"Porpoise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ornamentation of the dish was almost as important as the dressing of the food. It was gilded, it was silvered, it was painted, it was surrounded with flame. From the boar and the peacock down to such strange food as the porpoise and the hedgehog, every dish had its own setting and its own sauce, very strange and very complex, with flavorings of dates, currants, cloves, vinegar, sugar and honey, of cinnamon, ground ginger, sandalwood, saffron, brawn and pines. It was the Norman tradition ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... boat. Suddenly it struck him that there was a certain irregular splashing in the water, quite different from the regular, diagonally crossing surges that the boat swept upon the bank. Looking at it more intently, he saw a black object turning in the water like a porpoise, and then the unmistakable uplifting of a black arm in an unskillful swimmer's overhand stroke. It was a struggling man. But it was quickly evident that the current was too strong and the turbulence of the shallow water too great ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... steamboat. Most people enjoy riding on a steamboat, shaking and trembling and chow-chowing along in pleasant weather out of sight of land; and they do not feel any ennui, as may be inferred from the intense excitement which seizes them when a poor porpoise leaps from the water half a mile away. "Did you see the porpoise?" makes conversation for an hour. On our steamboat there was a man who said he saw a whale, saw him just as plain, off to the east, come up to blow; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... attempted from the very quarter where, under the circumstances, it was least likely to be looked for, namely, straight ahead. Of course what I had seen might merely have been a ray of moonlight glancing off the wet body of a porpoise, a whale, or some other sea creature risen to the surface to breathe; but it had so much the appearance of the momentary flash of oars that I was loath to believe it anything else. Assuming it to be what I hoped, my cue was now of course to distract ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... scraps and glimpses and other intimations, only never yet for such a triumph of that particular sense. To be still frank, he was little less than a monster—for mere unresisting or unresilient mass of personal presence I mean; so that I fairly think of him as a form of bland porpoise, violently blowing in an age not his own, as by having had to exchange deep water for thin air. Thus he impressed me as with an absolute ancientry of type, of tone, of responsible taste, above all; this last I mean in literature, since it was literature we sociably explored, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of Sierra Leone abounds in fish, and the spermaceti whale has been occasionally found, the shark, the porpoise, eels, mackarel, mullet, snappers, yellow tails, cavillos, tenpounders, &c. with the mannittee, a singular mass of shapeless flesh, having much the taste of beef, which the natives greatly esteem, and consider the ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... were white with horror at the death we so narrowly had avoided, old Davie did not even breathe more quickly. The man had no more imagination than a porpoise. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... that a seagull can generally be observed opposite the Aquarium; when there is no seagull elsewhere along the whole Brighton front there is often one there. Young gulls occasionally alight on the roof, or are blown there. Once now and then a porpoise may be seen sunning himself off a groyne; barely dipping himself, and rolling about at the surface, the water shines like oil as it slips off ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... time to look at the boats lying on Bagley's wharf, their ominous porpoise-like appearance gave me a peculiar sensation. I had expected rough-water, but this was the first understanding I had that the journey was to be more or less amphibian. On a day when the waves on Lake Michigan were running high we took them out for trial. The crews were ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... time the squadron consisted of the frigates "Cumberland" (flagship), "Potomac," and "Raritan"; the steam frigate "Mississippi"; the sloops-of-war "Falmouth," "John Adams," and "St. Mary's"; the steam-sloop "Princeton"; and the brigs "Lawrence," "Porpoise," and "Somers." Before the close of the war some of these ships were recalled, at least one was wrecked, and the squadron was from time ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... told us. The lady and myself spoke for some time in the Tuscan tongue before we discovered that neither of us was Italian, after which we paid each other some handsome compliments upon fluency and perfection of accent. The gentleman was a pleasant purple porpoise from the waters of Chili, whither he had wandered from the English coasts in early youth. He had two leading ideas: one concerned the Pope, to whom he had just been presented, and whom he viewed as the best and blandest of beings; the other related to his boy, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... mirror-like expanse of water. Watching with eager eyes, we see at length the water breaking some forty yards away, and the head and back of an animal appears in sight. Now another, and then a third, come into view. After cautiously glancing around, the creatures dive, with a roll like that of a porpoise, but shortly appear again. Our Indian, pushing the light canoe from amid the grass, paddles forward with eager strokes. One of our party fires, and misses, the echoes resounding from the wood-covered shores, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. At one he disappears, presently emerges from a bathing-machine, and may be seen, a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise, splashing about in the ocean. After that he may be viewed in another bay-window on the ground floor, eating a strong lunch; and after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. Nobody bothers him unless ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "You are an old porpoise, and I believe it all owing to you that my husband neglects his wife and family. What's vampyres to him, I should like to know, that he should go troubling about them? I never heard of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... boarded the leave-boat. Several officers were already on board, their boots still bearing the mud of Flanders upon them. It was squally weather, and as we headed for the open sea I saw a dark object gambolling upon the waves with the fluency of a porpoise. A sailor stopped near me and passed ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... felt the unmistakable tug of a lusty schnapper, and then the determined downward pull, strong and steady, which he makes when once hooked. Slaney, who was using a line as thick as signal-halliards, was the first to haul his fish over the side, and drop him, kicking and thrashing like a young porpoise, into the boat; the rest of us, whose tackle was much thinner, were a long way behind him, and Slaney's line was over the side again before our fish were laid beside the first arrival. What a beautiful fish is a ten-pound schnapper—a brilliant pink back, sides and tail, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... kept us comfortable; but all our food appeared to be damaged. As for the pork, we were cheated out of more than half of it, and when it was obtained one would have judged from its motley hues, exhibiting the consistency and appearance of variegated fancy soap, that it was the flesh of the porpoise or sea-hog, and had been an inhabitant of the ocean rather than the sty. The peas were about as digestible as grape-shot; and the butter—had it not been for its adhesive properties to retain together the particles of biscuit that ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... disappeared frequently through the dining-room door, where she seemed to be laying the cover for a feast. With that particular dexterity of country girls, she made three trips to carry two plates, and puffed like a porpoise at her work, while the look of frightened amazement showed upon her face that every fibre of her intelligence was under unaccustomed tension. Before the fire, and upon the range, three or four stew-pans were bubbling. A plump chicken was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by natural selection, and this, as far as the organs of flight are concerned, would convert it into a bat." "The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of a horse, the same number of vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... hints muttered under breath Of casting lots for life or death, Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to save The good man from his living grave, A ripple on the water grew, A school of porpoise flashed in view. "Take, eat," he said, "and be content; These fishes in my stead are sent By Him who gave the tangled ram To spare the child ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... plough had to plough one acre of land for him annually.' He had the 'right of pre-emption of fish in all his ports, and the choice of the best fish.' Conger-eels were specially mentioned in a marginal note. Besides this, he claimed every porpoise caught in the sea or other neighbouring waters, but paid for it with twelve pence and a loaf of white bread to each sailor, and two to the master of the boat from which it was caught. Lastly, the Prior claimed the half ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... gardens, they have succeeded in bringing one of the smallest of the order, a porpoise, to the Zoological Gardens. His speedy dissolution showed that even the bath of a hippopotamus or an elephant was too limited for the dwelling of this pre-eminently marine creature. But he had begun to show an ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... skipper," said the mate as he brought the axe to take the battons off the forehatch. "A fellow might as well try to work a crab at low tide as to keep her to it in a blow like that. She minds her helm like a porpoise in the breakers. Old Davy must have put his mark upon her some time, but I never know'd a lucky vessel to be got as she was. She makes a haul on the underwriters every time she drifts across; for I never knew her to sail clear since I ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... waters, made a cruise into the open, and killed a porpoise, but we have no record of any battles fought, nor do we know how he was received by the Phoenician towns. He pushed on, it is thought, as far as the Nahr el-Kelb, and the sight of the hieroglyphic inscriptions which Ramses ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Show me to him instantly! Don't dare say he's out, for I know that he's at home! It's a matter of life and death! Woman dying—children starving—and the devil to pay generally. Wake Snakes, you fat porpoise, and conduct me to ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... gone, but the otter remains, and comes so near the mighty City as just the other side of the well-known Lock, the portal through which a thousand boats at holiday time convey men and women to breathe pure air. The porpoise, and even the seal, it is said, ventures to Westminster sometimes; the otter to Kingston. Thus, the sea sends its denizens past the vast multitude that surges over the City bridges, and the last link with the olden time, the otter, still endeavours ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... the anatomy of the Cetacea is unquestionably due to Cuvier; but his dissections were almost confined to the genus Delphinus, or the common Porpoise of our coasts. I repeated all his dissections, and found them, as they almost always were, scrupulously exact; but when I came to examine Cetacea with whalebone instead of teeth, I was surprised to find how different, in fact, the anatomy of the two great families was. Scarcely in any great ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... under easy sail, during which our soundings were between forty and forty-six fathoms. A very large natives' fire was burning about two or three miles inland, but the Indians did not show themselves. Last night our people caught a porpoise, which helped to diminish the bad effect of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... so. The first of these hideous monsters has the snout of a porpoise, the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile; and it is this that has deceived us. It is the most fearful of all antediluvian reptiles, the world—renowned Ichthyosaurus or great ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the muddy stream with a mighty splash, Teddy still on the bottom of the heap. When she found herself in the water Marie struggled to get out, and Teddy quickly scrambled up, mouth, eyes and ears so full of water that he could neither see, hear nor speak for a moment. He was blowing like a porpoise and trying to swim out, but the swift current was tumbling him along so rapidly that he found himself unable to reach the bank ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... atmosphere. It had the vertebral column and general bodily form of a fish, but to that were added the head and breast-bone of a lizard, and the paddles of the whale tribes. The beak, moreover, was that of a porpoise, and the teeth were those of a crocodile. It must have been a most destructive creature to the fish of those ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... cape being E.N.E. of us, and the river Sesto E. The 20th we fell in with Cape Mensurado or Mesurado, which bore S.E. 2 leagues distant. This cape may be easily known, as it rises into a hummock like the head of a porpoise. Also towards the S.E. there are three trees, the eastmost being the highest, the middle one resembling a hay-stack, and that to the southward like a gibbet. Likewise on the main there are four or five high hills, one after the other, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... 108. salted, 116. roasted, 78. Porpus or Porpoise. Porpecia, Spelm. Gl. v. Geaspecia, which he corrects Seaspecia. It is surprising he did not see it must be Graspecia or Craspiscis, i.e. Gros or Crassus Piscis, any large fish; a common term in charters, which allow ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... nothing in the matter. I gave 18 stivers for a red cap for my godchild; lost 12 stivers at play; drank 2 stivers, bought three fine small rubies for 11 gold florins, 1 2 stivers; changed 1 florin for expenses. Dined again with the Augustines; dined twice with Tomasin. I gave 6 stivers for thirteen porpoise-bristle brushes, and 3 stivers ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... the side." The water was very phosphorescent and the fish left trails of light after them as they dashed hither and thither below. Just as one of the sailors was about to step over and descend, either a porpoise or some large fish shot from under the vessel and left quite a trail of light in its wake. The sailor hesitated: "That must be a shark," he said, "if we get in that water we are ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... she said, "you'll know where to swim to, but just now we'll follow Sea Pig, the Porpoise, for he is very wise." A school of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water, and little Kotick followed them as fast as he could. "How do you know where to go to?" he panted. The leader of the school rolled his white eye and ducked under. "My tail tingles, ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... cried Jane. Coming up, she splashed about in the pond trying to get her bearings. Then, seeing Harriet's struggle with Margery, Jane headed for them in a series of porpoise-like lunges. The last reach brought a hand in contact with one of Margery's feet. Jane gave it a mighty tug. "Put her under, put her under! That'll ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... expedition proceeded south from Sydney at the close of 1839. His vessels were the 'Vincennes', a sloop of war of seven hundred and eighty tons, the 'Peacock', another sloop of six hundred and fifty tons, the 'Porpoise', a gun-brig of two hundred and thirty tons and a tender, the 'Flying Fish' of ninety-six tons. The scientists of the expedition were precluded from joining in this part of the programme, and were left behind ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... they "disturbed" him, to put it mildly. Evidently he had forgotten the peril to which all persons are exposed in tropical waters, and, as the truth was impressed upon him with such suddenness, he uttered a "whiff" like a porpoise and began swimming with fierce energy toward the shore. In fact, he never put forth so much effort in all his life. The expectation of feeling a huge man-eating monster gliding beneath you when in the water is enough to shake the nerves of the strongest swimmer. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... remarked Ebony, going to a pool a little further from the fountain-head, where the water had cooled somewhat. There the negro dropped his simple garments, and was soon rolling like a black porpoise in his warm bath. It was only large enough for one, but close to it was another small pool big enough for several men. There Mark and Hockins were soon disporting joyously, while the Secretary looked on and laughed. Evidently ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... The porpoise is a long, sleek fish without scales, black on the back, and white and gray beneath. He is from four to ten feet in length, and his sociability and good-nature are proverbial ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... roam o'er the bounding sea, Where the waters and winds are fierce and free, Where the wild bird sails in his tireless flight, As the sunrise scatters the shades of night; Where the porpoise and dolphin sport at play In their liquid realm of green and gray. Ah, me! It is there I would love to be Engulfed in the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... porpoise was cast on the shore Our village policeman was much to the fore; He measured the beast from its tip to its tail, And blandly pronounced it "an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... excellent control. Some times Tom, at the request of his father, would send her toward the surface by means of the deflecting rudder. Then she would dive to the bottom again. Once, as a test, she was sent obliquely to the surface, her tower just emerging, and then she darted downward again, like a porpoise that had come up to roll over, and suddenly concluded to seek the depths. In fact, had any one seen the maneuver they would have imagined the craft was a big ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... has some houses in the borough, and an omnium gatherum like this was a good time to do the civil thing to him. There he is; peep into the card-room, and you'll see his great porpoise back, the same old man that Harry in his benevolence assisted to a chair. He shook hands with Leonard, and told him there was a snug desk at the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild, As welcomed to life the ocean child. I have lived, since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a rover's life, With wealth ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... midday, and Glover, keeping a wary look out for Wilson, proceeded slowly to the quay with his friend, leaving the latter to walk down and discover the schooner while he went and hired a first-floor room at the "Royal Porpoise," a little bow-windowed tavern facing ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... rehearsal, and the Theatrical Committee are looking up amateurs for a farce. Readings from Dickens are also spoken of. An occasional whale is seen blowing in the distance, and many grampuses come rolling about the ship,—most inelegant brutes, some three or four times the size of a porpoise. Each in turn comes up, throws himself round on the top of the sea, exposing nearly half his body, and ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... rapid and prosperous voyage so far. Sunny days and cold, clear, starry nights had come and gone amid the intense and wonderful loveliness of these strange seas. Not a sail had we passed, not a gull had been seen, scarcely a porpoise. But now this radiant Easter Sunday morning finds us almost becalmed on the eastern side of Mauritius, with what air is stirring dead ahead, but only coming in a cat's-paw now and then. Except for one's natural impatience to drop anchor it would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... W.S.W., and next day at noon were in the latitude of 28 deg. 25', longitude 170 deg. 26' E. In the evening, Mr Cooper haying struck a porpoise with a harpoon, it was necessary to bring-to, and have two boats out, before we could kill it, and get it on board. It was six feet long; a female of that kind, which naturalists call dolphin of the ancients, and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... another little antelope that one meets frequently in the grassy places of East Africa. It is small, with dark complexion, and goes through the high grass in a way that strongly suggests the diving of a porpoise at sea. In fact, it gets its Dutch name for that reason, duiker bok, meaning "diving buck" in Dutch. There are a dozen or more different species of duikers, and they may be found scattered all over South and East Africa. They are difficult to shoot, for their diving ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the coast, were whales, porpoises, and seals. The last of these seem only of the common sort, judging from the skins which we saw here, their colour being either silvery, yellowish, plain, or spotted with black. The porpoise is the phocena. I have chosen to refer to this class the sea-otter, as living mostly in the water. It might have been sufficient to have mentioned, that this animal abounds here, as it is fully described in different ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... remarked, "Well, but you must recollect that there was five of us taken down at the same time, and the other four died," and he made a graceful spring, boring a hole in the water, which seethed around him, arising a moment later throwing water like a porpoise, as though he wouldn't exchange his position in life, humble as it was, with any one of a ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... trumpets, with drums and fifes; also winding the cornets and hautboys, and in the end of their jollity, left with the battle and ringing of doleful knells. Towards the evening also we caught in the Golden Hind a very mighty porpoise with harping iron, having first stricken divers of them, and brought away part of their flesh sticking upon the iron, but could recover only that one. These also, passing through the ocean in herds, did portend storm. I omit to recite frivolous report by them in the frigate, of strange ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... Faith, master Doctor, that's even I, my hopes are small, and my despair shall be as little. Brother, sister, brother, what, cloudy, cloudy? "and will no sunshine on these looks appear?" well, since there is such a tempest toward, I'll be the porpoise, I'll dance: wench, be of good cheer, thou hast a cloak for the rain yet, where is he? 'Sheart, how now, the picture of the prodigal, go to, I'll have the calf drest for you at ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... Secretary, who had never unfixed his glass nor moved a step since he asked the question, at length, by pointing with his finger, attracted Popanilla's attention to what his Excellency conceived to be a porpoise bobbing up and down in the waves. The Secretary, however, was not of the same opinion as the Ambassador. He was not very communicative, indeed, as to his own opinion upon this grave subject, but he talked of making farther observations ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... children. It is the instinctive perception that it is a pure enjoyment to the fish, the healthy glow and laugh of submarine existence. But for that sense of sympathetic nature the flying-fish, reeling porpoise and dolphin would be no more to him than the skipping shuttle in a weaver's loom, the dull impetus of senseless machinery. Self-generated motion is the outward and visible sign of vitality—its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the time have been wholly ornamental for all the good it did them, for it was generally splashed with grey October sea, but, at least, as Nancy lucently explained, you could see things—once there had actually been a porpoise—and that neither of them, in their present condition, would have worried very much about it if their cabin had been an aquarium ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... tosses you about as if you were an India-rubber ball made on purpose;" added he, bursting into a hearty roar as he caught Mrs. Bates' eye fastened upon his rotund proportions, as if to ascertain where the bones were. "Oh! well, my good woman," continued he, "even a porpoise couldn't stand the bumping and thumping that we poor mortals are subject to when we trust ourselves on shipboard. Why, I solemnly protest that I've been pitched from my berth, many a time, quite across the cabin into my neighbor's and back again, in a ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... steer so that the smoke blew at right angles to the ship's course. As the wind was prevailingly west, this meant that his general trend was southerly. Whenever he saw another vessel, a mass of floating sea-weed, a porpoise, or even a sea-gull, he steered directly for it, and passed as close as possible, to have a good look at it. Even Mr. Pointer admitted (in the mates' mess) that he had never experienced so eventful a voyage. To keep the quartermasters ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... to find an easy path,—which was no small thing to do in that utter darkness,—and Luke coming up behind, breathing like a porpoise, but vowing he could carry Larry a mile were it necessary. Boxer kept as far to the rear as he dared without missing their trail, and the life of any Filipino who might have appeared would not have been worth a moment's ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... evil one was compelled to flee through the hole in her ear. Nor was such treatment confined to cattle. The muscular doctors of a thousand years ago claimed they could cure insanity by laying it on lustily with a porpoise-skin whip, or by putting the maniac in a closed room and smoking out the pestering fiends. One did well to retain one's sanity in those good ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... poplo—arbo. Poppy papavo. Poppy-coloured punca. Populace popolo—amaso. Popular populara. Population logxantaro. Populous popola. Porcelain porcelano. Porch vestiblo. Porcupine histriko. Pore trueto. Pork porkajxo. Porous trueta. Porphyry porfiro. Porpoise fokseno. Port (harbour) haveno. Portable portebla. Portend antauxsciigi. Porter (doorkeeper) pordisto. Porter portisto. Portfolio paperujo. Portion (allot) dividi. Portion porcio, parto, doto. Portmanteau valizo, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their fore paws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly: "'Will you walk a little faster!' said a whiting to a snail, 'There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... boy! you look like a boiled porpoise with parsley sauce!' exclaimed Mr. Waffles, pulling up where the unfortunate youth was spluttering and getting emptied like a jug. 'Confound it!' added he, as the water came gurgling out of his mouth, 'but you must have ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny, indeed. At one o'clock he disappears, presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen a kind of salmon-colored porpoise, splashing about in the ocean. After that, he may be viewed in another bay window on the ground floor, eating a good lunch; and after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back on the sand reading. Nobody bothers him, ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... Theodore Janssen's estates the fishery was let for L6 per annum. The rent was afterwards increased to L8, and a lease upon those terms expired in 1780. Since 1786 this fishery has been abandoned. Mention is also made that occasionally a porpoise was caught here, and, as a matter of fact, two watermen shot one here lately; but it was confiscated, and the men fined for discharging firearms on the river. The ferry at the time of the Conquest yielded 20s. a year to the Lord of the Manor, ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... here offer a few notes picked up on the subject of whales, etc. The sperm or cachalot whale is a dangerous and bold fighter and is perhaps the most interesting of all cetaceans. His skin, like that of the porpoise, is as thin as gold-beaters' leaf. Underneath it is a coating of fine hair or fur, not attached to the skin, and then the blubber. He has enormous teeth or tushes in the lower jaw, but has no baleen. He devours very large fish, even sharks, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... that. She swims under water like a fish. There isn't another girl here to beat her. You are nothing but a porpoise beside her, Cis, and you swim fairly well. Hope, I do wish you'd take lessons. I'm tired of seeing you chug up and down ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... shouted out these words he raised himself in the water and curved over like a porpoise, diving right down, and at the same moment the shark gave a sweep with its tail, the combined disturbance making so great an eddy that it was impossible to see what took place beneath the surface. Then all at once there was a horrible discoloration in the ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... Trepidation and the coldness of the water made him turn back to regain the hole he crept out of. In coming near the staging where the sentinel was posted, he heard the poor fellow breathe, and at length got sight of him;—"Ah," says Paddy, "here is a porpoise, and I'll stick him with my bayonet." On which the terrified young man exclaimed—"don't kill me, I am a prisoner." The sentinel held out his hand, and helped him on to the staging, and then fired his gun to give the alarm. The guard turned ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... nose and save your wind," she whispered to her partner, who was puffing like a porpoise and showed signs of giving in. The others had one by one succumbed to fatigue and were now sitting in a more or less exhausted state on the various benches, noisily applauding the endurance of the spinning couples and betting ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... two. I say, 'These are my daughters,' and then people say, 'You mean your sisters.' Still I married very young—at seventeen—and possibly that helps to explain it." ... "Oh, is that a shark out yonder? Well, anyway, it's a porpoise, and a porpoise is a kind of shark, isn't it? When a porpoise grows up, it gets to be a shark—I read that somewhere. Ain't nature just wonderful?" ... "Raymund Walter Pelham, if I have to speak to you again, ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... this story it had to tell. Before then it had only blown in fitful gusts. Then again it blew steadily. I had caught some whispers from it years before. On the deck of the great, populous, electric-lighted ocean-hotel that was hurrying me across the Atlantic, racing the porpoise-schools to get to New York City; and later at Washington, when the red sunset-fires burned low behind the Capitol, it spoke to me in the wonderful, beloved voice I shall never hear on earth any more. Yet once more ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... such as this ... we only meant to frighten the Law, a splash was all that we intended, but the sun was in my Friend's eyes as he dropped the ball. It struck the bow of the boat, which went under like a frightened porpoise. There were two men in it, besides the Law itself, and they all came up spitting and spouting, and stood up to their necks in water. Oaths bubbled up to us. The boat came up badly perforated, and I expect we shall get into trouble. ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... several erroneous notions of my own to correct. I always fancied that a porpoise was a great fat lumbering sleepy animal, simply because people are accustomed to say "as fat as a porpoise." In reality he is a gracefully formed, remarkably fast, sociable, warm-hearted, or rather warm-blooded fellow, with a coat of fat like a paletot on his ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... is provided with porpoise laces, and the whole Shoe made with reference to comfort and the hard usage ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... home. When the lion felt something alight on his back, he dove to the bottom of the pool in a flash, taking the guard with him. But no human being could stick on the back of a slippery sea lion, and the guard soon came up to the surface of the water blowing and spouting like a porpoise. ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... never beheld anything like that swimming. He bounded through the waves like a porpoise, and indeed he possessed the strength and swiftness of one. What might not be expected ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... muddy garments clung to me like sheets of ice. I thought I should never get them off. So numb and lifeless were my fingers, and so weak was I that it seemed to take an hour to get off my shoes. I had not the strength to break the porpoise-hide laces, and the knots defied me. I repeatedly beat my hands upon the rocks to get some sort of life into them. Sometimes I felt sure I was going ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... and moving a little appeared to loosen the stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled, and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen. The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east where the ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... I said, was a fresh one, with a sea in the bay that kept the Suffolk rolling like a porpoise. A heavier lurch than ordinary sent her main channels grinding down on the mackerel boat's gunwale, smashing her upper strakes and springing her mizzen mast ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... recast in a more thoroughly English mould; 'chirurgeon' will become 'surgeon'; 'hemorrhoid', 'emerod'; 'squinancy' will become first 'squinzey' (Jeremy Taylor) and then 'quinsey'; 'porkpisce' (Spenser), that is sea-hog, or more accurately hogfish{58} will be 'porpesse', and then 'porpoise', as it is now. In other words the attempt will be made, but it will be now too late to be attended with success. 'Physiognomy' will not give place to 'visnomy', however Spenser and Shakespeare employ this briefer form; nor 'hippopotamus' to 'hippodame', even at Spenser's ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... settle in the water. First one tank was filled, and then another, until the vessel was submerged on an even keel. This was a revelation to the boys, for they had supposed it was only necessary to tilt the ship and dive just like a porpoise. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... awkward little horse pulled about by both hands, now right, now left, but rarely going out of a walk. Above a high shirt-collar his full-blown cheeks might be seen, as he sucked in the hot air and rejected it again like a blowing porpoise: cravat he had none, because he had no neck to tie it about; but in lieu of this article he carried, knotted over his broad shoulders, a little red handkerchief. Daily did I ask myself for a whole week "Will it walk again?" and, so surely as the shadeless hour of noon arrived, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... said, "behold me and my friends—and this our boat cast upon the reef like a stranded porpoise. Wilt help us float again, so that we may get to the king's town to-night and sleep in peace? And I shall pay every man twenty sticks of rich, sweet tobacco and four bottles of ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... 'ooman, if you vant to go on, you must sit still; if you keep moving, you'll stay where you are—that's all! There, by Gosh! we're in for it." At this point of the interesting dialogue, the young 'ooman gave a sudden lurch to larboard, and turned the boat completely over. The boatman, blowing like a porpoise, soon strode across the upturned bark, and turning round, beheld the drenched ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... with attributes of fire, lightning and combinations of forces not found in any one creature, are common to the popular fancy. In Japan, the kappa, half monkey half tortoise, which seizes children bathing in the rivers, as real to millions of the native common folk as is the shark or porpoise; the flying-weasel, that moves in the whirlwind with sickle-like blades on his claws, which cut the face of the unfortunate; the wind-god or imp that lets loose the gale or storm; the thunder-imp or hairy, cat-like creature that on the cloud-edges beats his drums in crash, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... a fishor he flew like the one, and swam like the other,qualities which would have been very essential to his safety a few hours before. Then Miss Wardour was a syren, or a bird of Paradise; her father a triton, or a sea-gull; and Oldbuck alternately a porpoise and a cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;the air refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn himthe rocks felt like down pillows as he was ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... till lost in the convexity of waters. The morning sun, half way to the zenith, burned bright in a cloudless sky, whilst in the east and west distant banks of purple mist coloured the liquid plain with a cool green-blue, a celadon tint that reposed the eye and the brain. The porpoise raised in sport his dark, glistening back to the light of day, and plunged into the cool depths as if playing off the "amate sponde" of the Mediterranean; and sandpipers and curlews, the latter wild as ever, paced the smooth, pure floor. The shoreline ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... maybe he did not think how it was done. He stood there perfectly still, and I guard over him. I thought he looked ugly and mad; he would hardly say a word. In two or three minutes Crandell came up, puffing-and blowing like a porpoise. The sweat was running off him in profusion, and while wiping it from his brow with his hands, he said to the Indian: "You would not stop when I told you to, if I had got a good sight of you I would have shot you." Of course Crandell only said this because he wanted to scare ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... could summon, caught the grip of his muley in both hands. He made his fall heavily to the ground, landing on his shoulder. But as he keeled from the saddle the last thing that rolled over the saddle, like the flash of a porpoise fin, was the barrel of the rifle, secure in his hands. Karg, on horseback, was already bending over him, revolver in hand, but the shot was never fired. A thirty-thirty bullet from the ground knocked ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... touched the shore— The shore of the Bristol Channel, A sea-green Porpoise carried away His wrapper of scarlet flannel. And when he came to observe his feet, Formerly garnished with toes so neat, His face at once became forlorn On perceiving that all his toes ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... forward, bawling blue hell; and just as I came by the foremast something struck me right through the fore-arm and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and, by George, it was the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise. 'Cap'n!' I cried. 'What's wrong?' says he. 'They've grained me,' says I. 'Grained you?' says he. 'Well, I've been looking for that.' 'And by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts murdered for it!' 'Now, Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go below. If ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that a gannet could scarcely live upon. He had pushed aside the men who remonstrated with him, turning on them a face ghastly in the moonlight. 'Stand aside, men,' he cried, 'and if I fail, see to the girsha!' He was the strongest man in all the Island, and as much at home in the water as a porpoise. They saw his sleek head now and again flung out of the trough of the waves, and his huge shoulders labouring against the weight of the storm. Then suddenly the rope they were holding fell slack in their hands,—they ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... days at Saco, our explorers proceeded on their voyage. When they had advanced not more than twenty miles, driven by a fierce wind, they were forced to cast anchor near the salt marshes of Wells. Having been driven by Cape Porpoise, on the subsidence of the wind, they returned to it, reconnoitred its harbor and adjacent islands, together with Little River, a few miles still further to the east. The shores were lined all along with nut-trees and grape-vines. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... actions accordingly, read, played the phonograph, went here and there over the yacht, often taking her stand in the bow and peering down the cutwater to watch the antics of some humorous porpoise or to follow the smother of spray where the flying fish broke. In fact, she conducted herself exactly as she would have done on board a passenger ship. There were moments when she ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... scarp denies fair start for a rush at the power of the hill front. Yet here must the heavy boats beach themselves, and wallow and yaw in the shingly roar, while their cargo and crew get out of them, their gunwales swinging from side to side, in the manner of a porpoise rolling, and their stem and stern going up and down like a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER 1. (HUZZA PORPOISE).—This is the common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... breathless commands as if he were hypnotized, puffing and blowing like a porpoise as he struggled to slip the linen covers over the chairs. Gladwin worked at top speed, too; and just as he was covering the great chest he gave a start and held up ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie |
