"Nautical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this same image, as "Our Oldest Inhabitant," after attributing it to the same man's workmanship, states: "Deacon Shem Drowne, whose name suggests pious and patriarchal, if not nautical associations, carved the grasshopper which still holds its place over Faneuil Hall, and also the gilded Indian,[2] who, with his bow bent and arrow on the string, so long kept watch and ward over the Province House, the stately residence of the royal Governors of Massachusetts."[3] ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... case (485/3. This refers to Banks' Cove: see "Volcanic Islands," page 107.) (for there has been some denudation there), but the "elliptic one" (page 105), which is 1,500 yards (three-quarters of a nautical mile) in internal diameter...and is the very one the inclination of whose mud stream on tuff strata I measured (before I had ever heard the name Dufrenoy) and found varying from 25 to 30 deg. Albemarle Island, instead of being a crater of elevation, as Von Buch ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... boat was ordered. She even went down to the quay again with him to see it before midday. Grandcourt had recovered perfect quietude of temper, and had a scornful satisfaction in the attention given by the nautical groups to the milord, owner of the handsome yacht which had just put in for repairs, and who being an Englishman was naturally so at home on the sea that he could manage a sail with the same ease that he could manage a horse. The sort of exultation he had discerned in Gwendolen this morning she ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... commiserate my unquiet condition. Seasickness, he declared, he could not understand, and was constantly recommending most extraordinary dishes and drinks, "all made out of the artist's brain," which he said were sovereign remedies for nautical illness. I remember to this day some of the preparations which, in his revelry of fancy, he would advise me to take, a farrago of good things almost rivalling "Oberon's Feast," spread out so daintily in Herrick's "Hesperides." ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... a paper and looked up the nautical news to see whether the steamer of his uncle had arrived, or was spoken outside ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... of sticking his head into the sand of imagination and boastfully concluding that facts were not there. Harry was a fact, but by continuously asserting that New Zealand was a long way off and that Harry would never come back, Harry's existence became a very pleasant fairy-story, like nautical tales of the sea-serpent and the Bewitching Mermaid. They might be there, and it was very pleasant to listen to stories about them, but they had no real bearing on life as ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... companion-way, leading down from the cockpit, or standing-room, was a small state-room, one of which was appropriated to the use of the captain. It contained a single berth, a writing-desk, a plentiful supply of lockers, drawers, shelves, and brackets for clothing, charts, and nautical instruments. Levi had installed himself in this little apartment, and felt like a lord, as he sat in its cushioned arm-chair at the desk, glancing at his tasty ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... it was still clear, and the temperature was down to minus 45 deg.. Again we made a fair march of not less than twelve nautical miles, crossing in the first half many cracks and narrow leads, and in the latter half traversing an unbroken series of old floes. I felt confident that this zone of numerous leads which we had crossed in the last two marches was the "Big Lead," and ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... formidable to be encountered. I was frequently awakened by the quick trampling of feet at this early hour, and knew it arose from a pursuit of Jack, in consequence of some mischief on his part. Like all other nautical monkeys, he descended into the forecastle, where he twisted off the night-caps of the sailors as they lay in their hammocks, stole their knives, tools, etc., and if they were not very active in the pursuit, these purloinings ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... themselves against the overwhelming power of the antagonists, that was too absurd to be thought of even by such a reckless fellow as Bartholemy. So, when the ship was hailed by the Spanish vessels he lay to and waited until a boat's crew boarded him. With the eye of a nautical man the Spanish captain of one of the ships perceived that something was the matter with this vessel, for its sails and rigging were terribly cut up in the long fight through which it had passed, and of course he wanted to know what had happened. When he found that the great ship was in the ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... and the title of a nautical burletta by E. Fitzball, based on the novel so called by J. Fenimore Cooper, of New York. "The pilot" turns out to be the brother of Colonel Howard, of America. He happened to be in the same vessel which was taking out the colonel's wife and only son. The vessel ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... parts of the village where the herring—humorously known as "Digby Chickens"—are spread on racks to dry; but this odor, the odd little shops and restaurants, the clumsy and queer lumber boats, the groups of tars gossiping about doorways and wharves, only add to the nautical character of the place, and suggest reminiscences of "Peggoty", "Ham", and others of ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... bar'l o' beer into your hold—more nautical stuff, see?—you get busy too. Mynheer host tells me Leyden's schooner, the Padang, is hauled out for caulking. The job's done. They float her on this evening's tide. He says Leyden drops in about sundown whenever he's in town. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... was essentially a sailor-laddie, the direct descendant of many sailor-laddies, and he was "built upon nautical lines," so said Ralph. On the summer cruise just ended he had demonstrated his claim to be classed among his sire's confreres, for let the ship pitch and toss as it would, his legs never failed him, ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Latin, or High Dutch, for she could make nothing of it. Indeed, the good lady's education had only included reading, writing, needlework and cookery, and she knew no language but her own. Her husband had been taught Latin, but his acquaintance with modern tongues was of the nautical order, and entirely oral and vernacular. However, it enabled him to aver that the letter—if such it were—was neither Scottish, French, Spanish, nor High or Low Dutch. He looked at it in all directions, and shook ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Index Error. Then you subtract the Dip and the Refraction in Altitude, take the sun's semi-diameter from the Nautical Almanac, and add the Parallax. Do you ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... suggested, and I think he will scarcely accept the conjecture of "F.C.B.," however ingenious (No. 21. p. 339.), I am tempted to offer a note on the business or calling of a shipster. It had, I believe, no connection with nautical concerns; it did not designate a skipper (in the Dutch use of the word) of the fair sex. That rare volume, Caxton's Boke for Travellers, a treasury of archaisms, supplies the best definition of her calling:—"Mabyll the shepster cheuissheth her right well; she maketh surplys, shertes, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... passed southerly into the Balonne, which river she named, and even the Culgoa: she seemed to say the name of that locality was "Mundi." Neither of these females had any covering, but the younger wore, by way of ornament, a page of last year's Nautical Almanac, suspended by a cord from her neck. The mother continuing implacable, the daughter, with a graceful expression of respect for her, and courtesy to the stranger, waved her arm for him to retire, which gesture Mr. Kennedy and Dicky immediately obeyed. At another ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... grown to be one of the strongest and healthiest looking of the men there, proved still to be one of the most useless as far as helping in matters nautical. But in anything relating to trips inland he was invaluable. There was so much of the vagabond spirit in him that he liked nothing better than being sent off inland to collect palm tops or shoots for cooking like vegetables. ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... before and after noon, the indicator is moved so that the sun circle will fall on the same middle line, and the pointer will show the time. This sun time differs somewhat from clock time. The difference for every day in the year is given by the almanacs, and very exactly by the Nautical Almanac. This difference being added or subtracted, makes known the true clock time. Thus, for the 1st of March, clock time is twelve minutes faster than sun time. Hence noon by the sun-dial is just that much later than noon by the clock. Any of our ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... embroidery, which had belonged to Mr Park, and was probably part of the spoil taken from the canoe, intended as a present to some native prince. They were, at first, in hopes of obtaining Park's journals; but only an old nautical almanack was seen, and they afterwards discovered that the journals themselves, though kept for some years, had, after Clapperton's death, been destroyed by the person into whose hands they had fallen. They, however, obtained a gun which had undoubtedly belonged to Park, and ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and made "music in the air" for an hour, to the great delight of Sammy, who joined in every song, and was easily persuaded to give sundry nautical melodies in a shrill small voice which convulsed ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... remembered that the ships of this period, according to our modern ideas, would be the veriest cockle-shells, and so that we should know what manner of vessel he refers to in these pages, I had recourse to a friend of mine whose knowledge of things nautical is extensive enough to have gained for him the coveted "Extra Master's Certificate," and who was kind enough to supply me ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... been scattered far and wide. The Wasp sighted several of them in the moonlight but, fearing they might be war vessels, followed warily until morning revealed on her leeward side the Frolic. Jacob Jones promptly shortened sail, which was the nautical method of rolling up one's sleeves, and steered ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... climbed into the boat. Jerry rows very well, and he pulled both the oars while I bailed with an old tin can that I found under the stern thwart. The boat didn't leak badly enough to worry about, but I thought it might be just as well to keep it bailed. We talked in a very nautical way, though Jerry kept forgetting he was Terry Loganshaw and mixing up "Treasure Island" and Captain Moss. But I didn't feel so much like being Chris Hole, anyway, even to please the boys, ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... in the proverbial philosophy of nautical men, that "a stern chase is a long one." The present instance was an exception to the general rule. Keona was wounded. Young Stuart was fleet as the antelope, and strong as a young lion. In these circumstances it is not surprising that, after a run of less than a quarter ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the boat: each individual being furnished with a broad leathern shoulder-belt, which could readily be fastened to or detached from the drag-ropes. The interior arrangement consisted only of two thwarts; a locker at each end for the nautical and other instruments, and for the smaller stores; and a very slight framework along the sides for containing the bags of biscuit and our spare clothes. A bamboo mast nineteen feet long, a tanned duck sail, answering also the purpose of ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... same 'goose-pen' which he speaks of as such a safe instrument for unfolding practical doctrines, with such patient energy, is not now occupied with the statistics of Noah's Ark, grave as he looks; though that, too, is a subject which his nautical experience and the indomitable bias of his genius as a western man towards calculation in general, together with his notion that the affairs of the world generally, past as well as future, belong properly to his sphere as a man, will require him to take up and examine and ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... with a stiff breeze blowing. The water was fairly choppy, but the boat sped along, occasionally dashing the spray into the two young faces. Madge wore a white cloth cap, with a visor, such as ship's officers wear, and looked as nautical as she felt. Both Tom and Madge were possessed with an unusual fondness for the water, and their common love of the sea was ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... noticed that each side of the room partook of the same characteristics, one being devoted to things nautical, the other to objects military. All this Bellew noticed while the soldier was brewing the tea, and the sailor was bestowing the last finishing touches ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... wooden framework of the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all round; Captain Whalley filling the depths of the wicker-chair seemed to sit benumbed in a canvas tent crudely lighted, and used for the storing of nautical objects; a shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle on a stout mahogany stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork fender lying in a corner, dilapidated deck-lockers with loops of thin rope instead ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... not absolutely ignorant of nautical phraseology, promptly ported his helm and at the same moment stopped the engines, by which manoeuvre the Flying Fish glided close past the object so slowly that it was easily distinguishable as a huge ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... day, while preaching, Whitefield "suddenly assumed a nautical air and manner that were irresistible with him," and broke forth in these words: "Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... dismounted and taken "ashore," to borrow a nautical phrase. These were set up in strategic positions before the liner, and full supplies of ammunition both blank and ball were ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... was that, Buzzby?" inquired David Summers, a sturdy boy of about fifteen, who acted as assistant steward, and was, in fact, a nautical maid-of-all-work. "Was it a log-line, or a bow-line, or a cod-line, or a bit of ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Massachusetts, on April 9th, 1758. His father, Nathaniel Ames, a physician, had the "honorable family standing" which was so important in the life of most of the colonies. He had scientific tendencies and published an "Astronomical Diary," or nautical almanac, which was in considerable vogue. The son, however, developed at the early age of six years a fondness for classical literature, which led him to undertake to master Latin. He made such progress that he was admitted to Harvard when but twelve years old. While there, it "was observed ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... mess made a short arc in it, some way in rear of the guns. You descended, by steps, cut in the soil and well pounded, into a dwelling rather commodious than large: for Otway—who knew about yachts—had taken a fancy to construct it nautical-wise, with lockers that served for seats at a narrow saloon table, sleeping bunks excavated along the sides, and air-holes like cabin top-lights, cunningly curtained by night, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress for mourning, were setting out with the news of Nelson's victory and death, he sat through all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich 'Meteor' with a nautical keg of rum on his knees and two cases of old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one of the many habits which he abandoned on his marriage. The victories in the Peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated. It so happened, however, ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... practitioners, called in to manage desperate cases—to suggest all available advantages—to raise doubts or distinctions where simple morality saw no room for either—and generally to teach the art, in nautical phrase, of sailing as near the wind as possible, without fear of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... the science of astronomy in America.' This decision, though it may disappoint those who consider it derogatory to the national honour to reckon from the meridian of Greenwich, is nevertheless the true one. In connection with it, the Americans intend to bring out a nautical almanac. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... agency in these expeditions, he soon became excited to visit the newly-discovered countries, and to participate in enterprises, which were the theme of every tongue. Having made himself well acquainted with geographical and nautical science, he prepared to launch into the career of discovery. It was not very long before he carried ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... ha' been hull down on the horizon," remarked Seth blandly, trying to be very nautical, and everybody laughed; but Betty and Mary thought the woman very cross, when it was such a pretty place to play out there among the bayberry, and perhaps there were ripe blackberries. Harry Foster said that ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Banyan days is a nautical slang term. In the British navy there were formerly two days in each week on which meat formed no part of the men's rations. These were called banyan days, in allusion to the vegetarian diet of the Hindu merchants. Banyan hospital ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the canoe a more approved see-saw action than a priori and inherently attaches to that order of craft. On that really "Grand" river, which was his sometime heritage, the Indian can well improve his skill in this modest branch of nautical science. ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... speaking, Burke thrust his hands into his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling of the room, the walls, and the floor. He wanted to say something, but he was not prepared to do so. His mind, still nautical, desired to take an observation and determine the latitude and longitude of Mrs. Cliff, but the skies were ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... east (west, as we call it now) and south. The diversion of that expedition to the coast of Labrador would indicate that the death of the elder Cabot and the assumption of command by his son occurred early in the voyage. Sebastian Cabot seems to have been not so much a great sailor as a great nautical theorizer. Gomara says he discovered nothing for Spain; and beyond doubt his expedition to La Plata cannot be considered successful, for it was intended to reach the Moluccas. One fixed idea of his life was the course to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... and calm—took quite another view of the case. The bold project, so boldly avowed, seemed to him a sheer absurdity. The "Dandy" and a crew of nine convicts navigate a brig round the world! Preposterous; why, not a man aboard could work a reckoning! His nautical fancy pictured the Osprey helplessly rolling on the swell of the Southern Ocean, or hopelessly locked in the ice of the Antarctic Seas, and he dimly guessed at the fate of the deluded ten. Even if they got safe to port, the chances of final escape were all against them, for what account could ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... any other on the east coast of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... members of the Rockhurst Yacht Club. You didn't, eh? Well, say, I'm one of the yachtiest yachters that ever jibbed a gangway. Not that I do any sailin' exactly; but I guess Sadie and me each paid good money for our shares of club stock, and if that ain't as foolish an act as you can find in the nautical calendar, then I'll ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... Kong," said Marjorie, as they stood looking forward. She looked quite nautical in a suit of white duck and a yachting cap pinned to her flaxen hair. Trask thought she appeared entrancingly healthy and ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... speed of some sharpies, as does certain correspondence in Forest and Stream. A large sharpie was reported to have run 11 nautical miles in 34 minutes, and a big sharpie schooner is said to have averaged 16 knots in 3 consecutive hours of sailing. Tonging sharpies with racing rigs were said to have sailed in smooth water at speeds of 15 and 16 knots. ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... of desultory conversations here set down. It is talk on board ship, or specimen "yarns," such as really are to be picked up from nautical men. The article usually served up for magazine-consumption is, of course, utterly unlike anything here given, and is as entirely undiscoverable anywhere on salt water as the three legendary rocks above ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... but the widow could stand no more: this nautical phrase, familiar to the streets of Bristol, allowed her no longer to misunderstand his meaning; and she quitted the room in a tumult of laughter, sending a servant to show her unfortunate suitor out of the house, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... literally 'revolve' round the Goodwins is well known to the Deal men and to sailors in general, and this revolution is described in most of the tide tables and nautical almanacks used by mariners, e.g. 'The Gull Stream about one hour and ten minutes before high water runs N.E. 3/4 N., but the last hour changes to E.N.E. and even to E.S.E., and the last hour of the southern stream changes from S.W. 1/2 S. to W.S.W. and ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... the hero of this volume, is a nautical young gentleman, and most of the events of the story occur upon the water; but the author hopes his young lady friends will not make faces at him on this account. The boys insisted upon having a sea story, and being ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... gradually loosened his hold, looked at my face, examined my hands and rings with the most minute attention, and soon found the biscuit which lay by my side. When I liked him well enough to profit by his friendship, he became a constant source of amusement. Like all other nautical monkeys, he was fond of pulling off the men's caps as they slept, and throwing them into the sea; of knocking over the parrots' cages to drink the water as it trickled along the deck, regardless of the occasional gripe he received; of taking the dried herbs out of the tin mugs in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... frigate is attacked by two English line-of-battle ships, one of which she sinks, and receives in return the entire point-blank broadside of the other, a three-decker; which broadside, we in our ignorance of nautical matters, should have thought sufficient to blow her either out of the water or under it. It has not that effect, however, and the frigate is captured; the captain of her, when he has hauled down his flag in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... about this period that surnames were first introduced, and that patronymicks were found insufficient to designate heroes. Since the new designations were often derived from some office, as well as the possession of lands and peculiar attributes, the Hungarian obtained his name in consequence of his nautical skill; Dromont, or Dromond, being, in different nations, the name of a ship, whence the commander was called Dromount, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... lump of grease, to which more or less of the sand or mud, or broken shells, as the case might be, adhered, and was brought to the surface. But, however well adapted such an apparatus might be for rough nautical purposes, scientific accuracy could not be expected from the armed lead, and to remedy its defects (especially when applied to sounding in great depths) Lieutenant Brooke, of the American Navy, some years ago invented a most ingenious machine, by which a considerable portion of the superficial layer ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... the cards the baroness was asking the Chevalier du Halga the same questions which she had asked him the evening before about his health. The chevalier made it a point of honor to have new ailments. Inquiries might be alike, but the nautical hero had singular advantages in the way of replies. To-day it chanced that his ribs troubled him. But here's a remarkable thing! never did the worthy chevalier complain of his wounds. The ills that were really the matter ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... lads who made up the sailor chorus. It was a real ship to him, in spite of painted cannon, shaky masts, and cabin doors that led nowhere. He longed to run up the rigging; but as that was forbidden, for fear of danger, he contented himself by obeying orders with nautical obedience, singing with all his might, and taking great satisfaction in his blue suit with the magical letters "H. M. S. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... buffeted by a terrible sea; but, at nightfall of the third day, the tempest abating not, nay, waxing momently, they felt the ship open, being then not far off Majorca, but knowing not where they were neither availing to apprehend it either by nautical reckoning or by sight, for that the sky was altogether obscured by clouds and dark night; wherefore, seeing no other way of escape and having each himself in mind and not others, they lowered a shallop into the water, into which the officers cast themselves, choosing rather to trust themselves thereto ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to eight fathoms beneath the surface, as if they had been carried down by one uniform movement. One of these "half-drowned atolls," so called by Captain Moresby (to whom I am indebted for much invaluable information), is of vast size, namely, ninety nautical miles across in one direction, and seventy miles in another line; and is in many respects eminently curious. As by our theory it follows that new atolls will generally be formed in each new area of subsidence, two weighty objections ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... my own taste, and, I fancy, to that of the old sailors) produce but a cold and shivery effect in the English climate. Had I been the architect, I would have studied the characters, habits, and predilections of nautical people in Wapping, Hotherhithe, and the neighborhood of the Tower (places which I visited in affectionate remembrance of Captain Lemuel Gulliver, and other actual or mythological navigators), and would have built the hospital in a kind of ethereal ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... interesting account of the nautical discoveries made by the inhabitants of Dieppe, and of their merits as sailors, is given by Goube, in his Histoire du Duche de ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... to run the gauntlet, on account of her sailing capacities and the excellence of her sailing master and crew. A frigate was to accompany her, and several smaller vessels, one of which, to his great satisfaction, was Killick's; and he was permitted to lead the way, as his shrewdness and skill in nautical matters were well ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his cabin for his log book, the ship's papers, and his nautical instruments. As he came out the red sun showed for an instant above ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... nautical, Master Steve, and would result most likely in landing the vessel upon the rocks. Water cold, Andra?" to the man, as ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... often found the same needle agree with itself, in several trials made one after the other. This imperfection of the needle, however, is of no consequence to navigation, as the variation can always be found to a degree of accuracy, more than sufficient for all nautical purposes. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new: I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white, But almost every other country 's blue, When gazing on them, mystified by distance, We enter on our nautical existence. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a typical landlubber, and one would expect a specification for the building of a ship would lack nautical details. Not so, however, the Assyrian tablet relating to the Ark. It was, we are told, a true ship. It was decked in. It was well caulked in all its seams. It was handed over to a pilot. It was navigated in proper style. "I steered about the sea. The corpses drifted about like logs. I opened a port-hole.... ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... "Greenwich Hospital" designs, which must not be passed over. "Greenwich Hospital" is a hearty, good-natured book, in the Tom Dibdin school, treating of the virtues of British tars, in approved nautical language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, they go out in brigs and take frigates, they relieve women in distress, and are yard-arm and yard-arming, athwart-hawsing, marlinspiking, binnacling, and helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen invariably ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 1853, a favorable specimen of nautical architecture; the Cunard Company had then been in existence rather less than a score of years, and had already established its reputation for safety and convenience. But, with the exception of the red smoke-stack with the black ring round the top, there was little similarity ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... to expect such a bias to their researches. Colonel Leake, the most accurate of travellers, is a soldier; and in reviewing the field of Marathon, of Plataa, and others deriving their interest from later wars, he makes a casual use of his soldiership. Captain Beaufort, again, as a sailor, uses his nautical skill where it is properly called for. But in the larger proportions of their works, even the professional are not professional; whilst such is our academic discipline, that all alike are scholars. And in this quality of merit the author ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... in the geographical distribution of the empire that the five principal divisions, the United [Sidenote: Divisions.] Kingdom, South Africa, India, Australia and Canada are separated from each other by the three great oceans of the world. The distance as usually calculated in nautical miles: from an English port to the Cape of Good Hope is 5840 m.; from the Cape of Good Hope to Bombay is 4610; from Bombay to Melbourne is 5630; from Melbourne to Auckland is 1830; from Auckland to Vancouver is 6210; from Halifax to Liverpool ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... the neighbourhood of Wapping, observing that most part of his audience were in the seafaring way, very naturally embellished his discourse with several nautical tropes and figures. Amongst other things, he advised them "to be ever on the watch, so that on whatsoever tack the evil one should bear down on them, he might be crippled in action." "Ay, master," said a son of Neptune, "but let me tell you, that will depend upon your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... took possession of his mind, and insensibly had a marked effect in his studies, giving them a special direction; although he was not aware of this fact himself. As he had made up his mind to travel, he commenced to study cosmography and nautical matters; in fact, everything that was taught ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea; punish infringement of the above laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea; the contiguous zone may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured (e.g. the US has claimed a 12-mile contiguous zone in addition to its 12-mile territorial sea) continental shelf - the LOS Convention (Article 76) defines the continental ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... his fleet, showed the greatest passive gallantry; and certainly the French Intrepide, with some others, evinced active courage equal to the British; but there was no nautical management, ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... probably for a considerably greater distance. At Port St. Julian its thickness is more than 800 feet! These white beds are everywhere capped by a mass of gravel, forming probably one of the largest beds of shingle in the world: it certainly extends from near the Rio Colorado to between 600 and 700 nautical miles southward, at Santa Cruz (a river a little south of St. Julian), it reaches to the foot of the Cordillera; half way up the river, its thickness is more than 200 feet; it probably everywhere extends to this great chain, whence the well-rounded pebbles of porphyry ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in the nautical sense, Juve took his duckings with equanimity: a bit of a pitch and toss ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... would safety be insured? In calm weather such as the Titanic had, yes, for all that would be needed would be to keep the small boats afloat until help came. The Titanic could have saved everyone aboard. In heavy weather, no. As at present arranged, if a vessel has a list, or, in non-nautical language, has tipped over on one side, only the boats upon the lower side can be dropped, for they must be swung clear of the vessel to be lowered from ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... advantageously known to foreign nations, have honorably employed multitudes of our seamen in the service of their country, and have inured numbers of youths of the rising generation to lives of manly hardihood and of nautical experience and skill. The piracies with which the West India seas were for several years infested have been totally suppressed, but in the Mediterranean they have increased in a manner afflictive to other nations, and but for the continued presence ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... upon all matters pertaining to the rigging of mediaeval ships. The history of their hulls he leaves to the attention of the important societies of nautical research. But on the evolution of the sky-topsail or fore-top-gallant-backstays his word carries much weight. He will travel a hundred miles in a week-end to see an illumination or carving of a ship, and his vacations he spends touring ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... wanting something more nautical, Captain? Something yachty, if I may suggest. . . . I've a neat thing here in yachting caps." Mr Benny selected and displayed one, turning it briskly in his hands. "The Commodore. There's a something about that cap, sir,—a what shall I say?—a distinction. Or, if you prefer ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... The New York Nautical School on board the ship St. Mary's must not be confounded with the school-ship Mercury, which formerly existed at this port; the latter was a floating reformatory, while the former was established for the purpose of training ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... tenacious is public opinion of its errors; but since that time, naval officers of rank have written on the subject, and stripped the Nile, Trafalgar, &c, of their poetry, to give the world plain, nautical, and probable accounts of both those great achievements. The truth, as relates to both battles, was just as little like the previously published accounts, as well ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... emperor or his descendants, Bertheville ceased to be known under any other denomination than that of Dyppe, a Norman word, expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told that Dieppe became the principal port in the duchy. That politic sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the improving of it. It was at Dieppe that he embarked the troops, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... gentleman, who did not seem to know any one in Thompsontown, proved to be a thorough landsman; but as he was chatty and glad to acquire knowledge, it gave Captain Abner and Sam a great deal of pleasure to talk to him on nautical points and thereby improve his mind. On their return, Sam stopped with a start, and ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... (ss digraph, pronounced practically like a single s) gives ex-cess-es, ex-cess-ive, etc. Whether or not the letters thus occurring together form a diphthong or digraph will depend on the derivation of the word, thus in cat-head (verb), a nautical term, th is not a digraph but in ca-the-dral th is a digraph, as is usually the case with these two letters. You would ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... not thrive, and the large dreams she had entertained of her sons' education and career became attenuated in the face of realities. Their schooling was of the plainest, but, being by the sea, they grew alert in all such nautical arts and enterprises as were attractive to ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... might be staged. There were, however, as usual, certain seemingly insuperable difficulties: in the first place, it was winter time; in the second, no facilities existed in the city for operations of a nautical character; and, lastly, my Christmas money amounted only to five dollars. It was my father who pointed out these and other objections. For, after a careful perusal of the price lists I had sent for, I had been forced to appeal to him to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and settled, instantly I smacked my little kingdom of Gombroon down into the tropics, 10 deg., I think, south of the line. Now, at least, I was on the right side of the hedge, or so I flattered myself; for it struck me that my brother never would degrade himself by fitting out a costly nautical expedition against poor little Gombroon; and how else could he get at me? Surely the very fiend himself, if he happened to be in a high arctic latitude, would not indulge his malice so far as to ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the occasion ever since, and now put my design into execution, even at the risk of having my head combed with a three-legged stool by my excellent wife, who, when she sees this in print, will be taken, in nautical phrase, all aback. But, when a history of our own shortcomings, mishaps, mistakes, and misadventures will do others good, I am for giving the history and pocketing the odium, if there be such a thing as odium attached to revelations of human ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... great time for the wild Sea Rovers who gather at Cowes and Southampton. The Rover may always be recognised on shore—and, by-the-way, he stays ashore a good deal—for his nautical clothing is spick and span new, the rake of his glossy cap is unspeakably jaunty, and the dignity of his gesture when he scans the offing with a trusty telescope is without parallel in history. When the Rover walks, you observe a slight roll which no doubt is acquired during long experience of ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Dirce, and came, and came to the inhospitable land, where the daughter of Jove bedews her altars and column-girt temples with human blood? Of a truth by the surge-dashing oars of fir, worked on both sides, they sailed in a nautical carriage o'er the ocean waves, striving in the emulation after loved wealth in their houses. For darling hope is in dangers insatiate among men, who bear off the weight of riches, wandering in vain speculation on the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and a strip of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in the Channel, the white waves leaping, lashing, and tumbling together in that confusion of troubled waters, which nautical men call a "cross-sea." A dreary, dismal night on Calais sands: faint moonshine struggling through a low driving scud, the harbour-lights quenched and blurred in mist. Such a night as bids the trim French sentry hug himself in his watch-coat, calmly ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... longitude of the matrimonial ocean, there appears a slight chronic, intermittent affection, not unlike the toothache. Here, I see, you stop me to ask, "How are we to find the longitude in this sea? When can a husband be sure he has attained this nautical point? And can ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... of the steamer, amongst the crowd, he bustled about, never still for a moment, "dragging his anchors," in nautical speech, gesticulating, making friends with everybody, and biting his nails nervously. He was one of those original beings whom the Creator invents in a moment of fantasy, and of whom He ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... making a jacket with which to clothe the rat, and actually did catch one (I hoped he was not my friend of the staircase) and proceeded to put him into this sailor-made costume, which was not an easy thing to do, and had he not been accustomed to bracing up stays and other nautical work he never could have accomplished the thing. However, he did accomplish it; he tied the bell on the rat's neck and ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... A nautical devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... learnedly to the skipper upon the beauty of his vessel's "lines" (whatever those were), her spread of canvas and build generally,—discussed the comparative merits of single and double topsails, and new patent yard-slings, and reef-tackle, and altogether displayed such an amount of nautical learning that it completely crushed me and staggered ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... expectancy, rather actual than figurative, for the heavens to strike or the earth to swallow up her nonchalant husband. Nor was this all. The weakness for grog, unfortunately supposed to be inherent in a nautical existence, was carried by Captain Pember to an extent inconsiderate even in the eyes of a seafaring public; and when, under its genial influence, he knocked his wife down and tormented Mellony, the opinion of this same public declared ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... flushed. No officer or professor had before ever threatened to report him to Mr. Lowington. Mr. Hamblin was as ignorant as a baby upon nautical matters, and while the Josephine rolled easily on the waves, and the sails flapped idly against the masts, he could ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... this time. One would have thought him fishing for pearls in the depths of the river, he was so fastidious in finding the exact current best calculated to restore a young lady from faintness. When he did arise, everything about the young people was, to use his nautical expression, ship-shape and above-board. The color was stealing back to Lina's face, like blushes from the first flowering of apple blossoms, and a brightness stole from beneath her half-closed eyelids, that had something softer and deeper than ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... never seen on land or sea. Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced seasickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of shipbuilding and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance. Swarthy boys and dark-eyed Madonnas, staring at you from one corner of the studio, suggested Murillo; oily brown shadows of faces ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... happened, and I am sorry to say I don't exactly know what. I find in my notes, taken shortly afterwards, from the dictation of an intelligent midshipman, "that the fore royal-yard got jammed with the spanker-boom, and carried away the larboard quarter boat." Nautical friends have since pointed out to me that this involves an impossibility. I daresay it does. I know it involved an impossibility of turning in without subjecting yourself to a hydropathic remedy of violent nature, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... perpetually making pencil signs on the figure he had constructed, and the two also discussed Zadkiel, Raphael, and other astrologers they had mutually known. Continual reference had to be made to the "Nautical Almanack;" but by-and-by my friend's innings was over and mine commenced. I have said that I did not know the exact hour and minute of my birth, and when, with appropriate hesitation, I named the 1st of April as the eventful day, the Professor looked at me for a moment with a roguish ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of books on nautical and other subjects, take the newspapers and magazines, and hang up pictures of yachts and other vessels on the walls. I hope, when you get the Maud done, you will not be so busy, Don John, for you don't attend many of our ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... looks he threw, from time to time, at the manoeuvres commanded by Baptiste, the expressive sneer with which he criticised his decisions, and a few biting remarks which had escaped him in the course of the day, and which had conveyed any thing but compliments to the nautical skill of the patron and his fresh-water followers. Still there were signs of better stuff in this suspicious-looking person than are usually seen about men, whose attire, pursuits and situation, are so indicative of the world's pressing hard upon their principles, as happened ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... relief afforded by the presence of that important functionary, a pilot. Perhaps a captain's greatest anxiety is, when his vessel, having braved a thousand perils on the deep, is about to enter on the termination of its voyage. On the broad expanse of ocean, or, in nautical phrase, with plenty of sea-room, if his bark is in good condition, he fears little or nothing, but when his vessel approaches its goal, visions of disaster arise before him, and he ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... the Bolabola Men. Animals left there and at Ulietea. Plentiful Supply of Provisions, and Manner of salting Pork on Board. Various Reflections relative to Otaheite and the Society Islands. Astronomical and Nautical Observations ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the United States Naval Academy is an imitation of a nautical syren. The Amherst ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... song of the sailors, as the anchor was heaved—not again, we trusted, to be lowered till our eyes should rest on the waters of Port Philip. And then the cry of "raise tacks and sheets" (which I, in nautical ignorance, interpreted "hay-stacks and sheep") sent many a sluggard from their berths to bid a last farewell to ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... me blush." His wife coughed discreetly behind her hand. "It's a new departure, I grant; but I've had a good many compliments paid me since I took to the nautical ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... discredit him, though he was undeniably the pioneer who set out with a plan to discover, and did discover by design, what others found only by accident. His geographical ideas were derived, they say, from Behaim and Toscanelli; his nautical skill from Pinzon; his certainty of finding new lands from Alonzo Sanchez; his courage and daring ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... division is proved to be at Santiago, it is the intention of the department to make a descent immediately upon that port with ten thousand United States troops, landing about eight nautical miles east of the port. You will ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... the waves running mountains high, the pitching and tossing, the roll of thunder, and the howling of the wind; and Haydn produces all sorts of ugly, jerky, and noisy music, but none of it is in the remotest degree like a storm at sea, or anywhere else. At last, after Kurz had become hoarse with his nautical disquisitions, and Haydn's fingers were tired of scrambling all over the piano, the little musician in a rage crashed his hands down on the two extremes of the instrument, exclaiming: "Let's have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... would not amount to much, for if such an invention were plausible and of value, doubtless a score of nautical authorities would have seized upon it long before now. But to work at the plan would give the gentle dreamer in the silver-gray cottage happiness, and after all happiness was not to be despised. If together he and Willie could ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... new novel, The Red Rover; the current of it rolls entirely upon the ocean. Something there is too much of nautical language; in fact, it overpowers everything else. But, so people once take an interest in a description, they will swallow a great deal which they do not understand. The sweet word "Mesopotamia" has its ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... is the codeclination as given in the Nautical Almanac. The mean value decreases by about 20 seconds ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... Two Brothers, I continued nearly a twelvemonth; and here I got acquainted with nautical terms, and contracted a love for the sea, which a lapse of thirty years ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... said Julia, "and papa, though he might not take much interest in the matter, would not object. Till Harry went to sea, we had no naval men in the family, and neither Sir Reginald nor his predecessor, our great grandfather, took any interest in nautical affairs, as they were ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... seaboard, reaching San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Several entries for this contest have already been filed, and it is expected that by the time set for the start, a first class field will be ready to weigh anchor. Handsome cups, furnished by the Exposition for winners in the different nautical events, include many ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... in a multipltcation-table prepared by a man so eminent as Dr. Hutton for the Board of Longitude, no fewer than forty errors were discovered in a single page taken at random. In the tables of the Nautical Almanac, where the greatest possible precision was desirable and necessary, more than five hundred errors were detected by one person; and the Tables of the Board of Longitude were found equally incorrect. But such errors were impossible to be avoided so long as the ordinary modes of ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... would play at quoits, struggling sternly against each other; or Chamberlain would examine Melanie in nautical lore; or together, in the evening, they would trace the constellations in the heavens. During their first week they were in the edge of a storm for a night and a day; but they put into harbor where they were comfortable and safe, and merry as larks ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... three-decker could have run the Agra through such a gantlet of broadsides and hurricanes; the manoeuvring of the ship, when her master puts her before the wind that he may rake one schooner's deck and hurl the majestic monster bodily upon the other, is unequalled by anything in nautical literature, and approached by nothing in verity, except it may be Admiral Dupont's waltz of fire around the two forts of Hilton Head. Another, who laughs at both of these amateur statements, has ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... scenery in "We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter XII., and she owed to the same kind helpers also the accuracy of her nautical phrases and her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of the tale is full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the materials had been made into two books instead of one. There are more than enough characters and incidents ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... '52 she grounded," said he, transferring something from his right cheek to his left. "Hang me on the Union Jack," (that was a nautical expression by which Peeler added solemnity to his statement) "if there was not exactly one million ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... the old seaman in a nautical tone that he had not used for many years, and the very sound of which stirred his heart with old memories. He was about to retire, but paused at the threshold ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... having frozen the genial current of Mr. Tomlinson's vote and interest; and it may be that he clung to one who had, as he imagined, seen Renee. Accompanied by a Mr. Oggler, a tradesman of the town, on the Liberal committee, dressed in a pea-jacket and proudly nautical, they applied for the vote, and found it oftener than beauty. Palmet contrasted his repeated disappointments with the scoring of two, three, four and more in the candidate's list, and informed him that he would certainly get the Election. 'I think you're sure of it,' he said. 'There's not a pretty ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... or sailor had ever been known to enter the house; and so I concluded the many apparitions were but phantasms of the same person—phantasms of his several, separate, and distinct personalities. He had brutal tendencies, sacerdotal (not spiritual) tendencies, gluttonous, and nautical tendencies, and his whole character being dominated by carnal cravings, on the dissolution of his material body each separate tendency would remain earth-bound, represented by the phantasm most closely resembling it. I believe this theory may explain many dual hauntings, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... to do indoors? No novels lay about that looked readable, only "The Rescue" (and she couldn't read Conrad, he was so nautical) and a few others which looked deficient in plot and as if they were trying to be clever. She turned them over restlessly, and put them down again. She wasn't sleepy, and hated writing letters. She wanted someone to talk to, and there was no one, unless she rang for the housemaid. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... invitation, in order that the public mind might be disabused in a matter of so much importance. With a view that this might be done naturally and without fuss, however, he did not explain the mistake to his nautical friend, believing it most probable that this could be better done incidentally, as it were, in the course of the evening; and feeling certain of the force of that wholesome apothegm, which says that "truth is powerful and must prevail" "If this be so," added John Effingham, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... in nautical affairs have rarely been more strikingly illustrated than in the fact, stated in the report of the Navy Department, that by means of the wind and current charts projected and prepared by Lieutenant Maury, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... calculated to 'go ahead' through the water in rapid style. As compared with one of the ordinary old-fashioned English coasting brigs of equal tonnage, an Aberdeen clipper will attain nearly double the speed. One of these fine vessels, the Chrysolite, in a recent voyage from China, traversed 320 nautical miles (nearly 370 English statute miles) in twenty-four hours: this was a great performance. But it must not be forgotten, that the United States claim to have attained a high ship-speed before England had thought much on the matter; the Baltimore clippers have long been known on the other ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... Supposing them close attendants upon man and his broken meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway reef; it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them, and that long ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was strewn with a confusion of clothes, books, nautical instruments, odds and ends of finery, and such trash as might be expected from the turning out of several seamen's chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a long cruise. It was strange in that dim cabin, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... mounted and cantering across the downs in the direction of the struggling ship. Mr Finlayson was much less acquainted with nautical affairs than were his fair companions, still he knew enough to be aware that the ship was in great danger. The wind prevented them from making rapid progress along the downs, although they urged on their steeds as fast as they could ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... bright, breezy-looking man, who gave one the impression of being a great deal in the open air, and mixing much with the "sailoring." Indeed, he was rather nautical in ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... The narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that of Dante as the adventures of Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. The author of Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had introduced those minute particulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing. We are not shocked at being told that a man who lived, nobody ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... sun blazed—within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and they were fiercely distinct in the half-light of the big court-room where the audience ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... obtained by voluntary enlistment. No doubt the large fishing and boating classes provide excellent material, and a comparatively short spell of service on board a man-of-war offers an agreeable break in their lives. The Dutch being a nautical race by tradition as well as by the daily work of a large portion of them, there is nothing uncongenial in a naval career. No difficulty is experienced in obtaining the services of the seven thousand seamen and two thousand five hundred marine infantry who form the permanent ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... and urging reasons; and Mary tried to understand them; but independently of their nautical language, a veil seemed drawn over her mind, and she had no clear perception of anything that passed. Her very words seemed not her own, and beyond her power of control, for she found herself speaking quite ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... humanity he could find a contemptuous tolerance. It being manifest that he was wise and lucky—otherwise how could he have been as successful in life as he had been?—he had an inclination to set right the lives of other people, just as he could hardly refrain—in defiance of nautical etiquette—from interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... made up his mind to bolt with the valuables; therefore while Mahomet, in a nervous state in the ferry-bath, was being towed towards the east, Achmet turned in another direction and fled towards the west. Mahomet having been much frightened by the nautical effort he had been forced to make, was in an exceedingly bad temper upon the arrival on the opposite bank, and having at length succeeded in climbing up the steep ascent, in shoes that were about four sizes too large for him, he arrived on the lofty plateau of our camp, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... was informed that they were the beacons raised in the days of old, when the Moorish corsairs haunted that coast, and that the moment the pirate sail was descried in the offing (I hope this is correctly nautical) the warning fire blazed by night, or the warning plume of smoke went up by day, to summon Spain's chivalry to the rescue, she was enchanted, and recited ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the crowding of the oar and the haul of the rope. His muscles swelled tense and rigid—the sweat poured from his face; but he laughed when Lincoln, with reckless drollery, began to shout a few nautical words. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... spot at the right time; had we, at the same hour, been only one degree nearer or one degree further, we should have lost the entire sight; when we saw it we were 14 degrees 6' (a minute is equal to a nautical mile). ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... helmswoman, I can imagine nothing more delightful than the excursion you propose. But I am inland bred, and must place myself at the mercy of your nautical experience." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... experiences of foreigners between Calais and Dover have always an agreeable side to English prepossessions. A man from Bedfordshire, who does not know one end of the ship from the other until she begins to move, swaggers among such persons with a sense of hereditary nautical experience. To suppose yourself endowed with natural parts for the sea because you are the countryman of Blake and mighty Nelson is perhaps just as unwarrantable as to imagine Scotch extraction a sufficient guarantee ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... opinions upon the case. Shirley was in favor of putting the negro in irons. He had deserted them, and had nearly cost them their lives by the stories he had told on shore. Burke, to the captain's surprise,—for the second mate generally dealt severely with nautical transgressions,—was in ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... astronomer, his assistants and attendants, should be paid; a fourth and fifth for the necessary instruments and books; a sixth and seventh for a fund, from the income of which the expense should be defrayed of publishing the ephemeris of observation, and a yearly nautical almanac. These appropriations may be so distributed as to apply a part of the appropriation of each year to each of those necessary expenditures; but for an establishment so complete as may do honor in all time alike to the testator and his trustees, the United States ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... So we parted. I reported for examination next day, but was put off—same the next day. But to-day I was told to come, and sat down to a stock of foolscap, and had a pretty stiff exam. I am only just through. I had seamanship, gunnery, navigation, nautical astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, curve tracing, differential and integral calculus. I had only three questions out of five to answer in each branch, but in the first three I answered all five. After that I only had time for three, but at the end he said ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... The war and navy departments need no special description here. The former is divided into ten and the latter into eight bureaus. The naval department, among many duties, has charge of the naval observatory at Washington and publishes the nautical almanac. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... stronger, the rhyme with fast is more complete; in other words, the metre favours the notion of the words being considered as two. Gallant-mast, however, is a compound word, with an especial nautical meaning. In this case the accent is stronger on gal- and weaker on -mast. This, however, is not the state of things that the metre favours. The same applies to mountain wave. The same person who in prose would throw a stronger accent on mount- and a weaker ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... am almost bound to be appointed as second in command of one of the U.C. boats, for at least one trip before I go to the periscope school and train for a command of my own. The idea of being bottled up in an elongated cigar and under the command of one of those nautical plough-boys is repellent. However, the Von Schenks have never been too proud to obey in order to ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon |
