"Conch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know," Ralph answered. "If you wouldn't think I was off my conch, I'd say it was a ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... discipline began to prevail, the intrepidity of Iyeyasu and his skill in taking advantage of every error of his enemy giving confidence to his men. By noon they were bearing back the foe. Ordering up the reserves, and bidding the drummers and conch-blowers to sound their most inspiriting appeal, Iyeyasu gave order for ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... could not lose myself as I had on that former historic occasion in the ardor of chasing the small game of the country. By four o'clock in the afternoon I could appreciate the sensations of a conch shell on a parlor whatnot. I had a feeling that if anyone were to press his ear up against me he would hear a murmuring sound as of distant sea waves. Yet, mark you, I held bravely out, fighting still the good fight. This, then, was my dinner, if such it might in truth be called: ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... Fulton Market smells of stagnating fish, but a clean, wholesome, coralline odor, such as we may imagine supplied to the Peris "beneath the dark sea" by the scaly fellows in the toilet line down there, who are likely to keep it for sale in conch-shells,—quarts and pints. Porgy prevailed to that extent, in fact, that it came to be talked of, by-and-by, as a circulating medium; and a hard-fisted mechanic averred his intention of compensating his landlady for his board with porgy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... of little use or importance. It is simply a sort of receiving trumpet for catching sounds, with a very wide and curiously curved and crumpled mouth, or bell. The large, expanded mouth of the trumpet, called the concha ("conch shell"), was at one time capable of being "pricked up" and turned in the direction of sounds, just as horses' or dogs' ears are now; and in our own ears there are still for this purpose three pairs of tiny unused muscles running from them to the side of the head. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... town appeared to be waking up. A baker's cart had already rattled through the street, chasing away the latest vestige of night's sanctity with the jingle-jangle of its dissonant bells. A milkman was distributing the contents of his cans from door to door; and the harsh peal of a fisherman's conch shell was heard far off, around the corner. None of these tokens escaped Hepzibah's notice. The moment had arrived. To delay longer would be only to lengthen out her misery. Nothing remained, except to take down the bar from the shop-door, leaving the entrance free—more than free—welcome, as ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... palace is a very beautiful fountain, utilized by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a faun blowing water from a conch-shell. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... with the flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the colonial shield centered on the outer half of the flag; the shield is yellow and contains a conch shell, lobster, and cactus ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... first rays of cheerful Phoebus dart into the windows of Communipaw than the little settlement was all in motion. Forth issued from his castle the sage Van Kortlandt, and, seizing a conch-shell, blew a far-resounding blast, that soon summoned all his lusty followers. Then did they trudge resolutely down to the waterside, escorted by a multitude of relatives and friends, who all went down, as the common phrase expresses it, "to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... conch[4] of the half-moon Silent as though all worship's ceased, No incense-perfume from the forest censer The breeze brings; all still, ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... o'clock the long table was piled with boiled potatoes, cords of boiled corn on the cob, squash and pumpkin pies, hot biscuit, sweet pickles, bread and butter, and honey. Then one of the girls took down a conch shell from a nail and, going to the door, blew a long, fine, free blast, that showed there was no weakness of lungs in ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... in bliss. The brave Iberians far the beach o'erspread Ere dawn with distant awe; none hear the mew, None mark the curlew flapping o'er the field; Silence held all, and fond expectancy. Now suddenly the conch above the sea Sounds, and goes sounding through the woods profound. They, where they hear the echo, turn their eyes, But nothing see they, save a purple mist Roll from the distant mountain down the shore: It rolls, it sails, it settles, it dissolves— Now shines the nymph to human eye ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... artificial flowers beneath crystal bells. A collection of cross-bows, arrows, and knives recalled a Febrer, captain of a corvette belonging to the king, who made a voyage around the world near the close of the eighteenth century. Purplish bivalves and enormous nacre-lined conch ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the Hinkle House was as neat a little parlor as there was in the black-waxy country. It was all willow rocking-chairs, and home-knit tidies, and albums, and conch shells in a row. And a little upright piano in ...
— Options • O. Henry
... at the Rafferties; there was an incredibly bright-coloured rug on the floor, and bright coloured pictures of Mount Vesuvius and of Garibaldi on the walls. Also there was a cabinet with many interesting treasures to look at—a bit of coral and a conch-shell, a shark's tooth and an Indian arrow-head, and a stuffed linnet with a glass cover over him. A while back Hal would not have thought of such things as especially stimulating to the imagination; but that was before he had begun ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... look of intense humility, she began to lay aside her jewels and her upper robes. Then, baring her bosom and her feet, and shaking her golden tresses loose, she laid herself down upon the conch, crossed her hands upon her breast, and, with upturned ecstatic eyes, waited for that ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... and Mr Stevenson, after the first breakfast, did his literary work, until the sound of a conch summoned the family to a lunch, or second breakfast, about eleven o'clock. After this there was rest and music till four, and then outdoor work or play, lawn-tennis being a very favourite pastime, and in the evening they had more music, and a game at cards. It was a simple, natural life, and one ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... a herder of his at Dunmore's slaughter-house. I saw him jailed at Fortress Pitt; I saw him freed, too. And one fine day in '76, a-lolling at my ease in the north, what should I hear but a jolly conch-horn blowing in the forest, and out of it rolled a torrent of men in buckskin, Cresap leading, bound for that famous cattle-drive at Boston town. So I, being by chance in buckskin, and by merest chance bearing a rifle, fell in and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... complicated nose-leaves or membranes. The conch of the ear very large, and joined together on the top of the head; tragus large and bifurcated; nasal membranes complicated; no tail; wings remarkably ample. They have four incisors below but none above, the intermaxillaries ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... balustrades. Everything there that was not of brick was of clumsy carpentry resembling the work of ship calkers. Iron did not exist in these terrestrial constructions suggestive of the sailboat whose rooms were as dark as staterooms. Through the windows could be seen great conch-shells upon the chests of drawers, harsh and childish oil paintings representing frigates, and ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... child when led by the eagerness of the pursuit. It is the duty of older heads to think for those that want experience—but into what indiscreet complaints are my fears leading! It may be that my husband is even now striving to collect his party, in order to return. Hast any heard his conch ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Black Eagle at anchor in Conch that evening. She was deep in the water. Apparently her hold was full; there were the first signs of a deck-load of fish to be observed. In a run ashore Archie very soon discovered the reason of her extraordinary success. He returned to the deck of the Spot Cash in a towering rage. The clerk ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... stairs lay a big pink conch shell amid the fragments of what had been Miss Barry's platter; and at the top of the stairs knelt a terrified Davy, gazing down with wide-open eyes ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... cove," called Carol. About a mile of coastline ahead was the small native settlement. Once the center of a thriving sponge industry, the island was now practically deserted. A handful of small cottages, a pile of conch shells on the beach and two fishing smacks gave evidence of a remaining, though ...
— The Day of the Dog • Anderson Horne
... lungs of the old Amintaas had recovered their power, for he now seized a conch shell, held it in both hands, and with incredible strength blew long wild notes, with scarce any thing like a tune. I grew dizzy in listening to this clamor, and at once understood what is meant by the heathen making a "vain noise," ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... beating drums, and the long, mournful note of the conch-shells calling the wild people together to prepare for the ship. Turtle were lifted from their walled-in prison holes on the reef, hogs were strangled, and the king's wives went hither and thither among his slave women, bidding them hasten to kindle ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... land in the sun-bright deep, Where golden gardens glow, Where the winds of the north, becalmed in sleep, Their conch shells ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... slept, and waked once more to the deep, resonant notes of a conch-shell blowing; and I still lay abed, blinking at the sunset through the soiled panes of my western window, when Cato scraped at the door to enter, bearing my ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... elemental deity of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the AEgean or Ionian sea? What would he find distinctive of their spirit? The Tritons of these shallows must be of other form and lineage than the fierce-eyed youth who blows his conch upon the curled crest of a wave, crying aloud to his comrades, as he bears the nymph away to caverns where the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... used to be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea'; and there is a burning mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash! In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash, Tho' all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... color with the dying of the iridescent day. And the cloud-bridge approached, stretched, strained, and swung round at last to make way for the coming of the gale,—even as the light bridges that traverse the dreamy Teche swing open when luggermen sound through their conch-shells the long, ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... told the whole story, and Rain, taking pity on him, gave him a conch shell, and showed him how to blow it in a particular way, saying, "Remember! whatever you wish for, you have only to blow the conch that way, and your wish will be fulfilled. Only have a care of that money lender, for even magic is not proof against ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... O'Connor and me established the revolutionary centre. In the front room we had ostensible things such as fruit, a guitar, and a table with a conch shell on it. In the back room O'Connor had his desk and a large looking-glass and his sword hid in a roll of straw matting. We slept on hammocks that we hung to hooks in the wall; and took our meals at the Hotel Ingles, a beanery run on the ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... of Poseidon and Amphitrite, but he possessed little influence, being altogether a minor divinity. He is usually represented as preceding his father and acting as his trumpeter, using a conch-shell for this purpose. He lived with his parents in their beautiful golden palace beneath the sea at AEgea, and his favourite pastime was to ride over the billows on horses or sea-monsters. Triton is always represented as half man, half fish, the body below the ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... The conch or semi-dome that covered the apse was always covered with mosaic pictures, usually paintings of our Lord, either seated or standing, with St Peter and St Paul, and other apostles and saints, on either hand. The beams of the roof were sometimes concealed by a flat ceiling, richly carved ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... fowls, and ice; and the Banks gave us an abundance of fish, as the light winds fanned us slowly along, sometimes freshening into a moderate breeze, and occasionally dying away to a calm. The "chef d'oeuvre" of our mulatto skipper who was also cook, was conch soup, and he was not only an adept at cooking but also at catching the conch. In those almost transparent waters, the smallest object can be distinctly seen at the depth of three or four fathoms. When soup was to be prepared Captain Dick ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Chinese and Japanese arms and armour, and the various productions of the two countries, besides many strange things from the Philippine and other islands. I was specially interested in the corals and shells. There were splendid conch shells from Manilla, and a magnificent group of Venus flower-baskets, dredged from some enormous depth near Manilla. There were also good specimens of reptiles of all sorts, and of the carved birds' heads for which Canton ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... against the side of the wall facing the windows, and close to it was a table on which lay a switch of coarse black hair. A crepe-paper lambrequin decorated the mantel-shelf, whose ornaments were a cup and saucer, a shaving-set, and a pair of conch-shells; while between the windows was a wash-stand obviously kept for ornamental purposes, as there was no water in the pitcher and the basin was cracked. Pinned on the soft plastering of the walls were florid advertisements of various necessities and luxuries of life, together ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... fitted the irreproachable roundness of her arm like a skin; and her very dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to palpitate like a living tissue with the strength of vitality animating her body. How good her complexion was, the outline of her soft cheek and the small convoluted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she kept the little finger apart from the others; it seemed a waste of power to see her sewing—eternally sewing—with that industrious and precise movement of her arm, going on eternally ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... see again, and there is proverbially cheating in all trades but ours. A bright, thrifty-looking colored woman had spread out her striped shawl upon the ground, and on this arrayed a really fine collection of conch-shells for sale, delicately polished, and of choice shapes. When first brought to the surface by the divers they are not infrequently found to contain pearls imbedded in the palatable and nutritious meat. These pearls are generally ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... proud, and is proud with reason, of its garden. It is not a large garden as London gardens go. It has in its centre a fountain. Neptune, with a fine wreath of seaweed about his middle, blowing water through, his conch. There are two statues, the one of a general who fought in the Indian Mutiny and afterwards lived and died in the Square, the other of a mid-Victorian philanthropist whose stout figure and urbane self-satisfaction (as portrayed by ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... Florac, two young people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime-trees, which are still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so grey and moss-eaten, that though he holds his conch to his swelling lips, curling his tail in the arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure for at least fifty years; and did not think fit even to play when the Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their antics again, but they did the same things over and over, so Cap'n Bill and Trot soon tired, as Merla said they would, and decided they had seen enough of the crab circus. So they proceeded to swim farther up the rocky canyon, and near its upper end they came to a lot of conch shells lying upon the sandy bottom. A funny-looking crab was sticking his head out from each of ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... money means very little in life. Why, in Aitutaki you can't sell fish. The law forbids it, but do you suppose people don't fish on that account? Why, a man goes out in his canoe and fishes like mad. He brings in his canoe, and as he approaches the beach he's blowing his pu, the conch-shell, to let people know he has fish. Fish to sell or to barter? Not at all. He wants the honor of giving them away. Now, if he makes a big catch, do you see, he has renown. People say, 'There's Taiere, who caught all those fish yesterday.' That's worth more to him than money. But if he ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... none of them in keeping with the abject mien which now characterises the descendants of the ancient masters of Anahuac. In the grey light of the morning, I could see suspended from his shoulders the instrument that had made the mysterious music—a large sea-shell—a long, slender, curved conch, that hung ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... overseer, Henry Brown. Both was white. The driver see that the work was done by the supervision of the overseer. Master' fa'm amounted to twenty-five acres with 'bout eighteen slaves. The overseer blow the ho'n, which was a conch shell, at six in the mornin' an' every slave better answer w'en the roll was call' at seven. The slaves didn't have have to ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... work of studious design, is proved by a second one commenced in a neighbouring quarry—commenced, but not further prosecuted, evidently because it would not answer, from the soft, chalky material of the wall on one side. Its external shape of the conch is that of the ass's ear. The aperture, through which the light now enters from its further end, and from a height of one hundred and twenty feet, was till lately not known to exist; it not being supposed that the Ear had any meatus internus corresponding with the external one. The accidental ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... glance a dart, each smile a quiver, Stinging their bard from lungs to liver— To work my ruin, or my cure, Up starts thy pen, Anacreon Moore! In vain I pour my shower of roses, On which the matchless fair one dozes, And plant around her conch the graces, While jealous Venus breaks her laces, To see a younger face promoted, To see her own old face out-voted; And myrtle branches twisting o'er her, Bow down, each turn'd a true adorer. Up starts the Irish Bard—in vain I write, 'tis all ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... them 'conchs,' around here. They're an illiterate, uncivilized, furtive, eccentric lot. And they pick up some sort of living off wrecked ships and off what cargo washes ashore from the wrecks. A missionary went down there and tried to convert them. He found the 'conch' children already had religion enough to pray every night. 'Lord, send a wreck!' The conchs gather a lot of plunder every ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... eye he awakened to the fact that he was no longer on land, but afloat on a tiny world with an autocracy and an authority of its own. He was in a tiny world, he saw, where his career and his traditions were not to be reckoned with, where he ranked no higher than conch-niggers and beach-combers and cargadores. He was a dungaree-clad greaser in an engine-room, and he was promptly ordered back with the rest of his crew. He was not even allowed ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... Britain." It was from such supplication that he was once roused by the blaze of a Suttee's funeral pyre, on which he found that the living widow had been consumed with the dead before he could interfere. He could hear the hideous drums and gongs and conch-shells of the temple to which Radhabullub had been removed. There he often tried to turn his fellow-creatures to the worship of the one God, from their prostrations "before a black image placed in a pagoda, with lights burning around it," whilst, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... in his dexter mauley a red herring, whilst a white table-cloth (the centre of his motions) would proclaim some mysterious rite, must to the young ladies have seemed a merman suddenly come up from the sea, without sound of conch; whilst to him the large deputation from female Megara furnished an extra theatre for the inspection of Greek beauty. 'There was no river mouth visible, the operation being performed in the briny sea itself;' and, so far from this being unusual, Mr. Mure notices it ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... loath'd cold fishes, far from man—or what;— I know the sadness but the cause know not. Then they, thus ranged, gan make full plaintively A piteous Siren sweetness on the sea, Withouten instrument, or conch, or bell, Or stretch'd chords tuneable on turtle's shell; Only with utterance of sweet breath they sung An antique chaunt and in an unknown tongue. Now melting upward through the sloping scale ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... betel, and an oiled rag in a tin pot sent up an unsteady little flame, blue and yellow, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and showed his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and full of butter. From the "Cape of Good Cheer," where many bottles glistened in rows inside, came a braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy danced along the bar to the honour and propitiation of Lakshmi, that the able-bodied seaman might be thirsty when he came, for the "Cape of Good Cheer" did not owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any Providence of Christian theology. But most ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... But it seems reasonable to believe that once it was found that sound could be produced by blowing across the top of a hollow pipe, the most natural thing to do would be to try the same effect on all hollow things differing in shape and material from the original bamboo. This would account for the conch shells of the Amazons which, according to travellers' tales, were used to proclaim an attack in war; in Africa the tusks of elephants were used; in North America the instrument did not rise above the whistle ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... good Postmaster-gin-'ral, take ye'er ol' law partner f'r awhile, an', be th' time he's larned to stick stamps, hist him out, an' put in a school-teacher fr'm a part iv th' counthry where people communicate with each other through a conch. Th' Sicrety iv th' Interior is an important man. If possible, he ought to come fr'm Maine or Florida. At anny rate, he must be a resident iv an Atlantic seacoast town, an' niver been west iv Cohoes. If he ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... chance to retaliate. They would serenade him. Bob Holliday was full of it. Harry Weathervane was very active. He was going to pound on his mother's bread-pan. Every sort of instrument for making a noise was brought into requisition. Dinner-bells, tin-pails, conch-shell dinner-horns, tin-horns, and even the village bass-drum, were to ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... a line of automobiles and motorcycles, and amidst the joyous sound of drums and conch shells, Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself, flower-garlanded from head to foot, drove ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... 7th, two boats, manned and armed, under the command of Mr. Dell, chief mate of the Hormuzeer, were sent in search of the whale boat. On reaching the island, Mr. Dell heard conch shells sounding in different parts; and saw eighty or ninety armed natives upon the shore. To the inquiries, by signs, after the missing boat, they answered that she was gone to the westward; but none of them would venture near; nor did they pay attention to a white handkerchief ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... of Damascene silver, hung over each settlement, and the magnificent trees were tipped by peacocks screaming their good-night to the son." The sharp bark of the monkey mingled with the bray of the conch. Arrived at Baroda, he lodged himself in a bungalow, and spent his time alternately there with his books and on the drill ground. He threw himself into his studies with an ardour scarcely credible—devoting twelve hours a day to Hindustani, and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had a multiple origin. The ram's horn of the early Briton and the perforated conch-shell of the South Sea Islander are natural trumpets; when they were copied in brass and other metals they evolved rapidly to become the varied wind instruments typified to-day by the cornet and the tuba. In the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... Missing Link, and listened carefully while the Professor reeled off the familiar story of the taking of Mahdi. They witnessed the stirring and entertaining dinner, and when the Professor had finished, and Mahdi had resumed his conch in ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... it must be Nicholas, whom he had never seen, and who had blown such an imperative summons on the conch the night before. Halvard's temper was communicated to him; he moved abruptly to ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... horizontal strips of bamboo, and covered with cross latticework. The bars of the screen were daubed over with red paint, and hung with rows of spider-shells also painted red. Some poles projecting above the others two to four feet had painted jaws of the dugong and large conch shells (Fusus proboscidiferus) fixed to the top, and numerous other dugong bones and shells were scattered along the front. On the ground along the foot of the screen was a row of stones painted with black and red in imitation of grotesque faces, and to several of these the old man who acted ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... they are at anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there reach us, at very long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour, the bell of the cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling the labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday, which was Sunday - the QUANTIEME is most likely erroneous; you can now correct it - we had a visitor - Baker of Tonga. Heard you ever of him? He is ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... emit a curious wailing sound during the quietest state of the atmosphere, when there is not a breath of wind to move the branches or the leaves. This tree is found growing near the sea in Australia, and is said to have borrowed the murmur of the conch-shell. It has proved to be the inspiring theme of many a local poet. The flowers in this garden are as attractive as the trees; fuchsias, roses, and camellias are in great perfection and variety, flanked by a species of ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... conch-horn sounded. The boat had entered the narrows. 'Twas coming slowly through the quiet evening—laden with bait for the fishing of to-morrow. Again the horn—echoing sweetly, faintly, among the hills of Twin Islands. 'Twas Moses Shoos that blew; there ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... charming island queen in a seaman-like manner, hastened back to my own little world; and bore away once more for the north. Sailing thence over the Great Bahama Banks, in a crystal sea, we observed on the white marl bottom many curious living things, among them the conch in its house of exquisite tints and polished surface, the star-fish with radiated dome of curious construction, and many more denizens of the place, the names of which I could not tell, resting on the soft ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... come from a land in the sun-bright deep, Where golden gardens glow; Where the winds of the North, becalmed in sleep, Their conch-shells never blow." ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... scattered, says an eyewitness, as "the stars of heaven in a cloudless summer night." 8 Before these fires had become pale in the light of the morning, the Spaniards were roused by the hideous clamor of conch, trumpet, and atabal, mingled with the fierce war-cries of the barbarians, as they let off volleys of missiles of every description, most of which fell harmless within the city. But others did more serious execution. These were burning arrows, and redhot stones wrapped in ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... black men, part of the ship's crew: they were tall muscular fellows, their heads were covered with sea-weed, and they wore a very small pair of cotton drawers: in other respects they were perfectly naked; their skins were spotted all over with red and white paint alternately; they had conch shells in their hands, with which they made a most horrible noise. Neptune was masked, as were many of his attendants, and none of the officers knew exactly by which of the men the god was represented; but he was a shrewd hand, and did his part very ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... crater—wavy, serrated, frothy, like tar congealed or stiffened on a flat surface. One piece that I sketched was of the shape of a large leaf, upon which all the fibres were marked. It measured ten feet by four. Another bore a resemblance to a great conch-shell. Many were impressed with the roots of shrubs and the images of various surrounding objects—snail-shells, pebbles, twigs, and the like. On a larger scale, bubbling brooks, waterfalls, and whirlpools were represented—now no longer a burning flood, but stiff, stark, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... should drink of it, I should return and live with her forever."[129-1] Some such mystical respect for the element, rather than as a mere outfit for his spirit home, probably induced the earlier tribes of the same territory to place the conch-shell which the deceased had used for a cup conspicuously on his grave,[129-2] and the Mexicans and Peruvians to inter a vase filled with water with the corpse, or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing it, as it were, into its new associations.[130-1] It ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... the basilica at Parenzo, on the Gulf of Istria, and of St Catherines, Sinai. An interesting mosaic which is probably of this period, and has only recently been described, is at the small church of Keti in Cyprus. This, which may be the only Byzantine mosaic in the British dominions, fills the conch of a tiny apse, but is none the less of great dignity. In the centre is a figure of the Virgin with the Holy Child in her arms standing between two angels who hold disks marked with the sign [CHI]. They are named Michael and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... daughter of Rufus and Susan had Wonderful Wax Flowers, sprinkled with Diamond Dust; a What-Not bearing Mineral Specimens, Conch-Shells, and a Star-Fish, also some Hair-Cloth Furniture, very slippery and ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... for a week, the conch-shells blew their challenge of defiance to the white men. Fires rallying to war danced on the hillsides. Howls and shouts of derision echoed from the shore. The stealthy paddle of treacherous spies ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... them as bewitching as any Nixes that ever spread their nets for soft-hearted young Ritters in the old German romance waters. Neptune in a triumphal progress, with his Naiads tumbling about him, was no better off than Whitey and Pypey. They had, to be sure, no car, nor conch shells, nor dolphins; but, as Thompson remarked, these were unimportant accessories, that added but little to Neptune's comfort. The nymphs were the essential. The spectacle was a saddening one for us, I confess; the more so, because our forlorn condition ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... growing out of the fur. The trees were simply large feather-dusters, with varnished handles; but they seemed, nevertheless, to be growing in a very thriving manner, and on a little mound at the back of the lawn stood a small house, built entirely of big conch-shells, with their pink mouths turned outward. This gave the house a very cheerful appearance, as if it were ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... note yesterday from Mrs. Senator Conch," said Mrs. Formica. "She will be in Saratoga this week, and begs me to meet her there. Formica and I have been talking it over, Osgood, and we think that it will be pleasant for Dr. Black and you to go up for a week. You will ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... knowledge to which may be ascribed no small share of the theories advanced respecting the origin of the Mound-Builders, the following illustration may be taken from Wilson, this author, however, being but one of the many who are equally in fault. The error is in regard to the habitat of the conch shell, ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... belonged to the Society of Friends, and who was of course not much addicted to poetic comparisons, used to say he could never look at her without thinking of the clear pink and white of a beautiful conch-shell. She was scrupulously neat, and had something of that chastened coquetry in dress, which is apt to characterize the handsome women of her orderly sect. Her drab-colored gown, not high in the neck, was bordered by a plain narrow tucker of fine muslin, visible ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... lowing of the cows, as they waited impatiently for the bars of the pastures to be let down. A herd of sheep was driven along the road, raising a cloud of dust. From farm houses came the barking of dogs and the not unmusical notes of conch or tin horns, summoning the "men folks" ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... Her particular one was in Ohio. Demopolis, I think. One of those change-engine-and-take-on-water stops with a stucco art-nouveau station, a roof drooping all round it, as if it needed to be shaved off like edges of a pie, and the name of the town writ in conch shells on a green slant of terrace. You know—the kind that first establishes a ten-o'clock curfew for its young, its dance halls and motion-picture theaters, and then sends in a hurry call for a social-service expert from ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... where Thorpe and Shearer and Andrews, the surveyor, lay asleep. There quietly he built another fire, and filled the water-pail afresh. By the time this task was finished, the cook sounded many times a conch, and the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... sheath inside the logs and presently the sticks were burned away. The women had cooked the meats by an open fire and spread the dinner on a table of rough boards resting on poles set in crotches. At noon one of them sounded a conch shell. Then with shouts of joy the men hurried to the fireside and for a moment there was a great spluttering over the wash basins. Before they ate every man except Abe and Samson "took a pull at the jug—long or short"—to quote a phrase ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, not content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay back terrified at the sight of ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... half-submerged, being quite under water at high tide; it is covered with wild trees, those on the beach resembling the fir-trees of our country, and seemingly bearing no fruit; the natives are coal-black like the Caffres; they go about stark naked, carrying their privities in a small conch-shell, tied to the body with a bit of string; they have two holes in the midst of the nose, with fangs of hogs of swordfishes through them, protruding at least three fingers' breadths on either side, so that in appearance they are more like monsters than human beings; they ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... celestial regions, adorned all the while by the deities and Gandharvas. A century of Apsaras, adorned with celestial garlands, approach, O chief of the deities, the giver of earth as he ascends to the region of Brahman. Flowers of excellent perfumes, an excellent conch and excellent seat, an umbrella and excellent steeds with excellent vehicles, are always ready for the person how makes gifts of earth. By making gifts of earth a king can always command flowers of excellent perfumes and heaps of gold. Possessed of all kinds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... for hunting and fishing, and teaching and regular vigilance for the faithful carrying on of pisciculture, well-known already to the natives, for the advantageous disposing of their marine products, such as conch shell, mother of pearl, pearls, bichi de mer, ray skins, fish lime, etc., and for the raising of all kinds of animals useful for agricultural and industrial purposes and as victuals for the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... by his big, clumsy hands, hung over the mantel-piece, on which were many dusty treasures—the mahogany spoke of an old steering-wheel; a whale's tooth; two Chinese wrestlers, in ivory; a fan of spreading white coral; a conch-shell, its beautiful red lip serving to hold a loose bunch of cigars. In the chimney-breast was a little door, and the Captain, pulling his son into the room after that call upon Mrs. North, fumbled in his pocket for the key. "Here," he ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... morning, and after going some distance we heard a shout, and saw a man on the beach frantically waving to us, but as he would not venture near enough, we had to go on without finding out what was the matter. Shortly afterward we heard three loud blasts on a conch shell, which is always used to call natives together, but the bush being thick, we could see nothing. I myself believe it was a trap, the man evidently trying to get us ashore, so that his tribe might attack us. However, our shore party, who came along later, saw ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... dangerous neighbours to a new settlement, fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained himself in his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to raise wigwams and prepare the ground for maize; but, whenever he rode over to visit them, his approach was notified by the sound of a conch shell, and they all gathered round for his prayers ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... though obliged to trudge on foot from town to town, and country to country, paying for a supper and a bed by a tune on the flute, everything pleased, everything was good; a truckle bed in a garret was a conch of down, and the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epicure. Now, at forty, when he posts through the country in a carriage, with fair ladies by his side, everything goes wrong: he has to quarrel with postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels are barns, the meat is too ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Vignes, and lunched together at a table set out of doors, close to the car, that she might not be left alone. We had for food a strange and somewhat evil combination; wild hare and wild boar; but they seemed to suit the landscape somehow, as did the mystical music of the conch-shells, blown by passing boatmen. It was like being waked from a dream of old-time romance, by a rude hand shaking one's shoulder, to hear the voices of Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour, he mildly arguing, she disputing, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... he could have held her thus forever, and he was almost beginning to wish that he might as he watched the pallor of her face slowly give way to its natural pink and white glow, delicate as the lining of a conch-shell. Strange that he had not noted this peculiarly piquant ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... move, As rise and break the ruffled waves above.— 275 Around the nymph her mermaid-trains repair, And weave with orient pearl her radiant hair; With rapid fins she cleaves the watery way, Shoots like a diver meteor up to day; Sounds a loud conch, convokes a scaly band, 280 Her sea-born ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... Indeed, all they saw greatly astonished them. Canoes came off to us very early in the morning. About half-past seven, when we were ready to go ashore, there arose great consternation amongst the natives. Three large war canoes, with conch-shells blowing, appeared off the mainland and paddled across the Mayri Straits. Soon a large war canoe appeared near the vessel. A great many small canoes from various parts of the mainland were ordered ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... Packenham, with his supercargo and Macpherson, stepped out of the trader's dwelling, and walked together to the Mission House, a native went through the village blowing a conch. Lilo had agreed to meet the white men and discuss matters with them. Already the big room in the teacher's house was filled with people, who sat around the walls three or four deep, talking in whispered tones, and wondering why the white men troubled so much ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... "That blooming conch-shell horn of Cousin Archie's. He's going to let those chaps know there's another boat out here, and that they don't own ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... of the Ganges land, where grows no wine, is plainly Krishna, who carries club, discus, and conch. The Greek cities Methora and Kleisobora are Mathur[a] and Krishna-pur, 'Krishna-town'; the latter on the Jumna, the former near it on the same river, capital of the clan which venerated Krishna as its chief hero and god, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... not to feel that the sound had meaning for them. Five minutes passed by. The elderly manservant, Crowther, appeared in the doorway exasperatedly. He looked with appeal at Gerald. The latter took up a large, curved conch shell, that lay on a shelf, and without reference to anybody, blew a shattering blast. It was a strange rousing noise, that made the heart beat. The summons was almost magical. Everybody came running, as if at a signal. And then the crowd ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... hatchets, and a sharp-pointed flint knife or lance, eight inches long, having a neck or projection at the base, suitable for a handle, or for insertion in a shaft, on the right side. The earth behind the skull being removed, three enormous conch shells presented their open mouths. One of my assistants started back as if the ghost of the departed had come to claim the treasure preserved, in accordance with superstitious notions, for its journey to the "happy lands." The alarm seemed to be a warning, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... steps are two large stone lions; the houses on each aide of the stage have coloured awnings from their windows, and are flanked by stone arcades; on the right of the stage is the public fountain, with a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch; around the fountain is a stone seat; the bell of the Cathedral is ringing, and the citizens, men, women and children, are ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... shallow water near the shore we find great pink conch shells. The fish in them we have made into soup for our dinner, and very good ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... feet were bare. The long black hair streamed loosely. Two of them wore heavy necklaces of green stones, red pebbles, and shell beads. The last comer carried only a single string of shell beads with an iridescent conch fastened to it in front. Ear-pendants of turquoises hung from the ears ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm territorial sea: 12 nm International disputes: none Climate: tropical; marine; moderated by trade winds; sunny and relatively dry Terrain: low, flat limestone; extensive marshes and mangrove swamps Natural resources: spiny lobster, conch Land use: arable land: 2% permanent crops: 0% meadows and pastures: 0% forest and woodland: 0% other: 98% Irrigated land: NA km2 Environment: 30 islands (eight inhabited); ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... what was taken there, as their portion of the plunder. Abraham, his wife, and I waited anxiously for the morning light. Miaki, the false and cruel, came to assure us that the Heathen would not return that day. Yet, as daylight came in, Miaki himself stood and blew a great conch not far from our house. I ran out to see why this trumpet-shell had been blown, and found it was the signal for a great company of howling armed savages to rush down the hill on the other side of the bay and make straight for the Mission House. We had not a moment to lose. To have remained would ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... fancying that he was thus avenging himself on the Fury Goddesses, till that a gory foam was dashed up from the sea. Meanwhile, each one of us, as he beheld the herds being slain and ravaged, armed himself, and inflating the conch[47] shells and assembling the inhabitants—for we thought that herdsmen were weak to fight against well-trained and youthful strangers. And a large number of us was assembled in a short time. But the stranger, released from the attack of madness, drops down, with his beard befouled with foam. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... had shuffled upon his knees to the side of the boat, to hold his hands to the sides of his capacious mouth, while he sent forth a cry wonderfully like the blast given trumpet-like through a conch shell to call slaves to ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... wine-bottles and glasses, with tufts of Abies Webbiana, rhododendron flowers, and peacock's feathers, besides various trifles, clay ornaments and offerings, and little Hindoo idols. On the altar were ranged seven little brass cups, full of water; a large conch shell, carved with the sacred lotus; a brass jug from Lhassa, of beautiful design, and a human thigh-bone, hollow, and perforated through both condyles.* [To these are often added a double-headed rattle, or small drum, formed of two crowns of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... and the great conch shell was blown for the men to come in to their early supper, nurse came down to summon the children in to tidy themselves; and when she found Quillie crying in a corner, and no Julie yet to be seen, she too became uneasy. Where could the child have gone? ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... son of Poseidon or Neptune, and represented usually as blowing a trumpet made of a conch or shell; he is therefore introduced by Chaucer ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... of the fleet, and the alarm was spreading with incredible swiftness. The decks were beginning to swarm with half-awakened and half-naked Chinese. Cries and yells of warning and anger were flying over the quiet water, and somewhere a conch shell was being blown with great success. To the right of us I saw the captain of a junk chop away his mooring line with an axe and spring to help his crew at the hoisting of the huge, outlandish lug-sail. But to the left the first heads were popping up from below on another junk, and I rounded ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... trumpets probably had its origin in Egypt, and the frequent intercourse of that country with Greece probably accounts for its introduction there. The Greeks are said to have used it first in the Trojan war, when it took the place of the rough conch shells, which had in their turn replaced the ancient battle signal of the flaming torch. One of the coveted prizes of the Olympic games was awarded for the best trumpet solo, and we hear of one fortunate ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... "Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shell sounds so ravishing that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... he had often traversed before—and, for a moment, the impressions of those days seemed to come back to him, and his heart swelled. The fountain of Bernini shone curiously luminous in the sunshine, as if the dolphins and the Triton with his conch-shell had, by some interrupted metamorphose transformed themselves into a more diaphanous material—not stone, nor yet quite crystal. The noise of the building of new Rome filled all the piazza and the adjoining streets; country children ran in and out between the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio |
