"Declivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a steep declivity towards the river, which rushes with considerable impetuosity between its banks. Fancy a long, narrow valley, and separating the east and west portions of the town into two ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... a gentle declivity, a slope of laterite and diluvium washed down from the higher levels. The ground is good for drainage, but the soft and friable soil readily absorbs the deluging torrents of rain, and as readily returns them to the air ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... the fresh breeze across the broad expanse, and then entered a narrow passage. There was a gentle declivity on each side of the fjord, which was covered, as far as the eye could see, with pines. Droebak, on the right, is a village of one street, on the side of the hill. The houses are mostly of one story, painted yellow, with roofs covered with red tile. Before noon the passage began to widen, and the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... vegetation of any kind. They met with only one piece of drift wood, about three fathom long, with a root on it, and as thick as the Carcass's mizen mast; which had been thrown up over the high part of the land, and lay on the declivity towards the pond. They saw three bears; and a number of wild ducks, geese, and other sea fowls, with birds-nests all ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... quitted the river I considered our height above the level of the sea to be about five hundred feet, an elevation too trifling to afford a hope that any streams could rise in these regions and flow thence into the sea. In traversing these flats, the declivity, when it could be observed, was always towards the west and north-west, obliging me to believe that either the country continued a desert of sand as at present, or that its westerly inclination would cause all that part of it to consist of marshes and swamps. Since quitting the river we ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... number of British subjects in 1749. It is situated on a spacious and commodious bay or harbour, called Chebucto, of a bold and easy entrance, where a thousand of the largest ships might ride with safety. The town is built on the west side of the harbor, and on the declivity of a commanding hill, whose summit is two hundred and thirty-six feet perpendicular from the level of the sea. The town is laid out into oblong squares; the streets parallel and at right angles. The town and suburbs are about two miles in length; ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... upon the southern extremity of the mesa, fronted towards the great plain. In its centre a massive double door opened into the courtyard, or patio; and this entrance was reached by a broad causeway, sloping upward with a gentle declivity from the plain, and fenced along each edge by a parapet of strong mason-work. Thus situated, the hacienda of Las Palmas—so named from the numerous topes of palm-trees which mottled the plain in front—not ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... cliffs of this gorge are from 300 to 350 feet high. We reach the whirlpool, trend to the north-east, and after a little time gradually resume our northward course. Finally, at about seven miles from the present falls, we come to the edge of a declivity, which informs us that we have been hitherto walking on table-land. At some hundreds of feet below us is a comparatively level plain, which stretches to Lake Ontario. The declivity marks the end of the precipitous gorge of the Niagara. Here the river escapes from its steep mural boundaries, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... support. Steadily moving forward, they climbed the fence and breasted the gentle slope beyond. A few scattered shots, fired by the retreating pickets, were the only indications of the enemy's presence; the groves beyond were dark and silent. The skirmishers had reached the crest of the declivity, and the long wave of bayonets, following close upon their tracks, was within sixty paces of the covert, when the thickets stirred suddenly with sound and movement. The Southern riflemen rose swiftly to their feet. A ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in manuscript, or in the form of Sibylline Leaves. I dipped into a few of these with great satisfaction, and with the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old room with blue hangings, and covered with the round-faced family-portraits of the age of George I and II, and from the wooded declivity of the adjoining park that overlooked my window, at the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... in different directions, we made him spring his rattle again, and began another attack. This time we drove him into the clear ground, and saw him gliding off, with head and tail erect, when a stone, well aimed, knocked him over the bank, down a declivity of fifteen or twenty feet, and stretched him at his length. Having made sure of him, by a few more stones, we went down, and one of the Kanakas cut off his rattle. These rattles vary in number it is said, according to the age of the snake; though the Indians think they indicate ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... staff; and every moment she stumbled or her dress caught and was torn by some jutting crag or bramble. In this way our progress was being continually interrupted and rendered almost impossible, when suddenly we came upon a sharp declivity leading to a steep path which wound down the side of the precipice to the beach below. Looking down, I saw on the shore beneath the cliff a collection of fishermen's huts, and groups of men and women on the shingle, mending nets, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... including some of the Tenth who had originally moved to the left 30 toward this second hill and had worked their way in groups, slipping through the tall grass and bushes, crawling when casualties came too often, courageously facing a sleet of bullets, and now hugging the steep southern declivity ready to spring forward the few remaining yards into the teeth of the enemy. The fire from the Spanish position had doubled in intensity until the popping of their rifles 5 made a continuous roar. There was a moment's lull and our line moved forward to the charge across the valley separating the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... something comic and unbelievable. It loosened my grip on my mental processes. A Latin tag came into my head about the facile descent into the abyss. I marvelled at its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat. But I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of the street of the Consuls which lies on a gentle slope. We had just turned the corner. All the houses were dark and in a perspective of complete solitude our two shadows dodged and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... upon me that I had passed the slide or declivity on the hillside, where logs were slipped down into the valley, and I inferred that Johnson's business was ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sun began to shine along the glistening waters of the Guadalete as the Moorish army, squadron after squadron, came sweeping down a gentle declivity to the sound of martial music. Their turbans and robes, of various dyes and fashions, gave a splendid appearance to their host; as they marched, a cloud of dust arose and partly hid them from the sight, but still there ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... was possible to turn the highest point of the pass, that which formed the southern protection of the building, and come out on the side of the cove at another shelf, that was not more than fifty feet above the level of the vessel's decks. Down this last declivity, Roswell proposed to lower his casks by means of a projecting derrick, the rock being sufficiently precipitous to admit of this arrangement, while his spare spars furnished him with the necessary means. Thus was every preparation made with judgment ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... a forest, carrying off a great belt of timber, wherewith to strew the little valley, and block the road and stream below. The rugged mountains on either hand have been burnt over, and send up into the blue ether bare, white, foot-enticing peaks. At the base of the western declivity lies the valley of the East Branch of the Au Sable, and beyond, the great Adirondac range, overtopped by Whiteface and Mount Tahawus. We greeted these giants with due reverence, hoping for a nearer acquaintance, for only ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... five had not proceeded far, when, in passing through a defile, overhung with trees, they heard the voice of a man, singing. They immediately concealed themselves in a grove, on the brow of a declivity, up which the stranger would have to ascend. The moonlight, which left the grove in deep shadow, lit up the whole person of the wayfarer, as he advanced, and enabled them to distinguish his dress and appearance with perfect accuracy. He was a Moorish cavalier, and his noble demeanor, graceful carriage, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... which lay in the vicinity of certain lands cultivated by Vang-yung-man and Vang-ky-hao, inasmuch as that the fields of Vang-yung-man lay on the left of those of She-fo-pao, which were in the center, and those of Vang-ky-hao on the right side of the declivity of the hill. It occurred that on the 7th day of the 9th moon of the same year, She-fo-pao observing the corn in his fields to be nearly ripe, was apprehensive that thieves might find an opportunity of stealing ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... "Gap," and was riding down the declivity at a rapid rate, when the sky became still more overcast, and the clouds gathered in quick succession; while the low fulminating of the distant thunder, and the death-like stillness of the defile, indicated the speedy ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... exhausted. Through this crowd the seven Englishmen and twenty Sikhs walked their horses, and met not the least opposition. They reached the eastern side without insult or injury, passed through the gates, and descending the declivity found themselves in the rear of the whole Chinese army. The dangers through which they had passed were as nothing compared with those they had now to encounter. A shell burst in the air at this moment, followed by the discharge of the batteries ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which you know extends as far as Etretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I re-entered the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this old and original creature. But she did not respond ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... ground on the mountainside. The great object of the young men who guided the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the top ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... there is a spice of excitement about it. I was nervous at first, and seeing that the mule wished to nibble such herbage as offered itself, I had thought it well to humor him. At a narrow space with sharp declivity below, the beast fixed his jaws upon a small tough bush on the upper bank. As he warmed up to the work, his hind feet worked around toward the edge of the chasm. The bush began to come out by the roots, which seemed to be without end. As ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... on the bank, dilapidated, and threatening to tumble over the declivity with the first rough wind. The clergyman led his little friend into this open building, and sat down upon the only entire seat that ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... up on what, at first appeared to be the brink of a precipice, and what in reality was a declivity, down which only the slow and sure foot of a steer or broncho might safely tread. He sat aghast at his narrow escape. Then, turning at the sound of a voice behind him, he found that Jacky had come down from the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... through which I passed. We mounted at first by a steep grade along the summit of one of those twisted spurs that, from a distance, mark out provinces of sun and shade upon the mountain-side. The ground fell away on either hand with an extreme declivity. From either hand, out of profound ravines, mounted the song of falling water and the smoke of household fires. Here and there the hills of foliage would divide, and our eye would plunge down upon one of these deep-nested habitations. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the mountain, the road, on reaching the gentle declivity which lay at the base of the hill, turned at a right angle to its former course, and shot down an inclined plane, directly into the village of Templeton. The rapid little stream that we have already mentioned was crossed by a bridge of hewn timber, which manifested, by its rude construction ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Canadian otter has a peculiar habit in winter of sliding down ridges of snow, apparently for amusement. It, with its companions, scrambles up a high ridge, and then, lying down flat, glides head-foremost down the declivity, sometimes for a distance of twenty yards. "This sport they continue apparently with the keenest enjoyment, until fatigue or hunger induces ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... leaving their work, often took a short cut homeward from the lower slope to the road just below the power-house, by crossing this gentle declivity of the ledge. Evidently Billy McCann with this in mind had twisted the injunction to "go straight home" into a chance to "cut across"; for surely this way would be the "straightest." Besides, there was the added inducement of close proximity to the wonderful new ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... the tired, trembling girl, he saw that a stand against the oncomer was unavoidable. He cleverly selected the spot for this stand, and braced himself as for the onslaught. Scarcely a yard beyond his position there was a sharp declivity among the rocks, with a clear drop of a dozen feet or more to the bottom of a wide crevasse. His shot went wild and he could not repeat it, for Dorothy was frantically clutching his arm. The strategem ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... cross this deep depression, and as long to master a steep hot ascent of about 400 feet, formed by a recent lava-flow from Hale-mau-mau into the basin. This lava hill is an extraordinary sight—a flood of molten stone, solidifying as it ran down the declivity, forming arrested waves, streams, eddies, gigantic convolutions, forms of snakes, stems of trees, gnarled roots, crooked water-pipes, all involved and contorted on a gigantic scale, a wilderness of force and dread. Over one steeper place the lava had run in a fiery cascade about 100 feet wide. Some ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... speeding over the snow and in a few minutes was at the edge of the declivity in which lay the penguin rookery. Gazing down into it the boys could hardly ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... elsewhere—where could he go? It mattered little what he was, tinker or tailor. He had now only to work his way back to the mind of the peasant; to be an animal with intelligence; to get close to mother earth, and move down the declivity of life with what natural wisdom were possible. It was his duty to adapt himself to the mind of such as this tailor; to acquire what the tailor and his like had found—an intolerant belief and an inexpensive security, to be got through yielding his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was accessible to ships, and had wood and water in plenty. Before departing therefore, they set up high marks of stones on two opposite hills at the entrance of the bay, and placed a board on the declivity of a hill to the right, on one side of which they cut G. III. R. and S.U.F.—Georgius III Rex, Societas Unitatis Fratrum; and on the other, the initials of the missionaries, with the date of their arrival. This tablet was raised with some ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... from the hotel to Blackstones Bridge, returning by boat through the lake, is a short tour of many attractions. Beneath, at one side, lie the bright waters of the bay; on the other the dark waters of the lake. The Killorglin road is reached about a mile from Acoose Lake, and then following the declivity by a mountain stream, we get a good view of Gort-na-gloran Mountain, on the east of the lake, and see in the distance the fishing hamlet of Glencar, with the Glencar Hotel high up on pasture ground, surrounded by a cordon of green fir trees. Except in ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... summit of mysterious disappearances. Choosing the shortest path he could find which promised to lead him down to the mining hamlet at the foot of the westward-fronting slope, he set his feet in it and went stumbling down the steep declivity, bringing up, finally, on a little bench just above the mine workings. Here he stopped to get his breath and his bearings. From his halting-place the mine head-quarters building lay just below him, at the right of the tunnel entrance to the mine. It ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... wood, and constructed of the ordinary frame-work, with its thin covering of boards. It was long, low, and irregular; bearing marks of having been reared at different periods, as the wants of an increasing family had required additional accommodation. It stood near the verge of the natural declivity, and on that side of the hill where its base was washed by the rivulet, a rude piazza stretching along the whole of its front and overhanging the stream. Several large, irregular, and clumsy chimneys, rose out of different parts of the roofs, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... furiously, as if rejoicing in the work of destruction, while the white foam of its eddies presents a fearful contrast to the prevailing blackness of the surface. Over the last declivity it leaps, hissing, foaming, crashing like an avalanche. The stone wall for a moment opposes its force, but falls the next, with a mighty splash, carrying the spray far and wide, while its own fragments roll onwards ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of Kutaiah. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 13,000; Christians, 5000). Called Nicopolis by Leo III. after his victory over the Arabs in 740, its name was changed by the Seljuk Turks to Kara-hissar. It stands partly on level ground, partly on a declivity, and above it rises a precipitous trachytic rock (400 ft.) on the summit of which are the ruins of an ancient castle. From its situation on the route of the caravans between Smyrna and western Asia on the one hand, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Corinthian columns of white marble, which stand on the declivity of the Capitoline hill, are commonly supposed to be the remains of the temple of Jupiter Tonans, erected by Augustus. Part of the frieze and cornice are attached to them, which with the capitals of the columns are finely ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... about to make his final effort, and it was to be against the flank where now lay Hazen's brigade. Quickly deploying his regiments, Hazen placed them in four lines, closed one upon another, and the men lay flat upon their faces. The yell of the enemy was heard in the wood below, and in a moment the declivity in front was covered with the heavy lines of the assailants. Then the first of Hazen's regiments was brought to its feet and poured its volley straight into the faces of the oncoming foe. The next regiment, and the next, and then the last, followed in quick succession. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... canopy made from a Navajo blanket. The terrace is supposed to extend almost to the right of stage, and here it stops. The stage must be cut here so that the entrance of JOHN can give the illusion that he is coming up a steep declivity or a long flight of stairs. There are chairs at right and left, and a small table at left. There are trailing vines around the balustrade of the terrace, and the whole setting must convey the idea of quiet wealth. Up stage is supposed to be the part of the terrace overlooking the canon, a sheer ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... watched beside it for an hour and a quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing from under his knees, beneath which the sand, disturbed by his efforts, was sliding downwards along the surface of the rock. Concluding that the sliding sand was the cause of the sounds, not an effect of the vibrations ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... of the breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of the river, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... volcano lighting us every night. This was one of the most imposing sights I ever beheld; large streams of molten lava pouring down the sides of the mountain, whilst at intervals, huge masses of solid burning matter were hurled into the air, and rebounding from their fall, ricocheted down the declivity till they found a resting ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... observation applies to an hypothesis of Lieutenant Nelson's ("Geolog. Trans." volume v., page 122), who supposes that the ring-formed structure is caused by a greater number of germs of corals becoming attached to the declivity, than to the central plateau of a submarine bank: it likewise applies to the notion formerly entertained (Forster's "Observ." page 151), that lagoon-islands owe their peculiar form to the instinctive tendencies of the polypifers. According to this latter view, the corals ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... him, leaving herself in his hands. He went over the brim of the declivity and began to ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... distance from the road, was a crevasse, and toward this she sped, for once before an accident had happened there. Again the voice called as she sped—"Pauline!"—and she cried out that she was coming. Presently she stood above the declivity, and peered over. Almost immediately below her, a few feet down, was a man lying in the snow. He had strayed from the obliterated road, and had fallen down the crevasse, twisting his foot cruelly. Unable to walk, he had crawled several hundred yards in the snow, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... descent was mere child's play; but we soon found ourselves treading on a reddish ferruginous soil, which some great land-slip had exposed. Sumichrast was the first to venture on this dangerous ground, which gave way under him at his third stride. Our companion rolled over the declivity, instinctively grasping the first branches he could reach; but he let go directly, uttering a piercing cry. Fortunately a shrub kept him from falling into the gulf. I planted my feet as deeply as I could in the crumbling soil, so as to be able to help my ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... clothed its banks in the shape of willows and alders that set compactly around the quaint, irregular dwelling which straggled down the ravine and looked upon a slope of bracken and foliage on either side. The transition from the black, treeless, storm-swept plain to this sheltered declivity was striking and suggestive. From the opposite bank one might fancy that the youthful and original dwelling had ambitiously mounted the crest, but, appalled at the dreary prospect beyond, had gone no further; while from ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... a tree containing a nest of a Wood or Summer Duck, on the banks of Tuckahoe river, New Jersey. The tree stood on a declivity twenty yards from the water, and in its hollow and broken top, about six feet down, on the soft decayed wood were thirteen eggs covered with down from the mother's breast. The eggs were of an exact oval shape, the surface smooth and fine grained, of a yellowish color ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... in front of the scene, the pitiless storm at the back, the carpenter missed his footing, tripped over one of the ledges, and fell down, wheelbarrow, cannon-balls, and all. The stage being on a declivity, the cannon-balls came rolling rapidly and noisily down towards the front, gathering force as they advanced, and overcoming the feeble resistance offered by the scene, struck it down, passed over its prostrate form, and made their way towards the foot-lights and the fiddlers, amidst the amusement ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... circle has a back) of our mansion, as the kitchen, while the other at a greater distance formed the "servants' hall." We all worked hard for several days in beautifying our house and grounds. In the lovely short grass that resembled green velvet, we cut walks to the edge of a declivity, and surrounded the house with a path of snow-white sand, resembling coarsely pounded sugar; this we obtained from some decomposed sandstone rock which crumbled upon the slightest pressure. We collected ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... down the steep declivity beyond goes your mule, slipping a little. He is reared back until his rump almost brushes the trail; he grunts mild protests at every lurching step and grips his shoecalks into the half-frozen path. You reflect that ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... there was another narrow escape. As the prisoners quitted the post-house, they saw the whole population pouring in fury down the steep declivity on which the city is built. They passed near Niort, but could not venture to enter it. The inhabitants came forth with threatening aspect, and vehemently cried to the postillions to stop; but the postillions urged the horses to full speed, and soon left the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that as though almost panic-stricken, the spies finally betook themselves into the sheltering forest. Before they could hide under the branches of the oaks, the tall man was seen to stumble at the top of a rather steep declivity and roll all the way to the bottom, as though he might be a barrel that some mischievous lad had started downhill for the fun of seeing ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... centuries would pass away before any other individual would chance to behold and admire that beautiful terrace on the mountain side. I then plunged among the trees and vines growing upon the steep declivity on the further side, and, after a precipitous retreat of two or three hundred feet, heard the murmuring of a stream below, by following which I at length ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... with which he had forced Ruth to the edge of the path. She fell sideways, dizzy and faint, clinging to the rough rock with both hands. As it was, she came near rolling over the declivity after all. ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... to the lake was down a gentle declivity, and the wheelbarrow moved more easily than before. In a short time they reached their destination, on the shore of the beautiful sheet of water at which was moored a boat. It was not such a craft as the Greyhound, in which Fanny had been accustomed to sail; it was a bateau, or flat-bottomed ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... got up, his lifelong habit of cautious movement asserting itself even here, and with tremulous, withered hands, lighted his candle. Then he put on his piebald dressing-gown and his carpet slippers, and sat on the declivity of his bed, blinking at the light, as wide awake as ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... was in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, in the month of September(1905), while bears were very activism. John M. Phillips and I shot two large white goats, one of which rolled down a steep declivity and out upon the slide- rock, where it was skinned. The flensed body of the other was rolled over the edge of a cliff, and fell on a brushy soil-covered spot about on the same level as the remains ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... sauntering over the table-land, and seeking as much as possible the shade, in the soft but oppressive atmosphere. At the limit of the table- land their course lay by a wild but winding path through a gradual and wooded declivity. While they were yet in this craggy and romantic woodland, the big fervent drops began to fall. Coningsby urged Edith to seek at once a natural shelter; but she, who knew the country, assured him that the fishing-cottage ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... king was speaking, Madame had risen from her seat, looked around the greensward, and after a careful and silent examination, she called the king to her side, and said, "See yonder, sire, upon the declivity of that little hill, near that group of Guelder roses, that beautiful girl walking alone, her head down, her arms hanging by her side, with her eyes fixed upon the flowers, which she crushes beneath her feet, like one who ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... towards Rome. It is on a gentle declivity leaning to the south-east, and situated between Mount Aventine ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... remainder of that day till moonlight, close by the skirt of a long wood, that we might take shelter therein, if there should be occasion $ and my eyes were the best part of the way behind me; but neither hearing nor seeing anything to annoy us, and finding by the declivity of the ground we should soon be in some plain or bottom, and have a chance of water for us all, and pasture for our muletto, which was now become one of us, we would not halt till we found a bottom to the hill, which in half an hour more we came to, and in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... of General Upton reads in part as follows: "The Second Connecticut, anxious to prove its courage, moved to the assault in beautiful order. Crossing an open field it entered a pine-wood, passed down a gentle declivity and up a slight ascent. Here the charge was checked. For seventy feet in front of the works the trees had been felled, interlocking with each other and barring all further advance. Two paths several yards apart, and wide enough for four men to march abreast, led through the ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... collection of machines of every description employed in the mechanical arts. Among these is the belier hydraulique, newly invented by MONTGOLFIER, by means of which a stream of water, having a few feet of declivity, can be raised to the top of a house by a single valve or sucker, so disposed as to open, to admit the water, and shut, when it is to be raised by compression. By increasing the compression, it can be raised to 1000 feet, and may be carried to a much ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... night when Carlos Freggetti came down a steep declivity into Great Saffron Street and walked swiftly along that deserted thoroughfare till he came to his brother's house. His brother was a respectable Italian artisan, engaged by an asphalt company in London. Near the narrow door of the tenement in ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. A blinding ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... the Spanish cavalrymen put spurs to their steeds and dashed down the declivity. The first two were allowed to pass. Then came a double flash of flame from the bushes and one of the riders fell, while another uttered the cry of a wounded man. Two more were killed before the panic-stricken horsemen were borne beyond range. Those ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... above the Factory, and the current being too rapid for using oars to advantage, the crew had to commence tracking, or dragging the boat by a line to which they were harnessed. This operation is extremely laborious in these rivers. Our men were obliged to walk along the steep declivity of a high bank, rendered at this season soft and slippery by frequent rains, and their progress was often further impeded by fallen trees which, having slipped from the verge of the thick wood above, hung on the face of the bank in a great ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... Is ugly, ill paved and ill looking: but the backs of the habitations offer, on one side the street, prospects of fine hills, and on the other, noble openings to the sea. The town is built upon a declivity, of which the church is at the summit, and the harbour makes the termination. It was in the harbour, that is upon the quay, that we were at first lodged ; and our apartments were by no means without interest or amusement; but just as we were comfortably settled in them, we were told the ebbs and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... to rest, but to his alarm he noticed a horseman in hot pursuit upon his trail. Spurring his steed onward, Pelistes now made his way into the rough intricacies of the mountain paths; but, unluckily, as he was passing along the edge of a declivity, his horse stumbled and rolled down into the ravine below, so bruising and cutting him in the fall that, when he struggled to his feet, his face was ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... may, therefore, David Lockwin must avoid it until he can control himself. It is true his books are in there, his manuscripts, his chronicles, "Josephus," and a thousand things without which he cannot lay hold on the true dignity of life. It is true he is slipping down the declivity that invites the easy descent of the obscure and powerless citizen. If he have true hope—and what lover has it not—he must hurry away. He is not safe in Chicago just at present, because the abstraction of a lover, joined with the self-forgetfulness of a man in ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... the horses, in their onward career, came to a curve in the road, where, on one side, there was a hill, and on the other a declivity. It was a sharp turn. Their impetus was too swift to be readily stayed. Dashing onward, the carriage was whirled around after them, and was thrown off the road down the declivity. For a few paces the horses dragged it onward as it Iay on its side, and then the weight of the carriage ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... good people, was verily a marvel, and there was probably not such another for a long way from the spot that engages us—the point at which the soft declivity of Hampstead began at that time to confess in broken accents to Saint John's Wood. He despised Mallow's statues and adored Mallow's wife, and yet was distinctly fond of Mallow, to whom, in turn, he was equally ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... foundling was dying in his arms. He could presently wait no longer, either for Keno's return or for anything else. He caught up two of the blankets from the bed, and, wrapping them eagerly, swiftly about the moaning little man, left his cabin standing open and hastened down the white declivity as fast as he could go, Tintoretto, with puppy whinings of concern, ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... was skimming over the gray water. Even as I gazed, the fellow plying the paddle saw me, and waved his hand. In another moment the bow grounded on the bank and its occupant came stumbling up the slight declivity. ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... mountainous; therefore, this trail is one series of ascents and descents. The greatest pitch is near the scene of the fight in which Lieutenant Davidson and his command were engaged, where the path, in order to avoid an almost perpendicular declivity, makes a zig zag course. To accomplish the ascent of this mountain on a good riding animal, it takes, at least, two hours; therefore, the height of the mountain can be easily imagined by those accustomed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... gloomy, terrible-looking place. To the left was a steep slope of small rocks and stones, leading downwards to the hollow of sedgy land that fringed the cliffs of the chasm. The only retreat possible was to pass down this declivity, and try to escape by the sedgy land, and this is what the Black huntsmen had expected. It was a very weird and desolate place; and everything looked dark and dismal, under the moonlight, as it streamed between stormy ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... the field; the native women reaping, with the hand only, and stalk by stalk, the ripe paddy (rice) in one field, while those in the next are sowing the seed; the adjoining fields being covered with stubble, their crops having been reaped weeks before. Upon the declivity of the mountain is seen the stately coffee-tree, the plantations of which commence about 1300 feet above the level of the sea, and proceed up the hill till they reach the height of 4000 feet. Nothing ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... down murderously on the steep, treeless declivity. The sound of shells bursting off at a distance, of tattooing machine guns, and roaring artillery on their own side was now mingled with the howling sound of shots whizzing through the air and coming closer and closer. And still the top of the ridge had not been reached! The captain felt ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... during the autumn of 1853, a camp of immigrants had encountered grave difficulties. A short way out from the camp, a steep mountain declivity lay squarely across their track. One of the women of the party exclaimed, when she first saw it, "Have we come to the jumping-off place at last?" It was no exclamation for effect, but a fervent prayer for deliverance. ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... was gyrating like a dervish as he mouthed the hackneyed phrases of the sanctified. As the new-comers pressed among the bystanders hemming the inner circle of the faithful, the performer with a last frantic whirl dropped exhausted, and rolling down a slight declivity lay stark and deathlike at their feet, his white beard and hair ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... enough left to stand, and he lost his balance at this violent as well as unexpected push. He stumbled over the first step, reeled as he tried to regain his footing, and fell head first down the almost vertical declivity. A ledge of the cliff, against which he first struck, threw him upon the loose rocks. He slowly glided downward, uttering lamentable cries; he clutched, for a moment, a little bush which had grown in a crevice of the rocks but he did not have strength enough to hold ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the 19th, were employed in rebuilding the bridges. On the 19th of August, before day, Ney crossed the river by the light of the suburb, which was on fire. At first, he saw there no enemies but the flames, and he began to climb the long and rugged declivity on which it stands. His troops proceeded slowly and with caution, making a thousand circuits to avoid the fire. The Russians had managed it with skill: it met our men at every point, and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... all kind, should be secondary. In general the appearance of the constitution of the locality must be considered if one would proceed usfully to choose the samples destined to represent them; the choice would be easy if one would establish a rule never to quit a declivity, a mountain, a country even, without having made the section (geologically). We should add that these sections should be the principal object in the labours of ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... the pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton Colliery, both of which proved quite successful. Amongst other works of this time, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity which fell towards the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had officiated as brakesman; and he so arranged it, that the full waggons descending drew the empty waggons up the railroad. This was one of the first self-acting inclines ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... cantering his horse down the declivity to the Norken. Crossing by the bridge near Mullen, he turned to the right and rode up the hill of Royegham. Here a strong brigade, composed of cavalry and infantry, under General Grimaldi, was stationed. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... leave thee, dadda," protested the girl, as she guided the mare over the let-down bars of the fence, through which her father put Joggles, and in a moment both horses were climbing the declivity ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Bonaparte had driven the Archduke Charles, with an army equal to his own, over the Julian Alps, and occupied Carniola, Carinthia, Trieste, Fiume, and the Italian Tyrol, while a force of forty-five thousand men, flushed with victory, was on the northern declivity of the Alps, within fifty leagues of Vienna. In the midst of these successes, an insurrection broke out in the Venetian territories; and, as Bonaparte was not supported, as he expected, by the Armies of the Rhine, and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... clear pool, and after washing my hands and face continued my flight. Above the source of the brook I encountered a rugged climb to the summit of a long ridge. Beyond was a steep declivity to the shore of a placid, inland sea, upon the quiet surface of which ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nearly to the place advancing, Descending rather quickly the declivity, Through the waved branches o'er the greensward glancing, 'Midst other indications of festivity, Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing Like Dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance[178] so martial, To which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... loud cries changed to confiding murmurs. Evidently some hurried questions and answers passed between them, and then Sir Muscovy waddled rapidly by the quickest path, Miss Crippletoes following him at a slower pace, and both passed out of sight, using their wings to help their feet down the steep declivity. The next morning, when I wakened early, my first thought was to look out, and there on the sunny greensward where they were accustomed to be fed, Sir Muscovy, Lady Blanche, and their humble maid, Malardina Crippletoes, were scattering their own breakfast before the bills of twelve beautiful ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of the Gospel, except in the unhealthiness of the climate. The most healthful location seemed to be Lapithos, a large village on the northwestern shore, two days' journey from Larnica. The village had a charming location, rising from the base of the mountain, and ascending the steep declivity a thousand feet. From thence perpendicular precipices arose, which sheltered it from the hot south winds. The coast of Caramania was in full view on the north, and refreshing breezes crossed the narrow channel which separated Cyprus from the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... Fort Motte, to the north, stood another hill, where Mrs. Motte, who had been expelled from her dwelling, resided in an old farm-house. On this, Lee took position with his corps: Marion's men occupied the eastern declivity of the same ridge on ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... industry, particularly of the metallurgic industry. Beds of coal which in extent and quality at least equalled the best of England, magnetite containing from fifty to seventy per cent. of iron, copper, lead, bismuth, antimony, sulphur in rich veins, a large bed of rock-salt on the western declivity just above the salt lake of Nakuro, and a number of other mineral treasures, were discovered in rapid succession, and the most accessible of them were at once taken advantage of. In particular, the newly opened copper-mines had a heavy demand made upon their resources ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... of which I got six for a penny, a stage came at full speed down the hill, with only two men on the driving-seat. The back straps had evidently given way, and the whole machine had a tendency to jump forward, when, in coming down the steepest part of the declivity, it got a jolt, and in the most ridiculous way turned "topsy-turvy," the roof coming down upon the horses' backs. The men were thrown off unhurt, but the poor animals were ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... weary preoccupation, opened her eyes to see that the driver had halted at a turn of the road, where apparently it descended a fearful declivity. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... thy happy shore a Temple[449] still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps Upon a mild declivity of hill,[nd] Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales,[450] Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails[ne] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... On the western declivity of this mountain range, the most remarkable illustration of this fact of cropping out is found at Batopilos, already mentioned. This town is in a deep ravine. The climate is, like that of the California ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Posilipo, the work of Murat, skirted the gulf, rising along the mountain edge and constantly emphasizing the declivity between the covering of its feet and the border of the sea. On this hanging slope may be seen villas with white or rosy facades midst the splendor of a vegetation that is always green and glossy. Beyond the colonnades of palm trees and parasol pines, ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... manner northern with respect to these for they have the Germans to the east and north, on the west they are bounded by the English sea, and the mountains of Arragon, and on the south by the people of Provence and the declivity of the Apennine." Ibid. c. x. "Each of these three," he observes, "has its own claims to distinction The excellency of the French language consists in its being best adapted, on account of its facility and agreeableness, to prose narration, (quicquid ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... retreat to the chariots. Thus they act with the celerity of horse, and the stability of foot; and by daily use and exercise they acquire the power of holding up their horses at full speed down a steep declivity, of stopping them suddenly, and turning in a short compass; and they accustom themselves to run upon the pole, and stand on the cross-tree, and from thence with great agility to recover their place in ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... were avoided like the cases of plague, and were left to hobble up the terraced street as best they might. Even mothers, after dragging them at their own sides till fearful of being too late, abandoned their young in the highway, certain of finding them rolled to the foot of the declivity, should they fail of scrambling to its summit. In short, it was a scene of confusion in which there was much to laugh at, something to awaken wonder, and not ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... it swarming with trout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while the ascent grew steeper, the creek became a mere rill that issued from beneath loose, moss-covered rocks and stones, and with much labor and puffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity. Every mountain has its steepest point, which is usually near the summit, in keeping, I suppose, with the providence that makes the darkest hour just before day. It is steep, steeper, steepest, till you emerge on the smooth level or gently ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a portion of the greater one of Blackburnshire, and is so called from the celebrated mountain of that name, over the declivity of which it extends and stretches in a long but interrupted descent of five miles, to the water of Pendle, a barren and dreary tract. Dr. Whitaker observes of this and the neighbouring forests, and the remark even yet holds good, "that they still ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... excursive tour to admire the antique and picturesque.—Thus what numerous attractions are presented to us, sauntering along the woody lane on foot, which are lost or overlooked in the velocity of a drive! On the declivity of a meadow, inviting our reflection, rises a little Saxon church, grey with antiquity, and solemnized by its surrounding memorials of "Here lies."—Across the heath, encircled with fences of uncouth stones, stands a stern record of feudal yore; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... a place where the valley took a turn so as to expose the mountain side to the sun in such a manner as to make a good place there for grapes to grow and ripen. The people had accordingly terraced the whole declivity by building walls, one above another, to support the earth for the vineyards; and when Rollo was going by the place he looked up and saw a man standing on the wall of one of the terraces, with the tool ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... however, learnt from Killgrove, feller of forests, that there was a certain farmer on the lake, one of the chieftains of that realm, who would hospitably entertain us. Smith, wheedler of trout, landed us in quite an ambitious foamy surf at the foot of a declivity below ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... kind hospitalities of Capt. Sutter. A party of men who have been exploring a route to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains, have just returned, and report that they have found a good wagon road on the declivity ridge between the American fork and the McCossamy rivers, the distance being much less than by the old route. The road will pass through the gold district, and enter the valley ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... Joe and Sam rolling the logs, which during the winter had been piled high upon the bank, down the steep declivity or "dump" into the stream below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt and Nora were seated on a log beside them engaged ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... to a spacious amphitheatre on the northern declivity of the hill, when the following address was delivered by Mr. Webster, in the presence of as great a multitude as was ever perhaps assembled within the sound ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... willingly have stopped some time here on the declivity of the hill, to enjoy the extensive prospect before them, had they not been apprehensive of the dampness of the grass. "How delightful it would be," exclaimed some one, "if we had a Turkey carpet to lay down here!" The wish was scarcely expressed when the man in the grey coat put his hand in ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... the reputation of being very great and very strong, but which proved to be an exaggeration, for the village is small, containing only about three or four hundred inhabitants. The master-of-camp having arrived, as I have said, at that port, the Indians were drawn up on a declivity before the village, and made signs that they intended to prevent the entrance of the Spaniards. The master-of-camp, with all his soldiers, leaped ashore in front of the village on a little plain, and, approaching the village in a zigzag course, thus attacked it. The ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... too far down the declivity to be seen till the enemy came to the top of the hill, and the riflemen were likely to bring them to a halt before they could reach that point. The captain had taken a position where he could see without being seen. Sooner than he expected he ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... they ran from the tunnel, glanced around once as they reached the cliff path, then leaped down the declivity. That swift glance showed them the camp deserted except for the wondering women, who wandered idly among the empty huts, ever looking toward the forest wherein had vanished all their men, waiting with bovine patience for any one to ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... some way whereby he could outwit the stubborn lord, for he would not willingly resign his lady-love. He left the tower, vowing to do his utmost to perform the seemingly impossible task, and as he descended the rocky declivity his beloved waved her handkerchief ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... impetus of terror in her muscles, her breath short and fluttering, her eyes distended and unseeing, plunged wildly down the rugged, craggy declivity, painfully aware of his wonder as he gazed from the distance, prefiguring, too, his disapproval. Perhaps this had its unnerving influence, though swift and surefooted ordinarily, her ankle turned amidst ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... white sails are scattered over it like wings, steamers leaving behind them their trail of smoke; and on the sands, fishermen no larger than birds, in their anchored boats like nests. Then the road descends, follows a rapid declivity along the rocks and sharp promontories. The fresh wind from the waves shakes the little harness bells; while on the right, on the side of the mountain, the rows of pine-trees, the green oaks with roots ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... probably only stunned for the moment, they buckled warmly to the chase. The mountain-side was steep and rough, and men on foot were better than on horseback; accordingly Will dismounted, and clapping his pony soundly on the flank, sent him clattering on down the declivity, and himself stepped aside behind a large pine. The pursuing party rushed past him, and when they were safely gone, he climbed back over the mountain, and made his way as best he could to the Horseshoe. It was a twenty-five mile plod, and he reached the station early ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... cases, the clearing of the ground, which, in consequence of a temporary diversion of the waters, or from some other cause, has become rewooded, sometimes renews the ravages of the torrent. Thus, on the left bank of the Durance, a wooded declivity had been formed by the debris brought down by torrents, which had extinguished themselves after having swept off much of the superficial strata of the mountain of Morgon. "All this district was covered with woods, which have now been thinned out and are perishing from day to day; consequently, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... the walls down with them. Standing, as they did, almost one above another, each house that fell brought down the one below it and, thus, the ruin spread—as one house of cards brings down another—until the whole of the town standing on the steep declivity, on its eastern side, was a mass ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... long range, moderate height, and gentle declivity of Mount Atlas, (see Shaw's Travels, p. 5,) are very unlike a solitary mountain which rears its head into the clouds, and seems to support the heavens. The peak of Teneriff, on the contrary, rises a league and a half above the surface of the sea; and, as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... excavating the sand, while others were apparently placing their eggs in the holes they had made. As the morning drew on, they began to waddle away towards the river. The margin of the upper bank was rather steep, and it was amusing to see them tumbling head foremost down the declivity, and then going on again till the leaders reached the water. We now all rushed forward, and were in time to catch several, turning them over on their backs, where they lay ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... away the stream came roaring down a long declivity in a mad white rapid and then shot across the glassy green surface of the pool below in a raised-up wedge of foam. Wet boulders and outcropping fangs of rock hemmed in the water, and among them lay stranded logs and stream-packed masses of whitened branches. Farther ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... was fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the north of Medina; [132] the Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent; and the right wing of cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful of the Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a detachment of fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled and broke the centre of the idolaters: but in the pursuit they lost the advantage of their ground: the archers deserted their station: the Mussulmans were tempted by the spoil, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... capital; how the manufacturing social workshops will differ from those of the fields; and many other things besides. I know well that you will answer: By the specific virtue of the law! And if your government, your State, knows not how to make it? Do you not see that you are sliding down a declivity, and that you are obliged to grasp at something similar to the existing law? It is easy to see by reading you that you are especially devoted to the invention of a power susceptible of application to your system; but I declare, after reading you carefully, that in my opinion you ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the Red-Cross Knight and his achievements, dragged me away to a sunburnt, contemptible hillock, commanding the view of a serpentine ditch, and decorated with the title of Jardin Anglois. Some object like decayed limekilns and mouldering ovens, is disposed in an amphitheatrical form, on the declivity of this tremendous eminence: and there is to be ivy, and a cascade, and what not, as my conductor observed. A glance was all I bestowed on this caricature upon English gardens; I then went off in a huff at being chased from my ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... thirty or forty men sitting or lying upon other rocks and boulders around him, on the craggy mountain shelf where they had gathered, a man also rose, elbowed past them, and with a hurried impulse tried to descend the declivity. But a cry was suddenly heard from others, quick and clamoring, which called the whole assembly to its feet, and it was seen that the fugitive had in some blundering way fallen ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... always rather fast, and down a declivity the torturers go at a run; the result is, that prominent parts of one's body are continually in collision with the seat or sides of the machine, coming down from various altitudes, according to the nature of the ground and the humour of the inquisitors. ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... and drops of falling water. Behind this tree is placed a rustic bench, where, on a pleasant day in June, one may sit and look forth upon as pretty a landscape as can be seen in all Hillsdale County, or, for that matter, in all the State as well. Before you lies the declivity of the hill upon which the village stands. At its foot begins a verdant plain of interval meadows, dotted here and there with graceful elms and stately hickories, each standing alone in its ring of shadow, the turf everywhere bespangled with dandelions and buttercups, and changing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... breath. It lingered, and might linger, but would never culminate again without some stimulus from earthly vineyards. [Footnote: Though not exactly in the same circumstances as Kate, or sleeping, a la belle etoile, on a declivity of the Andes, I have known (or heard circumstantially reported) the cases of many ladies besides Kate, who were in precisely the same critical danger of perishing for want of a little brandy. A dessert ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey |
