Here we saw the Loriotte, which sailed with us from Santa Barbara, coming slowly in with a light sea-breeze, which sets in towards afternoon, having been becalmed off the point all the first part of the day. We took several fish of various kinds, among which cod and perch abounded, and Foster (the ci-devant second mate), who was of our number, brought up with his hook a large and beautiful pearl-oyster shell. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... long eighteen-pounder on the forecastle was loaded with a full service charge; on this piece we relied to cripple the chase. We were now rapidly raising her, and I was sent aloft on the fore topsail yard, with a good glass to watch her movements. Her hull was in sight and she was still becalmed, though her head was pointed in the right direction, and everything was set to catch the coming breeze. She carried a boat on each side at the davits like a man-of-war, and I reported that I could make out men ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... must have started from Fort Niagara, Major Gladwyn despatched the schooner that bore his name down the lake, to intercept, warn, and hasten it. The Gladwyn narrowly escaped capture by a great fleet of canoes, as she lay becalmed at the mouth of the river, and was only saved by the springing up of a timely breeze. She failed to discover the object of her search, and finally reached the Niagara without having ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... tears. Dry them, Sweet, they wring my heart to greater pain than all thy secrets, and for this one thou boldest I will take thy shoulder-knot instead." She looked up surprised at the sudden surcease of storm, and seeing his handsome face becalmed, she wondered at the magic that had caused it, and her heart smote her for withholding aught from one that loved her so. She hastily drew from her shoulder the knot of violets that were still humid with freshness; and as she drew ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... think that my end had only been postponed for a few hours. She had sprung a leak, the water seemed to be gaining, and after a short rest I took my turn at the pumps with the crew. However, we rode out the storm, and then, two or three days later, we lay becalmed for three weeks. She was, at the best, the slowest craft I have ever seen, and everything seemed to be dead against her. We were many miles out of our course, the stock of provisions—such as it was—and of water ran short, and although ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... what there was of it, was off shore; it was a light north-wester, but after we made an offing of about ten miles, it failed us, being evidently nothing but a land breeze, and we were soon becalmed. After tossing about for an hour or two, a light cat's-paw gave notice that a fresh one was springing up, but it was from the east, and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... sentiment control conduct and character. Modern machinery has thrown light upon the problems of the soul. The engineer finds that his locomotive will not run itself, but waits for the steam to pound upon the piston. The great ships also are becalmed until the trade winds come to beat upon the sails. Informed by these physical facts, we now see a noble thought or ambition or social ideal is a mechanism that will not work itself, but asks the enthusiastic heart to lend power divine. Some of earth's greatest orators, like Patrick ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little company of ships becalmed on a ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... of reproduction, it may fairly be asked if the most important use of their peculiarly constructed fins is not the building of their nest?. . .There thus remains one closing chapter to the story. May some naturalist, becalmed among the Gulf weed, have the good fortune to witness the process by which the nest ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... a salute of five guns at parting, we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints in the Brazils in about twenty-two days, meeting nothing remarkable in our passage but this: that about three days after we had sailed, being becalmed, and the current setting strong to the ENE., running, as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something out of our course, and once or twice our men cried out, "Land to the eastward!" but whether it was the continent or islands we could ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... few hours we may change our climate. Cool, windy, moist, in the lower bays; and hot, calm, and quiet in the rivers, creeks, and sloughs. As you go to Napa, for instance, the wind gradually lightens as the bay is left, the air is balmier, and finally the yacht is left becalmed. We can, moreover, in two hours run from salt into fresh water. In spring the water is fresh down into Suisun Bay; and at Antioch, fresh water is the rule. The yachts frequently sail up there so that the barnacles will be ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... savage temper to the service of delight; and, transferring his ardour to love, equipped a fleet in order to seek the marriage which had once been denied him. At last he set forth on his voyage; and his fleet being becalmed, he invaded some villages to look for food; where, being received hospitably by a certain Grubb, and at last winning his daughter in marriage, he begat a son named Olaf. After some time had passed he also won Frogertha; but, while going back to ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... whitened every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. They needed no protection then, and none foresaw that within a decade, by ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... his course he steered, When east, when west, when south, and when by north, As how the pole to every place was reared, What capes he doubled, of what continent, The gulfs and straits that strangely he had past, Where most becalmed, where with foul weather spent, And on what rocks in peril to be cast: Thus in my love, time calls me to relate My tedious travels ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... than he sang out that he could just see, in the northern board, what looked like the heads of a ship's royals. Of course he could not tell in which direction she was bound, for, like ourselves, she was becalmed, and slowly "boxing the compass," that is to say, her head was pointing first one way and then another; but while he was aloft, clinging to the boat's masthead, and watching the stranger in the hope of being able to make some further discovery ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... who had never been over the trail before and who was trying to guess the way by instinct, had got us hopelessly becalmed in a sea of high grass so that we didn't know where we were. But we knew what we ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the fear of being shipwrecked that keeps a bachelor from embarking on the sea of matrimony; it is the awful horror of being becalmed. ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... the gem of them all, but on arriving Stevenson was in no condition to appreciate their loveliness. A cold contracted on the trip made him quite ill. The trip had proved very dangerous even with the aid of a pilot, and twice they gave themselves up for lost when they were becalmed and drifted in toward the shore. "The reefs were close in," wrote Stevenson, "with my eye! What a surf! The pilot thought we were gone and the captain had a boat cleared, when a lucky squall ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... And it is I who have lived it, not you. Lived it and outlived the woman who began it. The gods in a sportive mood made us for each other—and then sent me into the world too soon. . . . I must go on. It is not in me to go back nor to remain becalmed. Hohenhauer told me many cruel truths. Those women at my dinner might have enlightened me if I had not deliberately bandaged the eyes of my mind. I chose to forget them at once. But Hohenhauer——" She shuddered. "Well, although I was infuriated with him at the time—what he said ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... burnings upon the high seas. He dwelt upon them with peculiar relish, heightening the frightful particulars in proportion to their effect on his peaceful auditors. He gave a long swaggering detail of the capture of a Spanish merchantman. She was laying becalmed during a long summer's day, just off from an island which was one of the lurking places of the pirates. They had reconnoitred her with their spy-glasses from the shore, and ascertained her character and force. At night a picked crew of daring ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... survivor, as he supposed, of the catastrophe; and of the alternations of hope and despair that had been his throughout the day when the brig appeared in sight, drifted up to within three short miles of him, and there lay becalmed. The most distressing part of his experience, perhaps, consisted in the fact that, although an excellent swimmer, and quite capable of covering the distance between himself and the brig, he had found himself beset by a school of sharks, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet; And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 110 As if the silent shadow of a cloud Hung there becalmed, with ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... flashes came and went, under the hands of the signallers, with the velocity of light itself. A few yards behind us on the crest of the hill stood a windmill, its great sails motionless as though it were a brig becalmed and waiting for a wind, and astride one arm, like a sailor on a yard, a carpenter was busy, with his mouth full of nails. The tapping of his hammer and the song of the lark were the only sounds that broke the warm stillness of the April day. A great ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... a rough night, and blew so stiffly yet, That the sail was becalmed between the seas,[117] Though on the wave's high top too much to set, They dared not take it in for all the breeze: Each sea curled o'er the stern, and kept them wet, And made them bale without a moment's ease,[118] So that themselves ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... and the upper creek were still shrouded, while around me only breaths of the white flecked the water and the spatter-docks. The breeze had not stirred a ripple; the current here in the broad of the pond was imperceptible; and I lay becalmed on the edge of the open channel, among the rank leaves and ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... on board, the cutter was becalmed nearly abreast of Pentecost Island, and was rapidly drifting in a direction towards the west shore, on which course we soon shoaled the water from twenty-eight to ten fathoms. The vessel being quite ungovernable, the boat was sent ahead to tow her round, which we had scarcely ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... a very brave young lady to attempt anything of the kind," observed Mr. Ogilvie, confidentially, as they all went downstairs; "for if the yachts should get becalmed of the Nore, or off the Mouse, I wonder how Miss White will get back ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... time we were lying becalmed, pretty close in with the land (having gone about again), our main-topsail flapping against the mast with ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... smacks of the salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... think the Gut for 10 miles north of Port Hawkesbury resembles the Hudson just by the Palisades. It is grander than Eggemoggin Reach and on a far larger scale than Somes' Sound. At the northern end it broadens and becomes just a magnificent waterway, without the grand scenery. We were becalmed nearly all day in George's Bay, at one time getting pretty near Antigonish, but got a breeze towards evening. We tried fishing several times but could not get a bite though several fishermen were in sight ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... time passes under those conditions. The two clergymen busied themselves with teaching the sailors, and several of them presented themselves at Holy Communion in consequence, the last Sunday before we landed. The most trying time we passed was on the coast of Java, becalmed under a broiling sun, the very sea dead and slimy with all sorts of creatures creeping over it. As for ourselves, we were gasping with thirst, for we had already been on short rations of water for six weeks, one of the tanks having leaked out. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... of tea, as a present for the chief mate (who was with us) and the captain. As we left the ship's side we gave the master and crew of the 'Raglan' a hearty "three times three." All this while the two vessels had been lying nearly becalmed, so that we had not a very long pull before we were safely back on ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... day advanced, sail was made on the cruiser. She had stood through the passage, in which she had been becalmed most of the night, under short canvas; but now she threw out fold after fold of her studding-sails, and moved away to the westward, with the stately motion of a ship before the wind. No sooner had she got ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the breeze will come up before long and save you the trouble. But the sea is white and motionless. Far in the offing a Sicilian schooner and a couple of clumsy "martinganes"—there is no proper English name for the craft—are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... Tarzan. "A light! A ship's light! It must be the Cowrie. They are becalmed." And then with an exclamation of renewed hope, "We can reach them! The skiff will carry ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the island when I came on deck next morning was altogether changed. Although the breeze had now utterly ceased, we had made a great deal of way during the night and were now lying becalmed about half a mile to the southeast of the low eastern coast. Gray-colored woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands and by many tall trees of ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Directly in front—they say eighteen miles away, I think five sometimes, and sometimes a hundred—lie the islands of Coronado, named, I suppose, from the old Spanish adventurer Vasques de Coronado, huge bulks of beautiful red sandstone, uninhabited and barren, becalmed there in the changing blue of sky and sea, like enormous mastless galleons, like degraded icebergs, like Capri and Ischia. They say that they are stationary. I only know that when I walk along the shore towards Point Loma they seem to ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... replied Gascoigne, who would sooner have thrown it overboard and have lost it, than not beheld the anticipated fun: "recollect I asked you for a fishing-line, when we were becalmed off Cape St Vincent, and you sent word that you'd see me dead first. Now I'll just see you the same ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... six weeks after the occurrence of the above event that, while cruising off Cape Gallinas, on the Costa Firme, with our head to the westward, we found ourselves so nearly becalmed that it became necessary for us to set all our flying kites in order to retain steerage-way. The night fell intensely dark, for the moon, well advanced toward her third quarter, rose late, while the sky had gradually become ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... pieces of ordnance were continually playing on the walls. On the 1st of December a breach was found practicable, and an assault made by a party of 2,000 English was bravely repulsed by the Spaniards. The English fleet, ordered round to Castlehaven on the 3rd, were becalmed, and suffered some damage from a battery, manned by Spanish gunners, on the shore. The lines were advanced closer towards the town, and the bombardment became more effective. But the English ranks were considerably thinned by disease and desertion, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... broad Pacific to get close to the bluffs ere they break, and the thundering shock shakes the rocks to their foundations. No calm comes to these shores. Even in the finest weather, when the ships off shore are becalmed and their sails hang loose against the mast, there is always a wreath of foam at the base of these bluffs. The breakers are ever in bloom and crystal brine is ever ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... through one watch the well was sounded again, and the water was so much reduced that the gangs were taken off; and the ship being now becalmed and the weather lovely, the men were allowed to dance upon deck to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... some eight people. With a leaden sky overhead, and a leaden sea about it, the boat gently rose and fell with the ground swell. Three miles away could be seen the flash-light marking the entrance to the harbor. But though slowly gathering clouds told that wind was coming, the yacht now lay becalmed, drifting with the ebb tide. The pleasure-seekers had been together all day, and were decidedly talked out. For the last hour they had been singing songs—always omitting Mr. Pierce, who never so trifled with his vocal organs. During this time he had been restless. At one point he had attempted ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... light remained I watched La Fidelite through the glass, but I could see nothing but a black form with a slanting upper line. She was becalmed as I was. Why could she not have been becalmed near me? I dared not let my mind rest upon the opportunities I had lost when she had been becalmed near me. During the night the wind must have risen again, for the Sparhawk rolled and dipped a good deal, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... accounts of it. An old sea captain whom I met on the pier at Southampton, in reply to my inquiry, said: "Yes! I have seen the phantom ship, or at any rate a phantom ship, once—but only once. It was one night in the fifties, and we were becalmed in the South Pacific about three hundred miles due west of Callao. It had been terrifically hot all day, and, only too thankful that it was now a little cooler, I was lolling over the bulwarks to get a few mouthfuls of fresh air before turning into my berth, when one of the crew touched me on ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... be worth telling if it were not true," said Mr Armstrong, screwing his glass into his eye and taking a fresh survey of the picture. "One very hot summer we were becalmed off Colombo, and lay for days with nothing to do but whistle for a wind and quarrel among ourselves. My mate and I kept the peace for a couple of days, but then we fell out like the rest. I forget what it was about—a trifle, probably a word. We didn't fight on deck—it ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and man beloved as man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the main. For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general heart of human kind Hope sprang forth like a full-born ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... perforce, to pursue a policy of "watchful waiting," irksome as it was to all concerned, and "the tireless vigil in the North Sea," as it was termed by Mr. Asquith, was maintained day and night. No sea captain becalmed in the doldrums ever whistled for a wind more earnestly than the British Jack tars prayed for a chance at the enemy during those three months of playing the cat to Germany's mouse; and on the other hand, the German sailors were, no doubt, equally desirious of a chance to demonstrate ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... York he was wrecked, and Robert Stephenson with him. The following is the account of the voyage, "big with adventures," as given by the latter in a letter to his friend Illingworth:—"At first we had very little foul weather, and indeed were for several days becalmed amongst the islands, which was so far fortunate, for a few degrees further north the most tremendous gales were blowing, and they appear (from our future information) to have wrecked every vessel exposed to their violence. We had two examples of the effects of the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... blew along with such prodigious speed, running to the height of a sea as though she meant to dart from that eminence into the air, that the slope of each following surge swung like a pendulum under her, and though her sail was becalmed in the trough, her momentum was so great that she was speeding up the acclivity and catching the whole weight of the wind afresh before there was time for her to ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... by violent illness, instead of a consultation of physicians, he immediately called a band of musicians, and their Violins played so well in his inside that his bowels became perfectly in tune, and in a few hours were harmoniously becalmed."—D'Israeli's ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... good sailer, she had but two masts, and could not come up with her. Or, for anything they knew, they might have missed her on the seas. On the afternoon of the fourth day, when they were off the Lizard, and creeping along very slowly under a light breeze, the look-out man reported a ship lying becalmed ahead. Peter, who had the eyes of a hawk, climbed up the mast to look at her, and presently called down that he believed from her shape and rig she must be the caravel, though of this he could not be ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... creature I have seen in the world. I know it has struck Wilfred also; my darling and I are ever twins in sentiment. He converses with Miss Ford a great deal. Lady C. is peculiarly civil to Captain G. We scud along, and are becalmed. 'Having no will of our own, we have no knowledge of contrary winds,' as Mr. Powys says.—The word is 'eclictic,' I find. I ventured on it, and it was repeated; and I heard that I had missed a syllable. Ask C. to look it out—I mean, to tell ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the fleet was becalmed, and Cecil took the opportunity of calling a council to consider a wholly new set of 'Fighting Instructions' which had been drafted by Sir Thomas Love. This step we are told was taken because Cecil considered ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... on deck. A furious squall was blowing, but the air was becalmed where the vessel lay by the high cliffs of ice, and the rain of the squall fell almost up and down in a very sheet of water, intermingled with hailstones as big as the eggs of a thrush. The whole scene of the ocean was a swirling, revolving smother, as though the sky was full of steam, and ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... this lay through several clusters of small islets, among which we were becalmed more than once. During this part of our voyage the watch on deck and the look-out at the mast-head were more than usually vigilant, as we were not only in danger of being attacked by the natives, who, I learned ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... 13th, we started again, and just after the pilot left us, we were becalmed on the bar, just opposite the terrible breakers I had seen while riding. Here we anchored. The sea was rough and disagreeable, and our captain longed for a stiff breeze to take us out; for it was not a very safe place to be in. Early in the night, we were glad to hear the chain-cable taken ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... succession no otherwise than as it produces there a continued train of distinguishable ideas. For a man looking upon a body really moving, perceives yet no motion at all unless that motion produces a constant train of successive ideas: v.g. a man becalmed at sea, out of sight of land, in a fair day, may look on the sun, or sea, or ship, a whole hour together, and perceive no motion at all in either; though it be certain that two, and perhaps all of them, have moved ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... in the heat just as though they were becalmed. They seemed to be asleep on their anchor-chains. It reminded me of a big bull-dog lying in the sun with his head on his paws and his eyes shut. You think he's asleep, and you try to tiptoe past him, but when you're in reach ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... Sol Gills, young gen'l'm'n,' said the Captain, impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr Toots's knee, 'old Sol, mind you—with your own eyes—as you sit there—you'd be welcomer to me, than a wind astern, to a ship becalmed. But you can't see Sol Gills. And why can't you see Sol Gills?' said the Captain, apprised by the face of Mr Toots that he was making a profound impression on that gentleman's mind. 'Because ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... landed at various islands, where we sold or exchanged our merchandise, and one day, when the wind dropped suddenly, we found ourselves becalmed close to a small island like a green meadow, which only rose slightly above the surface of the water. Our sails were furled, and the captain gave permission to all who wished to land for a while and amuse themselves. I was among ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... fleet was still in sight of the land from which they took their departure, and remained becalmed all that day and the next. On Wednesday night, a gentle breeze sprung up from the eastward, on which the fleet stood off to seaward, but on Thursday morning, on again making the land, they were four leagues to leeward of Mozambique, whence plying to windward, they came back that evening to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... survived. In proportion to its population Canada received a great many more of these Irish emigrants than did the United States. Unfortunately the conditions on board the emigrant sailing vessels in those days cost many lives. They were often becalmed and took months to cross the ocean. My grandmother coming in the thirties was ninety-three days in crossing, landing at Quebec after seven weeks on half rations, part of the time living on nothing but oatmeal and water. Ship fever, the dreaded typhus, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... tide and light wind. We left letters with Captain Bradshaw to take to Boston, and were made miserable by hearing him say that he should be back again before we left the coast. The wind, which was very light, died away soon after we doubled the point, and we lay becalmed for two days, not moving three miles the whole time, and a part of the second day were almost within sight of the vessels. On the third day, about noon, a cool sea-breeze came rippling and darkening the surface ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Simon's Bay on the morning of the 14th instant, but was becalmed in the vicinity until the following day, when she sailed about noon. The Alabama left before noon on the 15th instant. Neither of these vessels was allowed to remain in port longer than was really necessary for the completion of ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... becalmed in clearest days, And in rough weather tossed; They wither under cold delays, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the average tall ship the horizon describes a circle of many miles, in which you can see another ship right down to her water-line; and these very eyes which follow this writing have counted in their time over a hundred sail becalmed, as if within a magic ring, not very far from the Azores—ships more or less tall. There were hardly two of them heading exactly the same way, as if each had meditated breaking out of the enchanted circle at a different point of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... may conclude that he had altogether recovered. A few days later the legation party had sailed for China and Japan, and on the 19th Clemens himself set out by a slow sailing-vessel to San Francisco. They were becalmed and were twenty-five days making the voyage. Captain Mitchell and others of the wrecked Hornet were aboard, and he put in a good deal of time copying their diaries and preparing a magazine article which, he believed, would prove his real ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... how late you are," said my pretty mother, looking up from the lacework in her lap. Her fingers were always busy. "Were you becalmed outside? You must be awfully hungry. Ring for James, Clinton, and he will fix you up something nice in the pantry." Then she saw Paul's bound wrists, his bruised face, and our disarranged clothing. "What is the matter?" she cried, starting ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... Mark Twain's life was one of those spots that seemed to him always filled with sunlight. From beginning to end it had been a long luminous dream; in the next letter, written on the homeward-bound ship, becalmed under a cloudless sky, we realize the fitting end ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the storm begins to slake, The sullen clouds to melt away, The moon becalmed in a blue lake Looks down with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... part of the voyage, we had the misfortune to be becalmed for three days and nights, off the coast of India. I have not got the ship's journal to refer to, and I cannot now call to mind the latitude and longitude. As to our position, therefore, I am only able to state generally that the currents drifted us in towards the land, and that when the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... of us were surprised at this relation; and my nephew the captain could not tell what to think of it, but thought we should all be devoured. Nor was I free from concern, when I considered how much we were becalmed, and what a strong current set towards the shore; however, I encouraged him not to be afraid, but bring the ship to an anchor as soon as we were certain that we must engage them. Accordingly we did so, and furled all our sails, as to ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... rough the "Flycatcher" was sick, much to the delight of Wickham; but if the ship was becalmed, Darwin came out and gloried in the sunshine, and in his work of dissecting, labeling, and writing memoranda and data. The sailors might curse the weather—he did not. Thus passed the days. At each stop many specimens were secured, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... and cryed out, "a sayle, a sayle," which at last was discovered to bee another man of Warre of Turkes. For he made toward us, and sent his Boat aboord us, to whom our Captain complained, that being becalmed by the Southerne Cape, and having made no Voyage, the Turkes denyed to goe any further Northward: but the Captaine resolved not to returne to Algier, except he could obtayne some Prize worthy his endurances, but rather ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... a grand breeze to start with, but toward evening it died down and we lay becalmed. All hands being idle, the Samoans spent the time in singing the catchy songs of Samoa, most of which I was familiar with from my long stay in those islands, and their delight was great when I ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... Kate, "I never was, even in her worst moments when we were becalmed; and I'm sure I couldn't be now, when she is sailing along so beautifully; but, what is that speck out there, captain, away to the right—is it a ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson |
