"Fordable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rivers and streams, most of them fordable, but one or two we found wide and deep and were compelled to float our wagon across. We saw some game, antelopes and deer, and shot a few, forming a welcome addition to our larder; but they were generally shy and kept out of reach, without wandering too far from the track. For ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... City just ten minutes to realize that it was in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn't any. The citizens saw that we had 'em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away; and it would be two weeks at least before the river would be fordable. So they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it sounded like a selection ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... Bar, Morgan abandoned his plan of making a watering trough of Lake Erie, and fled north through the tier of river counties, keeping within a few miles of the Ohio. The river was low, but not fordable except at Coxe's Riffle, a few miles below Steubenville. Headed at this point also, he struck across the country and passed through Wintersville, a small village five miles west of Steubenville. That was ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... houses, mostly frame, scattered along both sides of two long streets, and chiefly located on the west bank of the Assunpink, which here bent sharply to the north before it flowed into the Delaware. The Assunpink was fordable in places at low water, but it was spanned by a substantial stone bridge, which gave on the road followed by Sullivan, at the west end of the village. Washington came down from the north, and entered the village from the other side. About half a mile from ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Hissar, was above our shoulders as we waded through, holding our bicycles and baggage over our heads; while the swift current rolled the small boulders against us, and almost knocked us off our feet. There were no bridges in this part of the country. With horses and wagons the rivers were usually fordable; and what more would you want? With the Turk, as with all Asiatics, it is not a question of what is better, but what will do. Long before we reached a stream, the inhabitants of a certain town or village would ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... Zand Drift, was unoccupied. On February 27 Hickman pushed De Wet away from the Drift. Two columns were behind the Boer leader, but in front of him was a weak and thinly extended force under Byng, which De Wet cut through without difficulty, and next morning reached Botha's Drift. It was fordable, and after eighteen days' absence he re-entered his own country. He had not succeeded in raiding very far into the Cape Colony, but he had baffled and outwitted the most strenuous ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... descended a steep before we came to the inn; an immense ridge of rocks stretching out on one side. The inn was sheltered under them; and about a hundred yards from it was a bridge that crossed the river, the murmurs of which I have celebrated; it was not fordable. The Swedish general received orders to stop at the bridge and dispute the passage—a most advantageous post for an army so much inferior in force; but the influence of beauty is not confined to courts. The mistress of the inn was handsome; when I saw her there were still some remains of beauty; ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the night in great uneasiness. All day the weather had threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly the Taro could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow onwards prove an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had only been asked for with a view to putting the French army in a worse position. As a fact the night had scarcely come when a terrible storm arose, and so long as darkness ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stage of the river, the bed of the Chassezac, its largest and longest tributary, is in many places completely dry on the surface—the water being sufficient only to supply the subterranean channels of infiltration—and the Ardeche itself is almost everywhere fordable, even below the mouth of the Chassezac. But in floods, the river has sometimes risen more than sixty feet at the Pont d'Arc, a natural arch of two hundred feet chord, which spans the stream below its junction with all its important ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... protected by an island as by a natural breakwater. But it had a weak side, and this had been betrayed by fishermen to Scipio. During ebb-tide the water of the shallow pool W. of the town fell so much that it was fordable and the bottom was firm. Of this Scipio took advantage. He first made a feint attack on the N. wall and then led 500 men across the ford, who scaled the W. wall and opened the ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... men, and bidden them come to Lescombe the next day to be paid for their assistance. Then they all stood to watch Mark ride through the river, at the shallowest place, indicated both by her and the labourers. It was perfectly fordable, so Annaple's were mock heroics ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has counted more than a hundred marooned cars lined up at Old Oraibi or Moencopi Wash, waiting, perhaps another twenty-four hours, for the ordinarily dry wash to become fordable. One will at least be impressed with the idea that the Snake Dance (a movable date set by the priests from the observation of shadows on their sacred rocks) comes just at the breaking of ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... round by the nearest way would be several miles. The water was not very broad, nor generally deep; but the banks and the bed of the stream were uneven and strewn with rocks and stones, small and great. It was fordable, certainly; a good rider might cross well enough; but a good rider would scarce choose to trust an unskilful one there. What was ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... myself." Then Fritz and Franz pretended to get sulky and tried to drop behind, but Hans would not allow this, either. The consequence was that the three made very slow progress homeward. Toward the evening they came to a deep stream, which they had to re-cross. It was only fordable at one point, as they all knew, because they had, of course, already crossed it before. Hans stood aside to allow Fritz and Franz to go on first, but each of them went in a little way, and ran back, saying that they ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... which befel us was one of a deplorable character. We had reached the banks of a small stream, not over fifty yards in width, but very deep. After going down it for several miles no place could be found that was fordable, and at length we made up our minds to swim across, rather than spend more time in searching for a ford. This was easy enough, as we were all swimmers, and in a few minutes most of the party were safely landed on ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... creeks overflowed; the paths became watercourses and were scarcely fordable. "Bones," my opium-eating coolie with the long neck, slipped into a hole which was too deep even for his long shanks, and all my bedding was wetted. It was ninety li to Nantien, the fort we were bound to beyond Tengyueh, and we finished the distance by sundown. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... inferior troops of the army. Arriving at the lake, he did what had been done before by the queen of Babylon in the marsh; for, by making a trench from the river to the empty reservoir, he diverted the water from the ancient channel, till it so far subsided as to become fordable. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... continued to follow it until about nine o'clock, when, in emerging from a wood, we came upon a broad and rapid river. A collection of Indian wigwams stood upon the opposite bank, and, as the trail led directly to the water, it was fair to infer that the stream was fordable. We had no opportunity of testing it, however, for the banks were so lined with ice, which was piled up tier upon tier by the breaking-up of the previous week, that we tried in vain to find a path by which we could descend the ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... mountain came a storm of wind and rain, and thunder and lightning, so great that they might scarce see each other's faces, and when it cleared off, in about an hour and a half, and went down the wind to the south-east, the stream was waxen great, and ran brown and furious down the dale, so that it was fordable only here and there; and as for tracking the slot of those twain, there was no need to talk thereof, for the fury of the driving rain had washed ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... accompanied us were armed with muskets, and kept a sharp look-out among the bushes, though there was not much fear of being attacked in this place by wild beasts in the day-time, as it was a frequented route and had been often visited by the hunter. By and by we came, to a stream, which was fordable in the dry season. Senegambia abounds with rivers and creeks; indeed it seems to be one of the best-watered regions of the earth, and has excellent means of communication for trade. These waters are full of fish, which form an important article ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... managed to advance. The river Fum was rising, but was still fordable, and they crossed it, with difficulty. It was now necessary to give up scouting, and depend entirely on the volleys of the men in front to discover ambuscades. One or two deserted or thinly populated villages were passed. Then, after two hours of this trying tramp, the advance ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... islands of Zealand are separated from each other by narrow branches of the sea, which are fordable at low water; and it was by such a passage, two leagues in breadth, and till then untried, that the Spanish detachment of one thousand seven hundred and fifty men, under Ulloa and other veteran captains, advanced to their exploit in the midst of dangers greatly increased by ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... which the English would advance was the old Roman causeway running nearly north and south. The Bannock Burn was fordable from a spot near the Park Mill down to the village of Bannockburn. Above, the banks were too high and steep to be passed; while below, where ran the Bannock through the carse, the swamps prevented passage. The army was therefore ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... a commanding ground about half a mile from Stirling, near to the Abbey of Cambus-Kenneth. The Forth lay before him, crossed by a wooden bridge, over which the enemy must pass to reach him, the river not being fordable in ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... called Ruoichin, Ruith-in, or "river island," separated from the rest of Kent and the mainland of Britain by the estuary of the Wantsum, which, though now a small brook, was formerly navigable for large vessels, and in Bede's time was three stadia broad, and fordable only at ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... left Nongoma early in the hope of reaching Ulundi that evening if the Ivuna and Black Umfolozi Rivers proved fordable. As it chanced, although they were high, we were able to cross them, I seated on the horse which two of the Zulus led. Next we tramped for miles through the terrible Bekameezi Valley, a hot and desolate place which the Zulus swear is haunted. So unhealthy is this valley, which is ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... city, and protected it from any operations on the south side. On the east the Geule was broad and deep, and an assault from this side was very difficult. The Old Haven, on the west side, was fast filling up, and was fordable for four ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... Thomas Berwick's on the Potomac, where we found the river exceedingly high, by reason of the great rains that had fallen among the Alleghanies. They told us it would not be fordable for several days; it being now six feet higher than usual, and rising. We agreed to stay till Monday. We this day called to see the famed Warm Springs. We camped out in the ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... hill of London; the dome which still rises above its foul and terrestrial clouds; and the walls of this city itself, which has been "alma," nourishing in gentleness, to the youth of England, because defended from external hostility by the difficultly fordable streams of its plain, may perhaps, in a few years more, be swept away as heaps of useless stone; but the rocks, and clouds, and rivers of our country will yet, one day, restore to it the glory of law, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... deadly Indian rifles flamed in their faces, and they were hurled back, a mere fleeing mob, searching for nothing in that moment of terror but a possible passageway across the stream. Through some rare providence of God, they chanced to strike the banks at a spot where the river proved fordable. They plunged headlong in, officers and men commingled, the Indian bullets churning up the water on every side; they struggled madly through, and spurred their horses up the steep ridge beyond. A few ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... speedily in entire possession of the British, when every means was taken to spare life, to prevent plunder, and to restore order. We must not omit to speak of the gallantry of several naval officers mentioned by Sir Hugh Gough. Having heard that the canal was fordable, he had sent Major Gough to ascertain the fact, accompanied by Captain Loch, RN, who acted as an amateur throughout the campaign, as the general's extra aide-de-camp, and Lieutenant Hodgson, of the Cornwallis, as also by Lieutenant Heatley. Instantly rushing down the ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... which served it better than an artificial ditch; its front facing the river and the heights was composed of strong thick and high palisades planted perpendicularly with gunholes pierced for several pieces of large cannon in it, the river is deep and only fordable at low water at a musket shot before the fort: this made it more difficult to be forced on that side than on its other side of earthworks facing Beauport which had a more formidable appearance and the hornwork certainly on that side was not in the least danger of being taken ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... north side is formed by a long narrow point, called Navy Point, on which was the naval establishment. Where Black River Bay meets the lake, its south shore is prolonged to the west by a projection called Horse Island, connected with the land by a fordable neck. Brown expected the landing to be made upon this, and he decided to meet the attack at the water's edge of the mainland, as the enemy crossed the neck. There he disposed his five hundred militia, placing ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Peters' corps of Tories were entrenched on the other side of the stream, in lower ground, and nearly in front of the German Battery. The little river, that meanders through the scene of the action, is fordable in all places. Stark was encamped upon the same side of it as the Germans, but, owing to its serpentine course, it crossed his line of march twice on his way to their position. Their post was carefully reconnoitered at a mile's distance, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... could not have done so had the chance been offered. They like others rode all through the darkness carrying messages to the different commands, insuring exact cooperation. As the hours of the night passed the aspect of everything grew better. The river had fallen so fast that it would be fordable before morning. ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rode ten miles or more along the bank without seeing a soul, till they reached a space of bubbling, shallow water that looked fordable. Indeed, an investigation of the banks revealed the fact that a loaded waggon had passed the river here and at no distant date, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... "The water is not fordable," said Iskander, when they had arrived at its bank. "The bridge I shall defend; and it will go hard if I do not keep them at bay long enough for you and Iduna to gain the mountains. Away; think no more of me; nay! no tear, dear lady, or you will ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... large. It became necessary therefore to search for pines of sufficient size to form a raft and, being aware that such trees grow on the borders of Point Lake, we considered it best to trace its shores in search of them; we therefore resumed our march, carefully looking but in vain for a fordable part, and encamped at the east end ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... gun-matches burning. The light grew apace. Gourgues plainly saw the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the Spaniards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the tide was out,—so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little higher up, a clump of woods lay between it and the fort. Behind this friendly screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Quebec and skirted the left shore beyond. Everywhere it was guarded, as well as in his immediate front, and having run the gauntlet of the batteries up and down the river, he returned to his post at Montmorenci. On the right of the French position, across the Montmorenci River, which was fordable at low tide, was a redoubt of the enemy. He would have that. Perhaps, to defend it the French chief would be forced out from his lines, and a battle be brought on. Wolfe determined to play these odds. He would fetch over the body of his ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... (pillaged, be H observed, from royal magazines hastily deserted,) commenced a tumultuous assault. Less than 300 militia and yeomanry formed the garrison of the place, which had no sort of defences except the natural one of the River Slaney. This, however, was fordable, and that the assailants knew. The slaughter amongst the rebels, meantime, from the little caution they exhibited, and their total defect of military skill, was murderous. Spite of their immense numerical advantages, it is probable they would ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... but after a sharp little skirmish my battalion of cavalry crossed and took up a strong position on the other bank. The stream was very high and the current very swift, the water, tumbling along over its rocky bed in an immense volume, but still it was fordable for infantry if means could be devised by which the men could keep their feet. A cable was stretched across just below the ford as a lifeline for the weaker ones, and then the men of the entire division having secured their ammunition ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... now, and go southeast two miles and you come to the crossing of the Ridge road to Corinth, where you will find General Prentiss's division, before mentioned. Keeping on, you come to Lick Creek. It has high, steep banks. It is fordable at this point, and Colonel Stuart's brigade of Sherman's division is there, guarding the crossing. The brook which gurgles past the church empties into the creek. You see that Prentiss's entire division, and the left wing of McClernand's, is between Stuart's brigade and the rest of Sherman's division. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... rugged as the route brought them near Centreville. There were no hills—a bare but not bleak champaign, mostly without houses or farms, as the North knows them. Sluggish brooks became more frequent, but none that were not easily fordable. There were no landmarks to hold the mind to the scene, nor, in case of battle, give the strategists points of vantage for the iron game. About noon, the detached groups stalking a little negligently now over the tedious plains, were startled by ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... collected them, and used them as javelins. Seven days of this brought the retreating force to the river Centrites, which parts the Carduchian mountains from the province of Armenia. With a barely fordable river, troops in evidence on the other side, and the Carduchi hanging on their rear, the passage offered great difficulties, solved by the discovery of a much shallower ford. A feint at one point by the rearguard drew off the enemy on the opposite bank, while the main body ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... interposition of our government," he declined the invitation of the Mogul to join the arms of his Majesty and the Mahrattas, "refused any connection with the Seiks," and did even neglect to take the obvious precaution of crossing the Ganges, as he had originally intended, while the river was yet fordable,—a movement that would have enabled him certainly to baffle all pursuit, and probably "to keep the Vizier in a state of disquietude for the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... quiet, rose to their feet and marched down to the ford. A portion of the infantry first passed, then the wagons were taken over, the rest of the infantry followed, and the cavalry and the elephants brought up the rear. The point where the river was fordable was at a sharp angle, and Hannibal now occupied its outer side. As daylight approached he placed his archers on the banks of the river where, owing to the sharp bend, their arrows would take in flank an enemy crossing the ford, and would also ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... inflict much heavier injury on their opponents, than they could possibly receive from them. Still, Ferdinand's men, exposed to the double fire of the fortress and the besiegers, would willingly have come to an engagement with the latter; but the river, swollen by winter torrents, was not fordable, and the bridge, the only direct avenue to the city, was enfiladed by the enemy's cannon, so as to render a sally in that direction altogether impracticable. During this time, Isabella's squadrons of light cavalry, hovering on the skirts of the Portuguese camp, effectually ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... crow flies, but eight miles from Pittsburg, and scarce twelve by the course of the river. For three-quarters of a mile below the entrance of the creek the Monongahela was unusually shallow, forming a gentle rapid or "ripple," and easily fordable at almost any point. Its common level is from three to four hundred feet below that of the surrounding country; and along its upper banks, at the second crossing, stretches a fertile bottom of a rich pebbled mould, about a fourth of a mile in width ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... there bordering on the rivers are subject to inundations, so the fordable creek becomes in an instant a broad lake, deep and rapidly running. These two riders were talking the common topic—in that famous Blue Grass region where fillies and fill-es, as the voyageur from Canada said ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... here formed a river equal to the Hawkesbury at Windsor, and in many parts as wide as the Nepean at Emu Plains. These noble streams were connected by rapids running over a rocky and pebbly bottom, but not fordable, much resembling the reaches and falls at the crossing place at Emuford, only deeper: the water was bright, and transparent, and we were fortunate enough to see it at a period when it was neither swelled beyond its proper dimensions by mountain floods, nor contracted by summer droughts. ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... look very bright, till nine o'clock; when we found that, at one point, the river was fordable to a small island, opposite the enemy's lines. Four batteries, and the Maxims, at once moved over, with two companies of Soudanese, and opened fire. The distance across was but six hundred yards, and the fire was tremendous—shell, shrapnel, and rockets—while the Soudanese fired volleys, ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... presents a very wild and picturesque aspect. To the left, in the mountain, are six chambers cut in the rock; said to be the work of Christians, to whom the greater part of the ancient structures in Syria are ascribed. The river was not fordable here; and it would have taken me at least two hours to reach, by a circuitous route, the opposite mountains. A little way higher up is the Djissr el Souk, at the termination of the Wady; this bridge ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... heights of the Sinodun Hills were held, from the very beginning of human habitation in this district, as a permanent fortress, into which the neighbouring tribes could retire during war, and one can imagine that when the river was low in summer, and perhaps fordable, the spit of land before it, which formed an exception to the marshes round about, needed to be protected as a sort of bastion beyond the stream. This theory will at least account for the two great ridges of earthwork going from one water to the other ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... the other side the ground was frequently occupied by the enemy's pickets; the difficulty of approaching the river being the only impediment to the shelling of trains on our side. The Potomac was unusually low; there had been a long season of dry, beautiful weather, rendering it fordable in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ford of the Kansas late in the afternoon of the 14th, where the river was two hundred and thirty yards wide, and commenced, immediately, preparations for crossing. I had expected to find the river fordable; but it had swollen by the late rains, and was sweeping by with an angry current, yellow and turbid as the Missouri. Up to this point the road we had traveled was a remarkably fine one, well beaten, and level— the usual road of a ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... the service was the pontoniers, whose duty it was to bridge non-fordable rivers. They were armed and drilled as infantry, but only for their own protection. Their specialty was laying and removing pontoon bridges. A pontoon train consisted of forty to fifty wagons, each carrying pontoon boats, with plank and stringers for flooring and oars and anchors for ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... abounded, he would take a circuit to avoid the sentinels, and plunge fearlessly into a thicket, or ascend a rugged hill, that to the eye seemed impassable. But the peddler was familiar with every turn in their difficult route, knew where the ravines might be penetrated, or where the streams were fordable. In one or two instances, Henry thought that their further progress was absolutely at an end, but the ingenuity, or knowledge, of his guide, conquered every difficulty. After walking at a great rate for three hours, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... plight; the five men were all captured. We escaped, but there was another trap for the next day. We off-saddled at a farm three miles from the river. Commandant Wessels, three burghers and myself rode to the Drift—"Basters Drift"—to see whether the stream was still fordable. ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happily took the south side; and in two days more they disappeared again: for they, believing we were still before them, pushed on till they came to the Udda, a very great river when it passes farther north, but when we came to it we found it narrow and fordable. ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... was hobbled as usual, and the young explorers, having ascertained that the river was nowhere fordable in the neighbourhood of the knoll, nor up to the point where it came out of the hills, the rest of the horses were turned loose, as there was no ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... late sun drooped low toward the horizon revolvers and guns were being oiled, and other preparations made for a vigorous campaign. The camp backed directly on the river at the only fordable spot within ten miles, the stream forming the fourth side to a square, the other three sides of which were breastworks of earth ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... bales of rich stuffs scattered over the waters, chests of solid ingots, and bodies of men and horses, till over this dismal ruin a passage was gradually formed, by which those in the rear were enabled to clamber to the other side. Cortes, it is said, found a place that was fordable, where, halting, with the water up to his saddle girths, he endeavoured to check the confusion, and lead his followers by a safer path to the opposite bank. But his voice was lost in the wild uproar, and finally, hurrying on with the tide, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... we crossed the Ungerengeri, which here flows southerly to the southern extremity of the valley, where it bends easterly as far as Kisemo. After crossing the river here, fordable at all times and only twenty yards in breadth, we had another mile of the valley with its excessively moist soil and rank growth of grass. It then ascended into a higher elevation, and led through a forest of mparamusi, tamarind, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... glowed with a sudden light of anger. She saw his lips move as if about to utter words of protest. Instead, however, he quickly turned, left them, and walking along the bank for a short distance reached a fordable place in the brook. He plunged into the water and after a brief struggle reached the opposite bank and disappeared ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... between the two banks of the river. There must have been considerable traffic, as we know, for instance, how St. Wenceslaus was in the habit of going to and fro between Hrad[vs]any and Vy[vs]ehrad. The river was probably fordable in several places, but it is rather a treacherous stream with a swift current and an uncertain bottom; some Hungarian troops attempted to cross it by a ford on a certain memorable occasion, and were swept away to perdition. Yet even before Judith's time there must have been need of ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... the new breach had attained a width of thirty yards, but Clive had prepared defences in the rear, similar to those at the other breach; and the difficulties of the besiegers would here be much greater, as the ditch was not fordable. ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... eyes. Further on, where we pass through tracts of forest, the axe has cleared a broad path; and down some steep declivities there has been a mild attempt at a cutting. Where we come upon streams of any size or depth, light wooden bridges have been built; and fascines have made some boggy parts fordable in wet weather. Such is our road, and along it we proceed at a hand-gallop for the most part. The jolting may be imagined, it cannot be described; for the four wheels are never by any chance on the same level at one and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... including local militiamen who had come in to reinforce the 'culls' whom Izard had left behind. The Americans, though working with very creditable zeal, determined to do their best, quite expected to be beaten out of their little forts and entrenchments, which were just across the fordable Saranac in front of Prevost's army. They had tried to delay the British advance. But, in the words of Macomb's own official report, 'so undaunted was the enemy that he never deployed in his whole march, always pressing on in column'; that is, the British veterans simply brushed ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood |
