"Harpoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it may hereafter concern," namely, the "cabin gentry;" the claims of the captors being waived, set aside, and overruled. The two mates soon followed their commander, "armed and equipped," the one with the graves, (a sort of harpoon for taking smaller fish,) and the other with a large reel of fish-line and hooks, baited with salt pork—the commentators on the two last chapters of Acts broke up their conference, leaving St. Paul and the centurion in comfortable quarters at The Three ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... evolved human being, with a whole past of slowly acquired culture lying dimly and mysteriously behind him. Already he had invented the bow with its flint-tipped arrow, the neatly chipped javelin-head, the bone harpoon, the barbed fish-hook, the axe, the lance, the dagger, and the needle. Already he had learnt how to decorate his implements with artistic skill, and to carve the handles of his knives with the figures of animals. ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the gladiators, for they now approached him, and their frantic enthusiasm kept him for some time from all other thoughts. While they flourished their weapons-some the sword and buckler, and others the not less terrible net and harpoon—the time-honored cry rose from their husky throats in eager acclamation: "Hail, Caesar! those about to die salute thee!" Then, in rows of ten men each, they crossed the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gnarled hand kept watch and watch with a blue star on its opposite member. Barry chuckled audibly as, in a casual flourish, one great arm was half turned, showing the comparative white of the underarm upon which was blazoned a pair of gory hearts in collision, impaled on a harpoon apparently. Around this work of art a flamboyant motto announced to ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... those who say that slavery is dead. We are like whalers who have been long on a chase—we have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or, with one 'flop' of his tail, he will yet send us all ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... accordingly done for, if, as often happens, he in attempting to escape seeks his deliverance in the sea. There, he is, as the hunters say, "as easy to kill as a sheep," but one has to make haste to get hold of the killed animal with a harpoon or in some other way, for it speedily sinks, unless ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... bring me my harpoon! I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon." Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb, Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like sea-weed on ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... think of that? The wind died down, his engine got stalled, and he and Hosey Talbot had to row home from the Bell Reef Shoals. Haw, haw! Maybe I didn't roar when I saw them come pulling in against the tide, mad as two man-eating sharks. Fit to harpoon the first person they met, they were. I sung out and asked them were they practicing for the Harvard and Yale boat race and Dave was that peeved he shied an oarlock after me. Haw, ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... stone, brickbat, grenade, shell, bomb, carcass, rocket; congreve[obs3], congreve rocket[obs3]; shrapnel, mitraille[Fr]; levin bolt[obs3], levin brand[obs3]; thunderbolt. pike, lance, spear, spontoon[obs3], javelin, dart, jereed[obs3], jerid[obs3], arrow, reed, shaft, bolt, boomerang, harpoon, gaff; eelspear[obs3], oxgoad[obs3], weet-weet, wommerah[obs3]; cattle prod; chemical mace. Phr. en ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... shot, trebucbet^, trebucket^; bullet, slug, stone, brickbat, grenade, shell, bomb, carcass, rocket; congreve^, congreve rocket^; shrapnel, mitraille [Fr.]; levin bolt^, levin brand^; thunderbolt. pike, lance, spear, spontoon^, javelin, dart, jereed^, jerid^, arrow, reed, shaft, bolt, boomerang, harpoon, gaff; eelspear^, oxgoad^, weet-weet, wommerah^; cattle prod; chemical mace. Phr. en flute; nervos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... barbed harpoons and with spears. The harpoon is sometimes thrown at the beluga from a considerable distance. When struck the creature rushes to the surface, plunges and rolls to get free. He never defends himself but thinks only of flight. It is an accident if a boat is upset by the stroke of its tail; such accidents sometimes happen but the ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... the lightning of mid-August. They lay on the deck with bare feet and arms, telling one another what they would order at their first meal ashore; for now the land was in plain sight. A Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, a man in the little pulpit on the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, his bare head plastered down with the wet. "And all's well!" he sang cheerily, as though he were watch on a big liner. "Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's the news ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... few strokes of the axe, Charley lopped off all the branches save one close to the small end of the trunk. This one he cut off so as to leave a projecting stub of about four inches, thus making of the end of his sapling a sort of rude harpoon. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... spoke Nigel saw the brown little fellow shooting about like a galvanised tadpole, with a small harpoon in his hand. ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... start off. We rowed as fast as we could, until we came up near where the whale was lying. Oh, what a large whale! As soon as the boat got near enough, one man threw two harpoons at the whale, and they both stuck fast in his flesh. A harpoon is a long and sharp iron, made like a spear, so that when it strikes the whale, it goes in deep, and you cannot pull it out. The harpoon is fastened to a long rope, and the rope is ...
— Jack Mason, The Old Sailor • Theodore Thinker
... bodies, a larger and a smaller welded together at the tapering ends. On the face of the larger bell is represented the now well-known group of a king or chief with a sort of Persian head-dress, with a harpoon-like projection at the top. He is supported on both sides by similarly dressed individuals; somewhat above the level of his head the chief is flanked by two tablets, each upheld by a hand emerging from the background. The background is enchased ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... probable that there is any, nearer than New Holland, or Van Diemen's Land, from which we were distant 260 leagues. We had, at the same time, several porpoises playing about us; into one of which Mr Cooper struck a harpoon; but as the ship was running seven knots, it broke its hold, after towing it some minutes, and before we could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks in the enemy's general; you wind him ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... in this fishing tackle on a large scale, eagerly watched the unlashing and laying out of the coils of new, soft, strong, tarred line, the walrus harpoons, lances with their long, thin, smooth, white pine poles, the white whale harpoon, and the harpoon gun. Every one of these implements was full of suggestive thoughts of exciting adventure; so, too, were the ice anchors and picks; and as all were carefully examined in turn the Norway men talked to each other, making plenty of comments ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... when the honey-bee stabs a human foe it generally leaves its harpoon in the wound, and the invalid knew that the only thing this bee had to sting with was doing its work at the end ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... bow, like a springle-riser; line on the hum, like the string of Paganini winch on the gallop, like a harpoon wheel, Pike, the head-centre of everything, dashing through thick and thin, and once taken overhead—for he jumped into the hole, when he must have lost him else, but the fish too impetuously towed him out, and made off in passion ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... heart and shame to her cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. Col. Sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who should say "Now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before him "Let me help you, Washington—Lafayette pass this plate Washington—ah, well, well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, I tell you. Speculation—my! the whole atmosphere's full of money. I would'nt take three fortunes ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... man in Pennsylvania took it into his head to probe the ground for the source of a certain oil that made its appearance upon the surface. Down, down into the bowels of the earth he thrust his steam-driven harpoon, until he touched the living fountain of oil, which, gushing up, half drowned him. Now, all the region round about him swarms with industry. Thousands of men are hurrying to and fro; the puff of the engine is heard everywhere; tens ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... wholesale greediness, seized the bait, and feeling the hook in his horrid jaw, tugged most fiercely to release himself, but in vain. Twelve sailors hauled him in, when, with distended jaws, he seemed to look out for the legs of the men, whereupon they rammed the butt-end of a harpoon down his throat, which put a stop to all further proceedings on his part. He was said to be quite young, perhaps the child of doting parents. The juvenile monster had, however, already ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... inwented a new harpoon, Brave boys As was shaped on a whoppingish sca-a-a-le And he thought with delight, (The "magnanimous" mite!) He was going to catch that Whale, Brave boys! He made cocksure o' catching ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... Wind, "the hunting commenced. The harpoon was flung into the breast of the walrus, so that a smoking stream of blood spurted forth like a fountain, and besprinkled the ice. Then I thought of my own game; I began to blow, and set my own ships, the great icebergs ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... scenery, untenanted save by the wigwam and the bark canoe. As usual, upon the arrival of the steamer, the long canoe, steadily held by a single boy and paddle, in a current swift as the Niagara, shoots out into the Saut, while the Indian, standing erect in the canoe, poising his harpoon and scrap net, strikes or swoops in the large and delicious white fish, assured of a capacious basketful and more, before the steamer leaves ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... episodes of fragile boats smashed to kindling by fighting whales, of the attack renewed with harpoon and lance, of ships actually rammed and sunk, would fill a volume by themselves and have been stirringly narrated in many a one. Zanzibar and Kamchatka, Tasmania and the Seychelles knew the lean, sun-dried Yankee whaleman and his ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... you, honest Louis, boatsteerer, in the shades beyond. You wielded harpoon and lance better than the pen, and couldn't write poetry. Your informing statement about the "ile" at once recalled to memory an inscription upon the wooden head-board of the grave of another boat-steerer which in 1873 was to be seen at Ponape, in ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... all exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain's room. And there, in the middle of it, was the man himself—his face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck upward in his agony. Right through his broad breast a steel harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of the wall behind him. He was pinned like a beetle on a card. Of course, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that he had uttered that ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... yet. They look too mad. I gave 'em the harpoon in good shape, as is usual, but I didn't expect they'd run here so soon. Thought they ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... clacking his hard fist on the table rim. "Law will tie more knots in a man's business than a whale can tie in a harpoon-line. There ain't no justice in it—only pickin's and stealin's. Why, I had a mate once that was downed on T wharf in Bos'n and robbed, and they caught the men, and the mate couldn't give witness bonds and they locked him up with 'em, and the men got away one night and wa'n't ever ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... spare time after hide-curing was over for the day. Another amusement which we sometimes indulged in was "burning the water'' for craw-fish. For this purpose we procured a pair of grains, with a long staff like a harpoon, and, making torches with tarred rope twisted round a long pine stick, took the only boat on the beach, a small skiff, and with a torch-bearer in the bow, a steersman in the stern, and one man on each side with the grains, went off, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "That there harpoon," he said, pointing to a rusty relic on the wall above the mantelpiece, "was given to me by the finest whaling captain that ever found his way into the North water. When I first went to sea I thought I'd like to be ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... this lonely brace owned; but what could I imagine to be afraid of aboard a brig holding two persons only, with the whaler's boat and three men within a few strokes of the oar, and the old barque, Swan, full of livelies, many of them deadly in the art of casting the harpoon, within easy hail? ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... heard, on a calm day, with great distinctness at the distance of two miles at least. We found musket-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of their skin being such that whale-lances generally bend without penetrating it. One of these creatures being accidentally touched by one of the oars in Lieutenant Nias's boat, took hold of it between its flippers, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... green-and-brown stretch of shore, which rolled undulatingly toward the icy fringe of the polar sea, more than twoscore hunters were engaged in unusual activity. Some were lacing tight over the framework the taut skin of their kayaks. Others sharpened harpoon points with bits of flint. Tateraq busily cut long lashings from tanned walrus hides. Maisanguaq deftly took these and pieced them together into long lines, which were rolled in coils lasso-fashion. Arnaluk and a half dozen others sat on ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... the barque. Our situation was rather unpleasant: in a rough sea, the other boats out of sight, and each moment the wind increasing. We continued to strain every muscle till we were hard upon the whale. Tabor sprang to the bow, and stood by with the harpoon. "Softly, softly, my lads," said the headsman. "Ay, ay sir!" "Hush-h-h! softly! Now's your time, Tabor!" Tabor let fly the harpoon, and buried the iron. "Give him another!" "Stern all!" thundered P——. "Stern all!" And, as we rapidly backed from the whale, he flung ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... popular name of cod-liver oil. Catching sharks is not an employment entirely devoid of danger, as they are large and powerful, often measuring twenty feet and more in length. The shark, like the whale, when it is first struck with the harpoon, must be given plenty of line, or it will drag down the fishermen's boat in its rapid descent to deep water. Sometimes the struggle to capture the fish is a long and serious one, as it must thoroughly exhaust itself before it ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... four harpooners only one was left, a fierce barbarian of a New Zealander—an excellent mariner, whose stock of English was limited to nautical phrases and a frightful power of oath, but who, in spite of his cannibal origin, ranked as a sort of officer, in virtue of his harpoon, and took command of the ship when mate and captain were absent. What a capital story, by the bye, Typee tells us of one of this Bembo's whaling exploits! New Zealanders are brave and bloodthirsty, and excellent harpooners, and they act up to the South-Seaman's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... and hunting. The Japanese laws, which have year by year been made more stringent, have somewhat interfered with the sporting proclivities of the people. Nets and fish traps are now forbidden, and fishing for the most part is effected by means of a spear or harpoon, either from the shore or from the somewhat primitive canoes used by the people. Poisoned arrows were once largely used for the purpose of capturing game, but they are now forbidden by law. Originally the modus operandi in hunting was to set a trap ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... spite himself as well as them; for it had obliged him to leave a sea-life, to which, in comparison, all life spent on shore was worse than nothing for dulness. For Robson had never reached that rank aboard ship which made his being unable to run up the rigging, or to throw a harpoon, or to fire off a gun, of no great consequence; so he had to be thankful that an opportune legacy enabled him to turn farmer, a great degradation in his opinion. But his blood warmed, as he told the specksioneer, towards a sailor, and he pressed Kinraid to ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... mate is always the mate par excellence—soon got fast to a huge bull-whale who, when he felt the deadly harpoon in his vitals, swiftly turned and struck the whale-boat a terrific blow with his tail, smashing it into kindling wood and hurling the men in every direction. After that {232} splendid exhibition of power, he got away scot-free save for the rankling iron and the dangling line which he took with ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... glass hung in brackets on the wall; there was a hog-yoke in its case upon a little table, and a ship's chronometer, and a compass.... There were charts in a tin tube upon the wall, and one that showed the Harbor and the channel to the sea hung between the middle windows. In the north corner, a harpoon, and two lances, and a boat spade leaned. Their blades were covered with wooden sheaths, painted gray. A fifteen-foot jawbone, cleaned and polished and with every curving tooth in place, hung upon the rear wall and gleamed like old and yellow ivory. The chair at the table was fashioned ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... spear-head a stout cord of deer-sinew is fastened by one end, its other being secured to the shaft near its insertion. The salmon is struck by this weapon in the manner of the ordinary fish-spear; the head slips off the shaft as soon as the barbs lodge, and the harpoon virtually becomes a fishing-rod, with the sinew for a line. This arrangement is much more manageable than the common spear, as it greatly diminishes the chances of losing fish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... "-shake," manpremo. handkerchief : naztuko. handle : tenilo, manpreni. hang : pend'i, -igi. hansom : kabrioleto, fiakro. happen : okazi. harbour : haveno. harden : malmoligi, (health), hardi hare : leporo. harm : difekti, malutili. harness : jungi, jungajxo. harpoon : harpuno. harrow : erpi, erpilo. harvest : rikolto. hasten : rapid'i, -igi. hatch : kovi. hatchet : hakilo. haunch : kokso. hawk : akcipitro; kolporti. hawthorn : kratago. hay : fojno. hazlenut : avelo. heal : resanigi, cikatrigxi. health : sano. "propose a—," toasti. heap : amas'o, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... such hours, of course these smugglers stood little chance of detection; although vigilant looking policemen were always standing by. And though these "Charlies" might suppose there were tobacco smugglers passing; yet to hit the right man among such a throng, would be as hard, as to harpoon a speckled porpoise, one of ten thousand ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... about the whale having his unmentionable parasite—and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy—I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a pity, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... "if it interests you at all I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis Strait, have been found afterwards on the coast of Tartary, still carrying a European harpoon in their side." ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... "We will harpoon it, if you like, though I do not know why I should risk the lives of my crew. Where's Bowline? Pass the word ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... that he had been the first to send out a whaler from Havre, and had secured almost a monopoly of the oil-trade. Some years afterwards I made a passage with his brother, and learned from him the history of this Yankee enterprise, which had filled two capacious purses, and substituted the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the very stronghold of the emblem of peace; and now the collier with his pickaxe has driven them both from the field. But the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not wait for the change. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... where chunky, square-rigged whalers, green and rotting, too, were moored alongside. The life of the whaler was in those days something infinitely fascinating to us boys. We read of the chase, the hurling of the harpoon, the mad ride over the waves towed by the plunging monster. And here were the very ships which had taken the brave whalers to the hunting grounds, here on their decks were some of the whale boats which had been towed over the churned and blood-flecked ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... also in our way: for the Indians had surrounded the shore with staves and javelins 16 feet long, with a piece of bone at the end in the form of a harpoon, in their hands, hallooing and shouting in the most hideous manner, at the same time making signs with their hands for us to be gone; always taking care, as the boat sailed along the shore, to move in the same direction and accompany it; and though the men saw some turtle ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... wroth at what Mr. Ewer had done. Truth had been shot into their hearts, and if I should say that they bellowed like mad bulls, and spouted like whales, gored mortally by the harpoon, I do not think the figure of speech would be too strong. Mr. Crocker, the contractor or agent, for our wood, felt himself especially aggrieved that I had gotten bail, and was let loose upon the plantation, ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... perfect thicket of barbed-wire, and I had a bright scheme for its removal. I got hold of a trench catapult, an ingenious contrivance of elastic that hurls a bomb some hundreds of yards, and placed in it a harpoon attached to a long coil of rope. The idea was that on release of the catapult the harpoon would be hurled in the air, the rope would neatly pay out, and then, as soon as the harpoon had grappled Mahomet, all we would have to do would be to haul on the rope and over would come the whole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... leeward of the animals. From time to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and soon we were so near that we had to row very cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sunk it again, a few more strokes ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... hollow reed and use it for a shaft. Make a shaft with a socket in it. Fit a spearhead into the socket. Change the spear so as to make a harpoon. ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... o'clock train that afternoon. I seen her talkin' to Eddie Duke near the African Desert, and I immediately went scoutin' around for Joe, because Eddie liked him the same way the brewers is infatuated with the Anti-Saloon League and I knowed if Eddie got a chance to harpoon Joe with Gladys, he'd ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... through its breast had little or no effect, and even when the shot had been repeated more than once, it was as full of life as ever.[1] It feigned death and lay motionless, with its eye closed; but, on being pricked with a spear, it suddenly regained all its activity. It was at last finished by a harpoon, and then opened. Its maw contained several small tortoises, and a quantity of broken bricks and gravel, taken ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... the dogs and the babies lay among the feet of the rowers, and the women sang songs as they glided from cape to cape over the glassy, cold waters. All the luxuries that the Tununirmiut knew came from the south—driftwood for sleigh-runners, rod-iron for harpoon-tips, steel knives, tin kettles that cooked food much better than the old soap-stone affairs, flint and steel, and even matches, as well as coloured ribbons for the women's hair, little cheap mirrors, and red cloth for the edging of deerskin ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... power, after which it is still better for him to learn of how great power. Then he will not hit a cartridge with a hammer in order to find out, and when he dines in good society he can still lift his pie gracefully in his hand, and will not be compelled to harpoon it with an iron hook at the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... this, and yet he saw that she would be a harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up his mind that he would have her, he must go armed with all implements, from the red hackle to the harpoon. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... encounter with the shark, placed the harpoons in readiness; and amused me by seeming to picture himself a whaler, flourishing his harpoon in most approved fashion. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... bow!" sung out the captain, who stood laughing to see the labors of the poor animal, who was becoming exhausted; "let's see who'll have the first harpoon!" and he hurled a billet at the dog's head as he was going down for the second time. Harry, seeing the action, cried out, "Save him! who will save my poor Nep?" and fell fainting upon the deck. Fortunately the hard-hearted man had missed his mark for once, and by the light of the moon, the ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... bone-teeth, about two inches long. Herrings and sardines, and such other small fish as come in shoals, are attacked with this instrument; which is struck into the shoal, and the fish are caught either upon or between the teeth. Their hooks are made of bone and wood, and rather inartificially; but the harpoon, with which they strike the whales and lesser sea-animals, shew a great reach of contrivance. It is composed of a piece of bone, cut into two barbs, in which is fixed the oval blade of a large muscle-shell, in which is the point of the instrument. To this is fastened about two or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... sunrise I accompanied the howartis, or hippopotamus hunters, for a day's sport. There were numbers of hippos in this part of the river, and we were not long before we found a herd. The hunters failed in several attempts to harpoon them, but they succeeded in stalking a crocodile after a most peculiar fashion. This large beast was lying upon a sandbank on the opposite margin of the river, close to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... him," said Solomon. "His heart has gone down the river. But it'll be comin' back. It 'minds me o' the fust time I throwed a harpoon into a sperm whale. He went off like a bullet an' sounded an' took my harpoon an' a lot o' good rope with him an' got away with it. Fer days I couldn't think o' nothin' but that 'ere whale. Then he b'gun to grow smaller an' less important. Jack has ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company seated round the genial board, evinced their dexterity in launching their forks at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish,—in much the same manner that sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... greatest enemy of their flying neighbors, tumbled playfully about in the rippling water, and at times encircled the ship in great numbers. Their motion is swift and vigorous,—so much so that it is scarcely possible to strike them with a harpoon. ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... sailing along through the Sound, a herd of porpoises came gambolling by, their black bodies and fins now appearing, now sinking beneath the surface. Captain Truck had a harpoon ready, and he placed himself in the forechains, with a rope round his waist. He stood with his weapon high poised in the air, ready to strike. We were all on the watch. In a few moments his harpoon flew ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... But—damn it, Dad hurt me—shamed me, and I dug out for the West. It was this way. After leaving college I tried to please him by tackling one thing after another that he set me to do. On the square, I had no head for business. I made a mess of everything. The governor got sore. He kept ramming the harpoon into me till I just couldn't stand it. What little ability I possessed deserted me when I got my back up, and there you are. Dad and I had a rather uncomfortable half hour. When I quit—when I told him straight out that ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... all laughing merrily at their awkward bungling. Next they tied a stone to the end of the rope to carry it further and with better aim, but the result was no better. Then majestic old Toyatte tried his hand at the game. He tied the rope to one of the canoe-poles, and taking aim threw it, harpoon fashion, beyond the duck, and the general merriment was redoubled when the pole got loose and floated out to the middle of the pond. At length John stripped, swam to the duck, threw it ashore, and brought in the pole in his teeth, his companions meanwhile making merry at his expense ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... days after they had stepped through the barrier of time at the outpost, Ross and Ashe balanced on the rounded back of a whale. It was a whale which would deceive anyone who did not test its hide with a harpoon, and whalers with harpoons large enough to trouble such a monster were yet well in ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... in this lake, and, very shortly after I had killed the first, I shot a second much in the same manner. I always carried a harpoon in the boat with the rope and ambatch float. The latter was painted red, so that it could be easily observed. I therefore, stuck the harpoon in the dead hippopotamus as a mark, and hastened back to my diahbeeah for assistance, as the flesh of two hippopotami would ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim down their throats. There were no threshers there to thresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance them. They were quite safe and happy there; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of old beasts ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... of blizzards, there was usually sufficient work to be found to keep us all employed. Thus on June 2, Watson and I were making a ladder, Jones was contriving a harpoon for seals, Hoadley was opening cases and stowing stores in the veranda, Dovers cleaning tools, Moyes repairing a thermograph and writing up the meteorological log, Harrisson cooking and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Marseilles, at the head of the staircase, holds two of them at arms' length, trying in a friendly manner to draw them down.[2691] At the foot of the staircase the crowd is shouting and threatening; lighter men, armed with boat-hooks, harpoon the sentinels by their shoulder-straps, and pull down four or five, like so many fishes, amid shouts of laughter.—Just at this moment a pistol goes off; nobody being able to tell which party fired it.[2692] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... for taking boiled meat out of the pot, with five or more prongs; hence "harpoon." ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... with an oleagenous element, Thus drew she from the mould, waxen candles, whose gold-tinted beauty Crown'd proudly the mantel-piece, reserved for bettermost occasions. Unheard of, then, was the gas, with briliant jet and gorgeous chandelier, Nor hunted they from zone to zone, with barbed harpoon the mighty whale, Making the indignant monarch of ocean, their flambeau and link-boy: For each household held within itself, its own fountain of light. Faithful was the rural housewife, taking charge of all intrusted things, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... shaft. The whole of the barb turned on a stout pivot of steel, but was kept in line with the shaft by a tiny wooden peg which passed through barb and shaft, being then cut off smoothly on both sides. The point of the harpoon had at one side a wedge-shaped edge, ground to razor keenness, the other side was flat. The shaft, about thirty inches long, was of the best malleable iron, so soft that it would tie into a knot and straighten out again without fracture. Three harpoons, or "irons" as they were ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... rule about it," the whaler answered; "sometimes for quite a while, but I reckon ten to fifteen minutes is about the usual. Some of 'em can stay down a long while sulkin' when they've got a harpoon or two in 'em, but I reckon three-quarters of an hour would ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... pork was made fast to a rope and suspended from the stern, letting it sink about a foot under the surface. C——, Smith, and I were in the captain's boat, with three sailors, under the orders of Lapworth, who had taken his stand immediately above with a harpoon. The shark came up, nibbling and smelling at the pork, so close to us in the boat that he almost rubbed along the side without apparent alarm or taking any notice of our presence. He was a monster, nearly nine feet in length, and as he came alongside, his back ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... whale, I suppose, is pulmonary in part, as he is obliged to come frequently to the surface, whence he can be pursued after he is struck with the harpoon; and may nevertheless be in part like the gills of other fish, as he seems to draw in water when he is below the surface, and emits it again ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... of the island. They were clad in dresses, which appeared to me to be made of black leather, consisting of a pair of trousers, and a long pea-jacket, very similar to those worn by the Esquimaux Indians, which we occasionally fell in with in the Northern Ocean. They each held a long harpoon, formed entirely of bone, in their ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... wandered away northwards over the Atlantic and seen whalers attack the blue whale—the largest animal now living in the world, for it often attains to a length of 90 feet. At the present day whalers use strongly built, swift, and easily handled steam-launches, and shoot the harpoon out from the bow with a pivoted gun. In the head of the harpoon is a pointed shell which explodes in the body of the whale, dealing a mortal wound, and at the butt end a thick rope is secured. The vessel follows the whale until it is dead. Then it is hauled up with a steam winch and towed to a ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... breaking them into a thousand fragments. The whale shows great affection for her young, which is called the calf; the fishermen well know this, and turn it to their own account; they try to strike the young with the harpoon, which is a strong, barbed instrument, and if they do this they are almost sure of securing the mother also, as nothing will induce her ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... mark he shot. And it's all arisen out of Dinky-Dunk's bland intimation that I am "a withered beauty." Those words have held like a fish-hook in the gills of my memory. If they'd come from somebody else they mightn't have meant so much. But from one's own husband—Wow!—they go in like a harpoon. And they have given me a great deal to think about. There are times, I find, when I can accept that intimation of slipping into the sere and yellow leaf without revolt. Then the next moment it fills me with a sort of desperation. I refuse to go up on the shelf. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... "throw the harpoon! Got your yachtin' cap on, ain't you? Well, have I got to sub for you at a ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... may be in this case, let me contrast in a single glance the momentary effect in conversation of the two neighbors, Hawthorne and Emerson. Speech seemed like a kind of travail to Hawthorne. One must harpoon him like a cetacean with questions to make him talk at all. Then the words came from him at last, with bashful manifestations, like those of a young girl, almost—words that gasped themselves forth, seeming to leave a great deal more behind ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... deep. This aggression without danger appeared to revive in his soul the outraged souls of a hundred Mediterranean ancestors, cruel and piratical perhaps, but who, nevertheless, had sought the enemy face to face with naked breast, battle-axe in hand, and the barbed harpoon for boarding ship as ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... a big bull. He had put Lord Joe at the sweep, and was going to harpoon himself. He backed, and made a fine cast. But the fish, instead of sounding, turned on their boat, and took it in his mouth. They all spilled clear except Lord Joe; the poor nigger was caught. Then the fish sounded, and made off with a tub of line. I picked up Garboy and his ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Barney hurried below to secure a native harpoon and skin-rope. Bruce provided himself with ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... your body the reverberation of the iron and the scraping of the bone; and on your skin shall grow the rasupa-tree and the shiuri-tree of which the spear-handle is made, and the hai-grass by which the tip of the harpoon is tied to the body of it, and the nipesh-tree of which the rope tying the harpoon itself is made, so that, though you are such a mighty fish, you shall not be able to swim in the water; and you shall die, and a last be washed ashore ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... was a Samoan. He was intended by nature to be a warrior, a leader of men; or—and no higher praise can I give to his dauntless courage—a boat-header on a sperm whaler. Strong of arm and quick of eye, he was the very man to either throw the harpoon or deal the death-giving thrust or the lance to the monarch of the ocean world; but fate or circumstance had made him a missionary instead. He was a fairly good missionary, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... round, and young Jack, standing up on the head of the boat, held the harpoon ready for use when they should be ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... frequently to catch dolphins during the passage, by striking them with a small harpoon as they played under the bow of the brig. They are not at all like the creatures I remember carved in stone at the entrance of some gentleman's park near Dublin. They measure about four feet in length; are thick in the middle, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... his harpoon into the monster's quivering blubber, and with a dexterity that was wonderful in a man of his size, he seized another and thrust it to the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... flesh-colored;[172] and in the upper tributaries is the Inia Boliviensis, resembling, but specifically different from the sea-dolphin and the soosoo of the Ganges. "It was several years (says the Naturalist on the Amazon) before I could induce a fisherman to harpoon dolphins (Boutos) for me as specimens, for no one ever kills these animals voluntarily; the superstitious people believe that blindness would result from the use of the oil in lamps." The herbivorous manati ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... so the most courageous of the men try to kill them whenever they can get near enough. When the Kalopaling sits sleeping, the hunter comes up very cautiously and throws a walrus harpoon into him. Then he shuts his eyes tight until the Kalopaling is dead, otherwise the hunter's boat would be capsized and he be drowned. They dare not eat the flesh of the creatures, for it is poisonous; but the ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... past without our getting sight of any of the inhabitants, and indeed without a single incident worth notice. On the 22d, we killed a turtle for the day's provision, upon opening which we found a wooden harpoon or turtle-peg, about as thick as a man's finger, near fifteen inches long, and bearded at the end, such as we had seen among the natives, sticking through both shoulders: It appeared to have been struck a considerable time, for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. a head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta for Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but if ever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving him hints, he shut up at ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... race that taxed the boats' crews to the utmost; for it is always a matter keenly contested by the different crews, who shall fix the first harpoon in the whale. The larboard boat was steered by Mr Millons, the first mate; the waist-boat by Mr Markham, the second mate—the latter an active man of about five-and-twenty, whose size and physical strength were herculean, and whose disposition ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne |
