"Precipitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not concur in these views. A little farther down the stream there was another elevation called the Aventine Hill, which seemed to him more suitable for the site of a town. The sides were less precipitous, and thus were more convenient for building ground. Then the land in the immediate vicinity was better adapted to the purposes which they had in view. In a word, the Aventine Hill was, as Remus thought, for every substantial reason, much the best locality; and as for the fact of ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... will require still a year or two to make them verdant) we had a beautiful view of the Potomac, a truly majestic river, and the surrounding country. The fortifications, so numerous in all this region, and now so unsightly with their bare, precipitous sides, will remain as historic monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of an epoch of terror and suffering: they will serve to make our country dearer and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mood do beyond question sometimes irresistibly suggest the close neighborhood of the sublime to the ridiculous. But very near that precipitous border line there is a charmed region where, if the statelier growths of philosophy die out and disappear, the flowers of poetry next the very edge of the chasm have a peculiar and mysterious beauty. "Uriel" is a poem which finds itself perilously near to the gulf of unsounded obscurity, and has, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... valley lies the little port of that name, around which are many tiny islands. From Caorano, near the mouth of the canal of the Arsa, the land begins to rise, and with Punta Nera, an outlying spur of the chain of Monte Maggiore, the coast becomes rocky and precipitous, from 950 ft. to 3,200 ft. high, furrowed by valleys running down to the sea. The villages are high above the water, and there is little green except in the lower parts, the grey of the rock being varied ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... country of Maui. Now a ditch is a ditch, assumably muddy, and usually traversing uninteresting and monotonous landscapes. But the Nahiku Ditch is not an ordinary ditch. The windward side of Haleakala is serried by a thousand precipitous gorges, down which rush as many torrents, each torrent of which achieves a score of cascades and waterfalls before it reaches the sea. More rain comes down here than in any other region in the world. In 1904 the year's downpour was four hundred and twenty inches. Water means sugar, and sugar ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... girds. The owner of such an island must have a peculiar sense of property and lordship; he must feel more like his own master and his own man than other people can. Other islands, perhaps high, precipitous, black bluffs, are crowned with a white light-house, whence, as evening comes on, twinkles a star across the melancholy deep,—seen by vessels coming on the coast, seen from the mainland, seen from island ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... the rainbow drawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, Intent on my own race and place, I wrote. Take thou the writing: thine it is. For who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the fishwomen and the butchers' halls. The constitution of the country in that age making a People impossible, the subtle connection between a high-born intriguer and the dregs of a populace, which can only exist in societies of deep chasms and precipitous contrasts, was easily established. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... recorded exploit occurred in the view of three men, of whom one may still be alive to vouch for it. They were farmers of Wild Laguna, a few miles above Manila, and on one memorable day were cutting wood in the ravine near by,—a deep gulch through which babbles a stone-choked stream. This glen has precipitous sides, but is so thickly overhung with green that it is ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... forward to lend a hand, glanced over the precipitous drop on his right, and turned hastily away again. That which had been Shaitan was visible below; and it was ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Hotly Maria Angelina's precipitous intuitions endorsed that supposition. Of course this Leila liked that Barry Elder. Of course. . . . But she had not taken him. He was an officer, then—without fortune. Maria Angelina was familiar enough with that story. But she had supposed that ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... recent elevation is here more satisfactory. The bay of San Carlos is in most parts bounded by precipitous cliffs from about ten to forty feet in height, their bases being separated from the present line of tidal action by a talus, a few feet in height, covered with vegetation. In one sheltered creek (west of P. Arena), instead of a loose talus, there was ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... to, bit by bit, according to the increasing size of the convent. A verandah or balcony of modern date, followed the sinuosities of the old pile, and, from its peculiar position, while at one extremity it was on a level with the grounds, at the other it overhung a precipitous declivity. This bank shelved down to the edge of a rapid stream, which chafed and foamed along the base of the hill against ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... down." In the winter season stage-coaches were laid up like so many ships during Arctic frosts, since it was impossible for any number of horses to drag them through the intervening impediments, or for any strength of wheel or perch to resist the rugged and precipitous inequalities of the roads. "For all practical purposes," as Mr. Macaulay remarks, "the inhabitants of London were further from Reading than they are now from Edinburgh, and further from Edinburgh than they are now ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... sweeping down from the swelling hilltops and deep rivers of Germany: the hurricane made more dreadful by freezing blasts from the neighbouring North, lays hold of the ships which it scatters into the open ocean or among islands perilous with precipitous cliffs or hidden shoals; the fleet, narrowly escaping shipwreck among them, is borne onwards, after the change of tide, in the direction whither ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... the events of their uneventful year is the coming of the onion-sellers from over the sea. The historic connexion between Cornwall and Brittany is very ancient, and is a romance in itself. The English and French coasts, as they face each other there, are very much alike—broken, precipitous, and grand. The peoples live pretty much the same kind of lives on either side of the Channel. And when the onion-sellers come from France they are greeted with enthusiasm by the Cornish people, and although they speak their own tongue, they are perfectly understood. See! ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... main village. Astonishment at its character. An elevated plateau. A town by design. Peculiarly formed hills or mounds. Fortified. The mystery. Sending the wagons to the south. Avoiding the forest. No word from the team. The teams reach the river. Intercepted. Illyas in front. Blocked by precipitous banks. Forming camp. Sending messengers to John. Muro gets the message. Hastens to relieve the force with the wagon. The savage attack. