"Boatman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little craft of six or eight tons, with a mainsail and jib. It was a delightful afternoon; a gentle westerly wind swept over a placid sea, and the sky was as clear as the mirror that reflected its exquisite blue. Greenleaf and Miss Sandford took their seats amidships, leaving the stern for the boatman. The ropes were cast off, and the sailor was about stepping aboard, when it was discovered that the fishing-lines had been left behind. Old Tarry was dispatched to bring them, and he rolled off as fast as his habitual gait allowed him. When he was fairly up the hill, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Nas Ta Bega came back to camp and said any likelihood of Joe's arrival was past for that day. Shefford could not get over an impression of strangeness—of the impossibility of the reality presented to his naked eyes. These lonely fugitives in the huge-walled canyon waiting for a boatman to come down that river! Strange and wild—those were the words which, inadequately at best, suited this country and ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... its owner came staggering along one of the walks of the cemetery; for all his song, no blue-water sailor-man, but a boisterous denizen of the great river, a raftsman or a keel-boatman, who had somehow found himself in the burial ground and now was beating aimlessly about. How this rollicking waif of the grog shop came to wander so far from the convivial haunts of his kind and to choose this spot for a ramble, can only be explained by the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... passage. Now the boatman stern Takes these, now those, then thrusts the rest away, And vainly for the distant bank they yearn. Then spake AEneas, for with strange dismay He viewed the tumult, "Prithee, maiden, say What means this thronging to the river-side? What seek ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... which the ancients called Borysthenes, passes by Kiow, and the old tradition of the country affirms, that it was a boatman, who in crossing it found its waters so pure that he was led to found a town on its banks. In fact, the rivers are the most beautiful natural objects in Russia. It would be difficult to find any small streams, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... and laying his hand on the shoulder of the man who was in front. "Never mind the island at all; go a little more down the stream, and then we can cross over at once without landing at all. Do you hear me, friend?" added he, speaking rather hastily, for the boatman took no ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Highlands bound, Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry! And I'll give thee a silver pound To row us o'er ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... of "the sets" very exclusive: young Hardie was Doge of a studious clique; and careful to make it understood that he was a reading man who boated and cricketed, to avoid the fatigue of lounging; not a boatman or cricketer who strayed into Aristotle ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the way easily enough. He walked on and on and on for a long time over mountain, valley, and river, until he reached the shores of the Black Sea. There he found a boat and boatman. ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... The boatman who was with us climbed up the ladder, and, kneeling down, stretched out his hand to help me, while Tardif stood waiting to hold me steadily on the damp and slippery rungs. For a moment I hesitated, and looked round at the crags, and ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... at all—a madcap, charming boy; Well-favored—you have seen him—exquisite In courtly compliment, of simple manners; You may not hear a merrier laugh than his From any boatman on the bay; well-versed In all such arts as most become his station; Light in the dance as winged-foot Mercury, Eloquent on the zither, and a master ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... people, like the man in the fable, would kill, in their frantic eagerness, the fine goose he had brought to lay them so many golden eggs? His fate was like that which may be supposed to have overtaken the first adventurous boatman who rowed from Erie to Ontario. Broad and smooth was the river on which he embarked; rapid and pleasant was his progress; and who was to stay him in his career? Alas for him! the cataract was nigh. He saw, when it was too ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... friends, the canal-boatmen, look upon Gipsies as the lowest of the low, and lower down the social scale than any boatman to be met with. Some of them have gone so far as to try to shake my nerves by telling me that, now I had taken the Gipsy women and children in hand, they would not give sixpence for my life. I could only reply with a smile, and tell them that I was in safe keeping ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... memories which go back to the Pharaohs. I see myself very clearly at different ages of history, practising different professions and in many sorts of fortune. My present personality is the result of my lost personalities. I have been a boatman on the Nile, a leno in Rome at the time of the Punic wars, then a Greek rhetorician in Subura where I was devoured by insects. I died during the Crusade from having eaten too many grapes on the Syrian shores, I have been a pirate, monk, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... he replied; "such persons never marry. They only prevent other people from marrying anybody. Therefore it is that I remember what sort of a boatman I am." ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... wore such uncommonly pointed boots. When I recognized in her, on the following day, a young person who had, a few weeks previously, made me the victim of a barefaced and audacious robbery, I could no longer doubt that she and the unknown boatman were in league together; and, since no Englishman would be likely to wear boots so excessively pointed at the toes, I did not hesitate to conclude that they were both members of the Society of the Friends of Man, a conclusion which ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... waters, was tied to one of the trees. The holes in it were stuffed with seaweed, the beams fastened with olive twigs. Two tall poles crossed were intended for the sail, which now lay spread out in the boat because the boatman was sleeping on it. The brown stuff, made of camel's hair, was the man's most valuable possession. On the water it caught the wind for him, on land it served as a cloak, if he ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... the path the serpent has worn on his way to the river when in search of water," said the old boatman. "Hide yourself in the trench, and, as the serpent passes along, you must thrust your sword deep ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade
... head boatman," said my hostess in her soft tones, as she watched him walking down to the beach; "he is so different from these noisy, quarrelsome Tarawa people, that I am always glad to have him about the house when he is not wanted in the boats. He is so quick, ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... last agreed to, the camels were led down and placed on board, and the boat pushed off. The sheik made a peremptory sign to Edgar to lie down and cover his head with his cloth, and Edgar heard him say to the boatman, "My slave is ill." The river was now at its shallowest, and the men were able to pole the boat across. Edgar was hurried ashore with the camels, while the sheik remained behind settling with the boatman. They were now, he ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... coming towards me. I gave thanks to Allah; and, when the skiff came up to me, I saw therein a man of brass with a tablet of lead on his breast inscribed with talismans and characts; and I embarked without uttering a word. The boatman rowed on with me through the first day and the second and the third, in all ten whole days, till I caught sight of the Islands of Safety; whereat I joyed with exceeding joy and for stress of gladness exclaimed, "Allah! Allah! In ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... of Dutch origin, who spoke a mixture of Dutch, English, and Hottentot, and perhaps two or three other native languages, in such a confused way that it was difficult to understand him in any. Four negroes rowed the boat and did the work while the Dutchman superintended it. The boatman showed a laudable desire to swindle the travelers, but his intentions were curbed by the stringent regulations established ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... boatman, boatman, put off your boat, Put off your boat for gouden money!" But for a' the goud in fair Scotland, He dared na tak' him through ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... inflame exclaim recess unfold remark repeat recite reply refer repair replace recall renew regret release retain rejoice return reduce report regard refresh restore remain coachman huntsman seaman postman salesman workman footman hackman railroad birthday foreman boatman inkstand daylight fireplace teacup seaside seaweed sunbeam tiptoe stairway necktie rainbow railway seashore cobweb ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... them all the Russian reports in support of contagion; for anxious as he is to prove his point, not a word do we get of the on dits so current in Russia about persons being attacked with the disease from smelling to hemp arrived from such or such a place; from having looked at a boatman who had been up the Volga or down the Volga, &c. &c.: all which statements, when duty inquired into, prove to be unsupported by any thing in the shape of respectable authority, and this is now, in all probability, pretty generally known ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... soft, dark eyes, appeared once not far from Muircarrie, and he married a boatman's daughter. He was very restless one night, and got up and left her, and she never saw him again; but a few days later a splendid dead seal covered with wounds was washed up near his cottage. The fishers say that his people had wanted to keep him from his land wife, and they had fought ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rules and not follows the wind; Proving first, then as deftly confuting each side, With no doctrine pleased that's not somewhere denied, He lays the denier away on the shelf, And then—down beside him lies gravely himself. He's the Salt River boatman, who always stands willing To convey friend or foe without charging a shilling, And so fond of the trip that, when leisure's to spare, He'll row himself up, if he can't get a fare. 670 The worst of it is, that his logic's so strong, That of two ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... general opinion that it was too late, a rough boatman had torn off a section of his flannel shirt and was chafing the cold little hands, while another rubbed the legs and a third tried to restore respiration. These people were familiar with cases of drowning, ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... few moments they were all seated in the boat, with their few belongings carefully balanced, and Jacqueline safely reposing in Pierrette's lap. The boatman pushed them away from the pier. "Au revoir," called Mother Meraut as the boat slid into the stream. "We will come back again when the Germans are gone, and in some way I shall have a chance to send your boat to you, I know. Meanwhile we will ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... wanted was to walk over his thwarts and step ashore, and asked him what he went away out there for. He said he could not understand me. I repeated. Still he could not understand. He appeared to be very ignorant of French. The doctor tried him, but he could not understand the doctor. I asked this boatman to explain his conduct, which he did; and then I couldn't understand ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... water-coffin once too often," he muttered, and Bruce himself was the best boatman the length ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... the first verse, beginning softly, but unconsciously raising his voice as he went on, until, as he came to the second, he was singing very audibly indeed, and Rosamond, standing on the bank, looking uncertainly about her for the old boatman, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... where we had left it, out onto the wharf. Time passed; the norther continued, and no canoe from Pueblo Viejo came. Thinking that it might be possible to secure a canoe from here to Pueblo Viejo, we dickered with a boatman at the wharf. We had agreed to pay for the canoe ordered $1.00 for the journey, which was something more than the regular price. The man with whom we now were talking declared that he would not take us across for less than ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... rowing some people down the river, among them two prominent politicians who were discussing an absent one. 'He has no more backbone than an oyster,' said one. The boatman laughed, and said, 'Skuse me, marsers, but if you-all gemmen don' know no mo' 'bout politicians dan you does 'bout oyschers you don' know much. No mo' backbone dan a oyscher! Why, oyschers has as much backbone as folks has, en ef you cuts into 'em lengfwise a little way ter one side ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... their size and muscular development. They were clothed in white duck pants, blue cotton frocks, trimmed with white, and wore uniform straw hats, encircled by black bands, upon which was inscribed, in gilt letters, the name of the boat, "Edith," in compliment to the young boatman's sister. ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... hadn't been hearn on in hundreds of years. But I couldn't git the idea out of his head till after dinner. Then he wuz more meller and inclined to listen to reason. It wuz a oncommon good meal, and he felt quite softened down in his mean by the time he finished. And Whitfield's boatman he'd engaged come with a good sizeable boat and we sot sail ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... the boatman, 'Make haste with them.' So he plied his oars swiftly till they reached the opposite bank, where they landed, and she took lease of them, saying, 'It were my wish not to leave you, but I can go no farther than this.' Then she turned back, whilst Ali ben Bekkar lay on the ground before Aboulhusn ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... later Yank, Johnny, and I embarked aboard a small bluff-bowed sailboat, waved our farewells to Talbot standing on the shore, and laid our course to cross the blue bay behind an island called Alcatraz. Our boatman was a short, swarthy man, with curly hair and gold rings in his ears. He handled his boat well, but spoke not at all. After a dozen attempts to get something more than monosyllables out of him, we ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... Batavians with the Romans, said, "We have always been the friends of constituted authority." Yet the Dutch language lends itself to puns: in proof of this there is the incident of a pretty foreign lady who asked a young boatman of the trekschuit for a cushion, and not pronouncing the word well, instead of cushion said kiss, which in Dutch sounds almost the same; and she scarcely had time to explain the mistake, for the ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... a boatman was fixed at six gur of corn to be paid him yearly, but it is clear that some of the larger vessels carried crews commanded by a chief boatman, or captain, whose pay was probably on a larger scale. If a man let his boat to a boatman, the latter was responsible ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... the boatman. "We're bad enough without that. Give us peace to think a bit. If they were drowned they would ha' been washed in by this. The early tide would ha' brought them, for the boat couldn't carry ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... The boatman was taken aback by this suggestion from the nurse. He declared it was a pity to drown so beautiful a princess, and that he had compassion for her. But the nurse fetched a bottle of wine, and plied him with drink until he no longer had wits enough ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... entering one of these you go along smoothly and noiselessly. The first thing one notices in Venice is the absence of noise. As the boat goes along the only sound that is heard is the sharp cry from the boatman as he approaches a corner. At first the novelty interests the mind, afterward it affects the spirits. In three days most people leave the city in a kind of panic. The stillness is awful. A longer ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... until the second boatman answered the song, that the brothers felt how little the charm lay, in the voice of the gondolier, and that, heard nearer, the sounds ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... moment my brother had the temerity to argue with the boatman over the fare. Being now in the last stage of tender-hooks, I adjured him to give the man double what he asked, if only to be free. But the brother was calm, and for once—he was right! His display ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... struck me with such a horror I cannot tell. I stood looking at the old boatman like one struck with dismay. I was on the point of saying that it was quite impossible, for I had been on the Chain Pier last night, and had seen nothing of the kind. ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to remove your glove and bare your arm," explained the boatman, handing her an old tin mug. "But you will not find the water cold. It is always warmer at night. Thus the good God remembers poor fishermen. The seas will come over the bows when we round this corner; they will rise up and hit the abbe in ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... river Wye, between the city of Hereford and the town of Moss, which was distinguished and well known for upwards of two centuries, by the appellation of the Spectre's Voyage; across which, so long as it retained that name, neither entreaty nor remuneration could induce any boatman to convey passengers after a certain hour of the night. The superstitious ideas current amongst the lower orders of people were, that on every evening about the hour of eight, a beautiful female figure was seen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... sight is so firmly rooted in Celtic opinion, the tourist or angler who 'has no Gaelic' is not likely to hear much of it. But, when trout refuse to rise, and time hangs heavy in a boat on a loch, it is a good plan to tell the boatman some ghostly Sassenach tales. Then, perhaps, he will cap them from his own store, but point-blank questions from an inquiring southron are of very little use. Nobody likes to be cross-examined on such matters. Unluckily the ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... was moored hard by. When the rustle of the Countess' approach was audible, a boatman suddenly stood up, helped the fair laundress to take her seat in it, and rowed with such strength as to make the boat fly like a swallow ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... of children going along the road stopped and regarded the artist curiously. A boatman exchanged civilities with him. He felt that possibly his circumspect attitude and position looked peculiar and unaccountable. Smoking, perhaps, might seem more natural. He drew pipe and pouch from his ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... souls on board; and, perhaps, some of them not ready, Mr. Beer," says the serious elderly chief boatman. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... entangled. On returning to the sacristy he had torn off his alb, cope, and stole, had flung all into the hands of the stupefied beadle, had made his escape through the private door of the cloister, had ordered a boatman of the Terrain to transport him to the left bank of the Seine, and had plunged into the hilly streets of the University, not knowing whither he was going, encountering at every step groups of men and women who were hurrying joyously towards the Pont ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... twenty-four years old when he came into the smoking-room of the Victoria Hotel, in London, after midnight one July night—he was dressed as a Thames boatman. ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through five hundred fathoms of crisp blue air. The hostility of all smaller birds makes the moral character ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the men did pull better than I had ever known them to do before. The principal of the Parkville Liberal Institute was no boatman himself, and his calculations were miserably deficient, or else his intentions were more vicious than I had given him credit for. He was angry and excited; and as I looked at him, it seemed to me that he did not know what he was about. The Splash lay broadside to him. She was ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... White Hart Inn—what an ideal Boniface is this same Hull, and what an ideal inn—promised a boatman to pole the punt and look after my traps when the Henley regatta was over; and the owner of my own craft, and of fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say that he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or-Other left for the Continent, when His Lordship's ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... find the boatman in a very kindly frame of mind. He greeted them rather sulkily as ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... instead of doing so, he began to talk with a boatman who had some kind of a craft at the landing. Christy was not in so much of a hurry as he had appeared to be, and he waited in the vicinity till he saw his Southern friend embark in a boat which headed for ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... comical as a lover, and to hear him try to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson." ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... and I are too heavy to be together. Vittore and the others are light; you will just make weight." And, stepping in, Ernesto took his seat beside Carmel, and told the boatman to push off, while Everard, with a face like a ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... shouting God save King Selim, the prince's soldiers lost heart and fled, leaving only five attendants with the prince, who fled and got thirty coss beyond Lahore, in his way to Cabul. But having to pass a river, and offering gold mohors in payment of his passage, the boatman grew suspicious, leapt overboard in the middle of the river, and swam on shore, where he gave notice to the governor of a neighbouring town. Taking fifty horse with him, the governor came to the river side, where the boat still floated ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... as it was very dangerous when eaten to excess. We anchored some little distance from the shore and had to land in small boats managed by the natives. I went in one, and when the boat grounded at the beach the boatman took me on his back and set me on shore, demanding two dollars for the job, which I paid, and he served the whole crowd in the same way. The water here was blood warm, and they told me the ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... the offing Professor Derrick appeared, fishing. I had seen him engaged in this pursuit once or twice before. His only companion was a gigantic boatman, by name Harry Hawk, possibly a descendant of the gentleman of that name who went to Widdicombe Fair with Bill Brewer and old Uncle Tom Cobley and all on a certain memorable occasion, and assisted at the fatal accident to Tom ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... Peter Dillon, who was the first to pick up the trail left by castaways from the wrecked vessels. On May 15, 1824, his ship, the St. Patrick, passed by Tikopia Island, one of the New Hebrides. There a native boatman pulled alongside in a dugout canoe and sold Dillon a silver sword hilt bearing the imprint of characters engraved with a cutting tool known as a burin. Furthermore, this native boatman claimed that during a stay in Vanikoro six years earlier, he had seen two Europeans belonging to ships ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... her landlords—a boatman and his wife—had refused to let her have a room and just simply threw her things out into the yard; and when she had wandered the night through on the streets, without sleep, under the rain, hiding from the policemen—only then, with aversion and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... civilisation, I chanced to mention the story about my messenger-birds to some old inhabitants at Fremantle, Western Australia, when, to my amazement, they told me that a pelican carrying a tin disc round its neck, bearing a message in French from a castaway, had been found many years previously by an old boatman on the beach near the mouth of the Swan River. But it was ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... can be conceived, but were still to meet with another disappointment, for on the Morning of the day in which we had certainly calculated to arrive at Gibraltar we came to a River which was so much swelled that the Boatman could not ferry us over. Nearly a hundred Muleteers and others were in the same predicament, and we had the satisfaction of passing two most miserable days in a horrid Cortigo, a house of accommodation a degree lower than a Venta. Our provisions were ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... The wooden decoys had been anchored with the live ducks swimming among them, and the world began to awake. He drew a long breath of contentment, and waited. Then came the trailing of gray and blue and green mists, and, following the finger of the silent boatman, he made out in the northern sky a slender wedge of black dots, against the spreading rosiness of the horizon. Soon after, he heard the clear clangor of throats high in the sky, answered by the nearer honking of the live decoys, and he felt a throbbing of his pulses as he huddled low ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... charges were regularly met without question. Then payment ceased. My demands for an explanation came back through the Dead Letter Office, and when I followed them up by a journey to the address given, it was to learn that my man—a chief boatman in the coast-guard service—had died three months before, leaving no effects beyond a pound or two and the contents of his sea-chest—no will—and, so far as could be traced, no kith or kin. So far, Mr. Hucks, the business does not ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tell you what I am going to do with you. I shall first go and bribe some mercenary boatman to let us have one of those small sailing boats committed to our own exclusive charge. I shall constitute you skipper and pilot of the craft, and hold you responsible for my safety. I shall smoke a pipe to prepare me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... Black hair that shone with a fine silken lustre grew thickly about a white forehead. Brows that lay like smooth touches of satin swept in two fine lines above gay, kind brown eyes. Her smile merited the adjective "sweet" more than any Sylvia had ever seen; but the boatman's next ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... One of the tuna boatmen gave me a harder jolt. He said: "Well, if you fish steadily for a couple of weeks, maybe you'll get a strike. And one swordfish caught out of ten strikes is good work!" But Danielson was optimistic and encouraging, as any good boatman ought to be. If I had not been fortunate enough to secure Captain Dan as my boatman, it is certain that one of the most wonderful fishing experiences on record would have fallen to some other fisherman, instead ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... bareheaded into the curious mist which hung pall-like upon the outer world, and seemed to combine the opposite elements of glare and dulness, just as Tanty, aided by the stalwart arm of the boatman, who had rowed her across, succeeded in dragging her rheumatic limbs up the last bit of ascent to the door ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... "The boatman don't seem to know what he is about," continued Shuffles, who had for some time been studying the movements of the boat. "She lowered her sail a while ago, and she seems to be rolling at the ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... though by reflex action he may repel attack unconsciously, still the first affirmation of the system was that man was essentially a thinking being; and, while we retain this original dictum, it must not be supposed that the mind is a mere spectator, or like the boatman in the boat. Of course a unity of nature is impossible between mind and body so described. And yet there is a unity of composition, a unity so close that the compound is "really one and in a sense indivisible." You cannot ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Duprez and Macfarlane had grown tired of waiting for their truant companions, and had taken the first clumsy wherry that presented itself, rowed by an even clumsier Norwegian boatman, whom they had been compelled to engage also, as he would not let his ugly punt out of his sight, for fear some harm might chance to befall it. Thus attended, they were on their way back to the yacht. With a few long, elegant strokes, Errington and Lorimer ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... said he, "By other haven shalt thou come to shore, Not by this passage; thee a nimbler boat Must carry." Then to him thus spake my guide: "Charon! thyself torment not: so 't is will'd, Where will and power are one: ask thou no more." Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks Of him the boatman o'er the livid lake, Around whose eyes glar'd wheeling flames. Meanwhile Those spirits, faint and naked, color chang'd, And gnash'd their teeth, soon as the cruel words They heard. God and their parents they blasphem'd, The ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... might think. He worked very hard and at the end of three years, it was found that Corneel. Vanderbilt had saved for himself over, or about $3,000 and the best of all, had earned the reputation of being the best boatman on the river. While others were smoking and drinking, 'having fun while they were young, for when would they if not then?' Vanderbilt was either earning more money working over time, or at least saving what he had earned, home asleep ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... boatman then in time, "You shall not fail, don't fear it; I'll go not for your silver dime, But—for ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... ashore with some difficulty, we found ourselves without further ado up to our waists in swamp, or rather a substance the colour of but considerably thicker than pea-soup. Bakar (the Dyak hunter) and a Malay boatman preceded us with parangs to clear the way of branches before us, and, all ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... ever seen in any low, menial employment. The Malay is well represented on the electric cars, where he serves usually as conductor and sometimes as motorman. He is also an expert boatman and fisherman. He is very proud and is said to be extremely loyal to foreigners who treat him with justice and consideration. The Malay, however, can not be depended on for labor on the rubber or cocoanut plantations, ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... tremendous storm of thunder, lightning, rain, and hail burst over the river. The waves, crested with snowy foam which gleamed ghastly in the dim light of our lantern, threatened to engulf our frail bark. The boatman strained every nerve and muscle, but was borne a mile down the river before he made the land. That distance he had to retrace along the rugged, boulder-strewn, and log-encumbered shore. We reached the landing in a still more demoralized condition than the American ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... continued my companion. "His father, old Rupe, got his eye taken down in a deck-fight with a Mississippi boatman; and this boy was born with the same mark,—only the eye's lower down still. If that's to go on in the family, I guess there'll be a Falardeau with his eye ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Swimming and boating early became absolute passions with me; I was never quite happy unless I happened to be either in or on the water; then, indeed, all other pleasures were less than nothing to me. As a natural consequence, I soon became the intimate companion of every boatman in the harbour; I acquired, to a considerable extent, their tastes and prejudices, and soon mastered all the nautical lore which it was in their power to teach me. I could sail a boat before I could read; and by the time that I had learned ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the afternoon a flock of geese had ventured low down over the drifting boatman, and each time one of the flock had fallen a victim. The others had hurried away in noisy confusion. He had hardly expected to find beaver, yet as the night drew on without a sight of one, he felt a little disappointed. True, he had ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Hastings, I think. The boatman had his money, and they walked on to the nearest public-house. The duke, to seem English, called for "pot portere." It was brought him, and he drank it off in two draughts, his drought being extreme ; and he called for another instantly. That also, without any suspicion or recollection of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... go to sweet Innisfallen, too, and you must not be prosaic or incredulous at the boatman's stories, or turn the 'bodthered ear to them.' These are no ordinary hillsides: not only do the wee folk troop through the frond forests nightly, but great heroic figures of romance have stalked majestically along these mountain summits. Every waterfall foaming and ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on the way; but as soon as they were near his house, Mr. Strafford told his companions of his intention. Neither could find anything to say against it; but Mrs. Costello looked anxiously at him while he explained that he meant to take a good boatman with him and burn a bright light. Then she held out her hand to him to express the thanks she ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... pursued the boatman, heedless of the question, in the manner of a man whose impetus on the track of self-pity drives him past the signal flags of relief, 'what would there be left to bury me? These clothes I have on might buy me a long box. For the cost of this shabby old ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... some are still dug up in our day: they have remained unsepulchred for more than thirty times their predestined century. Even to wicked kings a burial had thus been denied. But, if the verdict of the assessors was favourable, a coin was paid to the boatman Charon for ferriage; a cake was provided for the hippopotamus Cerberus; they rowed across the lake in the baris, or death-boat, the priest announcing to Osiris and the unearthly assessors the good deeds of the deceased. Arriving ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... from Valencia to Cahersiveen town in a sail-boat up the water (not crossing at the ferry). I had accommodated my time to the wish of the boatman, who desired to be there in time for prayers: so that I had a long waiting at Cahersiveen for the mail car. In walking through the little town, I passed the chapel (a convent chapel) to which the people were going: ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... pleasant to me. Another boy swims over from Goodah's boat (his Achmet), and then there are games at piracy, and much stealing of red pots from the potter's boats. The joke is to snatch one under the owner's very nose, and swim off brandishing it, whereupon the boatman uses eloquent language, and the boys out-hector him, and everybody is much amused. I only hope Palgrave won't come back from Sookum Kaleh to fetch Mahbrook just as he has got clever—not at stealing jars, but in his work. He already washes my clothes very nicely indeed; his ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... the boat touched the schooner's side. One of the men leaped on board, securing the boat, and the other followed immediately. They were both dressed like all the Acadians, but the second boatman had a slouched hat, which concealed his face. Zac, who carelessly regarded him, noticed that he was a smooth-faced boy, while the first boatman ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... eh?" exclaimed the boatman. "That's the second craft he's damaged inside a week with his speed mania. There's Bert Johnson's little speeder over there," and he pointed to one over which some men were working. "Had to put a whole new stern in her, and what do you think that ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... gold-broker, if Dalton would only accompany him to his office. To this Dalton consented, and placed three L20 and one L10 notes of the Launcestoun Bank in his hands. They then left the shop together; the night was extremely dark; the stranger, however, led the way, Dalton and the boatman following close behind. After proceeding some little way, they turned into Little Collins St. and by the back entrance, into the yard of the Police Court. Here it was so dark that the outline of the building could not be distinguished. The guide then showed them ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... tempestuous interest, and is altogether fiendish in appearance.] in the shade, or pitilessly pursuing strangers, and offering them boats. For my own part, I refused the subtlest advances of this kind which were made me in Chiozzotto, but fell a helpless prey to a boatman who addressed me in some words of wonderful English, and then rowed me to the Sea-wall at about thrice the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... could estimate the measure of a tree very well by his eye; he could estimate the weight of a calf or a pig, like a dealer. From a box containing a bushel or more of loose pencils, he could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen pencils at every grasp. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, boatman, and would probably outwalk most countrymen in a day's journey. And the relation of body to mind was still finer than we have indicated. He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... answer. "You had false impressions of him. He was a handsome, manly fellow, a little over-sentimental. He had travelled, and had been a merchant's clerk in Paris and London. Then he came back, and became a boatman on the lake, some said, for ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... be ten or twelve steamers churning about in the dark; and if some careless boatman were to make a mistake—or lose his head—you might be under the paddles in a second. I think you should either get on board or stay ashore; and I should say you were as well off here as anywhere. You will see the procession ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... 1688 De Noyon of Three Rivers had gone as far west as the Lake of the Woods towards what is now Minnesota and Manitoba; and in 1717 De Lanoue had built a fur post at Kaministiquia, near what is now Fort William on Lake Superior. The shore was always perilous to the boatman of frail craft. The harbors were fathoms deep, and the waves thrashed by a cross wind often proved as dangerous as the high sea. It took M. de la Verendrye's canoemen a month to coast from the Straits of Mackinaw to Kaministiquia, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat Kinsha (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... he was crossing the Lake of Rieti. The boatman in whose bark he was making the passage offered him a tench of uncommon size. Francis accepted it with joy, but to the great amazement of the fisherman put it back into the ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the river; took him out to sea, and along the coast for half a dozen miles. The water was choppy, as it is under the slightest breeze from the south-east; and the Journalist was sea-sick; but seemed to mind this very little, and recovered sufficiently to ask my boatman two or three hundred questions before we reached the harbour again. Then we landed and explored the Church. This took us some time, owing to several freaks in its construction, for which I blessed the memory of its early-English builders. We went on to the Town Hall, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... but he was not a boatman; he painted cleverly, but he was not a painter. He kept the brown store under the elms of the main street, now hot and still, where at this moment his blushing sister was captivating the heart of an awkward farmer's boy, as she sold him a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... doing her best to keep the boat's head to the wind, but was slowly losing ground. She motioned to him to keep off and beckoned to him to cast the tow line to her so she could make it fast at that end. Harriet had forgotten that there was no rudder at the other end. But the boatman persisted in getting up close to the houseboat. All at once what Harriet had feared did happen. The launch was picked up on a heavy swell and hurled against the houseboat. There followed the sound of crunching woodwork. The launch began to fill ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... not the last. Gaston dared not trust to a boatman, so he was obliged to walk a league in order to cross the bridge. Then he thought it would be shorter to swim the river; but he could not swim well, and to cross the Rhone where it ran so rapidly was rash for the most ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... in our canal, and then to be detained beyond a reasonable time in port, makes it worse. Mr. Wheeler, at Akron, is the only man on the Ohio canal, that we know of, that has been in the business longer than we have on our canal, and we defy you to find a boatman on our canal or river that will say we ever detained them beyond a reasonable time; and there is no need of it if men do as they would be done by, and the situation our river has been in this geason has been vexatious enough for any one. Time is money, and eight or ten ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... rugged boatman's face, An unpaid freight he thought no harder case; The seals no longer sported in the sea, While ev'ry bell rung mournful in Dundee, Huge ploughmen wept, and stranger still, 'tis said, So strong is sympathy, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... the boatman, 'is the name of that fine cape that stretches into the sea with its sloping banks and hillocks of wood, and forms the right ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that I had to say," and went away, leaving me in sore concern on her account. Now when the appointed day came, I arose and changing my clothes and favour, donned sailor's apparel; then I took with me a purse full of gold and buying a right good breakfast, accosted a boatman at Dayr al-Tin and sat down and ate with him; after which I asked him, "Wilt thou hire me thy boat?" Answered he, "The Commander of the Faithful hath commanded me to be here;" and he told me the tale of the concubines and how the Caliph purposed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the mean and cowardly spirit of this people, I hired a boat to go to Mikolak. On landing I missed my outer coat, which I recollected to have put in the boat at starting. After quarrelling a long time with the boatman, who denied all knowledge of it, I went to a magistrate, and related the whole matter to him. I asserted that I had at least a right to demand my own property, if I could not sue at law one with whom I had entrusted ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... of the hill, I walked along the bank of the canal to the west. Presently I came to a barge lying by the bank; the boatman was in it. I entered into conversation with him. He told me that the canal and its branches extended over a great part of England. That the boats carried slates—that he had frequently gone as far as Paddington by the canal—that ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... the rest. A young Spaniard of very diminutive stature addressed some questions to me in French as to what I thought of the scenery and climate of Andalusia. I replied that I admired both, which evidently gave him great pleasure. The boatman now came demanding two reals for conveying me on shore. I had no small money, and offered him a dollar to change. He said that it was impossible. I asked him what was to be done; whereupon he replied uncivilly that he knew not, but ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... of civilisation," said Mr Foster, "extend themselves to the meanest individuals of the community. That boatman, singing as he sails along, is, I have no doubt, a very happy, and, comparatively to the men of his class some centuries back, a ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... I replied. "I don't think any one will suspect that we have left town. I believe my uncle engaged a boatman to pursue the Splash. I saw a schooner, which I think was the Alert, standing up the lake, after we had landed. They will find the Splash in the brook where I left her. Old Jerry was going over after Tom Thornton, and very likely he will reach the cottage some time this afternoon. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... the Ponta da Cruz, a fantastic slice of detached basalt. Here, at the southernmost point of the island, the Descobridores planted a cross, and every boatman doffs his cap to its little iron descendant. Beyond it comes the Praia Formosa, a long line of shingle washed down by a deep ravine. All these brooks have the same origin, and their extent increases the importance of the wady. In 1566 the French ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... present strenuous existence, where all is bent towards material success, there is no place for the sprites whose voices the ancients heard in the twilight silence. How could any properly constituted nymph play hide-and-seek with the moonbeams, or cast an eye upon a handsome boatman, from under the well-regulated bank of a river of to-day? As far as present-day mortals are concerned, any stream means water-power, any river means a waterway for commerce, and those thus engaged after the day's work turn away from river and stream without waiting to hear what they ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... and we determined to go to the island. I was sorry that the man who had been talking with us was not our boatman; William by some chance had engaged another. We had two rowers and a strong boat; so I felt myself bold, though there was a great chance of a high wind. The nearest point of Inch-ta-vanach is not perhaps more than a mile and a quarter from ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... 10th of June the vessel lay to off Madras; and Macaulay had his first introduction to the people for whom he was appointed to legislate in the person of a boatman who pulled through the surf on his raft. "He came on board with nothing on him but a pointed yellow cap, and walked among us with a self-possession and civility which, coupled with his colour and his nakedness, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... to secure a boat, and they at once set about finding a boatman who could supply this need. Mark knew Vienna well, and acted as pilot in their search; but for a long time they were unsuccessful. None of the boatmen wished to sell their craft, and, as hiring was of no use to the adventurers, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize—which, I suppose after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the bodies as they lay on the pier: 'Couldn't sassages be made on it?' but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... dismayed. They were amused. They thought that Alf had laid himself open to chaff. Whether he had slipped or lost his head they did not know. But as for thinking that Alf with all his scientific knowledge was not more than a match for this ignorant, intoxicated boatman, such a reflection never entered their heads. What is more, each separate member of the audience was convinced that he individually was the proper person to illustrate the efficacy of style versus ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... of it, he found life completely changed for him. As a boatman on a strange shore in the night-time drifts without knowing of it, he, in the absorption of his business, drifted away from his old relation without marking the process. His wife had her life and ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a light was burning, and as the giant drew near, he caught a fragment of a flat-boatman's song. He made no noise, but a dog inside scented his approach and announced it with a whimsical bark. Gid opened ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... rippling up to the beach, and a row to Croton Dam was proposed. After some little delay, a boat and a very good-natured negro boatman were ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... boatman at the New Haven wharf was a liar!" groaned Dismal Jones, as if it were a grief that he had not found the boatman's unpleasant ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... It was the sides which were black. Good-morning, Mrs. Smith.—There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall take ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... being carried on, and commanding all officers of the United States to seize the persons engaged in the plot. No name was mentioned in the proclamation, but Burr knew his plot was discovered. Once more he had failed; and he fled. He changed clothes with a boatman on the Mississippi, and vanished ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... and empty, have been found drifting on the lagoons, and the men who rowed them have never been heard of again. Once in the dungeons of Saint Mark it would be of no use to plead that you had entered into the affair simply for the amusement. The fact that you were not a regular boatman would make the matter all the worse, and the maxim that 'dead men tell no tales' is largely ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... gunwale he caught at it and held fast. Looking round, he saw that Benjamin, who could swim well, had made for Miss Masters, and, having caught her by the back of the neck, was taking her ashore. The boatman, who could also swim, called out to Baruch to hold on, gave the boat three or four vigorous strokes from the stern, and Baruch felt the ground under his feet. The boatman's little cottage was not far off, and, when the party reached it, Benjamin earnestly desired Miss Masters ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... and merry little Malfri had gone to church in the Femboering. When evening came, and they hadn't come home, the boatman came in and said that some one had better sail out and look after them, as a gale was ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... crocodile, perceive it lying at the bottom on its belly, and distinguish the bloody head that had been shattered by the bullet. While one of my men prepared a slip-knot, I took a long lance that belonged to a boatman, and drove it deep through the tough scales into the back of the neck; hauling gently, upon the lance I raised the head near to the surface, and slipping the noose over it, the crocodile was secured. It appeared to be quite dead, and the flesh would be a bonne-bouche ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... flowing over a bed of fine sand with a motion so gentle, that one can hardly conceive it is she who has played such fantastic tricks along the borders, and made such 'frightful gashes' in them. As we passed over this noble reach of the river Chambal in a ferry-boat, the boatman told us of the magnificent bridge formed here by the Baiza Bai for Lord William Bentinck in 1832, from boats brought down from Agra for the purpose. 'Little', said they, 'did it avail her with the Governor-General in her hour ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... rumors that he had worked himself to the top of the tall flag-staff—which was as smooth as a greased pole—but I will not vouch for their truth. He could swim like a duck, and paddled about on a board in the river till an ill-natured flat-boatman often snarled out that "that youngster would certain be drowned, if he wasn't born to ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... knowledge of duty and willingness to perform it, pride in the ship, her appearance and sailing, and in absolute reliableness, they never had seen their equal. Especially he spoke of his favorite seaman, French John. John, after a few more years at sea, became a boatman, and kept his neat boat at the end of Granite Wharf, and was ready to take all, but delighted to take any of us of the old Alert's crew, to sail down the harbor. One day Captain Faucon went to the end of the wharf to board a vessel in the stream, and hailed for John. There was no response, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... no wonder that the way of life which the boatman, lead, in turn extremely indolent and extremely laborious, for days together requiring little or no effort, and attended with no danger, and then on a sudden laborious and hazardous beyond the Atlantic navigation, generally plentiful as ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... hear it. For some moments the boat rested quietly in the shallow water, moving only with the faint movement of the evening tide. The solitary boatman sat without stirring. He leaned forward, listening intently for any sounds of life aboard the houseboat. He had espied the deserted figure ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... necessary, Ben; she is better, I think," said the young man, looking half-timidly into the boatman's face. "Don't you think she looks beauti——I mean, don't you think she looks better, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... arrived first. Mr. Lewis had taken his gun and a boat, and gone out at once to shoot. The lady had been in her room but a short time, when another gentleman arrived, wrote his name, and ordered a boat. She had scarcely seen any one, but the boatman saw her step into the boat, and described ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... monkey after him, which he said he had found chained to the foot of a tree. For more than a month past, the mischievous child, who knew not what to wish for, had taken it into his head to have a monkey. A boatman, who had passed by Rogliano, and who had several of these animals, whose tricks had greatly diverted him, had, doubtless, suggested this idea to him. 'Monkeys are not found in our woods chained to trees,' said I; 'confess how ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... midway on the lake he perceived his boatman about to prime a pistol to murder the mild-eyed stillness, and he called to the man in his best German to desist. During the altercation, there passed a countryman of his in another of the punts, who said gravely: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... day of the days, my mind was set upon riding out to the waste lands about the town and the gardens thereof, by way of solacing my self; so I embarked in a little caique[FN336] upon the river and when we were amid stream I had a longing for coffee[FN337]; so I said to the boatman, 'Abide this place and throw out the anchor while we drink coffee.' Hereat all my suite arose and busied themselves in preparing it until 'twas ready and I had a finjan[FN338] worth a treasury[FN339] of money which they filled and passed to me. I took it as I was sitting upon ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... it sets out to fly in bad weather, may be likened to a boat that is being launched from a beach upon a rough and stormy sea. It is the waves close inshore, which may raise his craft only to dash it to destruction, that the boatman has chiefly to fear; and for the aviator, when he leaves the land and embarks upon the aerial sea, or when he returns again from this element and must make his contact with the earth, there lurks a risk that, caught suddenly ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... be mentioned here, as showing a more vivid perception of the existence of spiritual beings, and greater proneness to worship than among the Bechuanas. Having taken lunar observations in the morning, I was waiting for a meridian altitude of the sun for the latitude; my chief boatman was sitting by, in order to pack up the instruments as soon as I had finished; there was a large halo, about 20 Deg. in diameter, round the sun; thinking that the humidity of the atmosphere, which this indicated, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone |
