"Thatching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are covered with a carpet of a beautiful variegated, velvety-leaved plant (Cyrtodeira chontalensis) with a flower like an achimenes, whilst the dryer slopes bear melastomae and a great variety of dwarf palms, amongst which the Sweetie (Geonoma sp.), used for thatching houses, is the most abundant. About here grows a species of cacao (Herrania purpurea) differing from the cultivated species (Theobroma cacao). Amongst the larger trees is the "cortess," having a wood ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... he was generally made pretty welcome at the farm-houses round, for he could turn a hand to anything and always kept the maids laughing in the kitchen. One morning he dropped in on Farmer Joby and asked for a job to earn his dinner; and Joby gave him some straw to spin for thatching. By dinner-time Tom had spun two bundles of such very large size that the farmer rubbed his chin ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... carefully; noted his heavy shoulders and ease of bearing, an ease and looseness begotten of perfect muscular control. Strength was equally suggested in his face, she thought, for he carried a marked young countenance, with thrusting chin, aggressive thatching brows, and mobile mouth that whispered all the changes from strength to abandon. Prominent was a look of reckless energy. She considered him handsome in a heavy, virile, perhaps ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... indeed, these vehicles evidenced a constructed spirit curiously in harmony. One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with hurdles, another with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she had placed her thatching-spars was half full of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... palatable, has been made of the seeds of the arundo, but the quantity which can be gathered is not sufficient to form an important economical resource.—Andresen, Om Klitformationen, p. 160.] cordage and netting twine are manufactured from its fibres, it makes a good material for thatching, and its dried roots furnish excellent fuel. These useful qualities, unfortunately, are too often prejudicial to its growth. The peasants feed it down with their cattle, cut it for rope-making, or dig if up for fuel, and it has been found necessary ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... length by full five in width! Fancy two or three dozen of these gigantic leaves standing up almost erect from the top of the thick trunk, and you may form some idea of the "bussu" palm. There are many palm-trees whose leaves are used for thatching houses, but of all others for that purpose the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... REED.—Is useful for thatching, and making slight fences; it grows best in ponds near streams of water; it does not often seed, but it could easily be introduced to such places by planting its roots in spring: it is a large-growing plant; and where ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... Sing see-saw, Jack thatching the ridge, Which is the way to Banbury-bridge? One foot up and t'other foot down, And that's the way to ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
... variety of uses to which the nut and the tree which bears it can be put. It has been said that nature seldom produces a tree so variously useful to man as the cocoanut palm. In tropical countries, where it grows abundantly, its leaves are employed for thatching, its fibers for manufacturing many useful articles, while its ashes produce potash in abundance. The fruit is eaten raw, and in many ways is prepared for food; it also yields an oil which forms an important article of commerce. The milk of ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... lands are set apart to provide a supply of firewood, thatching grass, &c., and are the property of the village. The inhabitants of other villages are not allowed to enjoy the produce of such lands. Such lands can be cultivated by ryots of the village, but the latter possess only occupancy rights, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... and cheering when Mr. Irwine was in the desk, looking benignly round on that simple congregation—on the hardy old men, with bent knees and shoulders, perhaps, but with vigour left for much hedge-clipping and thatching; on the tall stalwart frames and roughly cut bronzed faces of the stone-cutters and carpenters; on the half-dozen well-to-do farmers, with their apple-cheeked families; and on the clean old women, mostly farm-labourers' wives, with their bit of snow-white cap-border under their black ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... cut for the new corrals, and then we can turn our attention to getting out the rock for the chapel. We have a quarry of nice soft stone all opened up, and I'll put a dozen vaqueros to blocking out the rock in a few days. We always have a big stock of zacahuiste grass on hand for thatching jacals, plenty of limestone to burn for the lime, sand in abundance, and all we lack is the masons. You'll have to send them out from the Mission, but I'll pay them. Oh, I reckon the good Lord loves Las Palomas, for you see He's placed everything convenient with which ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... towns with parish priests. All the churches were built of stone, and roofed with reed thatching, except that of the capital, which had an iron roof. Six of the towns had Town Halls made of bamboo and reed grass; one had a wooden building, and in two of them (including the capital) the Town Halls were ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the ground and covered with a palmetto thatched roof, the roof being not more than 12 feet above the ground at the ridge pole, or 7 at the eaves. Eight upright palmetto logs, unsplit and undressed, support the roof. Many rafters sustain the palmetto thatching. The platform is composed of split palmetto logs lying transversely, flat sides up, upon beams which extend the length of the building and are lashed to the uprights by palmetto ropes, thongs, or ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... with great speed set up the number of six houses. For every of which, they first fastened deep into the ground, three or four great posts with forks: upon them, they laid one transom, which was commonly about twenty feet, and made the sides, in the manner of the roofs of our country houses, thatching it close with those aforesaid leaves, which keep out water a long time: observing always that in the lower ground, where greater heat was, they left some three or four feet open unthatched below, and made the houses, or rather ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... was little difficulty about building operations, for stone and wood and tambuki grass for thatching were all at hand in plenty. Also the Basuto section of the Sisa, as is common among that race, were clever masons and carpenters, some of them having followed those trades in Natal and the more settled places in Zululand, where dwellings had to be erected. Moreover, ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... little girl, "I'll spill the milk," so she dropt the pitcher and spilt the milk. Now there was an old man just by on the top of a ladder thatching a rick, and when he saw the little girl spill the milk, he said: "Little girl, what do you mean by spilling the milk?—your little brothers and sisters must go without their supper." Then said the little girl: "Titty's dead, and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... or three of the roots, and the remainder of the afternoon they devoted to strengthening their house. They did this with huge slabs of bark lying everywhere on the ground, fallen in former seasons. Some they put on the roof, thatching in between with dry grass and leaves, and others ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the harvest being done, and the thatching of the ricks made sure against south-western tempests, and all the reapers being gone, with good money and thankfulness, I began to burn in spirit for the sight of Lorna. I had begged my sister Annie to let Sally Snowe know, once for all, that it was not in my power to have any thing more to do with ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... luxurious couch, and the exhausted girls were glad to throw themselves down and sleep, while Claude kept watch by the fire outside. On the next day, and the two following ones, he employed himself in thatching the primitive dwelling with birch bark and whatever materials he could find which would shed the rain from its sloping sides. For himself, he found a sheltered hollow among the rocks, where neither wind nor rain could affect him greatly, and their stores he disposed among the many similar ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... thatched, and by the terms of the Will by which this particular inn was devised to the present owner, it is required that it should always remain thatched. This, surely, is a proviso which might be legitimately ignored; and, doubtless, in a few years’ time, thatching will be a lost art. The street to the right, running north, and now named North Street, was formerly called “The Mill-stones,” from two old abandoned millstones which lay near the northern end of it. Half-way up this ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... of a dome-shaped frame of cottonwood or other poles, thatched with grass. Average diameter at the base, twelve feet. The house itself they term kowa; the grass thatch, pin. Bear-grass, or what the Spanish term palmillo, is used exclusively in thatching. Since the institution of the Messiah religion the houses are built rather elongate in form, with a doorway in each end, and all the houses of the village are arranged in long rows. Doorways are termed daitin, ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... the blue falcon flew to another place. Over and over again the blue falcon called to the birds and plucked out their feathers, and over and over again the King's Son gathered them into his bag. When he thought he had feathers enough to thatch the roof he ran back to the shelter. He began the thatching, binding the feathers down with little willow rods. He had just finished when the sun went down. The old Enchanter came up and when he saw what the King's Son had done he was greatly surprised. "You surely learned from the wizard you were apprenticed ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... back. Next morning, starting equally early, he only travelled two miles; the snow was so soft the horses sank at every step above their knees. He was trying to take a sledge-load of hay over to his "Boyd" farm. The cattle there having run very short lately, they even had to take some of the thatching, which was of hay, off the roof of the stable to feed the animals. We may have difficulty in getting up to Winnipeg, as the railroad is washed away within about eighty miles of the place, and the passengers are transferred to a steamer, which takes them twenty miles to another ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... protection of the deck and hull of the ship from the sun's rays; but Lukabela assured George that there was no need to delay the departure of the expedition until the roof had been thatched, for he undertook that the women of his village, who were, according to him, experts in the art of thatching, should attend to that part ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... found in ropes seventy feet long fastened to deep-driven pickets. We soon got together dead wood and pitchy boughs enough to kindle a roaring fire,—made a kitchen-table by wedging logs between the trunks of a three-forked tree, and thatching these with smaller sticks,—selected a cedar-canopied piece of flat sward near the fire for our bed-room, and as high up as we could reach despoiled our fragrant baldacchini for the mattresses. I need not praise to any woodsman the quality ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... two uses to which the Reed was applied, the thatching of houses (No. 3), and the making of Pan or Shepherd's pipes (No. 6). Nor has he anything to say of its beauty, yet the Reeds of our river sides (Arundo phragmites) are most graceful plants, especially when they have their dark plumes of flowers, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... do when I grow up," resolved Magsie. "Did you see the way Miss Carr ran up that ladder? And she's begun to thatch the roof so neatly. She does it far better than that old man from the village who potters about. I'm just yearning to try my hand at thatching. I wish Miss Carr ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... smoke-house roof was in its place, and the laying of the straw bundles, in long, overlapping rows, well started before the shower began; and so rapidly did the big brothers work, that when the collie came in with the sheep, the thatching was nearly finished, and the squatty, straw-crowned building, with grass and flower tops sticking, still fresh, from between its sods, looked like one of the chocolate layer-cakes that the little girl's mother made for Thanksgiving, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... plants by means of mallets and cross rails fixed to uprights in the water; others break the stems by hand; while in other cases the stems are handed out of the water to women who strip off the fibrous layer and preserve intact the central core or straw to be used ultimately for thatching. The strips of fibre are all cleaned and rubbed in the water to remove all the vegetable impurities, and finally the fibre is dried, usually by hanging it over poles and protecting it from the ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... crouched several urchins busy making oatmeal cakes in the embers. On one side a respectable lean-to had been constructed by nailing a plank to two fir-trees, running sloping poles thence to the ground, and thatching the whole with spruce branches and heather. On the other side two small dilapidated home-made tents were pitched. Dougal motioned his companion into the lean-to, where they had some privacy from the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... of family. Dr. Johnson on threshing and thatching. Dangerous to increase the price of labour. Arrive at Ostig. Dr. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... spot and the gap, which would be a pass if the Downs were high enough. One is not far distant; he is digging flints over the ridge, and, perhaps, at this moment rubbing the earth from a corroded Roman coin which he has found in the pit. Another is thatching, for there are three detached wheat-ricks round a spur of the Down a mile away, where the plain is arable, and there, too, a plough is at work. A shepherd is asleep on his back behind the furze a mile in the other direction. The fifth is a lad trudging with a message; ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... as she hit Job Piper over the head wud a bunch of osiers just because he'd told her he knew more about thatching than she did." ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... tree; and its top furnishes a most delicious dish, called palm-cabbage. The trunk supplies fire-wood, and timber for building fences. From the fibres of the wood is manufactured a strong cordage, and a kind of native cloth; and the leaves, besides being used for thatching houses, are converted into hats. If nature had given the inhabitants of Africa nothing else, this one gift of the palm-tree would have included food, drink, clothing, and habitation, and the gratuitous boon ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... river as they can; and as no one forgets to carry his hatchet with him, any more than a Spanish don his toledo, some cut down wood for firing for the night; others branches of trees, which are stuck in the ground with the crotch uppermost, over which a thatching is laid of fir-boughs, with a fence of the same on the weather-side only. The rest is all open, and serves for door and window. A great fire is then lighted, and then every body's lodged. They sup on the ground, or upon some ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... the fields at that unwonted hour, were split into detachments. Some were sent into the woods to cut timber for house- beams, others to cutting cane-grass for thatching, and forty of them lifted a whale-boat above their heads and carried it down to the sea. Sheldon had gritted his teeth, pulled his collapsing soul together, and taken Berande plantation into his fist ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... Weather set in rainy or cold towards the End of the Campaigns, and the Army was in a fixed Position, his Serene Highness Prince Ferdinand constantly ordered the Army to Hutt; which was done either by thatching their Tents, or building Hurdles, or digging Pitts, and covering and thatching them over. The Officers either built Hutts with Fire Places, or had Chimnies ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... time after the before-mentioned accident happened, two convicts who had been employed at a little distance up the harbour, in cutting rushes for thatching, were found murdered by the natives. It has been strongly suspected that these people had engaged in some dispute or quarrel with them, and as they had hatchets and bill-hooks with them, it is believed they might have been rash enough to use violence with some of the natives, who had, no doubt, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... of Cassim's plantation, where the soil was damp, we noticed several long rows of the nepah palm, generally known as attap, and extensively used for thatching houses in the East. It has the same huge pinnated leaves as most of the other palms, but is destitute of the long straight trunk, the leaves commencing from near the root, and the entire height being seldom more than twelve or fourteen feet. We saw also a few specimens of the hutan, a strange-looking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... bears in their huge dead falls, and, with very little expenditure of cartridges, they felt that they could open their second winter as well equipped with food as they had been when they began the first. They also put a new bark thatching on the roof of Castle Howard, and then felt ready for anything ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... crevices. It was a mournful reminder of the decay of the Hawaiian race. Just beyond the ruined village a sluggish creek flowed into the sea. At the mouth of the valley whence it issued stood two or three native huts. A man wearing a malo was up on the roof of one, thatching it with grass. Riding near, we hailed him and inquired about a quicksand which lay just ahead and which we must cross. He told us to avoid the makai side and keep to the mouka side. We followed his directions, and crossed in safety. For all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... up the ascent, was a pretty village. The neat and light-built native dwellings dotted the side of the slope, or peeped out from among embowering trees along the banks of the brook, in the most picturesque manner. The thatching of the cottages, bleached to an almost snowy-whiteness, offered a pleasing contrast to the surrounding verdure. Troops of children were pursuing their sports in every direction. Some were wading in the stream, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... passed on her way under the place where Hugh was thatching, he dropped a small handful of rushes on her head to call her attention, and when she looked up she saw his red-brick-hued face in a wild tow-coloured halo peering down at her from over the eaves. "I am sorry I lost ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... snowdrift three or four feet deep, and with my web shovel dug a triangular hole, about seven feet long on each side. In the angle farthest from the wind I built my fire. It soon assisted me in enlarging the corner. Opposite it, I roofed over my dugout with dead limbs, thatching them with green boughs, and finally heaping the excavated snow over all. I had a practically windproof nest which a little fire would keep snug and warm. True I had to fire up frequently throughout the night, for a big blaze is too hot in a snow-hole, but I soon learned to rouse ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... live by the land forget the passage of the years. A year is but a harvest. After the ploughing and sowing and cleaning, the reaping and thatching and threshing, what is there left of the twelvemonth? It has gone like a day. Thus it is that a farmer talks of twenty years since as if it was only last week, and seems unable to grasp the flight of time till it is marked and emphasised by some exceptional occurrence. Cicely ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... rock, and then each is beaten separately on a couple of stones placed on end one against the other. The land is so poor that a field hardly produces more grain than is needed for seed the following year, so the rye-growing is carried on merely for the straw, which is used for thatching. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... found fault with the fellow several times, for not making the Helms properly, for thatching the ricks, and he told me as often that he could not make them any better, and at length he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out his purse, and with an oath declared that he would make an Helm with me for a wager of a shilling." "Well, neighbour Barnes, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... that they had seized and taken away from the poor peasants; and at night the sky would show red lights where farms and homesteads had been set on fire. After a time, in front of the tents, the English were to be seen hard at work with beams and boards, setting up huts for themselves, and thatching them over with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... people had occupied in Gaul before their emigration. In the centre stood Parta's abode, distinguished from the rest only by its superior size. The walls were of mud and stone, the roof high, so as to let the water run more easily off the rough thatching. It contained but one central hall surrounded by half ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... account for the breaking out of the fire. To all appearance it broke out each time spontaneously and mysteriously. The fact that fire broke out so often as seven times within the short space of about an hour and a half, each time at a different place without doing any perceptible damage to the thatching of the bungalow or to any other article of the occupant of the house, is a mystery which remains to be solved. After the last breaking out, it was decided that the house must be vacated at once. Mr. Mitra and his family consequently removed to another ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... vegetables and fruits grown in the gardens, sacks of various sorts of grain, bundles of green forage from the irrigated lands without the walls, calabashes full of curdled milk, thick native beer and trusses of reed for thatching. Here again were oxen, mules and asses, or great bucks such as we now know as eland or kudoo, carried in on rough litters of boughs to be disposed of by parties of savage huntsmen who had shot them with arrows or trapped them in pitfalls. Every Eastern ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... shell of the nut serves to make vases, and the filamentary parts are spun into ropes and cables for ships, and even into coarse clothing. The leaves are used to make baskets and brooms, and for thatching ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... goats'-path, chief," said Venning, "with all the men, cut down many of those trees, and roll them over the cliff into the valley. Then will we build a great house, and the women will gather grass and reeds for the thatching of it." ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... slain within a house, nor without. I cannot be slain on horseback nor on foot." "Verily," said she, "in what manner then canst thou be slain?" "I will tell thee," said he. "By making a bath for me by the side of a river, and by putting a roof over the cauldron, and thatching it well and tightly, and bringing a buck, and putting it beside the cauldron. Then if I place one foot on the buck's back, and the other on the edge of the cauldron, whosoever strikes me thus will cause my death." "Well," said she, "I thank Heaven that it ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... pantaloons, and some a shirt of a doubtful colour. There were many with large hats, most of which had crowns or parts of crowns, but all affording free entrance to the fresh air. Generally speaking, how-ever, the head was uncovered, or covered only with its native thatching of long, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... not blame them,' said Medb; 'splendid are the warriors. When the rest were making their huts, they had finished thatching their huts and cooking their food; when the rest were at dinner, they had finished dinner, and their harpers were playing to them. It is folly for them to go,' said Medb; 'it is to their credit the victory of the ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... was out of the perpendicular, hanging over to some extent, and here he soon had four young straight trees set up, held in place by cross-pieces. Then rafters of bamboo were bound in position with the strong creepers which abounded, and this done, he began thatching, first with green boughs, then with a layer of palm-like leaves, which he made to overlap, and a strong reedy grass, that grew abundantly in a low moist place by the river, was bound on ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... supporters at the sides, alternately large and small, well fastened by means of withes, and painted red and black. The ridge pole was strong; and the large bull-rushes, which composed the inner part of the thatching, were laid with great exactness parallel to each other. At one end was a small square hole, which served as a door to creep in at; and near, another much smaller, seemingly for letting out the smoke, as no other vent for it could be seen. This, however, ought to be considered as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... in through the roof. When Anthony saw that he came to himself a bit and sent for my grandfather and settled with him to put a few patches of new thatch on the worst places. My grandfather was the best man at thatching that there was in the island in them days, and he took the job though he misdoubted whether he'd ever be paid for it. Anthony never came next or nigh him when he was working, which shows that he hadn't got his senses rightly. If he had he'd have kept an eye ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... that thatch is not uncommon in the Stura valley. In the Val Mastallone, and more especially between Civiasco (above Varallo) and Orta, thatch is more common still, and the thatching is often very beautifully done. Thatch in a stone country is an indication of German, or at any rate Cisalpine descent, and is among the many proofs of the extent to which German races crossed the Alps and spread far down over Piedmont ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Roofs.—Thatching.—After the framework of the roof has been made, the thatcher begins at the bottom, and ties a row of bundles of straw, side by side, on to the framework. Then he begins a second row, allowing the ends of the bundles composing it to overlap the heads ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton |
