"Keels" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and asked if I could not get leave to go with him. Orders were come from West Point to seize and destroy all periaguas, canoes, and boats in the possession of the few and often doubtfully loyal people between us and King's Ferry. He had for this duty two sail-rigged dories with slide-keels, and would take two soldiers ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Brenta and its associated streams converge toward the port of the Lido. Through this salt and sombre plain the gondola and the fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five feet deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through the clear sea-water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... said Sir George Elliot, "I am informed that the Americans are likely to adopt Captain Hodgett's form of bottom for their new ships, which must give greater steadiness than bilge keels." ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... the deck of a ship of the British navy. The whole English fleet, consisting of nineteen sail, distant thirty miles from the point of observation, were seen up in the air, upside down, as if they had been hung up there by their keels. ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... shining river ebbs and flows, between its big ship-building yards and the railway to York, under endless moving craft and a forest of masts, now straight on end, now slanting helplessly on one side when there's not water enough to float their keels; and the long row of Cornish fishing-smacks, two ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... as sets torst this side. The river's more 'n a mile wide here, and the people on a passin' boat wudn't hear me; an' ef they did, they'd take it for some one a mockin' 'em. A man hailin' a boat from the top o' a cyprus-tree! It 'ud be of no use. For all that I tried it. Steamers, keels, and flats,—I hailed them all till I war hoarse; some o' 'em heard me, for I war answered by shouts o' scornful laughter. My own shouts o' despair mout a' been mistuk for the cries o' a fool ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the field of enterprise by the old Britishers? American pride said "No;" American instinct said "No;" and, above all, American capitalists said "No!" Keels were laid down in New York; the shipbuilders' yards became unusually active; and the stately timbers of majestic ships gradually rose before the admiring gaze of the citizens of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... a sunset out over there," he said. "You see those fleecy clouds that are out there now. If clouds like those are still there when the sun goes down, they will be a fleet of pearl-gray vessels, with carmine keels, ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... ostensibly consenting to buy immunity on this basis, seldom levied the quota upon themselves. By offering bounties they drew the price of their freedom to work in the keels from outside sources. Lord Thurlow confessed that he did not know what "working in the keels" meant. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 299—Law Officers' Opinions, 1752-77, No. 70.] There were' few in the fleet who could have enlightened him of their own experience. The keelmen kept their ranks as ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... our grating keels outslide, Our good boats forward swing; And while we ride the land-locked tide, Our negroes row ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... now building should succeed in getting upon the lake, was perfectly apparent, and made Erie a third and principal point of interest. At the time of Perry's arrival, March 27, the place was entirely defenceless, and without any organization for defence, although the keels of the two brigs were laid, and the three gunboats well advanced in construction. By a visit to Pittsburgh he obtained from an army ordnance officer four small guns, with some muskets; and upon his application the local commander of Pennsylvania militia stationed at Erie five hundred ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... foot of the falls next day, the stores were landed and carried up the slope, the boats drawn ashore and in an incredibly short space of time dragged on to the rollers, so many men harnessing themselves like a team of horses to the rope attached to the boats' keels, and cheering loudly as difficulty after difficulty was surmounted, the rollers being changed time after time till the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... them at nights; and now, Although I be so old, I miss my lads, And there be many folk this stormy night Heavy with fear for theirs. Merciful Lord, Comfort them; save their honest boys, their pride, And let them hear next ebb the blessedest, Best sound—the boat-keels grating on the sand. I cannot pray with finer words: I know Nothing; I have no learning, cannot learn— Too old, too old. They say I want for nought, I have the parish pay; but I am dull Of hearing, and the fire scarce warms me through. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... tension; all dreams of romance appear to promise immediate fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are obscured, loud voices are hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore, and yet see nothing; the lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing keels, lapses by the vessel with a treacherous sound; and all the senses are merged in a sort of anxious trance. Three tunes I have had in full perfection this fascinating experience; but that night was the first, and its zest was the keenest. It will come back to me in dreams, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... good of theories when you've got facts? Look at the things there've been with Germany just this year alone. Old Haldane over in Germany in February for 'unofficial discussions', Churchill threatening two keels to one if the German Navy law is exceeded. That was March. In April the Germans whack up their Navy Law Amendment, twelve more big ships. That chap Bertrand Stewart getting three and a half years for espionage in Germany; and two German spies caught by us here,—that chap Grosse ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... rock waiting for the layers of huge stones,—the eastern nook of the port more perfectly protected than the southern, which receives more or less the swell from the northerly winds, and whose inner shore of hard sand tempted the weary keels,—while all around stretched a wide, fertile, and then probably forest-clad plain, doubtless abounding in the stags for which the district was long famous. Here the restless race "located," and seem to have prospered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... & the men of his company did not lash their ships together, but rowed against the Danish keels that were faring loose, and every ship that they grappled did they clear. When the Danes noted this same did every man move his ship away from the spot whither the Earl was faring, but went he after ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... would if I had asked her," says he; "but I didn't get around to it quick enough. Fact is, I'd just bought out the boat shop, and I had fifteen or twenty men to work for me, with four new keels laid down at once, and—well, I was mighty rushed ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... harbor, knew where the forts stood, and where the colliers anchored most thickly. The landing party was divided into two boat-loads; Jones taking command of one, while Lieut. Wallingford held the tiller of the other boat. With muffled oars the Americans made for the shore, the boats' keels grated upon the pebbly shore, and an instant later the adventurers had scaled the ramparts of the forts, and had made themselves masters of the garrisons. All was done quietly. The guns in the fortifications were spiked; and, leaving ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... they hove up the sheet anchor and fell dead asleep upon the top of each other under the capstan bars. Then, as a second lieutenant, he was in one of those grim three-deckers with powder- blackened hulls and crimson scupper-holes, their spare cables tied round their keels and over their bulwarks to hold them together, which carried the news into the Bay of Naples. From thence, as a reward for his services, he was transferred as first lieutenant to the Aurora frigate, engaged in cutting off supplies from ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Christendom, St. James, the patron saint of Spain, preached the gospel to the heathen Spaniards. Upon this beach had once stood an immense commercial city, the proudest in all Spain. This now desolate bay had once resounded with the voices of myriads, when the keels and commerce of all the then known world were wafted ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... secrets overheard, And sight and scent of blooming flowers, To fill the happy sunlight's hours. When verdant fields grow bare and brown, When forest leaves come raining down, When frost has mated with the weather And all the birds go south together, When drying boats turn up their keels, Who ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of the bay ships riding at anchor, more numerous than the sea-birds that haunt Monte Gibello or swim sentinel about its base. Trumpets from the shore answered to their trumpets; they heard a wild tattoo of drums within the walls. On even keels in the motionless tide the ships took up their moorings; and King Richard, throwing the end of his cloak over his shoulder, jumped off the gunwale of Trenchemer, and waded breast-deep to shore. He was the first of his realm to touch ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... nevermore the tropic routes Need poleward warp and veer, But on through the Gates of Goethals The steady keels shall steer, Where the tribes of man are led toward peace By the prophet-engineer. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... earth; but the loan which he tried to float remained inert and the northern barbarians, whose shipyards send forth most of the navies of the world, insisted upon cash or security as preliminary to laying the keels of the Zalapatan fleet. The project therefore hung fire. Though the craft that roamed up and down the bifurcated river was referred to as a gunboat, it was simply an American tug, some seventy-five ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Lisboa[43] first unfold![as] Her image floating on that noble tide, Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,[at] But now whereon a thousand keels did ride Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied, And to the Lusians did her aid afford: A nation swoln with ignorance and pride,[44] Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword[au] To save them from the wrath of Gaul's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... let Villeneuve wait a favouring wind For process westward swift to Martinique, Coaxing the English after. Join him there Gravina, Missiessy, and Ganteaume; Which junction once effected all our keels— While the pursuers linger in the West At hopeless fault.—Having hoodwinked them thus, Our boats skim over, disembark the army, And in the twinkling of a patriot's eye All London ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... wind, and all the world should fester, Were thy fourfold godhead quenched, or stilled thy strife: Yet the waves and we desire too long the deep south-wester, Whence the waters quicken shoreward, clothed with life. Yet the field not made for ploughing save of keels nor harrowing Save of storm-winds lies unbrightened by thy breath: Banded broad with ruddy samphire glow the sea-banks narrowing Westward, while the sea gleams chill and still as death. Sharp and strange from inland sounds thy bitter note of battle, Blown between grim skies and waters ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... did 'ee see the leach o' the sail flutter? Nearly over! Let 'em gybe, if they'm set on it. 'Twill upset they.—O-ho! They'm goin' to haul down an' row for it. Best thing the likes o' they can du. They calls me an ol' fule for joggin' along in my ol' craft while they has drop-keels and bumes, all the latest. I've a-know'd thees yer sea for fifty year an' more, an' I say, I tell thee, that two oars be better than two reefs any day. Le'but the seas take charge o' one o' they boats running ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... of interruption. Several native vessels came in, not seeing them until they were round the point. They were of two descriptions, some having their planks sewn together with coir rope, which had keels, and others flat bottomed, the planking being secured by nails. Their anchors were of hard wood, with stones fastened to the shanks, so that they might sink to the bottom. The rudders were fastened by ropes passed outside. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Next to the crown whose regal pomp it shares, Though low before it courtly Christians bow, Leave its red mark on Younger England's brow. We love, we honor, the maternal dame, But let her priesthood wear a modest name, While through the waters of the Pilgrim's bay A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the way. Too old grew Britain for her mother's beads,— Must we be necklaced with her children's creeds? Welcome alike in surplice or in gown The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown! We greet with cheerful, not submissive, mien A sister church, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... game would be set out. Then we build ships and explore these islands, but in these pictures the ships are represented as already arriving. The ships are built out of our wooden bricks on flat keels made of two wooden pieces of 9 x 4-1/2; inches, which are very convenient to push about over the floor. Captain G. P. W. is steaming into the bay between the eastern and western islands. He carries heavy guns, his ship bristles with an extremely ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... of shadowy islands; the sail-boats at anchor in the muddy, glistening flats leaned over disconsolately on their sides, in despair of ever again feeling the thrill of the returning waters beneath their keels; and the gray, weather-beaten houses crowded together on the brink of the cliff above the beach, looking like a group of hooded old women watching for a belated sail, seemed to have caught the expression of their inmates' lives. At high tide the hulk of the Alcazar had ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... west the same for more than five times the distance. All the territory around and between, a wilderness, unsettled, unexplored, traversed only by the original lords of the soil, the Chaco Indians, who, as said, have preserved a deadly hostility to the paleface, ever since the keels of the latter first cleft ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the canoe and rising to pour it over the side. For hour after hour, while the calm moon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull task. Lulled by the heave and fall of the long-backed rollers as they slid under the keels of the canoes, the men nearly dropped asleep where they stood. The quiet waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old lullaby—crooned and called, till a voice deep within them said, "It is better to lie down and sleep and die than to live ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... street and alley, From churches full of the old world's night, All have come out to the day's broad light. See, only see! how the masses sally Streaming and swarming through gardens and fields How the broad stream that bathes the valley Is everywhere cut with pleasure boats' keels, And that last skiff, so heavily laden, Almost to sinking, puts off in the stream; Ribbons and jewels of youngster and maiden From the far paths of the mountain gleam. How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple! This is the real heaven of the people, Both ...
— Faust • Goethe
... presumed, its patrols on the alert. Yet, during that night, ten thousand American troops were marched down to boats on the strand at Brooklyn and, with all their stores, were carried across a mile of water to New York. There must have been the splash of oars and the grating of keels, orders given in tones above a whisper, the complex sounds of moving bodies of men. It was all done under the eye of Washington. We can picture that tall figure moving about on the strand at Brooklyn, which he was the last to leave. Not a sound ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... shine, just as he has given us the power to walk or speak; and they do shine brightly, as you see; but how they do it is more than I can tell. I think, myself, it must be anger that makes them shine, for they generally do it when they are stirred up or knocked about by oars, or ships' keels, or tumbling waves. But I am not sure that that's the reason either, because, you know, we often sail through them without seeing the light, though of course they must ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... was between three and four centuries back that I lived, the first white man, on the coral isles of Raa Kook. In those waters, at that time, the keels of ships were rare. I might well have lived out my days there, in peace and fatness, under the sun where frost was not, had it not been for the Sparwehr. The Sparwehr was a Dutch merchantman daring the uncharted seas ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... when completed was 883 feet long, 92 1/2 feet broad; her height from keel to bridge was 104 feet. She had 8 steel decks, a cellular double bottom, 5 1/4 feet through (the inner and outer "skins" so-called), and with bilge keels projecting 2 feet for 300 feet of her length amidships. These latter were intended to lessen the tendency to roll in a sea; they no doubt did so very well, but, as it happened, they proved to be a weakness, ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew up our keels for the last time out of that river of Oise that had faithfully piloted them, through rain and sunshine, for so long. For so many miles had this fleet and footless beast of burthen charioted our fortunes, that we turned our back upon it with a sense of separation. We had made ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... favor, to cripple our commerce by all means within its reach. That commerce, fostered by our accidental position as neutrals when the two great commercial nations of the world were at war, had reached a marvellous height. Its keels vexed every sea. Its flag was now seen in the frozen circles; and now it reflected from its waving folds the fervors of the southern cross. Our merchants, springing, as it were, in a single night from the station of ordinary ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... plague through the green timber eats, And vomits out a tardy flame by fits; Down to the keels, and upwards to the sails, The fire descends, or mounts, but still prevails; Nor buckets pour'd, nor strength of human hand, Can the victorious element ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... would never have been able to fathom the depths of that abyss of mildness. It was with the eyes of the king as with the immense depths of the azure heavens, or with those more terrific, and almost as sublime, which the Mediterranean reveals under the keels of its ships in a clear summer day, a gigantic mirror in which heaven delights to reflect sometimes ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... opposing fleets collided with a crash which twisted their keels and racked their timbers. Lights merged together and became stationary as hull locked with hull in a grinding embrace. The alien crews swarmed to the decks and leaped across the rail upon the American sailors who surged forward to meet them. Fists flashed in the darkness. Men met ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... wall And plane-tree tall The lake's blue wavelets rise and fall; In they creep, Out they sweep, And ever their rhythmic measure keep, As the light breeze over the water steals, And fills the sails of a score of keels. ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... The boldest keels of Phoenicia and Carthage had not approached its shores. From the footsteps of the ancient nations along the highways of time and fortune—the embattled millions of the old Asiatic despotisms, the iron phalanx of Macedonia, the living, crushing ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... rest of their lines, driving them through the foaming water with such force that the pasha's galley, much the larger and loftier of the two, was hurled upon its opponent until its prow reached the fourth bench of rowers. Both vessels groaned and quivered to their very keels with the shock. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... way. This helmet consists of two membraneous prolongations of the skin, which project on either side from its broad and flattened head. A long, flexible, double tube forms its snout. The shield on the back is marked with three distinct ridges, or keels, along it, and is broader before than behind. It has a ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... his "lamentable discourse."[40] Through Bede the information of Gildas has fallen into the stream of English history, and we cease to be aware of the original source. For example, the familiar tradition of the Saxons coming over in "three keels," ordinarily ascribed to Bede, is taken from Gildas. The date of this author and his work, as now generally accepted, is this:—That he was born in 520, the year of the battle of Mons Badonicus, and that he wrote about 564. But this rests on an ill-jointed and uncertain ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... We did oppose, Britannia stood our second, And those we fought Were dearly taught, Without their host they reckoned; And should they now, With hostile prow, But press, our lakes and rivers, The Giant-stroke, From British oak, Would rend their keels to shivers. And thou, Cabotia! Old England's child Cabotia! Would see thy race In death's embrace Before ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... afforded such a passage. When it was known beyond all doubt that the Great River flows into the Gulf, not the "Western Sea," longing eyes were turned toward the western part of the continent, in the hope that some stream would be found flowing into the Pacific which would carry the keels of commerce Indiaward. The huge barrier of the Rocky Mountains was {314} not known, and it was only in the effort to reach the Pacific by water that ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... my brave men raise a barrow for me on the headland, broad, high, to be seen far out at sea: that hereafter sea-farers, driving their foamy keels through ocean's mist, may behold and say, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... extremely useful for the next voyage up the obstructions of the Bahr Giraffe. I therefore instructed the English shipwrights to take the job in hand, and during a ramble through the forest they selected several trees. These were quickly felled, and the sawyers were soon at work cutting planks, keels, and all the necessary wood for boat-building. It is a pleasure to see English mechanics at work in a wild country; they finish a job while an Egyptian workman is considering how to do it. In a very ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... giant-killer, and Thomas Thumb landed in England from the very same keels and war-ships which conveyed Hengist and Horsa, and ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on some movement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. "Much was hoped, supposed, spoken," says one old mourning Skald; "but the truth was, Olaf Tryggveson was never seen in Norseland more." Strangely ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... seem to show their keels, Phoebus awhile delayed his mighty wheels, And turned to smile upon thy bashful eyes, Ere he his unseen pomp would solemnize. The evening weather was so bright, and clear, That men of health were of unusual cheer; Stepping like Homer at the ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... Four were erst patrician keels (Names attest what families be), The Kensington, and Richmond too, Leonidas, and Lee: But now they have their seat With the Old ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Hispaniola without delay, that he might forward supplies for this place. Taking advantage of a calm that the sea might not beat upon the month of the river, we went out with three of the ships, the boats towing a-head. Yet though they were lightened as much as possible, every one of the keels rubbed on the sand which was fortunately loose and moving; and we then took in with all expedition every thing that was unloaded for making the ships draw less water. While we lay upon the open coast, about a league from the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... attack the towns of the enemy in different districts. Many were stormed, yet much of the warfare was vain and much labour was lost, because the Veneti, having numerous ships specially adapted for such a purpose, their keels being flatter than those of our ships, could easily navigate the shallows and estuaries, and thus their flight hither and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... large that often its storms are more disastrous to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its violent moments. The waters of the bay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface is ploughed by the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all manner of fishermen. To protect the fish from this motley floating population many wise laws have been passed, and there is a fish patrol to see that these laws are enforced. Exciting times are the lot of the fish patrol: in its ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... hear, In drowse or dream, more near and near Across the border-land of sleep The blowing of a blithesome horn, That laughed the dismal day to scorn; A splash of hoofs and rush of wheels Through sand and mire like stranding keels, As from the road with sudden sweep The Mail drove up the little steep, And stopped beside the tavern door; A moment stopped, and then again With crack of whip and bark of dog Plunged forward through the sea of fog, And all was silent as before,— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... only two ships had ever entered Port Phillip. These were the Lady Nelson, under Murray's command, in February 1802—the harbour having been discovered in the previous month—and the Investigator, under Flinders, in April and May. No other keels had, from the moment of the discovery until Baudin's vessels finally left these coasts, breasted the broad expanse of waters at the head of which the great city of Melbourne now stands. The next ship to pass the heads was the ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... twenty years ago, the first sixteen destroyers were authorized for the United States Navy. These were less than half the size of our present destroyers, and yet their average time from the laying of the keels to launching was almost exactly two years. During the ten years prior to our entrance into the present war Congress authorized an average of five or six destroyers a year. The records show that in the construction of these the average time on the ways was almost exactly ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... news he sent abroad the war arrow all about the Thrandheim country, and to Mere and Raumsdale, north also into Naumdale and Halogaland; and in answer to this summons there assembled a vast fleet of warships to the number of one hundred and eighty keels, and a force amounting to eleven thousand men. So many vessels and warriors had never before been seen together in ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... varying indeed in employment, but in other respects little better than the buccaneers and pirates, in whose ranks they were probably first enlisted. These were the boatmen of the Mississippi, who with incredible fatigue forced their "keels" with poles against the current, working against the stream with the cargoes entrusted to their care by the merchants of New Orleans, labouring for many months before they arrive at their destination, and returning with the rapid current in as many days ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... times? When the skies are fair and the seas smooth, all ships sail festively. But the clouds lower, the winds shriek, the waves boil, and immediately each craft shows its quality. The deep is strown with broken masts, parted keels, floating wrecks; but here and there a ship rides the raging sea, and flings defiance to the wind. She overlives the sea because she is sea-worthy. Not our eighty years of peace alone, but our two years of war, are the touchstone of our character. We have rolled ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... giving Dragut twenty galleys, which soon found their way to Christian shores. The lamentations of his victims roused Doria, who had the good fortune to surprise the Corsair as he was greasing his keels in the strait behind Jerba. This strait was virtually a cul-de-sac. Between the island and the great lake that lay behind it, the sea had worn a narrow channel on the northern side, through which light vessels could pass, with care; but to go out of the lake by the ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... of New France in the east have their counterparts and contemporaries on the Pacific coast of America in Francis Drake, the English pirate on the coast of California, and in Staduchin and Deshneff and other Cossack plunderers of the North Pacific, whose rickety keels first ploughed a furrow over the trackless sea out from Asia. Marquette, Jolliet and La Salle—backed by the prestige of the French government are not unlike the English navigators, Cook and Vancouver, sent ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... is a wonderful thing," he said. "Here come the keels of the world, bringing the tribute of the seven seas. It is a fine place to work, Miss Maitland, this down town New York within sight of the water and the water front. Even if you seldom get time to look at it, you have the feeling that it is there. There is never ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... unfolds itself before me. All seas are ploughed by the keels of English vessels, all coasts dotted with the coaling stations and fortresses of the British world-power. In England is vested the dominion of the globe, and England will retain it; she cannot permit the Russian monster to drink life and ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... UKODKO or smaller Murray cray-fish" most nearly resembles ASTACUS QUINQUE-CARINATUS, but it is three or four times larger than any of the specimens of that species which we possess, and the figure does not shew any indications of the five keels on the front of the head. In wanting the keel on the thorax it agrees with an Australian species described by Mr. Milne Edwards under the name of ASTACUS AUSTRALASIENSIS, said to come from New Holland, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... illustration of the abiding nature of local usages when originating in necessities and utility, that STRABO, in describing the boats in which the traffic was carried on between Taprobane and the continent, says they were "built with prows at each end, but without holds or keels."[1] ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... serpent banner! Hail to Olaf the Brave!" said King Ethelred, as the war-horns sounded a welcome; and on the low shores of the Isle of Dogs, just below the old city, the keels of the Norse war-ships grounded swiftly, and the boy viking and his followers leaped ashore. "Thou dost come in right good time with thy trusty dragon-ships, young King," said King Ethelred; "for the Danish robbers are full well entrenched in ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... bow, and another at the stern, while the rest of the water fell away from under her, just to see how she would like it, and she was held up at the two ends, and the weight of the cargo and the machinery fell on the groaning iron keels and ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the eastern slope of the glacial peaks just inland from Juneau, and swept to the north and west for more than two thousand miles. It was understood that this way was long and hard and cold, yet thousands eagerly embarked on keels of all designs and of all conditions of unseaworthiness. By far the greater number assaulted ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the Celt and the Saxon there are, indeed, well-marked differences. The Anglo-Saxons were a set of enterprising pirates, who drove their keels over the misty ocean, came to Britain and took forcible possession of it, dispersing or enslaving the original possessors. They left a literature which is, in many respects, highly interesting, but is in the main devoid of sunshine, humour, and sprightliness. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... bend a bow, will stand forth in the cause of our little Duke; ay, and that his blessed father's memory is held so dear in our northern home, that it needs but a message to King Harold Blue-tooth to bring a fleet of long keels into the Seine, with stout Danes enough to carry fire and sword, not merely through Flanders, but through all France. We of the North are not apt to forget old friendships ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of France playing false proved true. Bare had our keels bumped through that forest of sailing craft, which ever swung to the tide below Quebec fort, when a company of young cadets marches down from the Castle St. Louis to escort us up to M. de la Barre, ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... forty-five degrees of longitude. The Mississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four subordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some hundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that Helen's beauty launched a thousand ships until the battle of Lepanto, the oar had been the chief instrument of locomotion, though supplemented, even from Homeric times, by the sail. Naval battles were like those on land; the enemy keels approached and the soldiers on each strove to board and master the other's crew. The only distinctly naval tactic was that of "ramming," as it was called in a ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... rigged like those of our ships which can be navigated in any wind. But wicked people on the coast of Fuhkien sold their ships to the foreigners; and the buyers, having fitted them with double bottoms and keels shaped so as to cleave the waves, came ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... forwards and backwards on his seat, like a pacing tiger in his cage. Ka-la! Koo-loo! howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry was heard — Stand up, Tashtego! —give it to him! The harpoon was hurled. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... that would sink, scows that would leak, and other craft that showed a strong preference for floating with keels in the air, we found in the canvas canoe a boat at once handsome, speedy, and safe, and capable of a great variety of uses, while the small cost and easy construction place it within reach ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "we would in no circumstances be a party to any sort of aggression upon Germany." But we must oppose a violation of the neutrality of Belgium, and, if the naval competition continued, we should lay down two keels to Germany's one. As a sequel to these discussions the two Governments discussed the basis of an Entente. It soon appeared that Germany sought to bind us almost unconditionally to neutrality in all cases. To this the British Cabinet demurred, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... these three long-boats shed their false keels, which half an hour later were but harmless-looking stacks of timber among Sir Felix's undergrowth. Half an hour later, had your unwary feet led you to a certain corner of Sir Felix's well-timbered demesne, you might have scratched ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... deck, Cavendish considered, upon inspection, that the tide would serve, as it was now rising rapidly; he therefore immediately gave orders that the winches and capstans should be manned, and the ships hove in towards the beach until their keels ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... "it is all very well for England to be satisfied with her present navy, which is half again as large as ours. If our navy were the strongest in the world, we too would be glad to have all nations stop building warships," and they laid down the keels of four ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... us back more than a thousand years, to that long-ago summer of 547, when the cyuls (keels) of the marauding Bernician chieftain Ida and his followers grounded on the shore of our Northland, and the work of conquest began. Ida was not slow to grasp the importance of such a commanding site as this isolated mass of basaltic crag, and the rude stronghold which crowned it. It became in ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... practically invisible to the shad in the obscure river current: it hangs suspended perpendicularly in the water, kept in position by buoys at the top and by weights at the bottom; the buoys are attached by cords twelve or fifteen feet long, which allow the net to sink out of the reach of the keels of passing vessels. The net is thrown out on the ebb tide, stretching nearly across the river, and drifts down and then back on the flood, the fish being snared behind the gills in their efforts to pass through the meshes. ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... I, "for beauty it is superior to the far-famed one of Naples. A proper place for the keels to start from, which, unguided by the compass, found their way over the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... work. Vessels in foreign waters were called home, the keels of new craft laid in northern dockyards, and stout merchant ships bought and fitted up for the rough usage of war. By the end of 1861 the navy numbered 264 vessels. At the close of the war it had 671 ships, carrying 4,610 ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... soon fitted, made by Kerr out of the tin lining of one of the biscuit-cases, and passed through a close-fitting tin grummet sewn into the canvas of the roof just between the keels of the two boats, and the smoke nuisance was soon a thing of the past. Later on, another old oil-drum was made to surround this chimney, so that two pots could be cooked at once on the one stove. Those whose billets were near the stove ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... coast. Lonely as death, bare as a block of marble, Gull Island is passed where another crew in later years perish as castaways. Gray finback whales flounder in schools. The lazy humpbacks lounge round and round the ships, eyeing the keels curiously. A polar bear is seen on an ice pan. Then the ships come to those lonely harbors north of Newfoundland—Griguet and Quirpon and Ha-Ha-Bay, rock girt, treeless, always windy, desolate, with an eternal moaning of the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... where vessels rarely penetrate. Above us floated products of all kinds, heaped up among these brownish plants; trunks of trees torn from the Andes or the Rocky Mountains, and floated by the Amazon or the Mississippi; numerous wrecks, remains of keels, or ships' bottoms, side-planks stove in, and so weighted with shells and barnacles that they could not again rise to the surface. And time will one day justify Maury's other opinion, that these substances thus ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... me! Bid thou my warriors after my funeral pyre Build me a burial-cairn high on the sea-cliff's head; It shall for memory tower up on Hronesness, So that the seafarers Beowulf's Barrow Henceforth shall name it, they who drive far and wide Over the mighty flood their foamy keels. Thou art the last of all the kindred of Wagmund! Wyrd has swept all my kin, all the brave chiefs away! ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... intimation that their presence was discovered. Presently, against the faintly dawning light in the east, the masts of two vessels could be seen. One was a large ship, the other a brig. Almost at the same time the rough sound of boats' keels grounding on the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... "In fifty keels and five Rushed over the pirate swarm, Hornets out of the northern hive, Hawks on the wings of the storm; Blood upon talons and beak, Blood from their helms to their heels, Blood on the hand and blood on the cheek,— In five and ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the carpenter, had been ordered to take the wheels off a disused landau and fix instead two keels of wood beneath the axles. This improvised sledge, after it had been shod in steel by the blacksmith, was to play a part ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Nunez reconnoitered the ground and decided to start his ship-building operations at a new settlement called Ada. The timber when cut and worked had to be carried sixteen miles away to the top of the mountain, then down the other slope, to a convenient spot on the river Valsa, where the keels were to be laid, the frames put together, the shipbuilding completed, and the boats launched on the river, which was navigable to ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... climbs and dives through conning-towers with those same waves wet in his neck, and when the cruisers pass him, tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he is not as they are, and goes to bed beneath their distracted keels. ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... vessels moored to a nearby wharf, I inspected from hatches to keels, and by those on board was directed to a warehouse where were stored harpoons, whalebone, and wooden figure-heads. My pleasure in these led to my being passed on to a row of "antique" shops filled with relics of the days of whaling and also with genuine ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... to whom, and the time when, they are severally to be imparted. As the shipwright first lays down the lines of the keel, and thus, as it were, draws the ship in outline, so do I seek to distinguish the patterns of life, and lay down their keels according to the nature of different men's souls; seeking truly to consider by what means, and in what ways, we may go through the voyage of life best. Now human affairs are hardly worth considering ...
— Laws • Plato
... morrow the ill-assorted fleet struggled up the sluggish Yazoo, past impenetrable forests where the cypress clutched at the keels, past long-deserted cotton fields, until it came at last to the black ruins of a home. In due time the great army was landed. It spread out by brigade and division and regiment and company, the men splashing and paddling through the Chickasaw and the swamps toward the bluffs. The Parrotts ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and hauled off as fast as their legs could carry them. If they hadn't so cruelly wounded our masts and spars we should have caught some of them. We made all the sail we could venture to carry; but they had faster keels than we could boast of, so we had no ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... the good Kentish mead ran through my veins and deepened my dream of things past, present, and to come, as I said: "Now hearken a tale, since ye will have it so. For last autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town of Dunwich, and thither came the keels from Iceland, and on them were some men of Iceland, and many a tale they had on their tongues; and with these men I foregathered, for I am in sooth a gatherer of tales, and this that is now at my tongue's ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... was not the best because one sail would stop the wind from reaching another one in front of it. The best wind then, as ever since, was a "quartering wind," that is, a wind blowing on a vessel's quarter, half way between her stern and the middle of her side. Ships with better keels, sails, and shape of hull might have sailed with a "soldier's wind," that is, a wind blowing straight against the ship's side, at right angles to her course. But they must have "made leeway" by going ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... least urban thing in the world, that brought to the mind's eye men's bare chests and muscle-knotted arms, round-mouthed sea-chanteys, and great sound bodies caught to a wholesome death in the vicinity of upturned keels and foundered rust-red sails and the engulfing eternal sterilisation of the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... conquest of Florida, having a force of about four hundred men with eighty horses. During the voyage, the squadron was carried among the shoals of Canarreo by the unskilfulness of the pilot Meruelo, where the ships got aground and remained for fifteen days constantly touching with their keels and unable to get into deep water. At the end of this period a storm at south brought so large an accession of water from the bay upon these flats that the ships got off. At Guaniguanigo they encountered another storm in which they were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the delight with which these experiences thrilled the young midshipman on the Providence. His eighteenth birthday was spent in the Pacific, in the early Autumn of a hemisphere where the sea was not yet cloven by innumerable keels, and where beauty, enchantment and mystery lay upon life and nature like a spell. A few years previously he had been a schoolboy in the flattest, most monotonous of English shires. Broad fields, dykes and fen had composed the landscape most familiar ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... child, when tired with my boyish games, I have sat with my brother beneath one of the trees of the grove, and looked with eyes of wonder on the scene before me! The noble river seemed to flow almost at our feet, and the only signs of life upon its surface were the great keels passing slowly up and down. Beyond it were the green meadows of Dunstan, whilst, rising behind them, was the fine amphitheatre crowned by the pretty village of Wickham and the woods of Ravensworth and Gibside. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... doth Lisboa's port unfold! Her image floating on that noble tide, Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold, But now whereon a thousand keels did ride, Of mighty strength since Albion was allied, And to the Lusians did her aid afford. A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, Who lick, yet loathe, the hand that waves the sword To save them from the wrath of Gaul's ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... came the day of sailing. The six galleys of war were brought down from their sheds, and on the rollers for the launching he-goats were bound so that the keels slid blood-stained into the sea. This was the 'roller-reddening,' a custom bequeathed from their forefathers, though the old men of the place muttered darkly that the ritual had been departed from, and that in the great days it ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... pirate fleet on this coast should have landed near Selsea is likely enough. The marauders would not land near the Romney marshes or the Pevensey flats, where the great fortresses of Lymne and Anderida would block their passage; and they could not beach their keels easily anywhere along the cliff-girt coast between Beachy Head and Brighton; so they would naturally sail along past the marshland and the chalk cliffs till they reached the open champaign shore near Chichester. Cymenes-ora, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... tree is of straight growth, and takes its name from the strip-like character of its bark. . . . The wood is of a brown colour, hard, heavy, strong and close in the grain. It works up well . . . in ship-building, for planking, beams, keels and keelsons, and in civil architecture for joists, flooring, etc. Upon the farms it is used for fences and agricultural implements: it is also employed for furniture and for ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... hands, for no ship went any voyage into which he and his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds and wicker, woven close together, only some were of leather; but, afterwards, they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails, and in all respects like our ships, and the seamen understood both astronomy and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favour by showing them the use of the needle, of which till then they were utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution, and only in summer time; ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... severally claiming the command of it, was speedily dispersed. Of its constituent troops, the Medes, Persians, and Armenians,[68] having sailed over into Africa, occupied the parts nearest to our sea.[69] The Persians, however, settled more toward the ocean,[70] and used the inverted keels of their vessels for huts, there being no wood in the country, and no opportunity of obtaining it, either by purchase or barter, from the Spaniards; for a wide sea, and an unknown tongue, were barriers ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... home[878]. This is also added to your other advantages, that to you another route is open, marked by perpetual safety and tranquillity. For when by raging winds the sea is closed, a way is opened to you through the most charming river scenery[879]. Your keels fear no rough blasts; they touch the earth with the greatest pleasure, and cannot perish however frequently they may come in contact with it. Beholders from a distance, not seeing the channel of the stream, might fancy them moving ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... seemed drifting away. Nathaniel's staring eyes saw a vague shape appear in it, an indistinct dirt-gray blotch, and he knew that it was a boat. Another followed, and then another; he heard the sound of oars, the grinding of keels upon the sand, and where the Mormons had been a few moments before the beach was now alive with mainlanders. In the growing light he could make out the king's men below him, inanimate spots in the middle ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... along the Mediterranean shores. In this way the Moors of Spain learned many a tale which they transmitted to the French. Jack the Giant-Killer and Thomas Thumb, according to Sir Walter Scott, landed in England from the very same keels and warships which conveyed Hengist and Horsa and Ebba the Saxon. A recent report of the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution of the United States expressed the opinion that the Uncle ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000 soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were generally painted with rich colors. The origin ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... rowers to the top of their speed. Their galleys soon shot ahead of the rest of the line, driven through the boiling surges as by the force of a tornado, and closing with a shock that made every timber crack, and the two vessels quiver to their very keels. So powerful, indeed, was the impetus they received, that the pasha's galley, which was considerably the larger and loftier of the two, was thrown so far upon its opponent that the prow reached the fourth bench of rowers. As soon as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the Arctic pines. Here come the strangers from the gates of day— From hills of sunrise and from white Cathay. The spicy islands send their swarthy sons, The lofty North its mailed and mighty ones. Venetian keels are floating on our sea; Our eyes are glad with radiant Italy! Yea, North and South, and glowing West and East, Are gathering here to grace our splendid feast! The chiefs from peaks august with Asian snow, The ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... of faultless curves; the conical bow or fore body of the ship being somewhat longer, and therefore sharper, than the after body, which partook more of the form of an ellipse than of a cone; the curvilinear hull was supported steadily in position by two deep broad bilge-keels, one on either side and about one-third the extreme length of the ship; and, attached to the stern of the vessel by an ingeniously devised ball-and-socket joint in such a manner as to render a rudder unnecessary, was ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to give her our starboard broadside as we cross her bows. Slap it right into the eyes of her—Phew! that's a nasty one," as a shot from her 32-pounder came along, smashing right through both our quarter-boats, cutting their keels clean in half, tearing a great gap in the bottom planking of each, filling the air in the immediate neighbourhood with splinters, and whizzing so close past my head that the wind of it whipped ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... couple of friends to shoot ducks. We left on the morning boat that makes daily trips to and from Mount Vernon. The weather was chilly and the sky threatening. The clouds had a singular appearance; they were boat-shaped, with well-defined keels. I have seldom known such clouds to bring rain; they are simply the fleet of Æolus, and so it proved on this occasion, for they gradually dispersed or faded out and before ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... compelled them like a law. So there they freed the prisoners and set sail Across the earth-shaking shoulders of the broad Atlantic, and the great grey slumbrous waves Triumphantly swelled up to meet the keels. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... wind Should sound upon them. But the chief, in prayer, Thus spake to Fortune: "Thou whose high decree Has made us exiles from Italia's shores, Grant us at least to leave them." Yet the fates Hardly permitted, for a murmur vast Came from the ocean, as the countless keels Furrowed the waters, and with ceaseless splash The parted billows rose again and fell. Then were the gates thrown wide; for with the fates The city turned to Caesar: and the foe, Seizing the town, rushed onward ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the welcome ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... with little model yachts," said Edith. "There's a club of the young officers and some of the townspeople and they have the prettiest little miniature boats with keels about a metre long, rigged exactly like real racing yachts. It's great sport to see them. But ought ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... thee word Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound With keels of every kind: many hot inroads They make in Italy; the borders maritime Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt: No vessel can peep forth but 'tis as soon Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... pathfinder. For it is on the track of Fremont that thousands are now tramping west. Their wheels are bearing the household gods. Civilization to be is on the move. Gold draws these crowds. The gulfs of the Carribean, even the lonely straits of Magellan and the far Pacific, are furrowed now by keels seeking the happy land where plentiful gold awaits every daring adventurer. Martinet military governors cannot control this embryo empire. Already in Congress bills are introduced to admit California into the Union. A rising golden star glitters in the West; it is soon to gild the flag ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... vos fighting to keep up but he grab me and say to take holt of his shoulter. He swear he trown vid me if I don't. So I done it, ma'am, and he svim, svim turriple hard, draggin' me ashore. I yoost finds my feet on de bottom vhen he keels ofer, like dead, vid de cold and de playin' out. So I takes him in my arms and runs in. I had matches in my screw-box but my fingers vos dat froze I couldn't get 'em out first. But I manages make a fire, by an' by, and I rubs de life back into him again. And—and you ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... this hoard; and now Care for the people's needs. I may no more Be with them. Bid the warriors raise a barrow After the burning, on the ness by the sea, On Hronesness, which shall rise high and be For a remembrance to my people. Seafarers Who from afar over the mists of waters Drive foamy keels may call it Beowulf's Mount Hereafter." Then the hero from his neck Put off a golden collar; to his thane, To the young warrior, gave it with his helm, Armlet and corslet; bade him use them well. "Thou art the last Waegmunding of our race, For fate has swept my kinsmen all away. Earls in their ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Greece. He gave his advice against it; he had no sympathy with Paris, whom he bitterly reproached, much less with Helen; yet, when the war came, and the Grecian forces were marshaled on the plain, and their crooked keels were seen cutting the sands of the Trojan coast, Hector was a flaming fire, his beaming helmet was seen in the thickest of ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... could only feel. It was morning—that white light was morning, though it was like the moon. Under it the Marsh lay like a land under the sea—it must have looked like this when the keels of the French boats swam over it, high above Ansdore, and Brodnyx, and Pedlinge, lying like red apples far beneath, at the bottom of the sea. That was nonsense ... but she could not think this morning, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... islands assumed fantastic shapes, and the more distant among them appeared as though they floated in air. A few seagulls rose startled from their nests, and sailed upwards with plaintive cries, as the keels of the boats grated on the rocks, and the men stepped out and hauled them up on the beach of one ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... answered Riderhood. 'Not so easy done. His luck's got fouled under the keels of the barges. I tried to haul in last time, but I couldn't. See how ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens |
