"Harpoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with barbed harpoons and with spears. The harpoon is sometimes thrown at the beluga from a considerable distance. When struck the creature rushes to the surface, plunges and rolls to get free. He never defends himself but thinks only of flight. It is an accident if a boat is upset by ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... had followed our very rapid ride with real courage climbed on to the blocks. A harpoon was thrown with marvellous skill on to our icy wreck so as to retain us in our position, for the current, rather strong underneath, might have caused us to move. A ladder was brought and planted against ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... soon and without proper aim, so the dart snaked past the head. But the harpoon line half hooked about the neck and seemed to confuse the creature. Ross squirmed as far back as he could into his refuge and drew his knife. Against those fangs the weapon was an almost useless toy, but it was ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... infuriated beast springs toward them, its enormous jaws extended, and often succeeds in crushing the frail canoe to splinters. The hunters, if thrown in the water, immediately dive—as the beast looks for them on the surface—and make for the shore. Their prey is soon secured, for the well-aimed harpoon has done its work, and the hippopotamus is soon forced to succumb. Should it be under water, its whereabouts is indicated by a float on the end of the long harpoon rope, and it is ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... their canoe and ran on the approach of our boats. My men wished to steal it, which of course I prevented; it was a simple dome palm hollowed. In the canoe was a harpoon, very neatly made, with only one barb. Both sides of the river from the Bahr el Gazal belong to the Nuehr tribe. Course S.E.; wind very light; windings of river endless; continual hauling. At about half an hour before ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... cited again. In the Greenland whale-fishery, by the English custom, if the first striker lost his hold on the fish, and it was then killed by another, the first had no claim; but he had the whole if he kept fast to the whale until it was struck by the other, although it then broke from the first harpoon. By the custom in the Gallipagos, on the other hand, the first striker had half the whale, although control of the line was lost. /3/ Each of these customs has been sustained and acted on by the English ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... about the whale having his unmentionable parasite—and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy—I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... jaw, tugged most fiercely to release himself, but in vain. Twelve sailors hauled him in, when, with distended jaws, he seemed to look out for the legs of the men, whereupon they rammed the butt-end of a harpoon down his throat, which put a stop to all further proceedings on his part. He was said to be quite young, perhaps the child of doting parents. The juvenile monster had, however, already cut three ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Japanese laws, which have year by year been made more stringent, have somewhat interfered with the sporting proclivities of the people. Nets and fish traps are now forbidden, and fishing for the most part is effected by means of a spear or harpoon, either from the shore or from the somewhat primitive canoes used by the people. Poisoned arrows were once largely used for the purpose of capturing game, but they are now forbidden by law. Originally the modus operandi in hunting was to set a trap ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... six white men, whose costume was like the others. This goddess was personified by an athletic, ugly man, marked with the small-pox, dressed as a female, with a woman's night-cap on his head, ornamented with sprigs of sea-weed; she had a harpoon in her hand, on which was fixed an albicore; and in her lap lay one of the boys of the ship, dressed as a baby, with long clothes and a cap: he held in his hand a marlinspike, which was suspended round his neck with a rope yarn: ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... although vigilant looking policemen were always standing by. And though these "Charlies" might suppose there were tobacco smugglers passing; yet to hit the right man among such a throng, would be as hard, as to harpoon a speckled porpoise, one of ten thousand darting under ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... name of the village implied, the shore was a gradual shelving open roadstead, in which two buggaloes were lying at anchor, waiting for cargoes, and four small sailing-boats were preparing, with harpoon and tackle, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... weeks when I sailed in the whaler Scotsman out of Glasgow, and more by token we named the place Thievish Harbor, for one of the Indians stole a harpoon out of our boat and away with it before we could reach him. 'T is a goodly river, broader and deeper than yon, and has a broad ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... He surfaced, caught a quick breath, then went under again. Scotty was picking up the spear. Rick saw him place it in the gun barrel, swing the loader over the razor-sharp harpoon head, and shove down on the spring. In a moment the gun was loaded again. Luckily the spear had not bent when the prop ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... bone, shall remain sticking in your flesh; and you shall feel in your body the reverberation of the iron and the scraping of the bone; and on your skin shall grow the rasupa-tree and the shiuri-tree of which the spear-handle is made, and the hai-grass by which the tip of the harpoon is tied to the body of it, and the nipesh-tree of which the rope tying the harpoon itself is made, so that, though you are such a mighty fish, you shall not be able to swim in the water; and you shall die, and a last be washed ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... purpose of killing as many hippopotami as they possibly could. So, as Hippo rose to the surface, and before he had time to get over either his surprise or annoyance, one of the men in the nearest boat suddenly stood up, and, throwing a harpoon with terrific force, sent it right ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... of the onlookers it extended its great flexible tentacles, enveloped the entire boat, man and all, and then dragged the whole down into the clear depths. The diver's horrified comrades rushed to his assistance, and an attempt was made to kill the octopus with a harpoon, but without success. Several of his more resourceful companions then dived into the water with a big net made of stout twine, which they took right underneath the octopus, entangling the creature and its still living prey. The next step was to drag up both man and octopus into the whale-boat, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... places there were thick bull's-eye windows, by means of which the under-water travelers could look out into the ocean through which they were moving. As a defense against the attacks of submarine monsters there was a steel, pointed ram, like a big harpoon. There were also a bow and a stern electrical gun, of which more will ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... meat hook for taking boiled meat out of the pot, with five or more prongs; hence "harpoon." Cf. FURCA ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... now pulled sharply round, and young Jack, standing up on the head of the boat, held the harpoon ready for use when they should ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... be worth remarking, as a proof how tenacious the walrus sometimes is of life, that the animal killed to-day struggled violently for ten minutes after it was struck, and towed the boat twenty or thirty yards, after which the iron of the harpoon broke; and yet it was found, on examination, that the iron barb had penetrated both auricles of the heart. A quantity of the blubber was put into casks, as a winter's ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... However that may be in this case, let me contrast in a single glance the momentary effect in conversation of the two neighbors, Hawthorne and Emerson. Speech seemed like a kind of travail to Hawthorne. One must harpoon him like a cetacean with questions to make him talk at all. Then the words came from him at last, with bashful manifestations, like those of a young girl, almost—words that gasped themselves forth, seeming to leave a great deal more behind ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... whose name was Thomas, "I guess that you and the youngster will be almost ready to vacate these apartments; so, if you please, I will send you off to the ship, the Harpoon—that's her name—of Norfolk, in the United States. You will find her well flavoured with oil, for we are about full to the hatches; but, perhaps, under the circumstances, you will not mind that. Anyway, my Missus, ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... resemble the finny tribe in the famous tunny fishery. While they conceive the whole ocean is at their command—disport here and there in imagined freedom—they are already encased by the insidious nets; the harpoon is already pointed, which shall surely pierce them. Delancey plunged headlong into pleasure's vortex—touched each link between gaiety and crime. He wandered from the paths of virtue from the infatuation of folly, and continued to err from the fascinations ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... harpoon, they attacked the cluster of animals, killing fifteen before the frightened creatures could escape into their native element, although they came off the rocks with a rush, looking most formidable as they opened their mouths ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... it—a great bull creature, and piebald like a horse; and I saw the spouting of his breath as if a water main had burst in a London fog. The wind came in a sudden charge from the northwest, and the whale dived with a harpoon in its back; and in the confusion a reel fouled, and one of the boats was whipt under in a moment—half a mile down, perhaps—and its crew drawn with it, and their lungs, full of air, burst like bubbles. We had no time to think of them. We got ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... sepulchral mounds. 40 7. Ground plan of a pueblo of the Mac-Elmo valley. 41 8. Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos. 42 9. House in a rock of the Montezuma canon. 43 10. 1. Fragments of arrows made of reindeer horn from the Martinet cave (Lot-et-Garonne). 2. Point of spear or harpoon in stag-horn (one third natural size). 3. and 4. Bone weapons from Denmark. 5. Harpoon of stag-horn from St. Aubin. 6. Bone fish-hooks pointed at each end, from Waugen. 61 11. Bear's teeth converted into fish-hooks. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... alligators, and then, fastening lassos to their heads and tails, or to a hind leg, dragged them ashore; at other times they threw the lasso over their heads at once, without taking the trouble to harpoon them. It was a terrible and a wonderful sight to witness the Negroes in the very midst of a shoal of these creatures, any one of which could have taken a man into his jaws quite easily,—whence, once between these long saw-like rows of teeth, no man could ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... St. Jean de Luz, a race of men quaint, venturesome, and fabulously bold, left many widows, from their habit of sailing out into the roughest seas to harpoon whales. Leaving their wives to God or the Devil, they threw themselves in crowds into the Canadian settlements of Henry IV. As for the children, these honest worthy sailors would have thought about them more, if they had been clear as to their parentage. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... gaff and watch out for fins! Throppy, you steer as Budge tells you! Stand by to take the dory, Perce, and go after any fish I'm lucky enough to iron. Filippo, be ready to throw that buoy and coil of warp off the starboard bow the minute I make a strike. I'll get out in the pulpit with the harpoon. Keep alive, everybody! We're liable to run ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... then a visit to the presidio, filled up our spare time after hide-curing was over for the day. Another amusement which we sometimes indulged in was "burning the water'' for craw-fish. For this purpose we procured a pair of grains, with a long staff like a harpoon, and, making torches with tarred rope twisted round a long pine stick, took the only boat on the beach, a small skiff, and with a torch-bearer in the bow, a steersman in the stern, and one man on each side with the grains, went off, on dark nights, to burn the water. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a spear they seldom escape, for the line is fastened to the side of the spear-head, which detaches itself from the staff and holds in the flesh like a harpoon. Sometimes, however, the seal will slip away after the spear is thrown, and, instead of striking him, it strikes the ice where he had been lying. This is very aggravating after the cold and tedious labor of working up upon it has been ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... matted. Overhead, four or five old muskets were stuck into horizontal holes along the beams. On one side was a claw-footed old table lashed to the deck; a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre crucifix attached to the bulk-head. Under the table lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some; melancholy old rigging, like a heap of poor friars' girdles. There were also two long, sharp-ribbed settees of Malacca cane, black with age, and uncomfortable to look at as inquisitors' racks, with a large, misshapen arm-chair, which, furnished with a rude barber's ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... dived he ran to the edge of the hole, but now, instead of falling down, he stood quite still with the harpoon raised above his head ready to be thrown. In a few moments the monsters reappeared. Two rose close at the edge of the hole; one was a male, the other a female. They were frightfully ugly to look at. Shaking the water from his head and shoulders, ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... commerce. In pursuing them they have now adopted the European boat in preference to their own, and those most frequently employed are six oared, rowed by twelve men. The harpooner stands in the bow with his harpoon, or iron spear, which is stuck on a shaft one or two fathoms long, and is provided with a leathern thong of considerable length, to which are attached from five to ten bladders of seal skin. If the whale be struck he ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... beachcomber. It sure hurt me to have to beg that ornery Scraggs for a job; if I ever sighed for independence it was the other night in Halfmoon Bay when, footsore an' desperate, we stood by an' let that little wart harpoon us. So now, when you ask me what I'm goin' to do with my money, I'll tell you I'm going to save it, after first payin' up about seventy-five bucks I owe here an' there along the Front. I'm through drinkin' an' raisin' hell. Me for ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Flying Dutchman, and Davy Jones' Locker, and Captain Kidd, and how to harpoon a whale or dodge an iceberg or lasso a seal. Cap'n Bill had been everywhere in the world, almost, on his many voyages. He had been wrecked on desert islands like Robinson Crusoe and been attacked by cannibals, and had a host of other exciting ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... West. It was this way. After leaving college I tried to please him by tackling one thing after another that he set me to do. On the square, I had no head for business. I made a mess of everything. The governor got sore. He kept ramming the harpoon into me till I just couldn't stand it. What little ability I possessed deserted me when I got my back up, and there you are. Dad and I had a rather uncomfortable half hour. When I quit—when I told him straight out that I was going West to fare for myself, why, it wouldn't ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... at them, and he lifted his harpoon and he threw it and he struck. And this he did every day in the same manner, and made a catch each time he went out in ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... his ample fist The long harpoon upheld to men: Behold obedient to my wrist A gray gull's-feather ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various |
