"Sloped" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... formed up slowly in wings, as had been directed. The barking of dogs was heard some distance ahead. The Zulus were now in a comparatively open Country. A grassy expanse between two shallow, forest-filled valleys sloped up gently in front. Kondwana sent scouts ahead. These soon returned with the report that they had found a number of armed men sleeping around some huts close to a kraal which was filled with cattle. The dogs barked incessantly, ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... dark-red colour; and the higher we ascended, the more difficult we found the progress to be. At length all farther advance seemed impossible, till, on looking round, we observed an excavation for a well, with masonry around it; and beyond this were steps cut into the rock, which rock was sloped at an angle of between fifty and sixty degrees. This encouraged us ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... gun-emplacements on the farther side, or the shaft was merely for ventilation purposes. In any case, it was a wide affair, perhaps five feet square, and could the two of them have peered down it they would have discovered that it sloped steeply, and that, looking through it, they could see the happy fellows down below still smoking heavily, still chatting and joking, waiting patiently for the moment when their services ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... The ground sloped gently down to the Monongahela, nearly a mile away. The river here was over three hundred yards in width, and the regulars had been posted advantageously to guard against surprise. The baggage, horses, and cattle were all got over safely, for ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... was that the ground sloped gradually downwards, not upwards as it should have done, till it seemed the path lay across the flats of a forest-covered plain, which did not conform to my wish of striking a road on the foot-hills of the mountain. ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden wall: is the curtain blue, Or green to a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the lawn which sloped to the lake, was dotted with magnificent old trees undisturbed for a century. Back of the house, or rather beyond the barn, was another swell or mound, which like the first, was so regular in its form as almost to excite the belief that it was artificial. Indeed, from the ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... waded out, battling almost for their lives with big pieces of ice. Fortunately the bottom sloped gradually and they were able to walk out a considerable distance. Shouting to them through his trumpet to wait there, the keeper ordered the rest of the crew to haul in the first man. As the keeper had expected, the rope sagged ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... that she had ever learned of landscape art. She had only improved by long practice upon those early simple lessons. She was glad to be alone, for these old memories were sad ones. She wandered quite away from the rest, and, sitting down upon a bank that sloped towards a narrow streamlet, began to sketch stray tufts and clusters of weedy undergrowth—a straggling blackberry-branch, a bit of ivy creeping sinuously along the uneven ground—in an absent desultory way, thinking of her brother and the days gone by. She had been ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and it existed in two forms, the set or upright in which the letters were carefully formed, held upright, and without ligatures or connecting strokes between letters, and the cursive in which the letters were sloped and ligatured. The second type was the church hand, used for ecclesiastical manuscripts and familiar to us as the Gothic or black letter. This also appears in two forms. Manifestly the Gothic does not lend itself to ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... Native gentry could obtain the aid of tasteful gardeners, I would recommend that the level land should be varied with an occasional artificial elevation, nicely sloped or graduated; but Native malees would be sure to aim rather at the production of abrupt round knobs resembling warts or excrescences than easy and natural undulations of ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... position of the feet from the first. To come on to the engaging guard, as shown in Fig. 26, stand upright, your heels together, your feet at right angles to one another, your right foot pointing to your front, your left foot to your left, your stick in your right hand, loosely grasped and sloped over your right shoulder, your right elbow against your side, and your right hand about on a level with it, your left hand behind your ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... us spoke. It was nearly four o'clock. The afternoon was quickly closing in. Away beyond the woods which sloped upward in the western distance until they touched the sky, the sun's blood-red beam pierced the slowly-rising mist rolling down into the valley where the pollards marked the winding course of the narrow, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... the country road was a narrow lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting. It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... in their favor was that the ground sloped a trifle toward the enemy position and this made ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... The ground sloped gently down from the terrace, and beyond the Court gardens were the low-lying meadows and shining watercourses. The glamour of the moonshine was over all; it was like a ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... of the refectory the general playground sloped gently down northwards to the Rond-point, where it was bounded by double gates of wood and iron that were always shut; and on each hither side of these rose an oblong dwelling of red brick, two stories high, and capable of accommodating ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... in a charming house, whose grounds sloped down to the ornamental water in Regent's Park, and if one had not known it, one might have imagined it to be one of those countless English homes into which ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... few paces indeed, for the ground sloped steeply to the stream, men were passing. The first of these was white, and he carried a white woman in his arms; the rest were Kaffirs, some of whom wore karosses or cotton blankets, and some tattered soldiers' ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... luncheon her eyes wandered over the berry patch which sloped gently upward to the road. A great many children and a few men and women were scattered over ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... on the rocky peninsula of Ticonderoga. Behind him the great lake, Champlain, stretched far into north and south. To the west the ground sloped gently upward a half mile and then sank again. On each side of the ridge formed thus was low ground, and the ridge presented itself at once to the military eye as a line of defense. Hugues, one of his officers, had already recommended ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... walk from the top brought me out upon a high hill of snow that sloped steeply down into the woods. The snow was soft, and I sat down in it and slid "a blue streak"—my blue overalls recording the streak—for a quarter of a mile, and then came to a sudden and confusing stop; one of my webs had caught on a spine of one of the dwarfed ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... gate, into some ornamented grounds. After riding a short distance, we came to a spacious mansion of freestone, built in the Grecian style. It was not in the purest style, yet it had an air of elegance, and the situation was delightful. A fine lawn sloped away from it, studded with clumps of trees, so disposed as to break a soft fertile country into a variety of landscapes. The Mersey was seen winding a broad quiet sheet of water through an expanse of green meadow land, while the Welsh ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter. From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than half that diameter. This floor—which was about 150 feet below the upper edge—was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was the tremendous cavity—between ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... were split by many such valleys and many such bare, grassy ridges sloped up toward the mountains. Upon the side of one ridge, the highest, there stood a solitary mustang, haltered with a lasso. He was a ragged, shaggy, wild beast, and there was no saddle or bridle on him, nothing but the halter. He was not ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... peaks, occasionally with divided summits, which were the centres of expiring volcanic action, similar to those that exist in our own volcanic regions. Besides which the Lunar Apennines, so called, present to the eye a long range of mountains with serrated summits, on one side gradually sloped, with terraces, spurs, and ravines, and the other side mostly precipitous, casting long shadows, which clearly define the forms of their summits—all these objects presenting the same ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the corral were less than a hundred yards from where Racey and Swing lay beneath a pole-propped freight wagon. From the wagon, which was standing beyond the stage company's corral, the ground sloped gently to the hotel corral. Racey had taken the precaution to mask their position with a ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Alfreton pulled the wagon up amid the birches on the edge of the ravine, which just there sloped steep as a railway cutting, and not very much broader, to the creek. Winston gazed at it, and then handed the ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... steeple of Vieuxvicq withdrew, took its proper distance, and the steeples of Martinville remained alone, gilded by the light of the setting sun, which, even at that distance, I could see playing and smiling upon their sloped sides. We had been so long in approaching them that I was thinking of the time that must still elapse before we could reach them when, of a sudden, the carriage, having turned a corner, set us down at their feet; and they had flung themselves ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the grating, which certainly sloped outwards, then at the boat and at the ladder. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... shore the whole day, and sometimes at night; but I preferred sleeping on the deck of the Eden, where, on the top of the Captain's skylight, I weathered out many a tornado. In this situation, I was tolerably protected by the sloped awning from the violence of the wind and the heavy rain, by which it is always accompanied: but even a wetting, now and then, would have been preferable to sleeping in a close cabin, between decks, where, in spite of every precaution, the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... house. There were flower beds in abundance, and among the trees and shrubbery were rustic seats and arbors, hammocks and swings, and a delightful tent where the children loved to play. Back of the house the land sloped down to the river, which was quite large enough for delightful ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... we shall find almost as much to repay attention, and to elicit admiration. We stand in the midst of a farm of some wealthy proprietor, consisting of a number of fields and gardens, separated from each other by hedges of cactus or the aloe. At the foot of the hill, which sloped down on the side furthest from Sicca to one of the tributaries of the rich and turbid river of which we have spoken, a large yard or garden, intersected with a hundred artificial rills, was devoted to the cultivation of the beautiful and odoriferous khennah. A thick grove ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... plain, formed one of the most famous sites in the world, for it was the Acropolis of Athens. Its full significance, however, must be explained later. From the Acropolis and a few lesser hills close by, the land sloped gently down towards the harbors and ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... power," cried Demdike with a disdainful laugh. And as he spoke he pressed the large sharp bit against the charger's mouth, and backed him quickly to the very edge of the hill, the sides of which here sloped precipitously down. The abbot would have uttered a cry, but surprise and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his buildings, another ran around a large area of good grass, forming a pasture for his horses. His buildings were attractive, even though rough, for they revealed evidence of continued care. His ranchhouse boasted a sloped ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... danger of being knocked over by the recoil of the piece was great, that of hurting the enemy very small. The Germans first conceived the idea of bending the butt downward, and thus elevating the barrel so as to bring it in the range of the eye. They also sloped it so as to fit the shoulder instead of being held against the breast. The arquebus constructed in this manner was used in England in the time of Henry VIII., and was variously called haquebut, hakebut, hagbut, and hagbus, names all derived from the hooked shape ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... which hung a calico curtain; a walnut bureau without a marble top, a small table, a looking-glass, a very common night-table without a door, and three chairs completed the furniture of the room. The walls, which sloped in front, were hung with a shabby paper, blue with black flowers. The tiled floor, stained red and polished, was icy to the feet. There was no carpet except for a strip at the bedside. The mantelpiece of common ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... position had been obtained from the friendly natives. Abu Hamed lay on the river. The desert sloped gradually down to it, on all sides; with a sharp, deep descent within two hundred yards of the town. The houses ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... untouched. And then followed a major operation in bear trapping. A mile away there was a steep slope of smooth rock, bounded at its foot by a creek. On one side was a huge tangle of down timber, on the other side loomed some impassable rocks; and a tiny meadow sloped away at the top. The half-fleshed carcasses of two dead elk were thrown half way down the rock slide, to serve as a bait. On the two sides two bear guns were set, and to their triggers were attached two long silk fish-lines, stretched taut ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out and walking under a long tent that sloped ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... noon Mournful 'none, wandering forlorn Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade Sloped downward to her ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... 19. And round about sloped many a lawny mountain With incense-bearing forests and vast caves Of marble radiance, to that mighty fountain; And where the flood its own bright margin laves, 4615 Their echoes talk with its eternal waves, Which, from the depths whose ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... a lawn that sloped to tidal waters, very ugly and muddy at low tide. A long gangway reached to a float for boats; here the water was deep enough to dive into at half tide. Often at dawn, if the tide was right, and you happened to be awake, you might ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... establishment, which has often a rather imbecile old age. But a hundred brooding secrets lurk in this inexpressive mask, and the Chigi Palace did duty for me in the suggestive twilight as the most haunted of houses. Its basement walls sloped outward like the beginning of a pyramid, and its lower windows were covered with massive iron cages. Within the doorway, across the court, I saw the pale glimmer of flowers on a terrace, and I made much, for the effect of the roof, of a great covered ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Spanish army was less than four miles away, and General Young was ordered by General Wheeler to move forward at daybreak and engage the enemy. Colonel Wood received orders to move the Rough Riders by a trail over a hill, beyond which the country sloped toward the bay and the ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... and form one of the marked features of New England home architecture during that period. They are known by their broad and ample, but low-studded rooms, their numerous windows with small panes, their single chimney in the centre of the roof that sloped down to the lower story in the back part, and in their general unpretending appearance, reminding one vividly of that simplicity of life which characterized our people before the Revolution. Their very homeliness is delightful, by leaving the imagination free ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... winding route that sloped round the declivity of the hills, he conducted the troops in such a manner, that, until they approached quite near the enemy, they were protected by the intervening ground. While thus advancing, they were assailed on the left flank by the Indian battalions under Paullo, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... flattish terrace, where the hill sloped steeply, an area had been cleared by digging away the bank, so that the wall of the house, for nearly half its circumference, was the side of the hill, faced with stone.... The hypogeum or subterranean gallery is on a level ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... is to say, at the top of the throat of the chimney, where it ends abruptly in the open canal or flue, by a horizontal course of bricks well secured with mortar. It is of much importance that they should terminate in this manner; for were they to be sloped outward and raised in such a manner as to swell out the upper extremity of the throat of the chimney in the form of a trumpet, and increase it by degrees to the size of the flue of the chimney, this construction would tend to assist the winds which may attempt ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... consists of oak, perfectly sound, covered with copper plates overlaid with Limoges enamel. It is 8-1/4 inches high, 7 long and 3-1/2 broad. The back opens on hinges and fastens with a lock and key, and the upper part sloped so as to form an acutely-pointed roof; above this is a ridge-piece; the whole rests on four square feet. Front of Shrine:—Here are two compartments; the lower one shows on the right side an altar, of which the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... frame, spanking the fertilizer down hard with the back of his spade. He sloped it up some four inches along ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... more and more open, till it became definitely a meadow, sloped down to the river, which was overgrown with green weeds and osiers. Near the milldam was the millpond, deep and full of fish; a little mill with a thatched roof was working away with a wrathful sound, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... By a miracle the palisade was not struck, but I heard a rending and splintering in the forest where tall trees had met their doom. The noise deafened me, and confused my senses. Out of the loophole I could see the glade that sloped down to the Gap, and it was as bright as if it had been high noonday. The clumps of fern and grass stood out yellow and staring against the inky background of the trees. I remember I noted a rabbit run confusedly into the open, and then at a fresh flare ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... trembled had not her animal been sure-footed, for they had penetrated no more than a few hundred yards, when the little procession began threading along the face of a mass of rocks, where the path was so narrow that she felt the swish of her skirts against the mountain wall, and on her right it sloped downward perpendicularly, until what seemed a bottomless pit was hidden in a pool of gloom. A misstep by any member of the party would have sent him or her to instant destruction. But the animals and men moved confidently, though ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... The woods were mainly of chestnut, and, under the action of the storm, followed by the first frost, many a nut lay shining on the road within its gaping prickly shell. After two or three miles of ascent the road sloped downward, and it was not long before I entered a very neat and trim little town, which, however, was altogether village-like. This was Cadouin, and in the centre stood its venerable Romanesque church. I entered the building, which was silent and very dim; not a soul was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... climbing. The discomfort of treading stony soil in sandals, and the sensibility of his uncovered shins to even that soft night air, made him smile under the cowl. A sentinel challenged them and was answered by his companions. Passing on, they reached the wall near the gate. Here the hill sloped less abruptly than at the towered corner. The rocky foundation of Fort St. John made a moat impossible. Guards on the wall now challenged them, and the muzzles of three guns looked down, distinct eyes in the lifted torchlight, but at the sign ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... nearly circular lake, some five or six miles across. The country here showed an extraordinary change from that they had passed through. The lake appeared to occupy a depression in the surrounding hills, like the bottom of a huge, shallow bowl. From the water's edge on all sides the ground sloped upward. It was no longer a barren, rocky land, but seemingly covered with a rich heavy soil, dotted with tropical trees. That it was under a high state of cultivation was evident. Mercer saw tier upon tier of ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... old stone wall and a sunshiny open field, and we came out suddenly into broad daylight that startled us and even startled the horse, who might have been napping as he walked, like an old soldier. The field sloped up to a low unpainted house that faced the east. Behind it were long, frost-whitened ledges that made the hill, with strips of green turf and bushes between. It was the wildest, most Titanic sort of ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... viewless thread. Now she hung just above the fall, looking down and longing to leap, with nothing but a shining laurel-branch between her and the boiling pits below; now, at last, a green hillside sloped to the water's edge, sparkling across all its solitude with ten thousand drops of dew, a broad, blue morning heaven bent and shone overhead, and having raced the river in the moment's light-heartedness of glee at her good hap, she sat some rods below, looking up at the fall and dipping her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... a lucid lake, Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its softened way did take in currents through the calmer water spread Around: the wild fowl nestled in the brake And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downward to its brink, and stood With their green faces ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... the end of the village stood outside the shadow, and the lawn which sloped down to the river was still flecked with sunlight. Garden-beds of dazzling colour lined its gravel walks, and down the middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... sheltered by the great stone, which was not only a shadow from the heat, but sloped sufficiently to be a covert from the rain. They did not know it had ceased; perhaps they did ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... distance of 75 feet, where it terminated at the level of the water. Its greatest elevation, at the side of the entrance, was about 10 feet; but this does not mean that its thickness was so much at any point, as the rock sloped upward quite as rapidly as the surface. So many stones were scattered through it, fallen from the sides and roof, or rolled in from the outside where they had broken loose from the cliff, that not more than one-fourth of the ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... light as I slid in and sloped to one side. The room went dark as I dropped to the floor in front of my bookcase. From across the room a hitburner seared the door and slashed sidewise, cutting a smoking swathe across my encyclopedia from A-AUD to CAN-DAN and then came down as I squirmed ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... train at a standstill. Thinking she had arrived at St. David's Station, where she must change on to another line, she sprang up briskly. To her amazement she found they were not at a station at all. Green fields sloped away from the railway track and there was neither house nor cottage in sight. The voices of the guard and ticket-collector in agitated conference sounded just below and Nan thrust her head out of ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... iron fence, in which, to my surprise, I saw a gate, which, though padlocked now, marked old habits of intercourse, interesting to contemplate, between the two houses. Through this fence I caught glimpses of the green turf and scattered shrubs of a yard which had once sloped away to the avenues on either side, and, more interesting still, those three windows whose high-drawn shades offered such a vivid contrast to ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... rise, the hill was gashed by the grey steeps of the quarries. In front rose another curve covered with thick woods. To the right was the batch, down which a road—in winter a water-course—led into the valley. Behind the house God's Little Mountain sloped softly up and away ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... in digging foundations near a farmhouse in the southern part of the island, a great grave, or series of graves, was discovered. There were two stone coffins, made of hewn blocks of granite, just deep enough to contain a body, and with the covers sloped and cut each from a single block. One was ten feet in length, and contained the huge skeleton of a man, over eight feet high; the other was eight feet long, and contained a skeleton well over six ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... through the grove and emerged upon a lawn that sloped gently upward. At the brow stood a beautiful little temple of Greek architecture. As they approached they read, ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... makes its remains unique in Europe, and one of the most inspiriting scenes in Britain."[263] Its outer fosse (where the nature of the ground permits) is from 30 to 40 feet wide and some 20 deep, so sloped that the whole was exposed to direct fire from the Wall, from which it is separated by a small glacis [linea] 10 or 12 feet across. Beyond it the upcast earth is so disposed as to form the glacis proper, for about 50 ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... one. All was quiet and not a blade stirred. I paused near the tent opening, with my face toward the opposite side of the river, which could be seen through an opening among the trees. Standing motionless on the bank, which from there sloped gradually down toward the river, more than a minute had elapsed when my attention was distracted by a slight noise behind me. Looking to the right and backward my surprise was great to perceive the tail-end of a black snake ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... particularly tightly, the three entered the doorway and began to walk along the underground passage. It sloped sharply downwards, and was rough under foot, but the farther they descended the brighter grew the light in front of them. Presently they had stumbled out of the darkness, and were emerging from a tunnel at the foot of the cliffs, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... house, O Thrasyboulos, to pleasant shouts of triumph, neither to sweet-voiced songs. For not uphill neither steep-sloped is the path whereby one bringeth the glories of the Helikonian maidens to dwell with ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... within two miles, as I have said, before these elegancies broke upon me, so deceptively did their delicacy of outlines mingle with the dark blue softness beyond. In places the coast ran up to a height of two or three hundred feet, in others it sloped down to twenty feet. For some miles it was like the face of a cliff, a sheer abrupt, with scarce a scar upon its front, staring with a wild bald look over the frosty beautiful blue of that afternoon sea. Here and there it projected ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Venice to know that it was by no means worth while to explore the interior of this old palace because the outside was attractive, and so we left it; and turning a corner, found ourselves in a shallow canal, with houses on one side, and a grassy bank on the other. The bank sloped gently from the water up to the walls of some edifice, on which ruin seemed to have fastened soon after the architect had begun his work. The vast walls, embracing several acres in their close, rose only some ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... a very long room with a big table in the center and a piano at the farther end. The ceiling sloped down from the right to the left. At the left it descended toward the doors of the kitchen and storerooms; at the right it rose to the height of two full stories. One of these was occupied by a series of heavy posts on which hung saddles and bridles and riding equipment of all ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... The high, rocky hills, a few miles distant, sloped in beautiful undulations of open, park-like land to the river's bank. Here and there fine ornamental trees were dotted about the surface; but the absence of forest would have rendered the locality unfit for a ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Margaret, who, as we have seen, was a staunch friend to the Prince, was at home. Still, in her position it was most undesirable that Charles should present himself at her house. Miss Macdonald and her servant Neil went up to the house—the garden sloped down to the part of the shore where they had landed—leaving Betty Burke sitting on the boxes in her flowered gown and ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... beyond the house, the hill sloped down into a narrow valley, with birches and willows on the ridge on both sides, and among them there flowed over the flint stones a clear, twinkling little brook, in which glided a trout or two. While the others slept, I went up along the bank, and lay ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... with a half-laugh. "See"—and again he waved his light, showing them where the underground passage, for such it was, sloped upward to another and larger trap, now closed. "This way is one of the many secret ones about Gamewell, master: but do you keep the knowledge of it to yourselves, I beg, unless you would wish hurt to our future lord ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... is stringent and strong, A youth in extremis is sure to go wrong, For the pendulum swings with a multiplied force When sloped from its even legitimate course. I have known—who has not?—that a profligate son Has been through his fanatic father undone; Restrained till the night of free licence arrives, And then he breaks out to the wreck ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... resolves Our discords, faith through all the ruthless laws Of nature in their lovely pitilessness, Faith in that Love which outwardly must wear, Through all the sorrows of eternal change, The splendour of the indifference of God. All round him through the heavy purple gloom Sloped the soft rush of silver-arrowed rain, Loosening the skies' hard anguish, as with tears. Once more he felt his unity with all The vast composure of the universe, And drank deep at the fountains of that peace Which comprehends the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... for a moment, but only for a moment. The next he entered the tunnel, cautiously drawing over the lid which concealed it. The passage in which he found himself sloped downward, and was at first scarcely large enough to allow him to walk upright. Little of light penetrated into it, and he had, therefore, to walk cautiously along, like a blind man, making sure ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... brow of the hill, it was open ground for a distance and gently sloped off to the woods. Time after time the enemy formed for the purpose of making a charge on us, but no sooner did they appear than this immense line of artillery opened fire, which no troops in the world could withstand. In aid of the artillery fire, the infantry posted so as to have a chance, poured ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... hill, it occupied the very highest point of the estate and from its walls the ground sloped away, at one side, straight down to the high bank above the river. Century-old elms overshadowed the house and half hid the fine lines of ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... moats and palisades, and supposed to be unapproachable from the sea except by boats, of which Tadatsune had taken care that there should not be any supply available. But the Minamoto general learned that the shore sloped very slowly on the castle front, and marching his men boldly through the water, he ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... endeavouring to inform himself of the features of the position he had so easily won. A sort of a trench had been scratched on the summit by the weary men, when the mist rolling away for a little while disclosed the startling topography of the position. The surface of the plateau sloped gently at first, and then abruptly fell away, and the trench was found to be of little use. The enemy could approach on dead ground to within two hundred yards of it. Woodgate, seeing that the real defensible line was not the highest part of ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine this high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some quarter of a mile along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the pleasant fields behind it, bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off and led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now clothed with brambles and ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... shelter for the thousands upon thousands of wild duck that peopled the watery waste. Now, unafraid, they were floating in the open, casting great clouds of velvety black upon the still surface of the lake, which, owing to some atmospheric effect, looked as if it sloped upward like the sands till it met the stooping sky. Very far off, almost visionary, like blacknesses held partly by the water, and partly by the vapours that muffled the sky, were two or three of the clumsy boats of the wild, almost savage ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... along its margin, splashing up to the knees of the horses. Cranes and herons flew on with lumbering motion; flocks of ducks winged swift flight from one side to the other. Beyond this depression the land sloped rather abruptly; outcroppings of rock circled along the edge of the highest ground, and again a dark ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... poor enough garret ones, nowise too good, it seemed to Hester, for the poorest of human kind. In the largest, the ceiling sloped to the floor till there was but just height enough left for the small chest of drawers of painted deal to stand back to the wall. A similar washstand and a low bed completed the furniture. The last was immediately behind the door, and there lay the woman, with a bolster heightened by ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... tempting-looking that sunny afternoon, for the high, untrimmed laurel hedge on the other side of the path behind them threw a deep broad shadow over the flat top of it, and shade was what one appreciated most on that hot day. All the ground in Gorlay sloped, for Gorlay was built on two hills, while the gardens of all the houses on either side sloped either up or down another and a steeper hill. Dr. Trenire's house was on the left-hand side of the street, as one walked up it, and it was the steep ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Venus of Milo tended a remnant of the herd, most of which had already descended to the valleys below. As the sun was setting I walked out to the brow of the aiguille, which from below seemed a point, but was in reality only the perpendicular face of a mass of mountain which in the other direction sloped away towards Switzerland for miles. The view of Mont Blanc, directly opposite, then bare of clouds from the base to the summit, with the red sunset light falling full on the great fields of snow, of which I had never realized the extent from any other point, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... to the end of the platform where the planks sloped gently down to a wilderness of sheds, coaling stages and sidings; he could just make out the bulky forms of some tarpaulined cattle-vans and open coal-trucks standing on the lines of metals which ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... very pretty. Emerald-green meadows alternately with a few cornfields decked the gentle billowy uplands, which sloped away abruptly toward the sea. Trees stood separately or in groups reaching to the edge of the cliff, over which many of them bent their storm-disheveled heads and gazed into the waves below. Here and there were small inclosed woods, and it was at the edge of one of these, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... was built on the hill, as it sloped up from the Maine, and originally stood at the lower corner of the city ramparts. Broad quays have taken the place of the outer fortifications on the river bank, and most of the moat has been filled in to make boulevards, but between the quay and the river front ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... sluggish engines I panted down and came to rest in the dull yellow glow of the field lights. A new world here. The field was flat, caked ooze, cracked and hardened. It sloped upward from the shore toward where, a quarter of a mile away, I could see the dull lights of the settlement, blurred by the gathered ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... of this ridge sloped off in a declivity covered with a thick forest of oaks. The ravines were thick set on their banks with small timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the whole area before them had been stripped bare of all herbage by the buffaloes that had resorted ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... which, even though less perhaps than any other tree, the larch sometimes does. A few score yards from this tree grew, when we inhabited Alfoxden, one of the most remarkable beech-trees ever seen. The ground sloped both towards and from it. It was of immense size, and threw out arms that struck into the soil like those of the banyan-tree, and rose again from it. Two of the branches thus inserted themselves twice, which gave to each the appearance of a serpent ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... another song, for those who were watching a thousand feet above us gave the signal, and down from on high came a rain of stones and boulders that darkened the air and crashed among them, crushing many of them. On they struggled, seeing a wider way in front where the cliffs sloped, and perhaps half of them won through. But here the archers were waiting, and now, in the place of stones, arrows were hailed upon them, till at length, utterly bewildered and unable to strike a blow in their own defence, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... 180 feet over all with a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of about 7-1/2 feet. A single deck sloped from about the water line to a structure that ran fore and aft amidships, about six feet wide, which served as a gangway between forecastle and poop and gave access to the hold. The forecastle carried the main battery of guns, and was closed in below so as to provide quarters for the fighting ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it sloped down safely again,—when, just at the very middle and highest and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, and declared she could neither go back nor forward. She had been frightened to death all the way, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... more in the icy rain, keeping along the crest of the hill, which was just wide enough for the path. The mountain sloped steeply down on either side, the thick mist made an early twilight, we could only see the spot where we set our feet, while all the surroundings were lost in grey fog, so that we felt as though we were walking ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... best we may. Therefore I tossed aside the charred match, and having searched fruitlessly through my pockets for another, waited philosophically for some "good Samaritan" to come along. The bank I have mentioned sloped away gently on my left, thus affording an ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... story the better for knowing amid what sort of scenes it was unfolded. Moreover, such a place is one of the pleasant things in the world to look at, as I judge. This was a small house, with its gable end to the road, and a lean-to at the back, over which the long roof sloped down picturesquely. It was weather-painted; that was all; of a soft dark grey now, that harmonized well enough with the gayer colours of meadows and trees. And two superb elms, of New England's own, stood beside it and hung over it, enfolding and sheltering the little ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... and chocolate browns like the edge of a crumbled layer-cake. Up the canyon the walls shut in again, and then they opened out, and so on for nine miles until Old Panamint was reached and the open valley sloped up to the summit. ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... lawn, which they gained by rounding a large lilac bush. Here a small table was laid with the whitest of cloths and the most dazzling of silver. An attentive waiter was already arranging an ice-pail in a convenient spot. From here the gardens sloped gently to the river, which was barely forty yards distant. Although it was scarcely twilight, the men on the ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... watch-towers and barriers, the horses took them along at a swinging pace. The heath-clad upland over which they were passing sloped into another fertile valley, through which a lily-padded stream ran between rows of drooping willows. Suddenly the Lord of Ivarsdale ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... disturbed a boar. Luckily for myself, I always keep a sharp look out, and my eye caught a glimpse of something black coming up amongst the coffee. In a single second a boar appeared in the path some twenty yards away. The path sloped downwards towards me, and at me he came, like an arrow from a bow. As there was no use in my attempting to arrest the progress of an animal of this kind, I stepped aside and let him into my manager, who, luckily for himself, was standing behind a broken off ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... light of that summer morning was already so strong that, to avoid detection, he quickly dropped into the shadow of the gully that sloped towards the Run. The hot mist which the scouts had seen was now lying like a tranquil sea between him and the pickets of the enemy's rear-guard, which it seemed to submerge, and was clinging in moist tenuous swathes—like ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... this night had a beauty about it which would have made anyone possessed with the least enthusiasm fall in love with a bush life. We were sitting on a gently-rising ground which sloped away gradually to a picturesque lake surrounded by wooded hills, whilst the moon shone so brightly on the lake that the distance was perfectly clear, and we could distinctly see the large flocks of wildfowl as they ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... relieved a dreary landscape beyond. There were the hills covered with chaparral and the shifting sands all around, and far to the south, where now are wide streets and great blocks of buildings. The ground sloped towards the bay on the east, and a cove, long since filled in, which bore the name of Yerba Buena, extended up to Montgomery street. The population of the town was less than a hundred; there was ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... was about a mile from the village, was a long, low house with a thatched roof. It was sheltered by a few old oaks, under which the grandparents and great-grandparents of the children now at school had played long ago. The play-green sloped down from the front of the school, and was enclosed by a rough paling. The children obeyed and loved the dame who taught them, for she was ever quick to praise them when they did well, and to give them all the pleasure she could. Susan had been taught by her, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... time Dick and Sammie had so far recovered from their fright that they were able to hurry down stream, and stand on the edge of the stream where the bank sloped gently to the water. Here they stood for several fearful seconds watching Jasper as he struggled toward them. They took special care not to wet their feet, but merely reached out and helped to pull Lois ashore and lay her upon the dry ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... not only taken the name of Portsmouth, but other changes had also crept in. In place of logs, houses were built of bricks burned in the dooryard; or else were constructed of frames of oak, often with pitched roofs that sloped to the ground. ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... these conditions began to really hit us, and undoubtedly the exertions of the previous day were having their effect. Every moment the heat increased, the sand seemed to become softer and softer, and the whole ground sloped gradually upwards. Men dropped and officers had to use all the powers they possessed to get them on, but many had to be left behind to struggle along afterwards in their own time. Meanwhile another long column of prisoners ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... an old and silent man who looked after the cattle and the few hens that the household kept; at the back of the house was a thatched timbered grange, where he laid his tools; but he spent his time mostly in the garden, which sloped down to the fishpond, and was all bordered with box; here was a pleasant homely scent, on hot days, of the good herbs that shed their rich smell in the sun; and here the flies, that sate in the leaves, would buzz at the sound of a footfall, and then be still again, cleaning their hands ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... main body of the fleet sloped in echeloned ranks, hiding the threatened city with an impenetrable terraced wall of buzzing helios and massive forts. Up, back, up, back, the serried masses reached, till the rearmost were twenty-five thousand feet aloft. And farther behind, unmoving on their six-mile level, were the light ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... by degrees our fire slackened, one by one the guns fell silent and in their place rose the more hateful sounds of anguish. Now as I stood thus, my eyes smarting with burnt powder, my ears yet ringing with the din, I grew aware how the deck sloped in strange fashion; at first I paid small heed, yet with every minute this slope became steeper, and with this certainty came the knowledge that we were sinking and, moreover (judging by the angle of the ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... The great alley of limes soon became too long for feet that used to traverse it formerly a hundred times a day. The comte walked feebly as far as the middle trees, seated himself upon a mossy bank that sloped towards a sidewalk, and there waited the return of his strength, or rather the return of night. Very shortly a hundred steps exhausted him. At length Athos refused to rise at all; he declined all nourishment, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reader, on the edge of a lofty table-land, which, dipping suddenly at your feet, sloped again to the sea of ice, at a distance of some 500 feet below; fancy a vast plain of ice and snow, diversified by tiers of broken-up ice and snow-wreaths, which, glistening on the one side, reflected back the moonlight with an exceeding ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... see how careful these big animals were, and how, from time to time, they would feel the wind with their noses, and again stop feeding and listen. No two bears seemed to be built on quite the same lines. Some were high at the shoulders and then sloped down toward the rump and nose; and again, others were saddle-backed; still others stood with their front feet directly under them, making a regular curve at the shoulders; while others had the front legs wide apart, and seemed to form a triangle, ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... a soft mist upon the evening shore, At once a lovely isle before me lay, Smooth, and with tender verdure covered o'er, As if just risen from its calm inland bay; Sloped each way gently to the grassy edge, And the small waves that dallied with ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... home was much changed, and for the better. With much patient toil, the unsightly rocks and stumps had been removed from the fields which sloped gracefully to the little river and were covered with tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and daisies. The dilapidated house and barn had given place to modern buildings; apple, pear, and peach-trees, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... was at some distance from the fire, since if either of us fell into that who would there be to take us off before cremation ensued? Then she drew up a curved settee with a back and arms, a comfortable-looking article having a seat that sloped backwards like those in clubs, and motioned to me to sit down. This I did with much the same sensations that are evoked by taking ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Rao's house, on the right of the ridge where it sloped down into the plain, was the key of our position, and was defended with great bravery and unflinching tenacity throughout the whole siege by the Sirmoor battalion of Goorkhas, and portions of the 60th Royal Rifles ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... from thirst as the sun rose. A river, thought I, must run from the mountain, fed by the melting of its snows. Perhaps we might come to this river before arriving at the mountain-foot. But, no;—the plain evidently sloped down from us to the mountain. Whatever stream ran from it must go the other way. We should find no water before reaching the mountain— perhaps, not then; and, tortured with these doubts, we pushed ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... wide open, and there floated in from the garden, which sloped away to the edge and indeed over the crumbling cliff, fragrant, salt-laden odours, dominated by the clean, sharp scent thrown from huge shrubs of red and white geraniums. The balls of blossom set against the belt of blue sea, formed ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... was about the same as below. The water was smooth, deep, clear and sluggish. The bank sloped gently down from each side and on the other shore were plainly seen the prints of the hoofs where the animals had left the water. It was so deep that whoever went over there had done so by ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... in between two lofty cliffs, so close that there were but a few yards to spare on either side of her. Fifty yards ahead the channel made a sharp turn again, and they entered a basin of tranquil water three or four hundred yards across. At the further end the shore sloped gradually up, and here several large storehouses had been erected, and ways laid down for the convenience of hauling up and ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... which the Yarrangung river, glazed with sunset, could be seen like a silver snake winding between shrubberied banks. The odour from the six-acred flower-garden was overpowering and delightful. A breeze gently swayed the crowd of trees amid the houses, and swept over the great orchard which sloped down from the south side of the houses. In the fading sunlight thirty iron roofs gleamed and glared, and seemed like a little town; and the yelp of many dogs went up at the sound of our wheels. Ah! beautiful, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a mile or more, they came to a line of rocks which seemed to extend from the open ice of the glacier to the coast, a distance of perhaps five or six miles. West of this line of moraine rocks the land sloped gradually to the northwest and here the headwaters of the little creek ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... Church, Surrey; and in the church of the Holy Trinity at Coventry; other instances might also be enumerated. Sometimes we meet with ancient brass reading-desks which have not the eagle in front, but both the sides are sloped so as to form a double desk: of these, examples of the fifteenth century may be found in Yeovil Church, Somersetshire, and in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford. Ancient wooden reading-desks, either single or double, are also occasionally ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... curiously far apart, so that he could see sideways as well as in front, while the eye at the back of the head—on which part of the head no hair, of course, grew—enabled him to see in that direction also. He had no forehead, but there seemed to be a roll of flesh where it should have been. The head sloped backwards and upwards in a rather curious way. The arms and legs (especially the former) were longer in proportion than ours, and could not be perfectly straightened either at elbows or knees; the hands and feet were enormous, and the heels projected backwards in an ungainly ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... hospitable message came, Inviting me to taste the strawberries At Strawberry Hill. I went. How long I stayed, Urged by dear friends and the restoring breeze, Let me not say; long enough to complete My rhythmic structure; day by day it grew, And all sweet influences helped its growth. The lawn sloped green and ample till the trees Met on its margin; and the Hudson's tide Rolled beautiful beyond, where purple gleams Fell on the Palisades or touched the hills Of the opposing shore; for all without Was but an emblem of the symmetry ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... The ground sloped sharply outward from the carts, and the rear of the position was formed by the nullah. The last two hackeris were being placed in position when the vanguard of the pursuers, with Diggle at their head, came to a point just out of range. The ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... a watery moon came glimmering through the clouds. With my enemy's rapier in hand I began cutting a course through the thicket. Radisson's fire no longer shone. Indeed, I became mighty uncertain which direction to take, for the rush of the river merged with the beating of the wind. The ground sloped precipitously; and I was holding back by the underbrush lest the bank led to water when an indistinct sound, a smothery murmur like the gurgle of a subterranean pool, came ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... noon hour, we passed out of sight of Forty Islands, and in the next few days, with the change of scene, the gloom gradually lifted. We were bearing almost due north, and passing through a delightful country. To our left ran a range of mountains, while on the other hand sloped off the apparently limitless plain. The scarcity of water was beginning to be felt, for the streams which had not a source in the mountains on our left had dried up weeks before our arrival. There was a gradual change of air noticeable too, for we were rapidly gaining ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... plantation, and came out on some open ground, rising and falling prettily, in little hillocks and hollows. The last of the hillocks sloped down into a smooth level plain, with a fringe of sheltering trees on its farther side—with a snug little stone cottage among the trees—and with a smart little man, walking up and down before the cottage, holding his hands behind him. The level plain was the hero's exercising ground; the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... few steps, the sand underfoot gave place abruptly to a floor of hard, smooth lava rock. The gallery twisted, and the thin shaft of daylight from the entrance was lost. The way sloped gently upward. The lanterns waged but a feeble battle against the darkness; Martin felt he was being crushed by that heavy, intense gloom. Their steps echoed upon the glasslike, slippery ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the position from which he had derived his nickname, his left hand and left foot well to the front, his body sloped very far back from his loins, and his guard thrown across his chest, but held well forward in a way which made him exceedingly hard to get at. The smith, on the other hand, assumed the obsolete attitude ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Miriam's tent was no easy matter. I paced my steps so deftly with the broncho's and let him munch grass so often, the most watchful Indian could not have detected a man on the far side of the horse, directing every move. Behind the Sioux lodge, the earth sloped abruptly away, bare and precipitous; and I left the horse below and clambered up the steep to the white wall of Miriam's tent. Once the dogs threatened to create a disturbance, but a man quieted them, and with gratitude I recognized the voice ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... was afforded by the range of hills, bordering on the west of the valley of Chatel. That side facing the enemy sloped away like a glacis, while the short and steep decline behind offered protection for the reserves. The IId, IIId, IVth and VIth Corps were placed on the ridge of the hills between Roncourt and Rozereuilles, a distance of one mile and a half (German); thus there were eight or ten men to every ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... staggering over submerged bowlders and stony heaps whose unexpected existence would often imperil his balance, he managed to climb considerably higher. But his progress was necessarily slow. He kept as near as possible to the rocky ridge which had sheltered him; for on his other hand the ground sloped downwards in a steep gradient, and the treacherous snow might well conceal ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... miles away, on the northern edge of the belt of heather; a happy little village standing round a green, with a mill, a bridge, and a church with a wonderful ladder up to the belfry. This is actually a single vast plank of oak, black and immoveable, sloped up from a crossbeam and notched for steps. There are many magnificent beams in Surrey churches, but this is the finest ladder of all of them. It does not tempt ascent in days of more elaborate staircases; but it would ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... scrambling and pulling themselves upward, they reached the shelf. It was barely large enough to hold them all and was scarcely ten feet above the level of the beach below. Nor was it at all level, for it had been formed by the accumulation of falling debris from the cliff and sloped outward at a steep angle. Some dwarf firs and low bushes had gained rootage, however, and it was possible for them to huddle there without fear of rolling to the rocks beneath. Steve tried to find some dead branches to build a fire, and did succeed in getting a few, but his first attempt ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the marshy bottom and passed over a quarter of a mile of dry, hard turf. Again the ground sloped, and again we came on the tracks. Then we lost them for half a mile, but only to pick them up once more quite close to Mapleton. It was Holmes who saw them first, and he stood pointing with a look of triumph upon his face. A man's track was visible ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... engaged momentarily with Mary, who had heroically consented to be her maid of honour, Tom stole away by himself. Before the church the ridge sloped gently away, giving an unobstructed view of the valley. The evening was a perfect one, and Tom enjoyed one of those rare moments when one feels in complete accord with everything. All around him were the sights and sounds of bucolic tranquillity; and within, apart from the comfortable ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... were lying extended downward perhaps three hundred yards, then sloped backward, leaving sheer empty space beneath them. They seemed to be poised in mid-heaven. It was totally unlike the sensation on a mountain-top, or even floating among the clouds; for a moment it seemed to Stern that he was looking up toward an ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... be done, or feared, or hoped; None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire; No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped Does she require. ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... word she slipped out of the saddle and, moving to one side, listlessly watched him gather up the reins of her horse and ride toward the foot of the hill. Its lower levels sloped easily, and in spite of the handicap of the led horse, who pulled back and seemed reluctant to follow, Lynch took it with ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames |
