"Harpoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... engine got stalled, and he and Hosey Talbot had to row home from the Bell Reef Shoals. Haw, haw! Maybe I didn't roar when I saw them come pulling in against the tide, mad as two man-eating sharks. Fit to harpoon the first person they met, they were. I sung out and asked them were they practicing for the Harvard and Yale boat race and Dave was that peeved he shied an oarlock ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... being so capital a position from which to strike that fish. The lower end of the spar is connected with the outer end of the jib-boom, by means of a stout rope, which, after passing through its extremity, extends to the ship; and it is upon this guy that the fortunate wielder of the harpoon fixes himself. The harpoon is a triangular, or rather a heart-shaped barbed weapon, somewhat larger than a man's head, and in the centre about as thick as his knuckles. Its point and edges are made of iron so soft that they can easily be brought to a rough ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... feeling the hook in his horrid jaw, tugged most fiercely to release himself, but in vain. Twelve sailors hauled him in, when, with distended jaws, he seemed to look out for the legs of the men, whereupon they rammed the butt-end of a harpoon down his throat, which put a stop to all further proceedings on his part. He was said to be quite young, perhaps the child of doting parents. The juvenile monster had, however, already ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Bedford whaler which had touched at one of the Puget Sound ports. The whaler went up to a part of Alaska where bears were very plentiful and bold. One day a couple of boats' crews landed; and the men, who were armed only with an occasional harpoon or lance, scattered over the beach, one of them, a Frenchman, wading into the water after shell-fish. Suddenly a bear emerged from some bushes and charged among the astonished sailors, who scattered ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... fishing and hunting. The Japanese laws, which have year by year been made more stringent, have somewhat interfered with the sporting proclivities of the people. Nets and fish traps are now forbidden, and fishing for the most part is effected by means of a spear or harpoon, either from the shore or from the somewhat primitive canoes used by the people. Poisoned arrows were once largely used for the purpose of capturing game, but they are now forbidden by law. Originally the modus operandi in ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. a head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta for Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but if ever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He objected ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... there was usually sufficient work to be found to keep us all employed. Thus on June 2, Watson and I were making a ladder, Jones was contriving a harpoon for seals, Hoadley was opening cases and stowing stores in the veranda, Dovers cleaning tools, Moyes repairing a thermograph and writing up the meteorological log, Harrisson cooking and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... St. Jean de Luz, a race of men quaint, venturesome, and fabulously bold, left many widows, from their habit of sailing out into the roughest seas to harpoon whales. Leaving their wives to God or the Devil, they threw themselves in crowds into the Canadian settlements of Henry IV. As for the children, these honest worthy sailors would have thought about them more, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... with Almighty God, and afterward, horribile dictu, pitchforks for little Margaret, and a vivid incandescent state to be maintained through eternity at vast cost of pit-coal to a gentleman who carried over his arm, so as not to step on it, a long snaky tail with a point like a harpoon's. ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... along through the Sound, a herd of porpoises came gambolling by, their black bodies and fins now appearing, now sinking beneath the surface. Captain Truck had a harpoon ready, and he placed himself in the forechains, with a rope round his waist. He stood with his weapon high poised in the air, ready to strike. We were all on the watch. In a few moments his harpoon ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... whaler from Havre, and had secured almost a monopoly of the oil-trade. Some years afterwards I made a passage with his brother, and learned from him the history of this Yankee enterprise, which had filled two capacious purses, and substituted the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the very stronghold of the emblem of peace; and now the collier with his pickaxe has driven them both from the field. But the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... into the air, breaking them into a thousand fragments. The whale shows great affection for her young, which is called the calf; the fishermen well know this, and turn it to their own account; they try to strike the young with the harpoon, which is a strong, barbed instrument, and if they do this they are almost sure of securing the mother also, as nothing will ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... with it which you may find useful. There's a broken fly-rod, which you can fix all right, and a little single-barrel shot-gun, not worth much, but you can always pick up a supper with it. There are also a pair of grains, a light harpoon, and a cast-net which is torn some, but Johnny can fix it. Johnny's got a rifle and all the camp kit two ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... of their countenances was unmistakably more sullen and brutal, and the skin of a darker hue than is common in the Brazilian red man. Before we left the hut, an old couple came in; the husband carrying his paddle, bow, arrows, and harpoon, the woman bent beneath the weight of a large basket filled with palm fruits. The man was of low stature and had a wild appearance from the long coarse hair which hung over his forehead. Both his lips were pierced ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... life-saving paraphernalia. These boats put off simultaneously from either side, and contained police agents, bargemen, roustabouts, watchmen, watermen, and bums. As the inhabitants of the Long Island shore at the cry of "A whale!" man the boats and race to get in the first harpoon, so these rivermen of the Seine now ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... time to make his complaint, and said, "O my lord steward, the fisherman with a khut instrument ..., the fisherman with a ... killeth i-fish, the fisherman with a harpoon speareth the aubbu fish, the fisherman with a tchabhu instrument catcheth the paqru fish, and the common fishermen are always drawing fish from the river. Observe! Thou art even as they. Wrest not the goods of the poor man from him. ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... of business. Half heroes, half ruffians, they did their work, and unconsciously brought the islands a stage nearer civilization. Odd precursors of English law, nineteenth-century culture, and the peace of our lady the Queen, were these knights of the harpoon and companions of the rum-barrel. But the isolated coasts and savage men among whom their lot was cast did not as yet call for refinement and reflection. Such as their time wanted, such they were. They played a part and fulfilled a purpose, and then moved off the stage. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... they now approached him, and their frantic enthusiasm kept him for some time from all other thoughts. While they flourished their weapons-some the sword and buckler, and others the not less terrible net and harpoon—the time-honored cry rose from their husky throats in eager acclamation: "Hail, Caesar! those about to die salute thee!" Then, in rows of ten men each, they crossed the arena ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... house in which there is turtle flesh, nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near the sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark. Nay, the infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or otherwise take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is permitted to form one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he takes the precaution of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to which no doubt a disinfectant ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... whalers it was customary to have six boats to a ship, and six men to a boat, besides the harpooner. What at that time was considered an improved method in killing whales, consisted in discharging the harpoon, from a kind of swivel; but it was soon found to be attended with too much inconvenience to be much practised, and the muscular arms and steady nerves of the harpooner, have ever since performed the daring duty, of first striking the ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... excitement now arrived. We pulled as if for life or death. Not a word was spoken, and scarcely a sound was heard from our oars. One of the men sprang to his feet, and grasped a harpoon. A few more strokes of the oar, and we were hard upon the whale. The harpooner, with unerring aim, let fly his irons, and buried them to the sockets in his huge carcass. "Stern all!" thundered the mate. ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... of how great power. Then he will not hit a cartridge with a hammer in order to find out, and when he dines in good society he can still lift his pie gracefully in his hand, and will not be compelled to harpoon it with an iron hook at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... would shake down castles, palaces, and even thrones; while the "purse-proud, elbowing insolence" of our Northern monopolist would soon disappear forever under the smooth speech of the pedlar, scourging our frontiers for a livelihood, or the bluff vulgarity of the South Sea whaler, following the harpoon amid storms and shoals. Doubtless the abolitionists think we could grow cotton without slaves, or that at worst the reduction of the crop would be moderate and temporary. Such gross delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... that the gin-shop, like a devil-fish, sends forth long tentacles and ruthlessly sucks him in; with the mother-whale, when her wilful young one insists on swimming up the fiord, and she who has risked her life to warn him must hear the thud of the harpoon in his side; with the old tired horse, when they fetch him in from his sober reverie in the fields, and put his blinkers on; with anything else?—yes, with the bluebells, whose life above ground is so short, when wasteful children tread them down;—these all feel something ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... would go down out of sight. Each officer would place his boat where he thought the whale would come up. When the whale came up to get breath, the men in the nearest boat would row toward it. The officer who stood in the bow of the boat would then throw a harpoon, which would stick fast in the whale. As soon as the whale was struck with the harpoon, he would go down into the water. There was a line fast to the harpoon, which was coiled in a tub standing in the whaleboat. Sometimes the whale would run down so far, that ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... heat of the deck as to render it unbearable; still the Abraham Lincoln had not yet breasted the suspected waters of the Pacific. As to the ship's company, they desired nothing better than to meet the unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist it on board, and despatch it. They watched the sea with ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... congreve[obs3], congreve rocket[obs3]; shrapnel, mitraille[Fr]; levin bolt[obs3], levin brand[obs3]; thunderbolt. pike, lance, spear, spontoon[obs3], javelin, dart, jereed[obs3], jerid[obs3], arrow, reed, shaft, bolt, boomerang, harpoon, gaff; eelspear[obs3], oxgoad[obs3], weet-weet, wommerah[obs3]; cattle prod; chemical mace. Phr. en flute; nervos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... owned; but what could I imagine to be afraid of aboard a brig holding two persons only, with the whaler's boat and three men within a few strokes of the oar, and the old barque, Swan, full of livelies, many of them deadly in the art of casting the harpoon, within easy hail? ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... of the harpoon is secured by a long and very strong rope wound round the handle: it is intended to come out of its socket, and while the iron head is firmly fixed in the animal's body the rope unwinds and the handle floats on the surface. The hunter next goes to the handle and hauls on the rope till he knows ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... beneath, and to my horror a huge whale was coming upward with extended jaws. His half-human eyes were turned benignantly upon me; but he was evidently in pain, and from a point in his back, where a broken harpoon still remained, gouts of blood curdled upward, coloring the water. His vocal power lay in his spiracle, and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... interest in this fishing tackle on a large scale, eagerly watched the unlashing and laying out of the coils of new, soft, strong, tarred line, the walrus harpoons, lances with their long, thin, smooth, white pine poles, the white whale harpoon, and the harpoon gun. Every one of these implements was full of suggestive thoughts of exciting adventure; so, too, were the ice anchors and picks; and as all were carefully examined in turn the Norway men talked to each other, making plenty of comments as they ran the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... "You must harpoon the next one all alone, and kill him without help," said Cheenbuk to his companion soon after ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... that ship was a good man. He taught me many things. Once, when we had left the cold seas and were among the islands of Tonga, he struck me in his rage because I threw the harpoon at a great sperm whale, and missed. That night I slipped over the side, and swam five miles to the land. Dost know the place called Lifuka? 'Twas there I landed. I lay in a thicket till daylight, then I arose and went into a house and asked for food. They gave me a yam ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... of the Man. Ra spake unto the god Ami-haf, and an injury was done unto his mouth, that is to say, he was wounded in [that] mouth. And Ra spake unto the god Ami-haf, saying, 'O heir of men, receive [thy] harpoon;' and the harpoon-house came into being. Behold, O god Ami-haf, two divine brethren have come into being, [that is to say], Senti-Ra came into being, and Setem-ansi-f came into being. And his hand stayed not, and he made his form into that of a woman with a lock of hair which became the divine ...
— Egyptian Literature
... perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by a liberal coating of a ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Spray came upon a large turtle asleep on the sea. He awoke with my harpoon through his neck, if he awoke at all. I had much difficulty in landing him on deck, which I finally accomplished by hooking the throat-halyards to one of his flippers, for he was about as heavy as my boat. I saw more turtles, and I rigged a burton ready with which to hoist them in; for I was obliged ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... lassos and harpoons, awaited them. Sometimes they harpooned the alligators, and then, fastening lassos to their heads and tails, or to a hind leg, dragged them ashore; at other times they threw the lasso over their heads at once, without taking the trouble to harpoon them. It was a terrible and a wonderful sight to witness the Negroes in the very midst of a shoal of these creatures, any one of which could have taken a man into his jaws quite easily,—whence, once between these long saw-like rows of teeth, no man could have escaped to tell how sharp they ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... his bow and arrow, and to wield the harpoon and spear. Abel once fashioned for him, from a block of wood, a very good imitation of a small seal, and Bobby and Jimmy had unending sport casting their harpoons at it, and presently they became so expert that seldom did they fail ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... the pity!" Cappy replied—"the Ethel Ricks, the Nukahiva and the Harpoon. Which one ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... dived he ran to the edge of the hole, but now, instead of falling down, he stood quite still with the harpoon raised above his head ready to be thrown. In a few moments the monsters reappeared. Two rose close at the edge of the hole; one was a male, the other a female. They were frightfully ugly to look at. Shaking the water from his head and shoulders, the bull at ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... are times when I hope it won't. Sea-sarpints aren't much in my line. I have had a turn in a whaler, and though a right whale is a nasty kind of a bird to tackle when she is in her flurry, you know what you are about. There's the harpoon in her, and you have got her at the end of your line, and you're waiting for her with your lances ready to put her out of her misery. But even if you have got a few shot in her, a sea-sarpint's different sort ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... reach maturity, which they do in these latitudes at the age of about twelve years, they are instructed by their mothers how to perform the necessary work, and become very skilful at throwing the lance, harpoon, or any manner of dart, being bred to it from their infancy. These girls, from this training, possess wonderful eyesight, and will descry a sail at sea farther than any sailor ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... the throwing-stick is indicated in Fig. 1 by a drawing of H.W. Elliott. The Eskimo is just in the act of launching the light seal harpoon. The barbed point will fasten itself into the animal, detach itself from the ivory foreshaft, and unwind the rawhide or sinew line, which is securely tied to both ends of the light wooden shaft by a martingale device. The heavy ivory foreshaft will cause the ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... bull. He had put Lord Joe at the sweep, and was going to harpoon himself. He backed, and made a fine cast. But the fish, instead of sounding, turned on their boat, and took it in his mouth. They all spilled clear except Lord Joe; the poor nigger was caught. Then the fish sounded, and made off with a tub of line. I picked up Garboy ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... about the Flying Dutchman, and Davy Jones' Locker, and Captain Kidd, and how to harpoon a whale or dodge an iceberg or lasso a seal. Cap'n Bill had been everywhere in the world, almost, on his many voyages. He had been wrecked on desert islands like Robinson Crusoe and been attacked by cannibals, and had a host of other exciting adventures. So he was a delightful comrade ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... but very poor soil, capable of producing only rye, is often allowed to lie fallow for many years together. Much of the cultivation is performed with very primitive implements, the ordinary old-fashioned plough being furnished with a share resembling the broad flattened lance-head of a harpoon, which penetrates the earth horizontally. Of late years, however, a constantly increasing number of improved ploughs, reaping, mowing, and steam threshing machines have come into use. In 1873, according to ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... our encounter with the shark, placed the harpoons in readiness; and amused me by seeming to picture himself a whaler, flourishing his harpoon in most ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... two companions, and resumed our course to the northward, over that of last year, excepting that we steered inside of Pelican Island, and to leeward of Island 4. We passed several large sting-rays asleep on the surface of the sea, which our people ineffectually endeavoured to harpoon. On the former island large flights of pelicans were seen, and upon the sandbank, to the southward of it, there was a flock of two ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... been cheer and excitement in this mild activity, after their farm-house weeks; indeed Father suggested, "We ought to stay and see the movies. Look! Royal X. Snivvles in 'The Lure of the Crimson Cobra'—six reels—that sounds snappy." But his exuberance died in a sigh. A block down Harpoon Street they saw a sign, light-encircled, tea-pot shaped, hung out from a great elm. Without explanations they ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... shrewdest head among them. Well, now for nobler game! I am to face this leviathan Charles, who will presently swim hitherward, cleaving the deep before him. I must, like a trembling sailor, throw a tub overboard to amuse him. But I may one day find the chance of driving a harpoon into ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... his water forward instead of backward; also make him small, and stick a harpoon in him and give him that sick look in the eye. Otherwise you might seem to be continuing the other William, and that would be confusing and a damage. It is quite right to make him small; he was only about a No. 11 whale, or along there somewhere; there wasn't room in him for his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia's white man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the white man who used his harpoon against his friends ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Indeed, the whole outside of this singular craft was of seal-skins, sewed together and drawn tight as a drum-head over a frame composed mainly of the rib-bones of the walrus. The double-bladed paddle was tied to the kayak with a long thong; as was also a harpoon, made of bones laid together, and wound over with a long thong of green seal-skin. The lance-blade at the point was of very white, fine ivory; probably that of the walrus. Attached to the harpoon was a very long coil of line, made also of braided seal-skin, and wound about a short, upright ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... a meat hook for taking boiled meat out of the pot, with five or more prongs; hence "harpoon." Cf. FURCA ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... their crews giving way with might and main, gathered round from different directions. The captain was the first to strike his harpoon into the whale, following the weapon with a couple of lances; he was fast, but he quickly backed off from the monster, which, leaping half out of the water, and turning partly round made a dash with ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... anybody, nor had the most virtuous respect for the nets of his neighbours; he looked the pink-perfection of a Cape Cod fisherman. The skipper rose before his accusers; his hard, weather-bleached face looking as if his intention to throw a harpoon into somebody was the very best in the world. Then his dark eyes flashed lightning at the Squire, who commanded the little Scotchman to read the indictment. This suspicious looking document set forth that one skipper Hornblower, of the schooner Virtue, had feloniously, and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the pencil. Another (3) is a sailor, drawn with two squares, two circles, and two triangles. Another (5), Henry VIII, drawn with a square and nine straight lines. Another (6), invented for this book, an Esquimaux waiting to harpoon a seal, drawn with eleven circles and a straight line. The remaining figures are a cheerful pig and a despondent pig (4), and a cat (2), drawn with ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher |