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... no definite intention save to relieve his feelings by violent action. Running at full speed, he came suddenly to a disused quarry that was full of water. It had long been a familiar haunt as a bathing-pool. Many a time in years past had he leaped off its precipitous margin into the deep water, and wantoned there in all the abandonment of exuberant youth. The leap was about thirty feet, the depth of water probably greater. Constant practice had rendered Miles so expert at diving and swimming ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... than it looks, for it slides for two storeys down the hill behind, and the wooden door, which is always locked, really leads into the attic. The knowing person prefers to follow the precipitous mule-track round the turn of the mud wall till he can take the edifice in the rear. Then—being now on a level with the cellars—he lifts up his head and shouts. If his voice sounds like something light—a letter, for example, or some vegetables, or a bunch of flowers—a basket ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... drank sparingly of the bitter alkali water, and wet the bandage about his throbbing head. After each climb he was forced to rest. A walk of three or four miles in high-heeled riding boots assumes the proportions of a real journey, even under the most favourable circumstances, but with the precipitous descents, the steep climbs, and the alkali flats between the coulees, which in dry weather are dazzling white, and hard and level as a floor, now merely grey greasy beds of slime into which he sank to the ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... ago there was only a pony-path over the precipitous hills on which now stands the marvelous city of Virginia, with its population of twelve thousand persons, and perhaps more. Virginia, with its stately warehouses and gay shops; its splendid streets, paved with silver ore; its banking houses and faro-banks; its attractive ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... perpetrated the vile act in 1841, has since fallen into the clutches of the law, and has done—and, for aught I know, is now doing—penance in the New York State Prison at Auburn. I believe the Government are at last repairing it;—better late than never. The precipitous banks on either side clearly indicate they are the silent and persevering work of the ever-rolling stream, and leave no doubt upon any reflecting mind that they must lead to some fall or cataract, though no reflection can fully realize ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... wary and active an animal, and is sometimes apt to turn the tables on its pursuer, and assume the offensive. Should the hunter approach too near the ibex, the animal will, as if suddenly urged by the reckless courage of despair, dash boldly forward at its foe, and strike him from the precipitous rock over which he is forced to pass. The difficulty of the chase is further increased by the fact that the ibex is an animal of remarkable powers of endurance, and is capable of abstaining from food or water for ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... river cutting through the south end of a flat-topped sandstone range of about 1,200 feet elevation above the sea, presenting many bold and picturesque outlines and detached summits, terminating in abrupt and almost precipitous faces; to this we gave the name of the Kennedy Range, in honour ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... Janet were mounting the precipitous Sytch Bank together on their way from Turnhill into Bursley. It was dark; they had missed one train at Turnhill and had preferred not to wait for the next. Although they had been very busy in Hilda's house throughout all the afternoon and ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... thus spoken, the Gauls cheerfully undertook to perform it, and in the dead of night a good party of them together, with great silence, began to climb the rock, clinging to the precipitous and difficult ascent, which yet upon trial offered a way to them, and proved less difficult than they had expected. So that the foremost of them having gained the top of all, and put themselves into order, they all but surprised the outworks, and mastered ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... by which we were mounting would become too precipitous higher up, I turned off to the left, and crossed a long, narrow snow-slope that descended between this ridge and another line of rocks more to the west. It was firm, and just steep enough to make steps cut in the snow comfortable, though not necessary; so the ice-axe was brought into use. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... instant's consideration Joyce laughed scornfully. She was dismayed by this sudden move, but did not intend to show it. "Isn't this rather ... precipitous? We're all going in a few days. Why can't ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... nature is stirred. From this point you may proceed for some distance along the water-side above the fall. Below you roars the foaming cataract, thundering downward and filling the whole air with its white spray. Above, on either side, are lofty, precipitous rocks, the crests of which are crowned by buildings. This is the town as seen from beneath. No wonder it is called "the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... the Saxon-Bohemian "Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE)" and of the straggling Lausitz Mountains, to westward of these,—shapes itself like a bill-hook (or elliptically, as was said): handle and hook together may be some 200 miles in length. The precipitous side of this is, in general, turned outwards, towards Bohmen, Mahren, Ungarn (Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, in our dialects); and Schlesien lies inside, irregularly sloping down, towards the Baltic and towards the utmost East, From the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... its mineralogy and geology which made it an initial point in my future observations. The metalliferous formation is first noticed at the little chain of rocks. From the Grand Tower, the western shores become precipitous, showing sections and piled-up pinnacles of the series of horizontal sandstones and limestones which characterize the imposing coast. Had I passed it in a steamer, downward bound, as at this day, in forty-eight ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Cromarty is of a bolder character than even the southern one—abrupt, and stern, and precipitous as that is. It presents a loftier and more unbroken wall of rock; and, where it bounds on the Moray Frith, there is a savage magnificence in its cliffs and caves, and in the wild solitude of its beach, which we find nowhere equalled ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... to think what they would and to do what they chose. They made their gods to suit themselves, and regarded them rather as companions than as objects of reverence. The gods lived close to them on Olympus, a precipitous and snow-capped range full of vast cliffs, deep glens, and extensive forests, less than ten thousand feet in height, though covered with snow on the top even ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... made an effort to raise himself on his elbow, felt a dull, aching sensation of strain, and lost sight of the object that had caught his attention. He found, however, that it was no dream, for across the little torrent and high up the steep, precipitous bank before him he could see a goat contentedly browsing upon the tender green twigs of the bushes; while, at his next movement, as he tried to raise himself a little more, there within touch, and half behind him, lay the companion ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... undulating and often hilly country. The scene was exactly such as might be expected in the interior of a continent. The channel continued of a uniform average width, with reaches and sinuous bends, one bank being often precipitous, or even forming vertical cliffs, while the other was flat and apparently alluvial; and it was only the pure salt-water, and the absence of any stream but the slight flux and reflux of the tide, that ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... twenty acres in extent. They confided that task to me, and I marked out two equal portions of land. One included the higher part of this enclosure, from the cloudy pinnacle of that rock, whence springs the river of Fan-Palms, to that precipitous cleft which you see on the summit of the mountain, and which, from its resemblance in form to the battlement of a fortress, is called the Embrasure. It is difficult to find a path along this wild ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... nothing disturbed the panorama of green fields that lay between Edinburgh and the Firth. The town wall was falling into ruin, yet still existed in fragmentary towers and ramparts here and there, and low down in the depths of the descent, which was not so precipitous there as under the castle, the high houses and green braes were reflected in the quiet waters of the North Loch. From thence the fields and scattered farmhouses, the Calton Hill in unadorned greenness, a church spire and a cluster of village roofs here and there, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... to a pumpkin pie, and the name, like all bad names, sticks. McKay's Mountain on the main-land, a perpendicular rock more than a thousand feet high, up-heaved by the throes of some vast volcano, and numerous other bold and precipitous head lands, and rock-built islands, around which roll the sapphire-blue waters of the fathomless bay, present some of the most magnificent views to be found ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... iron chain fastened to a belt of leather runs between their legs clad in canvas trousers, while on hands and feet an English girl, for twelve, sometimes for sixteen hours a-day, hauls and hurries tubs of coals up subterranean roads, dark, precipitous, and plashy: circumstances that seem to have escaped the notice of the Society for the Abolition of Negro Slavery. Those worthy gentlemen too appear to have been singularly unconscious of the sufferings of the little Trappers, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... vertically and not to a slope; in a firm formation this reduces the amount of excavation, but in loose material it must apparently have increased the risk of slides. But, however this may be, slips on a gigantic scale were inevitable. The cutting is an endeavor to form precipitous slopes of crumbling material under a tropical rain-fall: it may be likened to molding in brown sugar under the rose of a watering-pot. The banks have been in a state of constant movement, and are broken ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... of breakers indicates the location of these sandbanks; upon their precipitous rocky walls covered forty fathoms high by the sea, the restless ocean waves are beating and are with a like force repelled. The winds go howling over them; dense, cold fogs always cover these regions. In order to warm the ships against colliding, ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... scenery we had yet witnessed—high, towering rocks, their crests clad with fir and birch-trees, the rapids rushing in a white foaming torrent over the rocks in two rushing, roaring streams, divided one from the other by a high, precipitous, rocky island. I made a sketch, and we had dinner, and then, having accomplished the portage once more, started paddling. It was not far to go this time. In half an hour we had reached Bland portage, and everything again had to be unladen and carried. Soon we were in the canoe again heading ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... commencing in the county of Aberdeen, north of the river Don, and extending in a southwest course across the country, till it terminates beyond Ardmore, in the county of Dumbarton, divides Scotland into two distinct parts. The southern face of these mountains is bold, rocky, dark and precipitous. The land south of this line is called the Lowlands, and that to the north, including the range, the Highlands. The maritime outline of the Highlands is also bold and rocky, and in many places deeply indented by arms of the sea. The northern and western coasts are fringed ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... form of Gregory's Valley is a large basin bounded by a lofty precipitous mountain on one side called The Barn, and having a very narrow opening seaward, through which a small stream has cut its way. A remarkable circumstance connected with the basaltic dykes is that they are composed ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... again when she saw his precipitous retreat. She had freighted every word with ill will, and knew how to raise his silent resentment to the boiling point. She rose and stepped quickly into ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... both by Alpenoi, which lies behind Thermopylai and again by the river Phoinix near the town of Anthela there is no space but a single wheel-track only: and on the West of Thermopylai there is a mountain which is impassable and precipitous, rising up to a great height and extending towards the range of Oite, while on the East of the road the sea with swampy pools succeeds at once. In this passage there are hot springs, which the natives of the place call the "Pots," 168 and an altar of Heracles is set up near them. Moreover ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... little foot-page of old ballads, John "let down his feet and ran," ran determinately on, down the now less precipitous slope-ran till he was beyond the trees, with the summer sun beating down on him, and in sight of figures coming out from the hotel ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there is sublimity in these gigantic walls of rock rising sheer from the silvery lakelike sheets of water, each successive one seeming to us more beautiful and romantic than the last. Perfect solitude reigns here, for so precipitous and steep are these fortress-like rocks that there is no "coigne of vantage," even for the mountain goat, not the tiniest path from summit to base, no single break in the shelving masses, some of which take the weirdest forms. Seen as we first saw them with a brilliant blue sky overhead, no shadow ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... graveness to the outline and colouring, the forests of Ceylon are singularly attractive from the endless variety of their foliage, and the vivid contrast of its hues. The mountains, especially those looking towards the east and south, rise abruptly to prodigious and almost precipitous heights above the level plains; the rivers wind through woods below like threads of silver through green embroidery, till they are lost in a dim haze which conceals the far horizon; and through this a line of tremulous ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... weakest, and attacked himself without mercy or remission till there, even there, he was strongest. And how seven times in the twenty-four hours, in thunder, rain, or snow, by daylight, twilight, moonlight, or torchlight, the solitaries flocked from distant points, over rugged precipitous ways, to worship in the convent church; at matins, at prime, tierce, sexte, nones, vespers, and compline. He even, under eager questioning, described to him the persons of famous anchorites he ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... from the flames. Every now and then we turned to watch the line of fire as it rose higher and higher, till at last it closed in together at the summit with one final blaze, and left us in the darkness. We dismounted and stumbled along, leading our horses down the precipitous sides of the deep ravines that run into the valley, mounting again to cross the streams at the bottom, and clambering up on the other side to the level of the road. At last a turn in the valley showed lights just before us, and we entered the village of Chalma, which was illuminated with flaring ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... rather shout, and galloped forward. The Englishman was aroused from his sulky revery. He stretched his head from the carriage, which had attained the brow of the hill. Before him extended a long hollow defile, commanded on one side by rugged, precipitous heights, covered with bushes and scanty forest trees. At some distance he beheld the carriage of the Venitians overturned; a numerous gang of desperadoes were rifling it; the young man and his servant were overpowered and partly stripped, and the lady ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... in Old Compton Street with its latticed windows, and its almost spotless white lintels and the low-roofed doorway, a barrel-organ was twirling tunes to which two or three girls danced a clumsy step. In the doorway itself, at the top of the precipitous flight of stairs that led immediately to the room below, stood Madame, the proprietor's wife—ready to welcome all who came. Her round, French, good-natured face beamed when she saw Traill, and her little brown eyes gleamed with genuine ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... silently away. Fifteen yards up the hill he went and then paused. He stood on the crest of the hill and before him was a steep, almost precipitous slope. He made his way along the edge for a few yards and then paused. Faintly he could detect a murmur of voices. Inch by inch he crept forward, going over the ground under foot. He paused and listened intently and decided that the sound must come from the slope ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... A precipitous flight of steps, where all was steeped in darkness, descended from the narrow entry. It was with infinite precaution that Pierre ventured into the gloom, which ever grew denser and denser. He lowered his feet gently so as to make no noise, and feeling the walls with his ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... condition, high or low, could desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and precipitous cliffs. This beautiful estate of Ballochmyle is still held by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns's song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other set of people ever attained it. How slight the tenure seems! A young lady happened to walk out, one summer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... river and under the frown of the overhanging cliffs, she directed the path she was breaking. Here and there she made detours to avoid the out-jutting talus, and at other times followed the ice in against the precipitous walls and hugged them closely around the abrupt bends. And so, at the head of her huskies, she came suddenly upon a woman sitting in the snow and gazing across the river at smoke-canopied Dawson. She ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... foot; and, winding himself about him with hideous strength, he leaped backwards with him into the torrent, where he left him, and so mounted the opposite bank, and again rushed over the country. A more terrible bridge than this was in his way—even a precipitous pass of frightful height over a valley; but still he scoured onwards, throwing over it the agonised passengers that dared, in their ignorance of his strength, to oppose him; and so always rushing and raging, he came ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... to a more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixes his eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thither bends his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed and boldness. You see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; if near, you hear the rush of his wings; his shadow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... A SUDDEN—MOON. "Do we not," writes Brimley, "seem to burst from the narrow steep path down the ravine, whose tall precipitous sides hide the sky and the broad landscape from sight, and come out ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... forest runs roughly in a line north-westward from Churchill to the mouth of the Mackenzie river. East and north of this line is the country of the barren grounds, for the most part a desolate waste of rock. It is broken by precipitous watercourses and wide lakes, and has no vegetation except the mosses and grasses which support great wandering {41} herds of caribou. A few spruce trees and hardy shrubs struggle northward from the limits of the ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... thought, even when isolated, still senses the totality of relationship in the spirit; thus every thought in music is most intimately and inseparably related to the totality of harmony, which is unity. Everything electric stimulates the spirit to fluent, precipitous, musical creation. I myself am of an electrical nature." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... ill-luck, we gladly squared away before it to seek a better fortune on the bosom of the broad Atlantic. For a fortnight we stretched away to the southward and westward, when we sighted and passed the lofty heights and precipitous cliffs of Flores and Corvo, in the neighbourhood of which Captain Winter determined to cruise for a week, it being customary for homeward-bound ships from the southward to endeavour to make these ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... mountains where the caravans, engaged in the exportation of mohair ever since that valuable commodity first began to be exported, have worn ditch-like trails through ridges of solid rock three feet in depth; over the less rocky and precipitous hills beyond a comprehensive view is obtained of the country ahead, and these time-honored trails are seen leading in many directions, ramifying the country like veins of one common system, which are necessarily drawn together wherever there is but one pass. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... hundred and six hundred feet in length, and about fifty in height. There was no resemblance to a coffin now as Brandon approached it, for that likeness was only discernible at a distance. Its sides were steep and precipitous. It was one black solid mass, without any outlying crags, or any fragments near it. Its upper surface appeared to be level, and in various places it was very easy to ascend. Up one of these places Brandon climbed, and soon stood ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... be quite true, for they had a long, long journey through rugged valley, up steep mountain side, down precipitous gulch, and across many a roaring torrent, one of which necessitated the use of knotted-together ropes to ensure that the mules with their ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... The brigade which Sir Robert commanded entered the pass on the 12th of October. The Ghilzies were posted behind a breastwork near the middle of the pass; and as the assailing body approached, the enemy withdrew from this position, and occupied the steep and precipitous ridges of the mountains on either side, from whence they opened a well-directed fire. General Sale was wounded in the ankle and obliged to leave the field; and Lieutenant-colonel Dennie then took the command. Under his direction one section ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for some distance, then circled round in front of the hills, and then again struck off south and east. They galloped forward, eager to ascertain the character of the hills, for much depended on their being precipitous or not. Paul surveyed the country with a ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... a cloud, and peeping over its edge, Bellerophon had a pretty distinct view of the mountainous part of Lycia, and could look into all its shadowy vales at once. At first there appeared to be nothing remarkable. It was a wild, savage, and rocky tract of high and precipitous hills. In the more level part of the country, there were the ruins of houses that had been burnt, and, here and there, the carcases of dead cattle strewn about the pastures where ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... out of the way in good season. All fear of earthquake being removed, the crowd flocked back eagerly to stare down into the wrecked tunnel, which formed now a sort of gaping, chaotic ditch, with sides at some points precipitous and at others brokenly sloping. The throng was noisy with excited interest and with relief at having escaped so cleanly. The break had run just beneath one corner of the keepers' cottage, tearing away a portion of the foundation and wrenching the structure slightly aside without overthrowing it. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... they came to an avalanche of broken sandstone that was heaped half-way up the face of the precipitous wall, and up this climbed until they came to a level shelf of rock, and back of this was a great depression in the rock, forty feet deep and half as wide, with a floor as level as a table and covered with soft white sand. Mary would ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... inconspicuous unimpressive-ness. Till one has seen it from this point one has not truly seen it. The vast stone shows like a half from which the other half has been sharply cleft and removed, that the sense of its precipitous magnitude may unrelievedly strike the eye; and it seems to have in that moment the whole world to tower up in from the level at its feet. No dictionary, however unabridged, has language adequate to ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... them swiftly beyond Pontarlier and down the steep gradient of the Gorges de l'Areuse towards Neuchatel. The Val de Travers, through which the railway slips across the wooded Jura into Switzerland, is like a winding corridor cleft deep between savage and precipitous walls. There are dizzy glimpses into the gulf below. With steam shut off and brakes partly on, the train curves sharply, hiding its eyes in many tunnels lest the passengers turn giddy. Strips of bright green meadow- land, where the Areuse flows calmly, alternate with places ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... charge, he pushed through a dense growth of shrub and underwood, and came crouching on a precipitous edge of shrouded crag, which commanded a view of the stronghold, extending round it, as if scooped clean by some natural action, about a stone'sthrow distant, and nearly level with the look-out tower. Sheer from a deep circular basin clothed with wood, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sundown arrived at the Modder, which we intended to cross at a drift near Koodoesrand. This was the dangerous neighbourhood, and we were anxious to push on and cross the river before encamping for the night. The banks of the Modder at this drift are about forty feet high and almost precipitous, the path down to the drift being little better than a track worn at a long diagonal down the bank. It was steep enough going down, but when we had crossed the shallow river and begun the ascent of the other bank we found the track very soft and almost perpendicular. ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... for our refreshed caravan to reach the dry and precipitous bed of the Sanghu, which I found impossible to pass with my horse, in consequence of jagged rocks and immense boulders that covered its channel. But the men were resolved that my convenient animal should not be left behind. Accordingly, all hands went to work with ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... men clad in leather garments, who wade up to their necks in the sea, and scrape the sea-bottom with hooped nets attached to the end of long poles; or (rather dangerous work) men go out in boats, and examine the faces of precipitous cliffs, picking off, by means of iron hooks, the lumps of amber which they may see here and there. Sometimes a piece weighing nearly a pound is found, and a weight of even ten pounds is recorded. As small pieces can easily be joined by smoothing the surfaces, moistening them with linseed ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... had its obverse. The system of mutual exclusion, that existed between the German States up to the establishment of German unity, had until then furnished a living to an uncommonly numerous class of artisans and small peasants. With the precipitous tearing down of all the protective barriers, these people suddenly found themselves face to face with an unbridled process of capitalist production and development. At first, the prosperity epoch of the early seventies caused the danger to seem slighter, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... the right of them the craggy mountain arose against the sky, facing the valley with an uncommonly precipitous wall. In this grim face of granite could be seen what looked like a mere indentation. When they came to it, however, they discovered that Yellow Pine's "notch" was much narrower at its mouth than beyond it, owing to some ancient overturn and ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... whatever appeared in the mass first presented; but in a few seconds a shelving pile appeared, of five or six columns' width, which showed their figure to be hexagonal, and their articulations similar to those of the basaltic formation at Staffa. This precipitous cliff was profusely covered with a dark red flower, precisely similar, says Dr. Grant, to the Papaver Rhoeus, or Rose Poppy, of our sublunary cornfields; and this was the first organic production of nature in a foreign world ever revealed to ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... of the tracks the rocks rise in a sheer wall; on the other is a steep embankment that in places is almost as precipitous as ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... between them. The castle was built upon the seaward peak, and a narrow drawbridge crossed the gully to the other summit, which was barren and open to the sight. The river swept round the northern side of the hill with considerable force. To the south the hill was precipitous, and of such "infinite asperity," that no man could climb it. To the east was the bridged gully connecting the garrison with the isthmus. To the west, in a crook of the land, was the little port of Chagres, where ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost." She had drawn in the foreground the flock couched in security, rounded up by the collie guard in a grassy meadow; in the distance, overhanging a gorge, was a bald, precipitous crag, behind which a wolf crouched, watching the Shepherd who tenderly bore in his arms the lost wanderer. On the opposite side of the blackboard had been carefully copied the Gospel ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... valley. Here the sierras impinged upon the river, forming a canon. It was a grim gap, similar to that we had passed on entering from the west, but still more fearful in its features. Unlike the former, there was no road over the mountains on either side. The valley was headed in by precipitous cliffs, and the trail lay through the canon, up the bed of the stream. The latter was shallow. During freshets it became a torrent; and then the valley was inaccessible from the east, but that was a rare occurrence ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... thirteen bullets pierced as many bodies. Appalled by so sudden an attack and such terrible slaughter, the survivors, unaware of the feebleness of the force by which they were assailed, plunged down the precipitous hill, tumbling over each other, and rolling among the rocks. The adventurous band eagerly pursued them, and shot at them as they would at deer flying through the forest. Many more thus fell. One keen marksman ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... was a deep canon with precipitous walls. This, however, was not a serious impediment, for the life feathers, as before, helped them to cross it in one bound. By nightfall the boys had arrived at a broad, beautiful meadow where lived the Wosakidi, or Grasshopper ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... to our house was an Indian trail, winding about a mile up the bluff from the beach; the trees shutting overhead, and all about us a drooping white spirea, a most bridal-looking flower. Here and there, on some precipitous bank, was the red Indian-flame. Every once in a while, we came to a little opening looking down upon the sea; and the sound of it was always in our ears. At last we reached a partially cleared space, and there stood the house; behind it a mountain range, with snow filling all ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... when he could not drive the band of Black Faces over the narrow Razorback which led to safety, induced them to follow him across that ten-inch death-track, one by one, like children behind their mistress. It was Red Wull who was seen coming down the precipitous Saddler's How, shouldering up that grand old gentleman, King o' the Dale, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... rear, to cut off every egress from the wood. This done the troop dashed within. For the first few yards the space was more open than they had anticipated: but the ground soon grew uneven, rugged, and almost precipitous, and the soil, and the interlaced trees, alike forbade any rapid motion to the horse. Don Alonzo de Pacheco, mounted on a charger whose agile and docile limbs had been tutored to every description of warfare, and himself of light weight and incomparable horsemanship—dashed on before the rest. ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mountains with coastal plain belt in north; mountains precipitous to sea on west coast; sandy ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the tailors or cobblers squatting at their work; others were Jewish, with Hebrew inscriptions. There were dark Arab cafes, noisy Italian wine-shops, butchers' stalls; children of all ages played and screamed about the precipitous cobble-paved streets; and the shrill cries of Jewish women, sitting at their doors, rose in rebuke of husband or offspring. Not many lights appeared through the shuttered windows of the dark, high houses. Overhead, between two facades, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... interruption of labor, which could not but be very extensive, caused considerable damage. In one word, the efforts made could not prevent or remedy, in so short a time, the serious disorders which are always connected with a period of precipitous transition, and which, although natural, are exceedingly embarrassing to those who have to deal ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... of our glasses we were able to sweep the rough slopes and precipitous descents below, to the distance of many miles; and, forgetting De Aery, we watched the development of the phenomenon with terror. The larger slides gradually absorbed the smaller ones, as common fish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... corporal, perched as he was in an attitude extremely inconvenient for reloading. Of his comrade I saw no signs, but judged him to be foundered somewhere in the macchia. The little roan had regained his wind. He took me down the precipitous track without a blunder, picked his way across the dry bed of a mountain torrent, and on the farther side struck off at right angles into a path which mounted through the macchia towards a wedge-shaped cleft in the foothills to the north. Now and again this path returned to the very lip of the ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a couple of miles from the tip of land. The western half of the island (strictly speaking, it was a separate bit of land, cut off from its neighbour by the ribbon-like channel), was of a more rugged character, the hills, in fact, extending to the sea, forming, no doubt, steep and precipitous cliffs, rising ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... and thickly that he determined to make it his covert should he fail in his first attempt. His object now was to see if his estimate of proximity to the mine was correct; and leaving his horse, he pushed up the mountain-side. At last he reached a precipitous ledge. Skirting this a short distance, he found a place of comparatively easy ascent, and soon learned with much satisfaction that he was not over two hundred yards from the thicket opposite Mr. Alford's quarters. These discoveries all favored possible future operations; ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... back, but feeling that a movement might betray them, Don held him fast, and they stood there in the shadow of the cave, looking on, for the boatswain's head appeared as he drew himself up the precipitous place, and then ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... long since he had first found the cave, that he could not lead them there in the dark, but would need daylight to enable him to recognize the surroundings. Even when daylight came he was for some time at fault, but he at last pointed to a clump of bushes, growing on a broken and precipitous face of rock, as the place ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... summit; small amount, odd; balance; cortado a —, perpendicular, precipitous; alla por los anos de mil trescientos y —, back there in the year thirteen ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... below. She straightened and turned to face the ocean. The waters were sewn with jagged rocks and long-running reefs. Sleek-haired seals bobbed up to look humanly at her. A thin, high-rising jet of water afar out bespoke the presence of a whale. Back of her loomed the precipitous wall of the cliff. She gasped at her own daring as her eye followed the rough stairway down which she had descended. A moment she wondered, with dismay, if she could possibly climb back again; a moment she pictured her plight ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... lower face of the crag, and in their track the dark rock glittered with a steely luster, but trails of mist rolled among the crannies above. Below, a precipitous slope of small stones that the dalesmen call a scree ran down to a hollow strewn with broken rocks, and across this he could distinguish the blurred flat top of another height. The mountain dropped to a dale that looked profoundly deep, although he ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... three, as above enumerated (q.v.); one, the most precipitous and bold, we have called Cape Providence (q.v.) for reasons which appear above; the second, Cape Mercy, in recognition of the great mercy shown us in finding this place without running on it as has been the fate of many a noble vessel. The third we called Point Liberty from ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... of the mountain goat from the crag on which he stood—over a precipitous chasm, lighted on a narrow ledge, from which a slip of the foot would have been sure death, another bound yet more fearful, and his whole weight hung suspended by the bough of the ilex which he grasped with a single hand; then from bough to bough, from crag to ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... continually steep up and steep down, as if Nature had determined to try how much mountain she could place upon a given space; she had, however, still some regard for utility, for the mountains are rarely precipitous—very steep, often rocky and shingly when they have attained a great elevation, but seldom, if ever, until in immediate proximity to the West Coast range, abrupt like the descent from the top of ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... occupied by our troops was enclosed on the left (west) by the Guru Mountain, which separates Umbeyla from Buner, and on the right (east) by a range of hills, not quite so high. The main piquet on the Guru occupied a position upon some precipitous cliffs known as the Eagle's Nest, while that on the right was designated the 'Crag piquet.' The Eagle's Nest was only large enough to accommodate 110 men, so 120 more were placed under the shelter of some rocks at its base, and the remainder ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... spirits. He now and then, though seldom, attempts to write as if he were: and never, we think, without leaving an impression of poverty: as the brook which on nearly level ground quite fills its banks, appears but a thread when running rapidly down a precipitous declivity. He has feeling enough to form a decent, graceful, even beautiful decoration to a thought which is in itself interesting and moving; but not so much as suffices to stir up the soul by mere sympathy with itself in ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... to look at while I was there. But a few weeks after, when AEolus spreads "the cloth," and invites the winds to a feast, then let the mariner, whose vessel may be caught in the bay beneath, beware. Forth from their revels they rush over its precipitous sides, and ships become their play-things, and man ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... exception of a narrow channel in the midst where the current runs deep. Rocky hills now began to show themselves to the east of us; we passed the sheet of water known by the name of Lake George, and came to a little river which appeared to have its source at the foot of a precipitous ridge on the British side. It is called Garden River, and a little beyond it, on the same side, lies Garden Village, inhabited by the Indians. It was now deserted, the Indians having gone to attend ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... dun-and-ochre-coloured veld, where patches of bluish-green are beginning to spread. The south bank, where the bush grows thinnest, was frequently patronised by picnic-parties, and at all times a place of resort for strolling sweethearts. The north bank, much more precipitous, was clothed with a tangled luxuriance of vegetation, and threaded only by native paths, so narrow as to prove discouraging to pedestrians desirous of walking side by side. Where the outermost line of defences impinged upon the river-bed, the trees had been cut down and the bush ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... stand out in shelves and rugged ridges, around which the stream whirls swiftly and sweeps off into broad dark pools in whose green, mysterious depths there should be noble fish. Below, the river widens and has long placid reaches, but for the most part its banks are precipitous, and the deep water runs along the trunks and bares the roots of great trees whose branches stretch far out over its surface. Occasionally, the mountains recede and form a vast amphitheatre, clad in primeval forest, and there are islands on which vegetation runs riot in its unbridled luxury, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... of the Jandul is about eight miles long and perhaps half as broad. It opens out of the main valley, which extends from the Panjkora to Nawagai, and is on all other sides surrounded by high and precipitous mountains. The bed of the river, although at the time of our visit occupied only by a small stream, is nearly half a mile broad and bordered by rice fields, to which the water is conducted by many artfully ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... of his words, and a few minutes later we had accomplished a precipitous and dangerous descent to the shore beneath. We should have got down more quickly but for the ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth,[166] Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered, and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? And who commanded—and the silence came— Here let the ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... what I did in those moments, I tremble, for I have always been, and still am, subject to dizziness; and I went over this path along a steep precipitous rock, 30 metres high, in the midst of the infernal noise of the sea, at this place eternally furious, and which raged fearfully against this indestructible cliff. And I must have taken a mad pleasure in it, for I accomplished this journey five ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... top or dome of the hill, where the ground is for a small space level, as the snows are, (I understand), on the dome of Mont Blanc; presently falling, however, in what may be, in the London clay formation, considered a precipitous slope, to our valley of Chamouni (or of Dulwich) on the east; and with a softer descent into Cold Harbor lane on the west: on the south, no less beautifully declining to the dale of the Effra, (doubtless ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... used to bring his chariot, accompanied by a number of footmen, and unharnessing the horses, let it down by ropes from the top of the precipice. There is another spot of the kind on the road from Killarney to Cahersiveen and Valentia, where on the side of the Hill of Droum, nearly precipitous from the sea, is the track-mark of the carriage-road, if such it can be called, where the vehicle used to be supported and dragged by men. A new road has since been made there: the Atlantic Ocean is so directly beneath, that a passenger may drop a stone into it as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... were becoming precipitous cliffs, the drag made dismal groans; Aubrey, after a great slip forward, looking injured, anchored himself, with his feet against the seat, by Ethel; and Dr. Spencer was effectually wakened by an involuntary forward plunge of his opposite neighbour. 'Can this be safe?' quoth Ethel; ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time for it. The woman's dwelling and appearance were not unbecoming her pretensions. Her house, which was on the brow of the steep hill on which Stromness is founded, was only accessible by a series of dirty and precipitous lanes, and for exposure might have been the abode of Eolus himself, in whose commodities the inhabitant dealt. She herself was, as she told us, nearly one hundred years old, withered and dried up like a mummy. A clay-coloured kerchief, folded round her neck, corresponded ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... celebrated for their music, of which the chief instruments were the flute and the harp. Their capital, Sardis, was situated on a precipitous rock, and was deemed impregnable. Among their kings was Croesus, whose great wealth was derived from the gold found in the sands of the river Pactolus, which flowed toward the Hermus from Mount Tmolus, and also from the industry of his subjects. They were the first on record to coin gold and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... depth that their bases were frequently hidden by the wreaths of mountain mist floating far below; across frail swing bridges stretched from side to side of those awful, fathomless rifts called barrancas which seem to be peculiar to the Andes; or up and down steep, rugged, almost precipitous slopes where a single false step or a loose stone would send man or beast whirling away down to death a thousand feet below. But the llamas seemed to be more sure-footed than mountain goats, and despite their loads they scrambled up and down apparently ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy. Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... the incognito knight on the point of being hurled against the wall of the castle, and at the distance of scarcely two feet, suddenly reined up, and both he and his charger appeared rooted to the ground. A burst of admiration now superseded the terror which his precipitous career had occasioned, and every one was lost in conjectures relating to the incognito knight. The noble arrogance of the motto—"Conocelle por sus fechos," made them better appreciate the feat he had just ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... appeared to be from below. The battlements had indeed crumbled away, and there were cracks and fissures in the upper parts of the walls, but below the walls were still solid and unbroken, and as the rock was almost precipitous, save at the point at which a narrow path wound up to the entrance, it was still capable of making ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... during a severe snow-storm in the year 1798, had gone with his dog, called Caesar, to a spot on the small stream of Paphry (a tributary of the North Esk), where his sheep on such occasions used to take shelter beneath some lofty and precipitous rocks called Ugly Face, which overhung the stream. While employed in driving them out, an immense avalanche fell from these rocks, and completely buried him and his dog. He found all his endeavours to extricate ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... 17 inhabited islands and one uninhabited island, and a few uninhabited islets; strategically located along important sea lanes in northeastern Atlantic; precipitous terrain limits habitation ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... former sketch, and it is unnecessary to add much to that description here. It will be remembered how Wolfe landed at L'Anse du Foulon in the darkness of the night of September 12th, 1759, and how the British troops scaled the precipitous heights leading to the Plains of Abraham. Intelligence of this momentous event reached Montcalm, at his headquarters at Beauport, about daybreak on the morning of the 13th. "Aha," said the General, "then they have at last got to the weak side of this miserable garrison." ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... hollow. It was very dark when the wagon lurched in among them, and it cost the man an effort to discern the winding trail which led down into the blackness of the hollow. In places the slope was almost precipitous, and it behooved him to be careful of the horses, which could not be replaced. Without them he could not plow in spring, and his life did not appear of any especial value in comparison with theirs ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... crosses a bridge. Then you come out on a waste of salt-marsh, threaded by the creek, broken by wild, fantastic sand-hills, grown over by beach-grass which will cut your fingers like a knife. You drive close along the white, precipitous beach; you pass the long, shaky pier, with half-decayed fish-houses at the other end, and picturesque heaps of fish-cars, seines, and barrels. Then the road, following the shore a little longer, climbs the hill and enters the woods. Two miles more and you come out to fields with ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... was begun by General Bosquet. Bonat's brigade crossed the river by a bar of sand across the mouth where the water was only waist-deep, while D'Autemarre's brigade crossed by a bridge, and both brigades swarmed up the precipitous cliffs which offered great difficulties, even to infantry. They achieved their object, without encountering any resistance whatever, the guns of the fleet having driven back the Russian regiment appointed to defend this post. The enemy brought up three batteries of artillery to regain the ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... is something more precipitous, something with more zest in it, with more adventure. Nearly all the Utopias paint the life of the future as a kind of giant Chautauqua, in which every man and woman is at work, all are well fed, satisfied, and cultivated. But as man is now constituted he would probably ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... room now. What had been a state of remarkable quiet with every man in his seat, with the conversation hardly above the tone of a whisper, with the uniform tranquillity disturbed solely by the remarks of the two speakers, was now giving way to a precipitous uproar which approached a riot. Men surged about one another and about Stephen in an endeavor to learn the details of the plot. Groups separated themselves from other equally detached groups, all absorbed, however, in the same topic. Voices, ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... of Invermay, the friends descended toward the precipitous banks of the Earn, at the foot of the Grampians. In these green labyrinths they wound their way, till Bruce, who had never before been in such mountain wilds, expressed a fear that Wallace had mistaken the track; for this seemed ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... last look at the cold and comfortless sky, she advanced to the very edge of the lake's precipitous bank. Already the child was raised in her arms, and her body bent to accomplish successfully the fatal spring, when a sound in the east—faint, distant, and fugitive—caught her ear. In an instant her eye brightened, her chest heaved, her cheek flushed. She exerted ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... A deep narrow inlet of blue water lay pure and still near the base of the rocky height, where, too, was a shelving curve of white sand, sprinkled about by a few mat sheds, while on the other side the rocks arose to an elevation of a hundred and fifty feet, forming a precipitous wall to the water. The inlet here took a sharp turn, scooped out in a secluded basin, and then narrowing to less than forty yards in width, it wound and twisted for a good mile in a thin blue channel to the open sea. Half that distance farther out was a roaring ledge ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... certain fine things that you and I can never possess. We know that. Genius, greatness,—they are high and forbidding mountain peaks. Their sides are rugged and precipitous. They have pulled iron hoods of snow and ice upon their brows. But goodness,—that is a peak that may be scaled by the tender feet of little children and by the tottering feet of old age. It may be scaled by the reluctant feet of those in life's prosaic middle passage. Let us address ourselves ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... of the standard and the gathering he had witnessed. As, however, only Locheil's clansmen had arrived before Swetenham left, Cope considered his force ample for the purpose, and continued his march. In order to reach Fort Augustus, however, he had to pass over Corry Arrack, a lofty and precipitous mountain which was ascended by a military road with fifteen zigzags, known to the country ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... days' journey from Cibola to the east, says Castaneda, there was a village called "Acuco," erected on a rock. "This village is very strong, because there was but one path leading to it. It rose upon a precipitous rock on all sides, etc."[38] Jaramillo mentions, at one or two days' march from Cibola to the east, "a village in a very strong situation on a precipitous ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... geology, but they may nevertheless serve as most excellent training grounds for young geologists. If students are so situated as to be brought at the beginning of study under the influence of very impressive displays of geologic phenomena—precipitous mountains, rugged cliffs, deep canyons, and the like—there is danger that their mental habits may become diffusive rather than close and keen; the emotions may be called forth in wonder rather than turned into zest in the search for evidence. If students are to be trained to diligence ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... this Fourth Dimension terrain co-existing within in the space of New York City, must be a tumbled, mountainous region of crags and spires, and yawning pits, ravines and valley depths. Jagged and precipitous indeed, for there were apparitions encamped in the air above Manhattan and harbor—higher in altitude than the Chrysler or the Empire State towers. Other wraiths showed in a dozen places lower down—some within the city buildings themselves. And yet others ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... brink before he is aware of his being near so singular an abyss. A small rivulet flows through the Gully, and discharges itself into the sea at ShoalHaven; but this river is hardly perceptible, from the summit of the cliffs forming the sides of the Gully, which are of the boldest and most precipitous character. The ground on the summit is full of caves of great depth, but there has been a difficulty in examining them, in consequence of the violent wind that rushes up them, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... deepest part of a gulf, surrounded by lofty and precipitous mountains, which were externally covered with very thick vegetation. They, on all sides, presented a barrier, through which it was impossible to pass. The shadows which they cast over the water, at the extreme point of the lake, produced the effect of half darkness, which, in conjunction with the ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... immortal among a crowd of stockbrokers. She has, indeed, the radiance and repose of an immortal; but she wears her immortality youthfully. When you get among the streets of Quebec, the mediaeval, precipitous, narrow, winding, and perplexed streets, you begin to realise her charm. She almost incurs the charge of quaintness (abhorrent quality!); but even quaintness becomes attractive in this country. You are in a foreign land, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... broken down by Monk's soldiers during the civil war, and had never been replaced, therefore presented no obstacle to Bothwell and his party. The avenue, very steep and narrow, and causewayed with large round stones, ascended the side of the precipitous bank in an oblique and zigzag course, now showing now hiding a view of the tower and its exterior bulwarks, which seemed to rise almost perpendicularly above their heads. The fragments of Gothic defences which it exhibited were upon such a ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Gascony, was a superb old pile of solid masonry towering above the huge cliffs which guard the whole of that iron coast with its gigantic masses of rude masonry. So close did it stand to the verge of these precipitous crags on its seaward face, that whenever the wind from the westward blew angrily and in earnest, the spray of the tremendous billows which rolled in from the wide Atlantic, and burst in thunder at the foot of those stern ramparts, was dashed so high ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... garments in the days of peace, before the coming of the Greeks); in one of those beautiful valleys, on a bold round-surfaced lawn, spotted with juniper, that opened itself in the bosom of an old wood, which rose with a steep, but not precipitous ascent, from the river to the summit of the hill, stood the castellated villa of a retired citizen. Ebenezer Mac Crotchet, Esquire, was the London-born offspring of a worthy native of the "north countrie," who had walked up to London on a commercial adventure, ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... up doing business with a person that's just dropped down from the clouds—like that." She snapped her fingers to indicate precipitous haste. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... whilst labouring across gullies and sandy mounds, and we were obliged to come to a stand-still quite suddenly upon the very edge of a precipitous descent. Every step towards the Dead Sea had brought us into a country more and more dreary; and this sand-hill, which we were forced to choose for our resting-place, was dismal enough. A few slender blades of grass, which here and there singly pierced the sand, mocked ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... undisturbed influences of spontaneous nature, its soil sooner of later clothes itself with herbaceous and arborescent plants, and, at no long interval, with a dense forest growth. Indeed, upon surfaces of a certain stability and not absolutely precipitous inclination the special conditions required for the spontaneous propagation of trees may all be negatively expressed and reduced to these three: exemption from defect or excess of moisture, from perpetual frost, and from the depredations of man and browsing quadrupeds. Where these requisites ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... urchins would run down, with a great stamping of feet. But almost always Helene found herself alone, and this steep, secluded, shady descent was to her a veritable delight —like a path in the depths of a forest. At the bottom she would raise her eyes, and the sight of the narrow, precipitous alley she had just descended ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... instructing his recruits, "attention, sir, and obey the word of command." Then he calmly explained that the escape would consist of two distinct operations; the first in gaining the narrow platform at the base of the tower; the second, in descending to the foot of the precipitous rock. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... hundred miles from the African mainland. A warm, lazy sea, the sea of the doldrums, sapphire or turquoise, or, in deep shaded pools, a radiant green, joyfully foams itself away against these fairy lands of tossing palm, dense vegetation, rushing cascades, and purple, precipitous peaks. A soil of volcanic origin is covered with a rich humus of decaying vegetation, and this, with a soft humid atmosphere, makes an ideal home ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... Sz Ch'wan from the head-waters of the Wei and Ilan Rivers are all extremely precipitous. It was not until 200 B.C. that any ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... that up there "at the mountain" Don Pepe walked about precipitous paths, girt with a great sword and in a shabby uniform with tarnished bullion epaulettes of a senior major. Most miners being Indians, with big wild eyes, addressed him as Taita (father), as these barefooted people of Costaguana ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad |
