"Taffrail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... torrents of oxygen and to let your weary eye and mind disport themselves like sea-gulls on the broad waters of the bay. What so fresh and cool and clean and still and sparkling and in perfect contrast to the stern and stony and resounding streets! As you lean over the taffrail, looking down into the clear, gliding wave, you can readily conceive why the poor unfortunates to whom life has become a stern and stony street are so often tempted to bury their sorrows ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Captain Colenso, or this was left to the all but simultaneous voice of the guns, I know not. But as their smoke rolled between us I saw him drop his trumpet and run with a crazed face to the taffrail, where the halliards led. The traitor had forgotten to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but a small, two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. Her sails were in a state of unaccountable disarray; .only the foresail, mainsail, and jib being set. The first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted but half way up the stay, where it idly flapped, the breeze coming from over the taffrail. She continually yawed in her course; now almost presenting her broadside, then ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... flying over the water under the paddle strokes of his six men, Signet took himself hastily overboard with the rest. There was no question of protest or false pride. Over he went. Rising and treading water under the taffrail, and seeing the trader still some fathoms off, he shook the wet from the rag of a beard with which long want of a razor had blurred his peaked chin and gathered up ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... conflict was now imminent. Our men had been supplied with muskets, and told to conceal themselves and use them when the critical time came, and to make sure that every shot was effectual. Two small cannon, which were fixtures on the taffrail, were loaded ready to do service. At last she came within hailing distance of our weather beam. A man shouted through a speaking-trumpet in mongrel English to 'Heave to!' We did not heed this insolent command, but kept going. In a few minutes more ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... boxes—on mats, on pillows, on quilts, on billets of wood, conversing of Island affairs. Upon my word, I heard the mutter of Almayer's name faintly at midnight, while making my way aft from the bridge to look at the patent taffrail-log tinkling its quarter miles in the great silence of the sea. I don't mean to say that our passengers dreamed aloud of Almayer, but it is indubitable that two of them at least, who could not sleep, apparently, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... which was accustomed to leap into the water from almost any height. I was very partial to him, and you may imagine my annoyance when, one day, as we were becalmed along the Western Islands, and a large shark came up alongside, the dog, at once perceiving it, plunged off the taffrail to seize it, swimming toward the shark, and barking as loud as he could. I fully expected that the monster would have dispatched him in a moment; but to my surprise the shark was frightened and swam away, followed by the dog, until the boat that ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... I was still living—that I was in the sea—that waves were dashing around me; and on looking up I saw the dark ship at a cable's distance from me, still passing away. I thought I saw men standing along the taffrail, and some clinging upon the shrouds; but the ship appeared to be going fast away, and leaving me behind in ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... slowly away - for the first time for many long months with our faces to the east. But it was not 'merry' England that filled my juvenile fancies. I leaned upon the taffrail and watched this lovely land of the 'flowery food' fade slowly from my sight. I had eaten of the Lotus, and knew no wish but to linger on, to roam no more, to return no more, to any home ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... All expected a desperate resistance. Great was their surprise, then, when they were permitted to take a raking position under the stern of the "Hope," and to board her without a shot being fired. But as Mugford, at the head of the boarders, clambered over the taffrail, he heard the captain of the "Hope" order the men to cut the topsail halliards and ties, with the intention of so crippling the ship that the British squadron might overhaul and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... manoeuvred to drop a bomb into the funnel, from a height of 300 feet, but the three bombs thrown missed the ship; he says the attack took place at 7 P.M., but there was ample light for the aviator to see the ship's name in eight-foot letters, and the American flags at the masthead and the taffrail; Secretary Bryan has cabled to Ambassador Gerard, asking whether the action of the German Government in placing the William P. Frye case in a prize court is the reply to the American note stating that the United States did not regard prize ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... also carried: Three minimum registering thermometers; one aneroid barometer which was tested and set for me by the United States Weather Bureau; one clinometer; one pocket transit; three compasses; one pedometer; one taffrail log; one pair binoculars; three No. 3A folding pocket Kodaks, sixty rolls of films, each roll sealed in a tin can and waterproofed, and six "Vanguard" watches ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... Bill, as the men invariably called him, was standing at the tiller; but his post for the present was a sinecure, and he whiled away the time by alternately gazing in dreamy abstraction at the compass in the binnacle, and by walking to the taffrail in order to spit into the sea. In one of these turns he came near to where I was standing, and, leaning over the side, looked long and earnestly ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... much more, only bad luck to me, she went and married a little tailor out of Nantucket; and I've hated women and tailors ever since!" As he spoke, the hardy tar dashed a drop of brine from his tawny cheek, and once more betook himself to splice the taffrail. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a level with the deck. The masts appeared to have been chopped away. The hatchways were gone. The hold appeared to be filled with sand, but there may have been only a layer of sand concealing something beneath. Part of the planking of the deck as well as most of the taffrail on the other side had been carried away. Astern there was a quarter-deck. There was no skylight, but only dead- lights set on the deck. The door of the cabin still remained and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... glance, Martin suffered a sharp stab of disappointment. For nothing was changed. There, leaning over the taffrail, staring shoreward, was the Japanese mate, Asoki, in the exact attitude in which Martin had last seen him, when he entered the caves in Ichi's wake. The man seemed not to have budged since then. And forward, the guards were still at the hatches. He ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... should return to Manila. To leave her was like breaking home ties, and I confess that when she steamed slowly out of the harbor, homeward bound, with her Filipino crew lining the rail and Captain Galvez waving to us from the bridge and the flag at her taffrail dipping in farewell, I suddenly ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell |
