"Swamp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... off as early as possible through the thorn scrub on a compass bearing that we hoped would bring us to a reported swamp at the head of the Swanee River. The Swanee River was one of the sources of the Tsavo. Of course this was guesswork. We did not know certainly the location of the swamp, its distance from us, nor what lay between ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... rapidly into the interior of North Russia, whether by railroad or by barge or by more slow-going cart transport, his first impression was that of an endless expanse of forest and swamp with here and there an area of higher land. One of them said that the state of Archangel was 700 miles long by 350 wide and as tall as the 50-foot pine trees that cover it. Winding up the broad deep rivers he passed numerous villages with patches of clearings surrounding ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... which could probably be drained and converted into good grass land. Here I also found cranberry vines in a flourishing condition and their fruit. Three or four miles back from the coast at this point, lies a tract of several hundred acres of swamp grass land, which by drainage, would afford considerable pasturage. A narrow strip of grazing land, from five to fifteen rods in width, extends for about three miles along the seashore, eastward from near ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... themselves in the pleasant fire-lit room overlooking the garden. Judy had brought down two framed photographs of her favorite pictures and a big brass jar by way of ornament, and on Christmas Eve the girls went out to buy holly and red swamp berries. ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... if you had, there'd be no use for me to come here and tell you," returned Blind Charlie blandly. "That's where the value of my political ear comes in. Now in my time I've seen many a sensation react and swamp the man that started it. That's what we've got to look out for and ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... Park in solemn state in his heavy chariot, and looks down with disdain upon all whose blood is not as Dutch as his own, is a very different personage from his great ancestor, the original Knickerbocker, who hawked fish about the streets of New Amsterdam, or tanned leather down in "the swamp." ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Nick of the present English, and Grendel—probably, the Geruthus of Saxo Grammaticus—are the chief supernaturals, demons of the swamp and fen. These best localize the legends in which they appear; for which most parts of Hanover and the Cimbric Chersonesus suit indifferently, the Frisian portions pre-eminently, well. The more exalted mythology of Woden, Thor, and Balder, so generally considered ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... officers of the English disagreed as to how they should meet him. The result was separation and disaster; the fleet sailed back to England and the army withdrew to Walcheren, where it was held in check while the swamp-fever devastated its ranks. About the same time a plague also broke out in the Austrian army, and, as was claimed, destroyed its efficiency. Wellesley, unsupported, saw himself threatened by a flank movement of Soult and drew back, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... say, anthropophagous habits laid them open to a certain amount of criticism. Not many years ago Mr. Bamberger, the famous violinist, in the course of a triumphal tour in the Southern Pacific, was captured by the inhabitants of Kulambranga, detained for several weeks in captivity in a mangrove swamp, where he suffered great inconvenience from the gigantic frogs (Rana Guppyi) which infest this region, and was only rescued with great difficulty by a punitive expedition—conducted by Sir Pompey Boldero—when on the eve of being sacrificed to the gastronomic exigencies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat which of the Dismal Swamp. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... time to land some field pieces, and prepare for their reception; while General Nesbit fell into their rear, and cut off their return to the boats. They advanced to the charge, but were soon repulsed; and finding it impracticable to return the way they came, were driven some miles through a deep swamp, which they traversed with inconceivable toil, and every degree of distress. The British at length ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... and with his musket he brought two of them dead to the ground. He would perhaps have reached the canoe—the savages fell back appalled by his courage—but while in full retreat he sunk to the middle in a swamp from which his utmost efforts could not extricate him. Excessive cold froze his limbs and deprived him of strength, yet the Indians dared not approach him until he threw away his arms and made signals ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... would be an odd way of praising that school if its lack of modernness were a mere matter of lagging behind or of standing still and marking time. But if the "march of progress" has been down-hill—if the path that is trod leads into a swamp or over a precipice—then there may be most hopefulness for those who can 'bout face and march the other way. I have, elsewhere in this volume, given at some length some of my reasons for thinking that modern art has ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... were all their habiliments. We noticed that they never sat down, though a bench was close by them; they would squat for an hour at a time. The day following we took our last horseback ride in South America. It was short, but horrible. Through quagmire and swamp, and down a flight of rocky stairs, in striking imitation of General Putnam's famous ride—over rocks, too, made wondrously slippery by a pitiless rain, but which our unshod Indian horses descended with great dexterity, only one beast and his rider taking a somerset—thus we traveled two hours, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... sitting on a log, with my feet in a swamp. But we've found out where the old spring is, and we're going to pipe it down to ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... are familiar with the sumac-bush, which grows nearly all over the United States. Of course we do not mean the poisonous swamp-sumac, but that which grows along the fences and on the edges of the woods. Of late years the leaves of this bush have been greatly in demand for tanning purposes, and, in some States, especially in Virginia, sumac gathering has ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... end of alligators in this swamp," the sailor said; "and I know that the natives, before they cross streams where the brutes are likely to be hiding, beat the water with sticks or bushes ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... skipper. Harriet instantly obeyed the command. Then the gale was upon them with a screech and a roar. A volume of water that threatened to swamp them rolled toward the stern, but before it had done so Harriet, acting upon a sharply uttered command, had swung the sloop about until its nose met the oncoming rush of wind and water. She gasped for breath ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... to see rear of my lot, Gordon guiding with a compass. All of a sudden the bush ceased, and on finding I stood on the edge of a swamp, I got angry at my being fooled into paying for a cattail marsh. There is quite a stretch not very wide, angling across the width of my lot. On thinking it over, am satisfied Bambray knew no more about its existence than I did. Returning home I followed the creek, which starts from it. There was ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... from now humanity may get results from scientific management in social organization, but most of your present-day methods are about as practical as trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon or to pick a posy out of swamp grass." ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... taken, Kit Carson describes as being the most tasty pieces of handiwork that Indian skill could devise, and surpassed anything of the kind that he had previously looked upon. They were made of the broad leaves of the swamp flag, which were beautifully and intricately woven together. Within the wigwams, the party found a very large amount of fish in different stages of preservation for future use. Wishing to do these people as much ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... came about that I was really glad when Captain Robertson suggested that we should go down to a certain swamp formed, I gathered, by some small tributary of the Zambesi to take part in a kind of hippopotamus battue. It seemed that at this season of the year these great animals always frequented the place in numbers, also that by barring ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... to him his dogs and sledge, his provisions, and his tent, and commanded him to camp in the heart of a cedar swamp a few miles back, with the information that he would return for his outfit at some time in the indefinite future. He might be gone a day or a week. When he had seen Pastamoo off, he continued his journey toward the cabin, in the hope that ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... swamp, lake, and river, that still, however, lay between them and the land which they sought to reach, was very wide. Weeks, and even months, would certainly elapse before they could hope to approach it; one day, therefore, they buried their goods and stores ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... a swamp there," said the esaul. "The horses would sink. We must ride round more to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Will, never call that dandy lancewood rod by such a degrading name again. The farmer's boy cuts a pole from the bushes, or buys a fifteen-foot one at the grocery store, the kind that comes up from the Louisiana swamp districts. A true sportsman carries a jointed rod—spell it out, r-o-d. Why, I'd turn red to the roots of my hair if ever you said 'pole' in the presence of real ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... outer edge of the whirlpool of Charybdis, which is a great eddy caused by a jutting point of land on which a fort is built, and on the ebb tide strong enough to swamp a boat, Paul worked for one hour without advancing a single yard; the people all the while expecting to see him swallowed up. He held out, however, and at last landed safely at Messina. The American ships laying there dipped their ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... how Nature favoured Grant in the crossing of the James. Though comparatively the river is so narrow at the point of the Weyanoke peninsula, yet to get to the stream at that point it was necessary for the Federal forces to traverse an extensive swamp. Apparently the swamp was impassable; but the officers found, running through it, a most peculiar formation—a natural ridge of solid earth. It was a ready-made military roadway upon which the troops could pass through the swamp and reach ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... its low level throughout rendered its drainage a most difficult problem. Until far on in the 18th century the malarial jungle and paddy fields closely hemmed in the European mansions; the vast plain (maidan), now covered with gardens and promenades, was then a swamp during three months of each year; the spacious quadrangle known as Wellington Square was built upon a filthy creek. A legend relates how one-fourth of the European inhabitants perished in twelve months, and during seventy years the mortality ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... fadder done die! De missus she go 'bout cryin' dis mawnin, an' I allus 'member she do dat dis bery day! Wha' make Mars Nelson come fo' Babylam'? O, fo de Lawd, fo de Lawd! (Tat and Bony stare at their mother in terror as she proceeds) I see de black hawk what flies outen de dead swamp! Ooo! I see knives a drippin' an' guns a poppin'! Oooooooo! I see de coffin, de coffin—an' it's all dark night, an' de rain comin' down de chimney—an' de wind—de wind—it say "Ooooooooooo!" (Bends ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... campaign in Holland last war, a party marching through a swamp, was ordered to form two deep. A corporal immediately exclaimed, "I'm too deep already; I ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... turned his back on the town, not knowing where to go. To retrace his steps would be madness. He followed the shore of the White Sea to Onega, a natural direction for pilgrims returning from Solovetsk to take. His lonely way lay through a land of swamp and sand, with a sparse growth of stunted pines; the midnight sun streamed across the silent stretches; the huge waves of the White Sea, lashed by a long storm, plunged foaming upon the desolate beach. Days and nights of walking brought him to Onega: there was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... a swamp, and had occasion to take a nap he took care first to decide upon the posture he must take, so that if come upon unexpectedly by the hounds and slave-hunters, he might know in an instant which way to steer to defeat them. He always carried ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... light of its reason, the sunrise of its proud intelligence, and knows that these have passed away like a tale that is told; like a year that is spent; like an arrow that is shot to the stars, and flies aloft, and falls in a swamp; like a fruit that is too well loved of the sun, and so, over-soon ripe, is dropped from the tree and forgot on the grasses, dead to all joys of the dawn and the noon and the summer, but still alive to the sting of the wasp, to the fret of the aphis, to the burn of the drought, to the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... heard for this American word, is one that supposes it to be a corruption of Chiente, a term said to be used among the Canadians to express a dog-kennel.] of a hunter; the smooth and gravelled road sometimes ends in an impassable swamp; the spires of the town are often hid by the branches of a tangled forest, and the canal leads to a seemingly barren and unprofitable mountain. He that does not return to see what another year may bring forth, commonly bears away from these scenes, recollections that conduce ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... the whole county of Essex. Twenty-six years later the river Maas broke its banks and flooded a wide district. Seventy-two villages were destroyed and 100,000 people lost their life. The lands have never been recovered; and where a fertile country once stood is now a mere swamp." ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... swelled into the boat from round the stern of the ship; while as the waves that broke over the forecastle and weather quarter of the Nancy Bell washed through the vessel, they poured like a cascade from the inclined deck, threatened to swamp the little raft as she lay tossing uneasily alongside until the mutineers could complete their ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... through it, or sprang over it, and then made ready for the next. Meanwhile, the storm increased, the rain driving at an angle of 45 deg., and in sheets that flapped smotheringly about him like wet blankets, and threatened to swamp his boat without assistance from the waves. It was growing colder, too, and his sodden garments were of little service to protect him from the chill that comes with a south-wester; nor was the grip of the naked hands upon the oars stimulating to the circulation of ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... here, if it were not for these sin verguenzas—may a bad lightning split them!—who take money to show them the bridle-paths," the country-man explained. "I'd like to guide them once. I'd lead them into a swamp and leave them to sink in the mud, then I'd go back and cut off their heads. Ha! That would be a ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... been fired upon, and the war for the preservation of the Union had begun. The President's first call for volunteers had been issued; the Bull Run retreat had occurred, and the seven days' horror of the Chickahominy swamp, followed by the battle of Fair Oaks and the siege of Fredericksburg, had startled the country. Secession was rampant, and Washington was threatened. The second call for volunteers had come and ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... buildings in Petrograd are of stucco, and indeed, except for her churches and a few other buildings, the Russian capital resembles a poor imitation of Paris. Peter the Great, who constructed the city upon the swamp lands surrounding the river Neva, was determined to force Russia into the western world instead of the east. For this reason he brought all his artists from France and Italy, so that he might model his new city upon ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... tell you about a place on Venus," said Greg. "It's in the center of a big swamp that stretches for hundreds of miles in every direction. It's a sort of mountain rising out of the swamp. And the swamp is filled with beasts and reptiles of every kind. Ravenous things, lusting for blood. But they don't climb the mountain. ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... very interesting but wild picture, which was staged for me several kilometres from my den. There was a small swamp covered with grass and cranberries scattered through it, where the blackcock and sand partridges usually came to feed on the berries. I approached noiselessly behind the bushes and saw a whole flock of blackcock scratching in the snow and picking out the berries. While I was surveying ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... that I will not be taken." Much of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did not care to go in after him. He could even come out into a town where there were more Border Ruffians than Free State men, and transact some business, without delaying long, and yet not be molested; for, said he, "No little handful of men were willing to undertake ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall. Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long plateau of sighing grass. Behind ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... off his scarlet blanket, which was richly ornamented, and galloped away with it as a trophy to the camp, the bullets of the enemy whistling after him. The Indians immediately threw themselves into the edge of a swamp, among willows and cottonwood trees, interwoven with vines. Here they began to fortify themselves, the women digging a trench and throwing up a breastwork of logs and branches, deep hid in the bosom of the wood, while the warriors skirmished ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... other paraphernalia. Some of it not much used now, since winter had come, but under Marty's leadership, a skating rink construction gang had thrown up a dirt embankment in a low spot near the creek and then cut a channel far enough upstream to flood about four acres of swamp. Mr. Bellamy told about the skating tournaments every afternoon of the cold weather for the school children, and Saturday afternoons for the older young folks. More people went than skated too, the garrulous farmer asserted. It was just another of that young preacher's ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... Tegumai Bopsulai went down through the beaver-swamp to the Wagai river to spear carp-fish for dinner, and Taffy went too. Tegumai's spear was made of wood with shark's teeth at the end, and before he had caught any fish at all he accidentally broke it clean across by jabbing it down too ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... common to Loudoun are four varieties of the white oak, i. e., common, swamp, box, and chestnut-leaved, the latter, however, appearing only along the margin of the Potomac River; black, Spanish, and red oak, chestnut oak, peach or willow oak, pin oak; and in the eastern parts of the county, black jack, or barren oak, and dwarf oak, hickory, black and white walnut, white and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... this I step, swathing my gown carefully up in a huge shawl. This precaution is especially necessary, for during the afternoon there has been a terrific thunderstorm and a sudden sharp deluge of rain. Besides a swamp or two to be ploughed through as best we may, there are those two miles of deep red muddy road full of ruts and big stones and pitfalls of all sorts. The drive home in the dark will be nervous work, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... and this I did as well as I could; but even then, three times during the course of ten days he lost himself completely in the tumultuous upheavals and canons of that badly mixed region. Another, an old grouse-hunter, walked twice in a circle within the confines of a thick swamp about two miles square. On the other hand, many exhibit almost marvelous skill in striking a bee-line for their objective point, and can always tell you, even after an engrossing and wandering hunt, exactly ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... pilot may make a mess of his machine if his engine goes "dud" over a forest, city, swamp, or other impossible landing-place. It is his business more or less to keep clear of such tracts when flying. But one of the tests of a good pilot is whether or not he can shut off his engine in the air, pick out his particular field below, taking ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... complete. But, as it then stood, I was not satisfied with it, for at the after extremity of it there was an opening some six feet long, and as wide as the boat, through which a very considerable quantity of water might enter—quite enough, indeed, to swamp the boat. And with our canvas deck lying flat, as it then was, there was no doubt that very large quantities of water would wash over it, and pour down through the opening, should the sea run heavily. Our ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... were too many against him, and as he could not beat them off he tried to retreat to the boat, always shielding himself with the guide. Unfortunately, just as escape seemed near, he stumbled into a swamp and was held fast by the heavy bog, and chilled by the cold water. Being thus helpless he was forced to surrender, and the triumphant Indians ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith
... the smooth of life; his introduction of the innocent baby into the drunkard-filled bar-room in The Measure of a Man is strikingly like Bret Harte's similar employment of this sentimental device in The Luck of Roaring Camp, and the presence of Patty Batch among the soiled women of Swamp's End in the same tale and of the tawdry Millie Slade face to face with the curate in The Mother is again reminiscent of Harte's technique. Like Dickens and like Bret Harte, Duncan was a frank moralist. His chief concern was in winnowing the souls of men and women bare of the chaff of ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... The enemy is shelling us now, and as it is a particularly clear day they are using it to the best advantage to try and destroy us. I must turn our guns on to them if they go on like this. I only wish we could swamp the brutes with numbers and get the war over. I am not disturbed about Russia. If we can get the Dardanelles open, we can easily send her ammunition and equipment for her spare men, and so end the war more quickly; but, failing that, I think ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... of reed with a vermilion tip. The dress is artistically fantastic, with the sarong and the jabul and no trousers visible. Apparently the large majority (perhaps 70 per cent.) of the Parang-Parang Moros have a loathsome skin disease. Those who live on shore crop their hair, but the swamp, river, and sea people who live afloat let it ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman's stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... had settled down at Saloniki and intrenched themselves so strongly that their positions were practically impregnable. These intrenchments were on slopes facing north, heavily wired and with seven miles of swamp before them, over which an attacking army would have to pass. It was obviously inadvisable to withdraw entirely the armies at Saloniki. So long as they were there it was possible at any time to make an attack on Bulgaria in case Russia or ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... will we never get there? If I had my motor-boat now! By Jove, this stretch here between the headlands is not swamp. It's dry plain—and black. Been burnt over. There's a place—tree-trunks still smouldering. The grass has been fired within the last day ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... the late fall of an unusual year on the Bentley farms. Everywhere the crops had been heavy. That spring, Jesse had bought part of a long strip of black swamp land that lay in the valley of Wine Creek. He got the land at a low price but had spent a large sum of money to improve it. Great ditches had to be dug and thousands of tile laid. Neighboring farmers shook their heads over the expense. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... welling with sweet water, calabashes and tamarinds, and circlets of deep, dew-fed verdure. The air was spicy, and zebras and antelopes browsed in the distance. Then the scene again changed, and they were in a slimy, malarious swamp. They were bitten by pismires an inch long, and by the unmerciful tzetze fly. The mercenaries, who threatened to desert, rendered no assistance, and the leader, one Said bin Salim, actually refused to give Burton a piece of canvas to make a tent. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... lies hid beneath their specialism. They know their business, but are ignorant of everything which is outside it. So that to preserve their self-conceit they question everything, are crudely and crookedly critical. They appear to be sceptics and are in reality simpletons; they swamp their wits in interminable arguments. Almost all conveniently adopt social, literary, or political prejudices, to do away with the need of having opinions, just as they adapt their conscience to the standard of the Code or the Tribunal of Commerce. Having started early to become ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... small quantities of the roots, such as carrots or beets, they are usually packed in boxes or barrels and covered in with clean sand. Where an upstairs room has to be used, swamp or sphagnum moss may replace the sand. It makes an ideal packing medium, as it is much lighter and cleaner than the sand. In many localities it may be had for the gathering; in others one may get it ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... miles are occupied by broad lakes which extend inland from either shore. Of the remaining distance, about half is made up of swamps which are almost or quite impassable, while dense and difficult thickets occupy the rest of the line. Behind this stretch of lake, swamp, and thicket there extends from sea to sea a ridge from four hundred to seven hundred feet in height, the whole forming a most admirable position for defence. This ridge had been fortified by the Turks with redoubts, trenches, and rifle-pits, which, fully garrisoned ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... find, just now, on the march from Ohlau to Brieg; last portion of that march, between the village of Briesen and Brieg. The Oder, flowing on your left hand, is hereabouts agreeably clothed with woods: the country, originally a swamp, has been drained, and given to the plough, in an agreeable manner; and there is an excellent road paved with solid whinstone,—quarried in Strehlen, twenty miles away, among the Hills to the right yonder, as you may guess;—road very visible to the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of need among strangers, and nothing could be more cheering in the day of trouble than this. When I left that place I started with bolder courage. The next night I put up at a tavern, and continued stopping at public houses until my means were about gone. When I got to the Black Swamp in the county of Wood, Ohio, I stopped one night at a hotel, after travelling all day through mud and snow; but I soon found that I should not be able to pay my bill. This was about the time that the "wild-cat banks" were in a flourishing state, and "shin plasters"[3] ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... uttered by the party until we had reached the edge of the swamp where it was agreed that all should disperse and seek for the fresh track of the puma, it being previously settled that the discoverer should blow his horn, and remain on the spot until the rest should join him. In less than an hour, the sound of the ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... the delight of that march through the open pine barren, with occasional patches of uncertain swamp. The Eighth Maine, under Lieutenant-Colonel Twichell, was on the right, the Sixth Connecticut, under Major Meeker, on the left, and my own men, under Major Strong, in the centre, having in charge the cannon, to which they had been trained. Mr. Heron, from the John Adams, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... an admirable position on both sides of the main road. To their right was a serai and a walled village capable of holding large numbers of Infantry, and protected by an impassable swamp. To their left, on some rising ground, a sand-bag battery for four heavy guns and an 8-inch mortar had been constructed. On both sides the ground was swampy and intersected by water-cuts, and about a mile to the enemy's left, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... such punishing riding in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky. The signs could be read, and as Drew spurred along that faltering line of march late that night, carrying a message, he felt a creeping chill which was not born of the night wind nor a warning of swamp fever. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... pillory,—with no prescience, I suppose, of a day when he was to stand there himself; then looked up at me with as much malevolence as his small soul could write upon his mean features, and passed on. He had a jaded look; moreover, his clothes were swamp-stained and his cloak had been torn by briers. "What did you go to the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... sunset storm of praise, the air was full of him, and deafening was the Babel of the reviews; for the progress of every original thinker is accompanied by a stream of commentary that swells as it runs till it ends in a dismal swamp of platitude. Carlyle's first recognition was from America, his last from his own countrymen. His teaching came home to their hearts "late in the gloamin'." In Scotland, where, for good or ill, passions are in extremes, he was long howled ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... about that animal, so unless it has a hidden poison somewhere, just about anything in this swamp could do it in. To survive it would have to be fast as hell and it would have to keep running all the time. ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser
... Roaming by river, swamp, and forest, they visited in turn the villages of five petty chiefs, whom they called kings, feasted everywhere on hominy, beans, and game, and loaded with gifts. One of these chiefs, named Audusta, invited them to the grand religious festival of his tribe. Thither, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Robespierre and Saint-Just, the debates of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, the harangues, addresses, and reports of Girondists and Montagnards. Never did men speak so much to say so little; the empty verbiage and swollen emphasis swamp any truth there may be beneath their monotony and their turgidity. The Jacobin is full of respect for the phantoms of his reasoning brain; in his eyes they are more real than living men, and their suffrage is the only suffrage he recognises—he ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... farm consists of about eighteen hundred acres; and they have besides a farm in Michigan, and another in Massachusetts. Their living is made almost entirely by farming; and they have drained very thoroughly a considerable piece of swamp, which yields them large crops of hay. They make brooms, have a nursery, and press and put up herbs; and employ sixteen ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... fifty-two men. General Beyers was drowned on December 9th while attempting to escape from the Vall into the Transvaal. This virtually ended all opposition to General Botha. The invasion of German Southwest Africa began on January 5, 1915, and was one uninterrupted chapter of successes. Through jungle and swamp, swept by torrential rains and encountering obstacles that would have disheartened any but the stoutest heart, the little force of invasion swept forward. Most of the engagements by the enemy were in the nature of guerrilla and rear-guard actions. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Nye County, Mr. Irwin has reclaimed a tule swamp several hundred acres in extent, which is now chiefly devoted to alfalfa. On twenty-five acres he claims to have raised this year thirty-seven tons of barley. Indeed, I have not yet noticed a meager crop of any kind in the State. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... proscribed and banished and threatened with death if he ever returned to Connecticut. He did return, however, on the night of July 21, 1781, accompanied by an armed party in seven boats. The boats were secreted and the party placed themselves in hiding in a swamp near the meeting house. The next day, which was Sunday, they surprised and captured the minister, Rev. Dr. Mather, and his entire congregation. A selection of the prisoners was quickly made, and forty-eight individuals were hurried away to the boats and taken across the sound to ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... first settlement, chosen by Ponce, was a low hill in the center of a small plain surrounded by hills, at the distance of a league from the sea, the whole space between being a swamp, "which," says Oviedo, "made the transport of supplies very difficult." Here the captain commenced the construction of a fortified house and chapel, or hermitage, and ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... few days spent in visiting the important places in the vicinity of Hampton, one of which was Fortress Monroe, I took passage on a boat through the Dismal Swamp Canal to Albemarle Sound, and from thence through the sounds of North Carolina to the Neuse river, up which we steamed to Newbern, where I reported to Commander H. K. Davenport, on board the United States steamer Hetzel, who ordered me to report for duty to Acting Master J. A. J. Brooks, ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... beginning to export Chinese man-power as an auxiliary war-aid and who were very anxious to place the whole matter on a sounder footing. Little real progress was, however, made in the face of the renewed German efforts to swamp the country with their propaganda. By means of war-maps, printed in English and Chinese, and also by means of an exhaustive daily telegraphic service which hammered home every possible fact illustrative of German invincibility, the German position in ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... said Dan. "You see, I was making a cut clean across country to that river of mine, and, as far as I could tell, I was in a stretch of land where there hasn't been one other white man in twenty years. Bad traveling it was swamp, cane, and swamp again for days; the mud stinking all day, the mist poisoning you all night, the cane cutting and scratching and slashing you. It was as bad as anything I've seen yet. And it was while we were splashing and struggling through this that I saw, lying at the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... from a distance appear neat and comfortable cottages lose much by close inspection. The township consists of about thirty small wooden houses, mixed up with many native hovels. It extends along the shore of a small bay, with a shingly beach in front and a swamp behind. The number of houses was formerly much greater, most of those now existing having been built since May 1845, when the greater part of the town was burnt down by the natives. Even now it supports two ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... American colonies were the proudest possessions of the British Empire. Through generation after generation, for more than two centuries, English daring and English courage had built up those colonies, reclaiming them from the wilderness and the swamp, wresting them from wild man and wild beast, fighting for them with European power after European power. They were a source of wealth, a source of honor, and a source of strength to England. They were cheaply bought with the brave lives that ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... you?" cried Bonaparte, ordering the sailors to back water, lest the pirates should too hastily board the boat and swamp her. ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... eugineering science whose first home had been in the alluvial plain of Babylonia, they accomplished those great works of irrigation which confined the Nile to its present channel, which cleared away the jungle and the swamp that had formerly bordered the desert, and turned them into fertile fields. Theirs were the hands which carried out the plans of their more intelligent masters, and cultivated the valley when once it had been reclaimed. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... this county franchise move is suicidal to the Liberal party, and I clearly perceive that the Tories are preparing—when somewhat hard pressed—to take up and carry some such measure, accompanied by a redistribution of seats that will swamp a great many Liberal boroughs. They say, If the thing is to be done, we ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... that the mash is really a marsh, or swamp, or rather a whole lot of them. Sammy opened the procession, followed by Yves. Then I came, aided and abetted by Susie, and the doctor closed the imposing line, also bearing a big pack. Whenever the nature of the ground permitted Susie would walk beside me and impart her views. She trudged ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... of themselves and larger of Badcock than was agreeable to the old Adam who was still alive within them. A few well-known "Sims" from St John's and other colleges were present, but not enough to swamp the Ernest set, as for the sake of brevity, I ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... little and keeping a sharp look-out for enemies in case they had need to "drop dead" and pretend to be a dead stick or leaf, they ran on hand in hand, and came after a time to the edge of the swamp. ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... work advanced. At first the walls took a beeline track up the hillside, but when they reached the higher ground, where scars of rock and patches of reedy swamp lay in their path, their progress became serpentine. But whether straight or winding, the white walls mounted ever upwards, and Peregrine knew that his doom was sealed. The moors which Ibbotsons had shepherded for two hundred years would soon pass out of ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... protest, he slowly rolled himself over. The sun slapped him hard against the eyes. He blinked against the pain and saw that he was still in Venusport; rather he was at the edge of the swamp near the sprawling compound. Overhead the ionic field was aglow, humming softly, ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse
... either in myself or in any land or place; and all to come back strange and vague; yet with a constant knowing that there went Love about me, and a great and gentle watchfulness; so that I was eased when that the black mists of my weakness did uprise about me to swamp me; and I was made to know hope, when that unknown despairs did ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... with our fierce Mammon-worships, and our benevolent philanderings, and idle godless nonsenses of one kind and another! Supply-and-demand, Leave-it-alone, Voluntary Principle, Time will mend it:—till British industrial existence seems fast becoming one huge poison-swamp of reeking pestilence physical and moral; a hideous living Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive; such a Curtius' gulf, communicating with the Nether Deeps, as the Sun never saw till now. These scenes, which the Morning Chronicle is bringing ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... doctor. Dere was in them days lots of rattlesnakes; had to be keerful of them. Then us hear lots and had lots of chills and fever. They found de remedy, but they was way off 'bout what make them come on you. Some 'low it was de miasma dat de devil bring 'round you from de swamp and settle 'round your face whilst you sleep, and soon as he git you to snore you sniffed it to your liver, lights and gall, then dat make bile, and then you was wid de chills a comin' every other day and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... two high-minded people, took Henry Allison out to an obscure African coast, to fight one of the innumerable "little wars" of his country. He fell, struck by a spear, in a single-file march through some nameless swamp; and a few days afterwards the words of a Foreign Office telegram broke ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... so much as pluck in a woman." I had to get on a barrel before I could reach the stirrup, and when I was mounted my feet only came half-way down the horse's sides. I felt like a fly on him. The road at first lay through a valley without a river, but some swampishness nourished some rank swamp grass, the first GREEN grass I have seen in America; and the pines, with their red stems, looked beautiful rising out of it. I hurried along, and came upon the Donner Lake quite suddenly, to be completely smitten by its beauty. It is only about three miles long by one and a half broad, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... fauna and flora of those moorlands, where I have so long enjoyed the wonders of nature; never, I can honestly say, alone; because when man was not with me, I had companions in every bee, and flower, and pebble; and never idle, because I could not pass a swamp, or a tuft of heather, without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher here and there a line or two, and yet found them more interesting than all the books, save one, which ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... have a fortune to leave them. O man and woman! have you not learned that, like vultures, like hawks, like eagles, riches have wings and fly away? Though you should be successful in leaving a competency behind you, the trickery of executors may swamp it in a night; or some elders or deacons of our churches may get up an oil company, or some sort of religious enterprise sanctioned by the church, and induce your orphans to put their money into a hole in Venango County; and if, by the most skilful derricks, the sunken ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... These Indians were the Pokanokets, whose number had been very much thinned by the pestilence. After the first hostilities directed against the exploring parties they avoided the whites, and held a meeting in a dark and dismal swamp, where the medicine-men for three days together tried vainly to subject the new-comers to ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... femoral bones, and toes, all corresponding in size to the jaw; there were also some teeth: these, however, were not of proportionate magnitude. These remains were discovered, a short time since, in the swamp, near Fort Philip; and the other parts of the mighty skeleton, are, it is said, in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... these thoughts from her as though they were tangible things. No, no! she would not be beaten! Insomnia, narcotics and stimulants had unnerved her for the time, but she was strong enough to pull herself together and stay the circumstances which threatened to swamp her midway in her career. Bolstered for the moment by this resolve, she threw back her ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... that at night it travels all over the body and produces extraordinary strength. (For similar Malayan superstitions, see Skeat 2, 303-304.) The legend (in "King Palmarin") about the origin of Mount Arayat and the swamp of Candaba is but one of many still told by old Pampangans. Its insertion into a romance with European setting is an instance of the Filipino romance writers' utter disregard or ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... the day to winning my special jailer. He was an intelligent Indian and inclined to be good-humored. I amused him, and when I took a net and motioned that we go to the swamp to fish ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... out of which flowed the river Ebur in two arms that enclosed the whole plain of Fung. By now this lake would be full, swollen with rains that fell on the hills of Northern Africa, and the space between it and the Mur range nothing but an impassable swamp. ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... the sea at a fearful rate, with a bank of white foam rolling before us, high above our bows, and away on each side of us like the track of a steamer, so that we expected it every moment to rush in-board and swamp us. I had never seen anything like this before. From the first I had a kind of feeling that ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... ever had in this land; not a bit beaten down, and the colour perfectly beautiful before harvest; it used to put me in mind of your hair. A load to the acre; a fair specimen of the effect of drainage. Do you remember what a swamp it was?' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when the sentry's round had taken him to the other side of the building, we wrenched out the bar, raised the window and wriggled through head first, breaking our fall in the bush outside. We got through without attracting attention and ran across the country into a swamp, where we soon lost our way and wallowed around all night up to our knees in the bog, suffering severely from the cold and damp. Early in our flight the report of a gun from the camp warned us that our absence had been discovered. Our adventure in the swamp saved us ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... mangrove swamp be taken as an illustration of an untoward aspect of Nature, and see whether among the apparent confusion, and the mud and slime and the unpleasant odours, there are not many proofs of good humour, kindly disposition, real prettiness, and orderly ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... equalized matters by staying the enemy's wild charge. Meanwhile a Batavian deserter approached Cerialis, avowing that he could take the enemy in the rear if the cavalry were sent round the edge of the swamp: the ground was solid there, and the Cugerni, whose task it was to keep watch, were off their guard. Two squadrons of horse were sent with the deserter, and succeeded in outflanking the unsuspecting enemy. The legions in front, when the din told them what had happened, redoubled ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... strike me, pal — it happens every day: You had to go away awhile, then somehow it befell The doctor chap discovered, gave her up, and disappeared; You came back, tired of her in time . . . there's nothing more to tell. Hist! see those willows silvering where swamp and river meet! Just reach me up my rifle quick; that's Mister Moose, I know — There now, I'VE GOT HIM DEAD TO RIGHTS . . . but hell! we've lots to eat I don't believe in taking life — we'll let ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... basked motionless in the hazy warmth, and the brown and empty farm-lands expanded their broad breasts to the heat, the care of the crops well over, the last sheaf safely housed and their labors ended. Nature works hard in these Western fields, conquering them from the forest, redeeming them from the swamp and tending the delicate grain amid the rank growth of prairie-grass; but when the last load is driven home and the last leaf has fallen, then she rests, and the hazy atmosphere and peculiar stillness mark her repose. Indian summer! what is it? It is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... fern and long whip-scirpus, Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride, Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge and moss, Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls. Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed, The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp. As water poured through hollows of the hills To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets, So Nature shed all beauty lavishly From her ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... receiving night that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... set the trap in some water (to kill the smell of it) on a game path among some swamp alders, at a bend of the river where nobody ever came and where I had found Keeonekh's tracks. The next night he walked into it. But the trap that was sure grip for woodchucks was a plaything for Keeonekh's strength. He wrenched his foot out ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... growling, bobtailed catamount, who sat spitting and looking all ready to spring at them, on the tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near enough to spring their man-trap ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Concord; but who said they were? It was their unspeakable misfortune to be born in London, or Paris, or Rome; but, poor fellows, they did what they could, considering that they never saw Bateman's Pond, or Nine-acre Corner, or Becky Stow's Swamp. Besides, what were you sent into the world for ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... crops highly satisfactory either North or South, and in dry weather it is also difficult to obtain a stand of the plants. The alluvial soils of river bottoms in the South produce good crops. The vegetable soils of the prairie do not grow the plants very well, and the adaptation in slough or swamp soils is even lower. Good crops will not be obtained on soils underlaid with hardpan which comes up near the surface, whatsoever the nature of the top soil may be, since the roots ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... 238: Ai-po. A swamp that occupies the summit basin of the mountain, in and about which the thorny lehua trees above mentioned stand as ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... no doubt that a third town, which seems to have been very populous, now existed on the Caelius and on a portion of the Esquiliae: such a settlement close to other towns was made for the sake of mutual protection. Between the two more ancient towns there continued to be a marsh or swamp, and Rome was protected on the south by stagnant water; but between Rome and the third town there was a dry plain. Rome also had a considerable suburb toward the Aventine, protected by a wall and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... natural phenomena of the open; life, birth, movement, growth, the flow, and ebb of tides, thunder pealing from high-piled clouds, the sun shining through fragrant falling rain, mists that grew over swamp and meadow. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... ejaculated Uncle Nathan. "I will go into the swamp back of the city, afore I will look upon the iniquities of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... road, seven or eight feet wide, was raised on rocks above the jungle and was bordered by giant banana plants and cocoanuts. At this season all was a swamp below us, the orchard palms standing many feet deep in water and mud, but their long green fronds and the darker tangle of wild growth on the steep mountain-sides ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... sometimes heeding every leaf, and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed over the long moor, reckless whether seen or not. But only once the other man turned round and looked back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp behind me. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... often thought, if an enthusiastic cockney, of weak nerves, who had never been out of the sound of Bow bell, could suddenly be conveyed from his bed, in the middle of the night, and laid, fast asleep, in an american swamp, he would, on waking, fancy himself in the infernal regions: his first sensation would be from the stings of a myriad of mosquitoes; waking with the smart, his ears would be assailed with the horrid noises ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... the barks which crowd the harbour. Even at the time of which I speak, there were upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants, while in no place are so many flourishing merchants to be found. A few years ago this place was a mere swamp, with a few huts on it, inhabited by barbarians. It will be asked, What has worked this change? I reply, Commerce. Its position on a great highway of trade—a strong government, and protection to all comers, and perfect freedom to well-doers. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston |
