"Hawser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work and began to use every atom of strength in his sturdy muscles; at the same time he engineered matters in such a clever fashion that every time he pulled his oars through the water it was with a rapid movement in the nature of a shock, so that the little hawser tightening, gave a drag ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... and remembering my great duty to her Majesty.' Determined to be 'single in the head of all,' he pushed between the Nonparilla and Rainbow, and 'thrust himself athwart the channel, so as I was sure none should outstart me again for that day.' Vere pulled the Rainbow close up by a hawser he had ordered to be fastened to the Warspright's side. But Ralegh's sailors cut it; and back slipped into his place the Marshal, 'whom,' writes Ralegh, 'I guarded, all but his very prow, from the sight of the enemy.' At length he proceeded to grapple ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... time I went I cut the cables in pieces, carried off a hawser whole, with a great deal of iron work, and made another raft with the mizen and sprit-sail-yard; but this being so unwieldy, by the too heavy burden I had upon it, and not being able so dextrously to guide it, as the former, both my cargo and I were overturned. For my part, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... is, the boats were worked along the edge of the rapid, one at a time, in and out among the boulders with three or four men clinging to them to fend them off the rocks and several more holding on to the hundred-foot hawser, so that there was no possibility of one getting loose and smashing up, or leaving us altogether. It was then noon and a camp was made for the remainder of the day on the left bank in a very comfortable ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... companions, left behind on the shore of Black Rock Creek. One of them, I knew, was wounded; perhaps the others were also. Having seen me dragged overboard by the hawser, could they possibly suppose that I had been rescued by the "Terror?" Surely not! Doubtless the news of my death had already been telegraphed to Mr. Ward from Toledo. And now who would dare to undertake a new campaign against this "Master ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... cannot escape from Smollett's vigorous grasp. Sir Walter thought that "Roderick" excelled its successor in "ease and simplicity," and that Smollett's sailors, in "Pickle," "border on caricature." No doubt they do: the eccentricities of Hawser Trunnion, Esq., are exaggerated, and Pipes is less subdued than Rattlin, though always delightful. But Trunnion absolutely makes one laugh out aloud: whether he is criticising the sister of Mr. Gamaliel Pickle in that gentleman's presence, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... French flotilla was sunk or scattered, and a pontoon or raft, carrying sixty men of the Guards, pushed out from the British bank. A strong French picket held the other shore; but, bewildered and ill led, they made no opposition. A hawser was dragged across the stream, and pontoons, each carrying fifteen men, were in quick succession pulled across. When about a thousand men had in this way reached the French bank, some French battalions made ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... brought under the bows, and the stream anchor was lowered, and fastened to a spar that lay across both. This anchor was carried to the bank astern, and, by dint of sheer strength, was laid over its summit with a fluke buried to the shank in the hard sand. By means of a hawser, and a purchase applied to its end, the men on the banks next roused the chain out, and shackled it to the ring. The bight was hove-in, and the ship secured astern, so as to prevent a shift of wind, off the land, from forcing her on the reef. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... upward, and saw for the first time that the main topmast had broken off and been cut clear, probably hours ago when he was in the cabin searching for Clara. The top still remained, however, and twisted through its openings was one end of a hawser, the other end floating off to leeward two hundred yards in advance of the wreck. Fastened to the hawser by a large loop was a sling of cordage, from which a long halyard trailed shoreward, while another connected it with ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... 28th, the sea having in a measure become quiet, he came alongside, sent his boats and removed all the ladies, children, passengers (citizens), a number of officers, and about fifty soldiers, when suddenly a squall of wind separated the two vessels, parting the hawser by which they were attached, and continued to blow all night a violent gale. This squall came on so suddenly that my quarter-master and acting adjutant, 1st Lieutenant Fremont, who came on board the bark for ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... wreck; then as she pitched forward down a wave there was a shock that nearly threw Jack off his feet, prepared for it though he was. In a moment he steadied himself, and crept forward and cut the lashing of the hawser just as Tom severed that of the chain. The latter rattled out for a moment. There was another shock, but less violent than the first, and then the renewed rattle of the chain showed that she was drifting astern. Ben now left the tiller and sprang forward. ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... Ellen, who was indeed as pale as death, and in an hour afterward was on board the ship, where I found every thing in readiness for a hasty departure, the top-sails, jib and spanker were loosed, the anchor at the bows, and its place supplied by a small kedge, attached to the ship by a hawser, easily cut in case of need; the awnings were struck, and the decks covered with rigging and sails. The boat's crew who were to go on the expedition of the evening had already been selected, and were in high spirits at the probable danger, romance ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... of the Rosan stood a youth tolling the ship's bell. The windlass grunted and whined as the schooner came up on her hawser with a thump, and overhead a useless ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... riddled hulk of the little American frigate was headed for her foes. But Hilyar put his helm up to avoid close quarters; the battle was his already, and the cool old captain was too good an officer to leave any thing to chance. Seeing he could not close, Porter had a hawser bent on the sheet-anchor and let go. This brought the ship's head round, keeping her stationary; and from such of her guns as were not dismounted and had men enough left to man them, a broadside was ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... out upon the water, sailed forth beneath the white spread of new-made canvas, and, midst the creaking of spars, the slapping of ropes, the scream of the hawser, the groan of the windlass, and the ruck and roar of wave-beaten wood, carved out their destinies. They fought. They bled. They conquered and were defeated. In the hot struggle and the desperate attack they played their ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... another voyage, and now, having plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables. Cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the ironwork I could get; and having cut down the spritsail-yard, and the mizzen- yard, and everything I could, to make a large raft, I loaded it with all these heavy goods, and came away. But my good luck began now to leave me; for this raft was so unwieldy, ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... When the hawser had been made fast to the mainmast, the leathern lungs of Mr. Gibney made due announcement of the fact to the expectant Captain Hicks. "As soon as you feel you've got a grip on her," he yelled, "just hold her steady so she ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... small towboat was in the harbor. At the coming of flood tide this towing craft had a hawser made fast to the gunboat. With the help of some of the naval machinists aboard the "Hudson," both submarine craft were also manned and hawsers made fast. Two cables were passed ashore to winches ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... gave our grounded friends a lift with a hawser. No go! The Boston tugged in vain. We got near enough to see the whites of the Massachusetts eyes, and their unlucky faces and uniforms all grimy with their lodgings in the coal-dust. They could not have been blacker, if they had been breathing battle-smoke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... jamming his weight to port in the hope she might pay up: Thrackles, too, his eye squinted along some bearing of his own, was waiting for her to drag. Presently it became evident that she was doing so, whereupon he drew his knife across our hawser. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you out dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the decks, with unfeeling haste, as if to execution. And he would force you too to take the end of his own wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course an extra charge. To your shouted remonstrances against that extortion this towering trunk with one hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its bearded ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... steamers, and one of these, a two-hundred tonner, used to call every morning of the season at the little pier outside my house to take me to business, and brought me back again every evening. By the pier rests an old, old man whose only duty in life it is to catch the hawser as it is thrown from the incoming liner. Twice a day for four months that hawser was thrown for the old man to catch, and twice a day for four months he missed it. I spoke to him about this on the last day, and he showed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... straight in, for the sea was deep below the rock, and there they all saw a man lying asleep in golden armour. They whispered together, laughing silently, and then sprang ashore, taking with them a rope of twisted ox-hide, a hawser of the ship, and a strong cable of byblus, the papyrus plant. On these ropes they cast a loop and a running knot, a lasso for throwing, so that they might capture the man in safety from a distance. With these in their hands they crept up the cliff, for their purpose was ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... tedious and laborious operation of laying out anchors, and warping; but we saw that the captain was bent upon exertion, and we went heartily to work. In the course of our progress against a strong wind, the ship had been warped up to the chain rock, and it became necessary to cast off the hawser attached to it, but all the boats were employed in laying out an anchor and warps elsewhere. The captain called to the men on the forecastle, and desired 'some active fellow to go down by the hawser, and cast it off,' at the same time saying that a boat would soon be there to bring ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... July/26th June) at afternoone we weyed, and departed from thence, the wether being mostly faire, and the winde at East-southeast, and plied for the place where we left our cable and anker, and our hawser, and as soone as we were at an anker the foresaid Gabriel came aboord of vs, with 3 or foure more of their small boats, and brought with them of their Aquauitae and Meade, professing unto me very much friendship, and reioiced to see vs againe, declaring that they earnestly thought that ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... ship by a hawser to the main-mast of an Algerine brig which was attached to the shore, and stoppered the cables, the crew ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... round the boilers, and arrangements made for letting the steam escape through the wheel-houses, to avoid the puffing noise ordinarily issuing from the pipes. The pilot-house, for additional security, was wrapped to a thickness of eighteen inches in the coils of a large hawser. A barge, loaded with bales of hay, was made fast on the port quarter of the vessel, to protect ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... the ship's hawser wouldn't keep me back! I'll be down there one of these next days. I'll cheer the old man up—and Sara, woman, I have money to lay out on the farm. 'Tis too long a story to tell thee now, how a man I helped a bit in the hospital at Montevideo died, and ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... up and bilge free—and that's why he's chief kicker now. The hawser's fast for'd, Mr. Murphy. Cast ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... upon the boat's crew landing and carrying it along the beach, the natives followed and intimated by signs that we should not go that way; as soon however as the anchor was fixed and they understood our intention, they assisted the people in carrying the hawser to make fast ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... the shadow of the hulls of these they might escape all observation from the more watchful vessels of war without. They had cleared all but one, when the head of the canoe suddenly came foul of the hawser of the latter, and was by the checked motion brought round, with her broadside completely under her stern, in the cabin windows of which, much to the annoyance of our adventurer, a light was plainly visible. Rising as gently as he could to clear the bow of the light skiff, he found his head on a ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... like a blot of something yet blacker than darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went the brisker grew the current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... guys as we raised the pole towards the perpendicular, with two men. I was with four men in the boat. We dropped an anchor out a good bit, then tied a cord to the pole, took a turn round the sternmost thwart with it, and pulled on the anchor line. As the great, big, wet hawser came in it soaked you to the skin: I was the sternest (used, by way of variety, for sternmost) of the lot, and had to coil it—a work which involved, from its being so stiff and your being busy pulling with all your might, no little trouble and an extra ducking. We got it up; and, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so long as it continues remediable, sharpens and concentrates all a man's faculties upon the one single object of procuring the remedy. If my house is on fire, I run to the hydrant by a mere automatic operation of my nerves. If my leg is caught in the bight of a paying-out hawser, my whole brain focuses at once on that single thought, "an axe." If I am enduring the agony which opium alone can cause and cure, every faculty of my mind is called to the aid of the tortured body which wants it. When a man has used ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... wielded oars attracted his attention. In the end of the boat was a hawser-hole, painted and shaped like the eye of Osiris. Kenkenes turned about on his couch and watched ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still—what was the odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight of it to contend with the first, faint ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Daddy, but one of the most potent, he was thinking. More than a word, perhaps: a great social engine: an anchor which, cast carelessly overboard, sinks deep and fast into the very bottom. The vessel rides on her hawser, and where are your blue ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... black cloud was upon him and our voices were hushed to whispers lest the vibration should cause it to break in fury on our own heads—then he would flog the crew with a wire hawser, and his language would cause the paint to blister on the deck. At other times the memory of his "mother" would steal over his spirit and in a sweet tenor he would croon the old-time hymns and the old ship would creak its loving accompaniment, and the unopened shell-fish would waft the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... hawser slipping through the fairlead. "Call it? Oh, I should call it rather a lark. Now your boat's all right, Captain. When will you ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... a statement from the Maltese pilot that the Mastico had just arrived from Malta, had been damaged in a gale, and lost her anchors, and desired to make fast to the frigate's cables until another anchor could be procured. The Turks lowered a boat with a hawser, intending to secure the ketch to their stern, instead of to the cables, and the Americans accepted the hawser, intimating in broken Italian that they would do as desired. At the same time the Americans made fast to the Philadelphia's fore chains, and a strong pull by the men, who ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... whale was following the vessel, and remembering the peculiar susceptibility of these giant mammals to musical sounds, Madame MELBA sang the scena, "Ocean, thou mighty monster," with such persuasive force that the whale allowed itself to be made fast with a hawser and then towed the liner back ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... in that port. The first intimation the brig's crew had that Captain Semmes was about to cast off his tow was a warning whistle from the Sumter. This was followed by a sudden slackening of the hawser, and a few minutes later the Sumter's black hulk showed itself on the starboard ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... seen in all their movements by the light of their burning navy and arsenal. The battery in the upper angle of the town, which, was too high to fire upon, kept up a galling fire, and another further to the eastward was still at work. To bring our broadside to bear upon it, a hawser was run out to the Severn, on our larboard bow, the ship was swung to the proper bearing, and we soon checked them. At 45 minutes past nine, the squadron began to haul out, some making sail, and taking advantage of a light air off the land, while others were towing and warping: the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... with exhaustion. Only the tolerance of the pier employees gained them their end; the steamer was held some seconds for them; as Calendar staggered to its deck, the gangway was jerked in, the last hawser cast off. The boat sheered wide out on the river, then shot in, arrow-like, to the pier ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... many a barque is stranded. When we become fearful, the judgment is as unreliable as the compass of a ship whose hold is full of iron ore; when we hate, we have unshipped the rudder; and if ever we stop to meditate on what the gossips say, we have allowed a hawser to foul the screw. ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... Seth; "whar I goes, thaar goes he, poor chap! Under Providence, he saved my life; and under Providence I'll never desart him, Cap, till he chooses to cast off the hawser hisself!" ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... en't anyway of much account. Well, it might be about seven bells, and my watch below, when I was woke by a most tremenjous bangin' and hullabaloo. We tumbles up mighty sharp, and well we did, for there was one of these country fellows board and board with us, and another foulin' our hawser. Their grapnels came whizzin' aboard; but the first lot couldn't take a hold nohow, and she dropped downstream. That gave us a chance to be ready for the other. She got a grip of us and held on like a shark what grabs you by the legs. But pistols ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... officer round a point on the larboard hand to look for anchorage. This he found, and signified the same by signal. We then followed with the ship, and anchored in 50 fathoms water, so near the shore as to reach it with an hawser. This was on Friday the 26th of March, at three in the afternoon, after having been 117 days at sea; in which time we had sailed 3600 leagues, without having once ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... hawser that will hold our little cock-boat still about five minutes,' he said, throwing a necklace of pretty pink coral over Josie's head; 'and here's something the mermaids sent to Undine,' he added, handing Bess a string of pearly shells ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... dropped a hawser over her side as buffer. The boy was up it in a moment, and on to the ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Ark" slowly drifted in through the nursery window, Captain Noah ran forward with a hawser, ready to make fast to the book case near the ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... with the effort to tie up and get away first. Up in the pilot-house the great man of the wheel took shrewd advantage of every eddy and back current; out on the guards the humblest roustabout stood ready for a life-risking leap to get the hawser to the dock at the earliest instant. All the operations of the boat had been reduced to an exact science, so that when the crack packets were pitted against each other in a long race, their maneuvers would be as exactly matched in point ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... song, which till now had been constantly heard during the night with a pleasure that it was impossible to lose without regret. The gale, on the 1st of February, increased to a storm, with heavy gusts from the high land, one of which broke the hawser, that had been fastened to the shore, and induced the necessity of letting go another anchor. Though, towards midnight, the gale became more moderate, the rain continued with so much violence, that the brook, which supplied the ship with water, overflowed ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... communicating with a stranded vessel is by firing rockets with a line attached to them, by which means a hawser may be drawn from the ship and fastened to the shore. Mortars are likewise used for the same purpose; the latter plan having been invented by Sergeant Bell, and first tried in 1792. Bell's plan was very greatly improved by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... on as they would never dare crack, on in these degenerate days, when, blast his eyes, the Golden Bough came up on them, and passed, and ran away from the poor old Flynn, and Yankee Swope had stood on his poopdeck at the passing, and waved a hawser-end at the Old Man of the Flynn, asking if he wanted a tow. "And then we caught hell," commented Mr. Briggs. Aye, he should say he did remember the Golden Bough. But he had ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... was his hope that we might spare him quinine. I think we gave away as many grains of quinine as we received logs of wood. Empty-handed we would turn from the wood post and steam a mile or so farther up the river, where we would run into a bank, and a boy with a steel hawser would leap overboard and tie up the boat to the roots of a tree. Then all the boys would disappear into the jungle and attack the primeval forest. Each was supplied with a machete and was expected to furnish a bras of wood. A bras is a number of sticks about as long and as thick ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... remained upon the wharf. As he saw the rush coming he had ordered his men to abandon their load; then he ran to the after-mooring, and, taking slack from a deck hand, cast it off. Back up the dock he went to the forward hawser, where, at a signal, he did the same, moving, toward the last, without excessive hurry, as if in a spirit of bravado. The ship was clear, and he had not cut a hawser. He had done his work; all but a ton or two of the cargo was stowed. There was ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... he had wellnigh come back again to the Katherine, he saw there a tall ship, which he had scarce noted before, a ship all-boun, which had her boats out, and men sitting to the oars thereof ready to tow her outwards when the hawser should be cast off, and by seeming her mariners were but abiding for some one or other to ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... so. Verily those officers toiled like Titans to get that tremendous head off even the skipper taking a hand. In spite of their efforts, it was dark before the heavy job was done. As we were in no danger of bad weather, the head was dropped astern by a hawser until morning, when it would be safer to dissect it. All that night we worked incessantly, ready to drop with fatigue, but not daring to suggest, the possibility of such a thing. Several of the officers and harpooners were allowed a few hours off, as their special duty ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... the brigantine, her magazine stowed, the dunnage of the crew transferred from the sheds, the captain's camphor trunks on board and cabin in order, the sails bent, anchors on the bows, and, swinging to a hawser made fast to the rocks, the vessel was ready to put to sea ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... longer the means of applying a force from without, and, if alone, should therefore have been helpless, at least for a time. The Hecla, however, being fortunately unencumbered, in consequence of having lain in a less sheltered place, sent her boats with a hawser to the margin of the young ice; and ours being carried to meet it, by men walking upon planks, at considerable risk of going through, she at length succeeded in pulling us out; and, getting into clear water, or, rather, into less tough ice, at three ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... to an order from the senior officer, the swift vessels withdrew for nearly three cables' length from the spot where the boat lay. Two slow but powerfully engined trawlers approached at a cable's length abreast, towing the bight of a massive steel hawser between. Doing little more than drift with the tide they crept past the submerged U-boat, one on either side of the ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... where the Salvation Army was holding a midnight service. Captain Tangye had snugged down his ship for the night: ropes were coiled, deckhouses padlocked, the spokes of the wheel covered against dew and frost. The boy found the slack of a stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail—a circular fort into which he crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour lay listening. But only the preacher's voice broke the silence of the harbour. On—on it went, rising ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... starving out their fellows, and occupying the land without dense scrub below, has not had time to work itself out. Many are mere poles, and so intertwined with climbers as to present the appearance of a ship's ropes and cables shaken in among them, and many have woody stems as thick as an eleven-inch hawser. One species may be likened to the scabbard of a dragoon's sword, but along the middle of the flat side runs a ridge, from which springs up every few inches a bunch of inch-long straight sharp thorns. It hangs straight for a couple of yards, but as if it could not give its thorns a fair chance ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... curved ships. Now the vessels were bound within the hollow harbour each hard by other, for no wave ever swelled within it, great or small, but there was a bright calm all around. But I alone moored my dark ship without the harbour, at the uttermost point thereof, and made fast the hawser to a rock. And I went up a craggy hill, a place of out-look, and stood thereon: thence there was no sign of the labour of men or oxen, only we saw the smoke curling upward from the land. Then I sent forth certain of my company to go and search out what manner of men they were who here ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... striker, just when he was to be made an engineer, when he thought he had smooth sailing, suddenly and provokingly found himself fast aground, with no spar or capstan by which he might help himself off, with no friendly craft alongside to throw him a hawser and ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... called away his boats, and the sailors tugged at the oars, towing the Constitution very slowly ahead. Captain Broke of the Shannon promptly followed suit and signaled for all the boats of the squadron. In a long column they trailed at the end of the hawser; and the Shannon crept closer. Catspaws of wind ruffled the water, and first one ship and then the other gained a few hundred yards as upper tiers of canvas caught the faint impulse. The Shannon was a crack ship, and there was no better crew in the British navy, as Lawrence ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... loop in standing rigging; arms long as cant-hooks, with the steel grips for fingers; sluggish in movement and slow in action until the supreme moment of danger tautened his nerves to breaking point; then came an instantaneous spring, quick as the recoil of a parted hawser. All his life a fisherman except the five years he spent in the Arctic and the year he served at Squan; later he had helped in the volunteer crew alongshore. Loving the service, he had sent word over to Captain Holt that he'd like "to be put on," ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... whipcord, binding all in an impassable network, and hanging over our heads in rich festoons or tendrils swaying in the breeze. There were trailers, i.e., (Freycinetia scandens) with heavy knotted stems, as thick as a frigate's stoutest hawser, coiling up to the tops of tall ohias with tufted leaves like yuccas, and crimson spikes of gaudy blossom. The shining festoons of the yam and the graceful trailers of the maile (Alyxia Olivaeformis), a sweet scented vine, from which the natives ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... brought forward by the administration, and Congress being in a more amiable frame of mind granted the requisite funds; but Hawthorne had now contracted new ties in his native city, bound, as it were, by an inseparable cord stronger than a Manila hawser, and Doctor Nathaniel Peabody's hospitable parlors were more attractive to him than anything the ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... gradually furled, and as she drew to her anchorage ground, a quarter-boat a was lowered from the davits, while the chain cable rang its loud report as it ran out at the hawser hole, and the ship swung gradually with the set of the current, leaving her stern towards the shore. But a few moments elapsed before Capt. Ratlin and his two passengers, with such articles as they had brought ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... riuer de Sestos to the Eastwards, by reason whereof we halled into the shoare within two English miles, and there ancred and found fifteene fadom water, and all off from the shoare the sea so smooth, that we might wel haue rid by an Hawser. All that after-noone we trimmed our boate and made her a saile, to the ende that she might go along by the shoore to seeke some place to water in: for wee could not goe back againe to the riuer de Sestos, because the winde blowes alwayes contrary, and the Currant runneth alwayes to ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... the money, and with a portion of it purchased a barrel of flour, a keg of sugar, a quantity of ground coffee, and some other supplies needed at the Castle. The steamer hauled in her plank, and casting off her hawser, renewed her long voyage up the river. Mounting Cracker, I rode back to the Castle, and harnessed both horses to the wagon, in order to haul up the stores ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... unscrupulousness of the Japanese in business matters. As a matter of fact the alliance had fulfilled its object as soon as Japan had fought England's war with Russia for her. But the cabinet of St. James adhered to the treaty, because they feared that if they let go of the hawser, a word from Tokio would incite India to revolt. The soil there had for years been prepared for this very contingency, and London, therefore, turned a deaf ear to the indignation expressed by the rest of the world at Japan's ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... anchored in Funchal Road in 22 fathoms. Found here His Majesty's Ship Rose and several Merchants' Vessels. In the Morning new berthed the Ship, and Moor'd with the Stream Anchor, half a Cable on the Best Bower and a Hawser and a half ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... — port she casts, with the harbour-mud beneath her foot, And that's the last o' bottom we shall see this year! Well, ah fare you well, for we've got to take her out again — Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free. And it's time to clear and quit When the hawser grips the bitt, So we'll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... boys!" said Captain Latham, taking instant command of the deck. "Cast off those lines! Get that tug hawser inboard, Horry. Mr. Chapin, will you see that those lines are coiled down properly? Keep the deck shipshape. Make less work for your watch when ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... towards the bottom of the basin. The distance from the land was not fifty fathoms, and Ludlow did not fail to perceive that the vessel rode by a kedge, and that her anchors, of which there was a good provision, were all snugly stowed. These facts induced the hope that he might separate the hawser that alone held the brigantine, which, in the event of his succeeding, he had every reason to believe would drift ashore, before the alarm could be given to her crew, sail set, or an anchor let go. Although neither he nor his companion possessed any other implement ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... had lasted nearly two hours when this disappointment was encountered. As a last resort, Porter now ordered a hawser to be made fast to an anchor which was still left. This was let go in the hope that, the Essex being held by it where she was, the enemy might drift out of action and be unable to return when the wind fell with the ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... return to his duty, the grating was removed from the main hatch, and the boatswain again called all hands to weigh anchor. Only two of them, however, answered the call. The capstan was manned by the faithful thirty, reenforced by the officers and the men on board. A long hawser had been passed from the bow to the steamer, and as soon as the anchor was up to the hawse-hole, the signal was given to go ahead. The Josephine followed as promptly as though every seaman on board performed his duty, though the sails were not set with the usual precision. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... which showed as a sable blot against the evening sky. Two women fainted and others were seized with violent hysteria. Their shrill screams were so distressing that the skipper ordered them to be lugged below and shut in their cabins. Mr. Peter Forbes had plumped himself down upon a coil of hawser, as if utterly disgusted, but he implored the captain to blaze away at the besotted scoundrels as long as two planks held together. The Honorable Secretary of the Council had been too outspoken in his opinions of pirates to expect kindness at ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the repairs. Through our American army headquarters at Nancy we applied to this French repair station. At eight o'clock next morning I was on hand to pilot a heavy wrecking truck to our car. A towing hawser was attached; their second pilot took charge of our truck, load and all; and before noon we were safely landed at the repair station. A hasty examination by a Renault expert revealed the fact that ten days ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... very small light, and it was difficult to see above a yard or so ahead or around. I turned my face aft, and crawled over the casks and came to under the main-hatch, where lay coils of hawser, buckets, blocks, and the like, but there was no pinnace, though here she had been stowed, as a sailor would have promptly seen. A little way beyond, under the great cabin, was the powder-magazine, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... he did not often get the opportunity to resuscitate anybody; in fact, he admitted he had not had any such case as ours for years. It is uncertain what he might have done to us if the tender-hearted captain had not thrashed him into his cabin with a knotted hawser, and told us ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... the extent of the damage to rigging, chain-plates, and hull. It was found that the latter was uninjured; but the shrouds and chain-plates were badly damaged, especially the latter, and the only way of securing the rigging thoroughly was to heave-to for a while and pass two bights of hawser chain under the bottom so that some of the starboard fore and main rigging could be set up to it. This was soon done, and the barque put on her course once more. The men worked with commendable skill and energy during the whole ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... play-actors, be you? Land sakes! And tryin' to look like a fisherman, too! I don't s'pose you know a grommet from the bight of a hawser." ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... here with my hawser up and down, and send my cabin-boy to informe. If you have any further commands for over-seas, to-day will be the last occasion, as the wind will serve us well out of the firth. I will not seek to deny that ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... abundant, and the hills and streams furnished constant variety. I should have made a good Indian, if I had been born in a wigwam. To talk like sailors, we made the old hemlock-stub at the mouth of the Dingley Mill Brook just before sunset, and sent a boy ashore with a hawser, and was soon safely moored to a bunch of alders. After we got ashore Mr. White allowed me to fire his long gun at a mark. I did not hit the mark, and am not sure that I saw it at the time the gun went off, but believe, rather, that I was watching for the noise that I was about to make. Mr. Ring ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... his umbrella: without which he might be a dark bit of cliff, pier, or bulkbead—clutches that instrument with a desperate grasp, that will not relax until he lands at Calais. Is there any analogy, in certain constitutions, between keeping an umbrella up, and keeping the spirits up? A hawser thrown on board with a flop replies 'Stand by!' 'Stand by, below!' 'Half a turn a head!' 'Half a turn a head!' 'Half speed!' 'Half speed!' 'Port!' 'Port!' 'Steady!' ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... I have 'em to home, and laugh till I cry over them. Why? Because natur is the same always. Although we didn't live a hundred years ago, we can see how the folks of that age did; and, although society is altered, and there are no Admiral Benbows, nor Hawser Trunnions, and folks don't travel in vans with canvas covers, or wear swords, and frequent taverns, and all that as they used to did to England; still it's a pictur of the times, and instructin' as well as amusin'. I have learned more how folks dressed, talked, and lived, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... that the lower quarter is made of lead. The specific gravity of the entire globe when sealed up tight with two men in it is only a little more than unity. In the water its weight is so little that a three-inch manilla hawser would raise it, let alone a steel cable. I have another safety device. Granted that the cable should snap, I can detach the lead from it and it would shoot to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... further they proceeded down the Bay, the worse the weather became, until eventually they ran right bang into the very teeth of a severe cyclone. The result, as was to be expected, proved most disastrous. The hawser connecting the ship and steam tug snapped in two, being unequal to the tremendous strain, and they parted company. The vessel escaped by a miracle after having been battered about and driven in all directions. She was eventually rescued by the Warren ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... had lain coiled on deck, was suddenly flying out to its full length. The outer end of it had been carried upon the lock-side by some chance or blunder, and there some idle loafer had thrown the looped bight of it over a hawser-post. The loafers on the lock saw, as I did, that the rope was running out, and at the call of the skipper one of them condescended to throw the loop overboard, but he did it so carelessly that the lazy rope rolled over into the lock, and the loop caught ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... himself in a critical situation. From this giddy and unstable height he had neither the skill or courage to return. After much anxiety, he was at length rescued by some of his more nimble sailors, who managed to put a hawser over the summit, by means of which he safely descended. They ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... weighed about 14 stone. He learnt to swim when about seven years old, and was trained as a sailor on board the Conway training-ship in the Mersey, where he saved the life of a fellow seaman. In 1870 he dived under his ship in the Suez Canal and cleared a foul hawser; and, on April 23, 1873, when serving on board the Cunard steamer Russia, he jumped overboard to save the life of a hand who had fallen from aloft, but failed, and it was an hour before he was picked up almost exhausted. For this he received a gold and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... next morning we were again underweigh; and, with the flood-tide in our favour, made rapid progress. The opening had, however, become so much contracted, that it was found prudent to have a boat hoisted out, with the kedge and a hawser ready if the vessel should get on shore. After proceeding two miles further, it took a more easterly course, and as we advanced the general direction of the reaches were east and south. Our speculations ran high with regard to what it might be, and the probability of its being a large river appeared ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... was Sunday, January 12. The morning was densely foggy. Frank, who had been seasick all night, went on deck to breathe the fresh sea air. The steamer, still towing the Schooner, was just visible in the fog, at the other end of the great sagging hawser. And the sea was rolling, rolling, rolling. And the ship was tossing, tossing, tossing. And Frank's poor stomach, not satisfied with its convulsive efforts to turn him wrong side out the night before, recommenced heaving, heaving, heaving. He clung to the rail of the schooner, and every time ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... upon. The sea, too, had risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete "hurrah's nest,'' as the sailors say, "everything on top and nothing at hand.'' A large hawser had been coiled away on my chest; my hats, boots, mattress, and blankets had all fetched away and gone over to leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... snapped like a pistol shot. The ship rebounded; then drove before the back-wash of the angry sea. With no fate possible but the wall of rocks ahead, the terrorized crew began heaving the dead overboard in the moonlight; but another roaring billow smashed the St. Peter squarely broadside. The second hawser ripped back with the whistling rebound of a whip-lash, and Ofzyn was in the very act of dropping the third and last anchor, when straight as a bullet to the mark, as if hag-ridden by the northern demons of sailor fear, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... vantage just below the little pulpit where the general was to speak. Here the crowd groaned against a bulwark of stout policemen. Philadelphia cops, bless them, are the best tempered in the world. (How Boston must envy us.) Genially two gigantic bluecoats made room against the straining hawser for young John Fisher, aged eleven, of 332 Greenwich Street. John is a small, freckle-faced urchin. It was amusing to see him thrusting his eager little beezer between the vast, soft, plushy flanks ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... o' paint all over,' said he, with a wink. 'Carramba! the old ship is water-tight yet. What would ye say, now, were I about to sling my hawser over a little scow, and take ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... professor, leaving the baronet in charge of the engines and the steering-gear, summoned Mildmay and the colonel to follow him. The trio hastened to the after part of the deck, and, raising a trap-door which the professor indicated, withdrew therefrom a thin pliant wire hawser— made, like almost everything else in the ship, of aethereum—which, having secured one end of it to a ring-bolt in the after extremity of the deck, they coiled down in readiness ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... toward the sky, may be seen the cables of the flying spider,—a fairy bridge from the visible to the invisible. Occasionally seen against a deep mass of shadow, and perhaps enlarged by clinging particles of dust, they show quite plainly and sag down like a stretched rope, or sway and undulate like a hawser in ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... accommodated was somewhat solved, when I saw them attach a lighter to each side of the launch, and again, when some of the helpers brought up a fleet of dugouts which they proceeded to make fast by a stern hawser. But the mystery was again increased, when I was told that none of the passengers intended to occupy permanent quarters on the auxiliary fleet. As I was already taken care of, I resolved that if the problem was to worry anybody, it would be the ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... to such purpose that before the end of July the foundations began to show above high-water neaps, and in September he was able to report that the building could be pushed forward in any ordinary weather. The workmen were carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser and cradle, and the rising breastwork of masonry protected them from the beat of the sea. Progress was slow, for each separate stone had to be dovetailed above, below, and on all sides with the blocks ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... boats load of provisions could be got out: an anchor was let go, which prevented the ship from coming broadside to on the reef. From noon until four o'clock, every person was employed in getting a hawser from the ship, and fastening it to a tree on the shore: a heart was fixed on the hawser as a traveller, and a grating was slung to it, fastened to a small hawser, one end of which was on shore and ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... the men had already pulled a big hawser ashore and made it fast. In half an hour the crew of the Amy Reade were safe on shore, chilled and dripping. Before they were hurried away to warmth and shelter, old Paul Stockton caught Curtis's hand. The tears were running freely down his ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the mariner, Here on the tideway Dragging, foul of keel, Long-strayed but fortunate, Out of the fogs, the vast Atlantic solitudes, Shall, by the hawser-pin Waiting the signal— "Leave-go-anchor!" Scent the familiar Fragrance of home; So in a long breath Bless us unknowingly: Bless them, the violets, Bless me, the gardener, Bless thee, ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and veal cutlets, brown bread and coffee, we again turned out on deck. This time the joyful tidings reached us from aloft that a Gottenburg steamer was approaching. Soon the smoke of her chimneys was perceptible from the deck, and in an hour or so she was alongside. A stout hawser was bent on to her, and after another hour of pulling and tugging, backing and filling, we slipped off the rocks, and floated out into the channel. I was destined, after all, never to be decently shipwrecked. We had suffered but little injury, and proceeded ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... ordinary type of North Sea trawler, and so far as Ken and Roy could see, her fellow, whose name Gill told them was the 'Swan of Avon,' was her double. They were moving exactly parallel, at a distance of about a cable (220 yards) apart. Between them towed a thin steel hawser set to a depth just sufficient to catch the mooring cables of the mines which were plentifully strewn in ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... approached the wreck, until the bowsprit of the latter seemed to stand almost over her. Then Tom threw the line. It fell over the bowsprit, and a cheer broke from those on board the wreck and from the sailors of the Seabird. A stronger line was at once fastened to that thrown, and to this a strong hawser was attached. ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... gratitude (which they are not), there are gentlemen now living on the Kroos coast who might remember me favourably. For we did get in. A B. and A. boat picked us up three weary days later, and towed us at the end of an extremely long hawser into the very place to which I wanted ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... them safely into the boat and on board the tender, together with Mr Cobb and his mate and two of his men. The rest I judged that I could safely leave where they were to help work the prize. I sent Grampus on board her to take charge, and we had the hawser secured when O'Driscoll came up. I had no particular wish just then for his company, though I could not for the world have shown any jealousy of him, so I signalised him that all was right and that I was going to make sail for Rhode Island. He, however, had seen the ladies on my ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of the last of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven rapidly down to the stage and two tardy passengers hurried aboard. The mate bawled from his station ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... resort of the vanquished, to destroy the vessel and to save the crew from captivity. The "Essex" was pointed for the shore; but when within a couple of hundred yards the wind, which had so far favored her approach, shifted ahead. Still clinging to every chance, a kedge with a hawser was let go, to hold her where she was; perhaps the enemy might drift unwittingly out of range. But the hawser parted, and with it the frigate's last hold upon the country which she had honored by an heroic defence. Porter then authorized any who might wish to swim ashore ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Cleared for Barbadoes, and a fair wind blowing From nor'-nor'-west; and I, an idle lubber, Laid neck and heels by that confounded bond! I said to Ralph, says I, "What's to be done?" Says he: "Just slip your hawser in the night; Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Simon." But that won't do; because, you see, the owners Somehow or other are mixed up with it. Here are King Charles's Twelve Good Rules, that Cole Thinks as important as the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was now sent down by the buoy-rope, and the running clinch or noose formed on its end, placed over the fluke of the anchor in the usual way. A couple of round turns were then taken with the hawser at the middle part of the cylindrical raft, after it had been drawn up as tight as possible from the anchor. A number of slew-ropes, I think about sixty or seventy in all, were next passed round the cylinder several times, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... a little, and in this fashion it is now being brought to Cuba; but the gravest doubts are entertained as to the possibility of its ever reaching its destination. It is feared that in case of a severe storm the hawser, or strong rope by which it is towed, will part, and the costly floating dock be left drifting about the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 48, October 7, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... on board. While they were untying the last one, Graham, with an arm like a leg, stripped for it and went to it. And he did it, although the pounding he got on the sand broke his bad arm and staved in three ribs. But he made the line fast before he quit. In order to haul the hawser ashore, six more volunteered to go in on Evan's line to the beach. Four of them arrived. And only one woman of the forty was lost—she died of heart disease ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... great offence to the American citizens of this State: they declared that to pay toll was monarchical, as they always assert every thing to be which taxes their pockets. So, one fine night, they assembled with a hawser and a team or two of horses, made the hawser fast to the house at the gate, dragged it down to the river, and sent it floating down the stream, with the gate and board of tolls ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... has secured passage by a ship bound for some far-off foreign land, and delayed by some trifling affair, comes upon the pier to see the hawser cast off, the plank drawn ashore, the sails ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... odorous spices, indigo, camphor, tea, coffee, jute and endless other things. Sam knew their names and the names of the wonder-places they came from—Manila, Calcutta, Bombay, Ceylon. He knew besides such words as "hawser," "bulkhead" and "ebb-tide." And Sam knew how to swear. He swore with a fascinating ease such words as made me shiver and stare. And then he would ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... three trips, bringing off, with the aid of the hawser, all but the sailors she had seen perish before her own eyes. The passengers,—they were few,—the captain and officers, found refuge in her father's house, and were loud in their praises of Sol. Catlin. But in that grateful chorus a single gloomy voice arose, the voice of a wealthy and troubled ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... bank, when her anchor was let go, and she swung head to wind. Her heel, however, was still on the shoal, and the rudder immovable. To get her off, the launch was hoisted out, and the kedge anchor with a hawser, was put into her. While we were engaged in hauling the frigate off the shoal, a boat appeared coming down the harbour, and being hailed some one in her answered 'Ay, ay.' She quickly came alongside, and the crew, among whom were two persons ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... seeking for a definition is to fix upon the class into which the thing to be defined most naturally falls, and then to distinguish the thing in question from the other members of that class. If we were asked to define a triangle, we would not begin by distinguishing it from a hawser, but from a square and other figures with which it is more possible to confound it. The class into which a thing falls is called its Genus, and the attribute or attributes which distinguish it from other members of that class are called ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... shore to a big stake that had been driven deeply into the earth. Thus the boats lay close beside a short dock that was called a landing stage. As the current of the Bushkill was always pretty strong there must be more or less of a strain on that hawser; but since it was comparatively new, the boys felt that there could not be the slightest danger of its breaking, unless some outside influence were brought to bear on it, such as ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... nose on a sandbank. After trying to force her over it, an anchor was put out astern and the rope wound by a steam winch, while the engines were backed; but all in vain. At length a small Turkish steamer, the consort of the Elba, came to her assistance, and by means of a hawser helped to tug her off: The pilot again ran her aground soon after, but she was delivered by the same means without much damage. When two-thirds of this cable was laid the line snapped in deep water, and had to be recovered. On Saturday, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... Austrian brig drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did not like this drudgery, and snapped the rope repeatedly, so that at last we were obliged to leave her to her fate. The lift we gave, however, had its effect, and by dexterous maneuvering with the sails, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the better. All the boys'll understand. Keep it dead under your hat. We'll talk over the details tomorrow." Chuckling, he leaned back and opened his arms wide, his fists closed. "Rope!" he said. "Rope! Chief, we'll give 'em a hawser!" ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... trust entirely to these guides, I sent two boats to examine the harbour; and, on their making the signal for safe anchorage, we stood in with the ships, and anchored close up to the head of the inlet, in ten fathoms water, over a bottom of soft mud, and moored with a hawser fast to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... within ten yards of the shore six of our Chittagong crew plunge into the glittering water with a light rope, and are ashore in a minute and are hauling in our wire hawser; the setting sun striking their wet bodies, makes them almost like ruddy gold, and their black trousers cling to their legs. It seems an elementary way of taking a line ashore; I think that with a little practise two men in a dinghy would ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... knew was adverse, but could not recall when awake again. We remember, that day, a few watchers insecure on an exposed dockhead that projected into a sullen dreariness of river and mud which could have been the finish of the land. At the end of a creaking hawser was a steamer canting as she backed to head downstream—now she was exposed to a great adventure—the tide rapid and noisy on her plates, the reek from her funnel sinking over the water. And from the dockhead, in the fuddle of a ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... beg "forgiveness" of the dead is the only helpful means against the consequences of such deeds as his, otherwise one will be dragged off at night, by an invisible hand, to the churchyard, though one were lashed fast to the bed by a ship's hawser. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... land and life, finale, and farewell! Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;) Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas, Cautiously cruising, studying the charts, Duly again to port and hawser's tie returning. —But now obey thy cherish'd, secret wish, Embrace thy friends—leave all in order; To port and hawser's tie no more returning, Depart upon thy endless cruise, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... moment, for as they reached the beach beyond the "Plantation" the first shot was fired and they saw plainly how the rocket with the life line sailed beneath the storm cloud and fell down beyond the ship. Immediately all hands were astir on board and they used the small line to haul in the heavier hawser with the basket. Before long the basket returned and one of the sailors, a very handsome, slender man, with an oilcloth hood, was safe on land. He was plied with questions by the inquisitive spectators, while the basket made another trip to fetch the second man, then the third, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... biggest ship around by a steady, slow, gentle pull. On the other hand a sudden strain on the hawser would produce no effect whatever on ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... We are still. There are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere, the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged along. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... may be round or angular, polished or rough, cracked all over like an ill-glazed teacup, or as united and broad as the breast of Hercules. It may be as flaky as a wafer, as powdery as a field puff-ball; it may be knotted like a ship's hawser, or kneaded like hammered iron, or knit like a Damascus saber, or fused like a glass bottle, or crystallized like hoar-frost, or veined like a forest leaf: look at it, and don't try to remember how anybody told you to "do ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... Prince had more to teach than to learn. And here's his grand-daughter before you, and does him credit too," said Captain Walter. "Anna, you won't find many of your grandfather's men about the old wharves, but here's one of the smartest that ever had hold of a hawser." ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... and watch the men try them upon the weed; for that if they proved of use in easing that which lay in our path, then should we come the more speedily to the clear water, and this without the need of putting so great a strain upon the hawser, as had been the ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... them, if I could, and tail the heaviest hawser on board on the end of the chain before letting go, and if she parted from that, which is quite likely, I would just do nothing. She would have ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... think, sir," the first lieutenant shouted, "that if we lash a hawser to all this hamper, and hang to it, it will act as a floating anchor, and bring her head up to ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... stone as much as a man could carry, and cast them at the ships, so that they were broken. And the men they speared, as if they were fishes, and devoured them. So it happened to all the ships in the haven. I only escaped, for I cut the hawser with my sword, and bade my men ply their oars, which indeed they did ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... ship in port; well-crossed the harbour-bar; The hawser swung, the grinding helm at rest; Hands clasping hands, and eyes with eager zest Seeking the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... something of this damn thrill you talk about ashore and don't know what it is until you've been at the firing front or in one of these blessed ocean brooms. That chap across the way found a mine in his kite, and we had to cut the hawser in double-quick time, and get far enough away from it before we pegged a bullet in one ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... uncertainty of human calculations! The grapnel caught on the bottom, surely and firmly; but, the moment there came any strain on the seemingly stout hawser that held it, the latter parted like a thread, and "The Swallow" was ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... distant, the boat did not arrive till about one o'clock, by which time the gale had so increased, and the swells were so high and terrific, that it was impossible to make any use of it. A mortar was also brought for the purpose of firing a line over the vessel, to stretch a hawser between it and the shore. The mortar was stationed on the lee of a hillock, about a hundred and fifty rods from the wreck, that the powder might be kept dry. It was fired five times, but failed to carry a line more ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... followed. Any one who showed an open light when we were near the fleet was liable to the penalty of death upon the spot; a cool, steady leadsman was stationed on each quarter to give the soundings; a staunch old quartermaster took the wheel and a kedge, bent to a stout hawser, was slung at each quarter. All lights were extinguished; the fire-room hatch covered over with a tarpaulin; and a hood fitted over the binnacle, with a small circular opening for the helmsman to see the compass through ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... been undisputed master of the Atlantic coast, and have driven off or destroyed every ship of the blockading squadrons. The fates of nations sometimes depend on trifles. That of the American Union depended for some hours on the soundness of the hawser by which the "Monitor" hung on to the tug-boat "Seth Low" of ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... parted about 8 or 10 fathoms from the Anchor; I immediately order'd another Anchor to be let go, which brought the ship up before she had drove a cable's length from the Buoy; after this we carried out a Kedge, and warped the ship nearer to it, and then endeavour'd to sweep the Anchor with a Hawser, but miss'd it, and broke away the Buoy rope.* (* The kedge is a small anchor. Sweeping is dragging the middle of a rope, or hawser, held at the two ends from two boats some distance apart, along the bottom, with the object of catching ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... breaking among the rocks and washing 30 to 40 feet up with the spray; in fact, we were often knocked over and submerged for a time, clinging hard to some rock or one of the ropes for dear life. Evans swam off first. Then I was about half an hour trying to rescue a hawser and some lines entangled among the rocks. It was an amusing job. I would wait for a lull, run down and haul away, staying under for smaller waves and running up the rocks like a hare when the warning came from the boat that a series of big ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... powerful body of men in the world, I knew quite well what I was "up against," and deliberately decided that in the conduct of my fight I would use such strategy as I believed proper to outwit so strong and so unscrupulous an adversary. One can hang a dog as well with a cord as with a hawser, and in proving my assertions I am quite willing that the insurance companies should believe each play is my best card. I decline, however, to ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... lost, everybody being picked up by the giassas or managing to scramble ashore. As soon as possible afterwards operations were commenced to recover part of the cargo. The ship was secured from drifting by a hawser being passed around her standing gear, and made fast to stout trees ashore. Then some of the natives dived and several of the Maxims and boxes of ammunition were salved. As for the craft there was nothing ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... were directed to remain on board to put the ship to rights. When, however, Captain Young found that this would occupy some time, he offered to take us in tow. A hawser was accordingly passed on board, and away we went in the wake of the frigate. Our course was for the Isle of Bourbon, lately captured from the French. At the end of a week we anchored in the Bay of Saint Paul in that island. On our way there we had done ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... cable, and the engines backed; but all in vain. A small Turkish Government steamer, which is to be our consort, came to our assistance, but of course very slowly, and much time was occupied before we could get a hawser to her. I could do no good after having made a chart of the soundings round the ship, and went at last on to the bridge to sketch the scene. But at that moment the strain from the winch and a jerk from the Turkish steamer got ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a hawser!" I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop. There we found the commodore ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that inspiration of genius so common then among sailors, laid his seventy-four, the Centaur, close alongside the Diamond; made a hawser, with a traveller on it, fast to the ship and to the top of the rock; and in January 1804 got three long 24's and two 18's hauled up far above his masthead by sailors who, as they 'hung like clusters,' appeared 'like mice hauling a little sausage. Scarcely could we hear the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... by a steel rope are more dangerous than two separate mines would be, as they are bound to be drawn in against any ship that strikes any part of the rope. The only safeguard a ship could carry was a paravane. A paravane is made up of a strong steel hawser (rope) that serves as a fender, and of two razor-edged blades that serve to cut the mine-moorings free. It is altogether under water and is shaped like a V, with the point jutting out on the end of steel struts ahead of the bows, the two strokes running clear of the sides, and their ends ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood |
