"Raft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a fine large English ship, called the Charles Eaton, which was wrecked in the Southern Ocean. The crew, you see, have made a raft of some of the spars and planks of the ship, and having all got upon it, are about cutting loose from the wreck, with the hope that they may reach one ...
— The Young Captives - A Narrative of The Shipwreck and Suffering of John and William Doyley • Anonymous
... and went and dragged the lad to the spring, and dipped him over head and ears in it. So, when he had got his sight again, he went down to the shore and made signs to the lions that they should all lie close together like a raft; then he stood upon their backs while they swam with him to the mainland. When he had reached the shore he went up into a birchen copse, and made the lions lie quiet. Then he stole up to the castle, like a thief, to see if he couldn't lay hands on ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... of these living battering-rams. But the huge beasts no sooner felt the English musket-balls than they turned round, and rushed furiously away, trampling on the multitude which had urged them forward. A raft was launched on the water which filled one part of the ditch. Clive, perceiving that his gunners at that post did not understand their business, took the management of a piece of artillery himself, and cleared the raft in a few minutes. When the moat was dry the assailants mounted with great ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in need of gifts, for the faithful bring them eggs, fruit, and even instruments for removing thorns from their feet. There are vineyards around Pisperi, and those of Pabenum have a raft, in which they go forth ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... nothing. Gaspard offered to take Veronique on his back and swim with her to a place of safety. Pierre suggested a raft. Cyprien finally said: ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... found in shallow ponds or slow streams. They are flattened, and on one edge, or both, and at the apex is a spongy ridge. Very likely, by this time, the reader has surmised that this serves the purpose of a raft to float the small seed within, which would sink at once if separated from the boat that grew on its margins. In this connection may be studied achenes of water plantain, Alisma, bur reed, cat-tail flag, arrow grass, ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... promises of promotion and reward moved the man. "Come" he said "I will do my best," and, rising, led the way to his own house. Here in the inner room was a high machan—a huge bamboo shelf made like a raft and suspended from the roof and reached by a moveable ladder, used for ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... most general opinion, however, was that some few escaped the desolating element by one of those means most familiar to the narrator, by ascending some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or even by climbing a tree. No doubt some of these legends have been modified by Christian teachings; but many of them are so connected with local peculiarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no unbiased student can assign them wholly to that source, ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... good feed, seeing we could not remove them at present, we descended safely to our boat and gained the shore without any accident. Then having housed our treasures, we were for putting together a raft of the various planks and barrels that were knocking against the rocks, but as I knew this would take a good deal of time, I thought I would inspect the ship's boats, which, bottom upwards, were drifting about within a ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... in unhappiness, called aloud for solitude. He must struggle alone through his deep waters: waters of the soul, wherein float neither life-preserver nor raft, rope or even light; neither coral reef nor oozy grave, for such as he. Darkness and struggle alike lasted till the end of his strength; but, with exhaustion and the coming of dawn, came at last one mighty breaker, by which Ivan was thrown high upon ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... But why should they not go by water? There was the river at their feet, roaring down in full spate, tumbling the trunks of trees destroyed in last night's storm. Why in the world should they not make a raft of the trees, "and put ourselves to sea"? "I will be one," he concluded, "who will be the other?" The appeal went home to the sailors. An Englishman named John Smith at once came forward, with a couple of Frenchmen "who could swim very well." The Maroons formed into a line ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... faith in the Upper Country, and Harper left down-stream, with a raft-load of supplies, to start a small post at the mouth of ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... seated himself tiredly on the wet sand and was digging his stockinged heels into it, sneered at Mr. Crusoe. "He'd have made a trip on his raft," he said, "and fetched ashore a bundle of kindling. If it hadn't been for that wreck to draw on Robinson Crusoe would have starved to death in ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Napoleon, whose courtesy was manifest in all his actions, ordered a large raft to be floated in the middle of the river, upon which was constructed a room well covered in and elegantly decorated having two doors on opposite aides, each of which opened into an antechamber. The work could not have been better executed in Paris. The roof was surmounted by two weathercocks: ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... strikes me we'd better be on the safe side and help God a little at this stage of the game. He is wonderful, Andrew, but He isn't wonderful enough to keep man afloat very long unless man himself builds the raft. So don't ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... an interpreter and not knowing Arabic. I do not believe in man's free-will, and therefore believe all things are from God and preordained. Such being the case, the judgments or decisions I give are fixed to be thus or thus, whether I have exactly hit off all the circumstances or not. This is my raft, and on it I manage to float along, thanks to God, more or less successfully. I do not pretend my belief could commend itself to any wisdom or science, or in fact anything; but as I have said elsewhere, a bag of rice jolting along ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... immersed that it would appear to float with difficulty. An elephant shot dead within the water will float immediately, with a considerable portion of one flank raised so high above the surface that several men could be supported, as though upon a raft. The body of a hippopotamus will sink like a stone, and will not reappear upon the surface for about two hours, until the gas has to a certain degree distended the carcase: thus the hippopotamus is ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... running bars just as though there wasn't any prohibitory law in our constitution." He had turned from the window. "You're looking at that map, eh? You think I've stolen land, do you? Look here! I came down that river out there on a raft—just married—my wife and a few poor little housekeeping traps on it. We never had a comfort till we got to the age where most folks die. I've had to live to be eighty-five to get a little something out ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... scarcely move," narrated Lieutenant Gerdts, who commanded the stranded boat. "The other boat was nowhere in sight. Now it grew dark. At this stage I began to build a raft of spars and old pieces of wood that might keep us afloat. But soon the first boat came into sight again. The commander turned about and sent over his little canoe; in this and in our own canoe, in which two men ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... ground up with him," sniffed Jerry. "She can swim overhand to the raft and get back almost before her brother has started. By Guy! I never saw a woman swim as she does! Dick gets kinder peeved with her sometimes when she jollies him. But let her car play a prank and he has her, for she's no more idea what to do with an engine than the man in the moon. She ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... the trout was the first thing in order. On a rude raft of log which we found moored at the shore, and which with two aboard shipped about a food of water, we floated out and wet our first fly in Thomas's Lake; but the trout refused to jump, and to be frank, not more than a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... way of getting to this island, for the sea-maiden would sink each boat and raft that would go on the loch. He thought he would try to leap the strait with the black horse, and even so he did. The black horse leaped the strait. He saw the hind; and he let the black dog after her, but when he was on one side of the island, the hind would be on the other side. "Oh! ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... a great deal of trouble. They were wafted over the next day in the following manner. From the bank of the river was thrown a raft, two hundred feet in length, and fifty in breadth; this was fixed strongly to the banks by large ropes, and quite covered over with earth; so that the elephants, deceived by its appearance, thought themselves upon firm ground. From this first raft they proceeded to a second, which was built ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... efforts made by the sufferers, some in the jolly boat, some on a raft, others by lashing themselves to pieces of timber, hogsheads, and even hencoops, to reach the shore; but out of four hundred and seventy-two persons who a few days before had left the coast of Holland, not more than eighteen escaped the raging billows. ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... undying splendour the drama of the forests, I travelled twenty-three times through various parts of the vast northern woods, between Maine and Alaska, and covered thousands upon thousands of miles by canoe, pack-train, snowshoes, bateau, dog-train, buck-board, timber-raft, prairie-schooner, lumber-wagon, and "alligator." No one trip ever satisfied me, or afforded me the knowledge or the experience I sought, for traversing a single section of the forest was not unlike making one's way along a single street of a metropolis and ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... boat; when her task is accomplished, the mother passes to a new cell to confide to it another of her descendants. During this time the parasite larva hastily descends the abdominal hairs and allows itself to fall on the egg of the Anthophora, to be then borne upon it as upon a raft; its fall must take place at the precise instant which will enable it to embark without falling into the honey, in which just now it would be glued fast, and perish. This series of circumstances results only in the introduction of a single Sitaris into a chamber; the moment which ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... gamble." He had but two dollars in his pocket; but this was enough for his purpose. The Rhine was not far distant from his native village, and this part of his journey he easily accomplished on foot. Upon reaching the river, he is said to have secured a place as oarsman on a timber raft. The timber which is cut in the Black Forest for shipment is made up into rafts on the Rhine, but instead of being suffered to float down the stream, as in this country, is rowed by oarsmen, each raft having from sixty to eighty men attached to it. As ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... his part, he doubted not that Ribaut was at hand. Marching with a hundred and fifty men, he reached the inlet at midnight, and again, like a savage, ambushed himself on the bank. Day broke, and he could plainly see the French on the farther side. They had made a raft, which lay in the water, ready for crossing. Menendez and his men showed themselves, when, forthwith, the French displayed their banners, sounded drums and trumpets, and set their sick and starving ranks in array of battle. But the Adelantado, regardless of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... the Nor'-Westers strongly objected. For the time the proposal was dropped, but when Robertson had gone, then the Governor proceeded with a force of thirty men to pull down Gibraltar, which was done in a week. The stockade was taken down, carried to the Red River and made into a raft. Upon this was piled the material of the buildings, and the whole was floated to the site of Fort Douglas and used in erecting a new structure and fully completing the Fort which John McLeod had begun. The same aggressive course was pursued under orders from the Governor ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... began—on one of our rafts, watching the installation of a new ray machine. A storm was raging, but the great raft, a thousand feet long, and five hundred wide, was as steady as a rock. We were 700 miles out; the great push of '92, that drove us back to within 150 miles of our coast and almost ended the war, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... in coves and creeks unknown to the scouts. Hour after hour he patiently toiled, collecting these, and lashing them together with timber-dogs and ropes he had brought with him. It was long after dark when he at last took his raft in tow, and began to row for his own shore. The tide was favourable, so after a pull of over an hour he had the satisfaction of making them fast to a tree in ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... fifteen Indians came on a raft and were taken on board, where they were entertained and given something to eat. They learned how to ask ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... marine deities were incorruptible. It was not possible to starch the sea; and precisely as the stiffness fastened upon men, it vanished from ships. What had once been a mere raft, with rows of formal benches, pushed along by laborious flap of oars, and with infinite fluttering of flags and swelling of poops above, gradually began to lean more heavily into the deep water, to sustain a gloomy weight of guns, to draw back its spider-like feebleness of limb, and open its bosom ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... to all things," replied Bobus. "The truest kindness to her is to get afloat away from the family raft as speedily as possible. She has quite enough ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of distinguishing fact from fancy. Of St. Bridget we are gravely told that to dry her wet cloak she hung in out on a sunbeam! Another Saint sailed away to a foreign land on a sod from his native hillside! More than once we find a flagstone turned into a raft to bear a missionary band beyond the seas! St. Fursey exchanged diseases with his friend Magnentius, and, stranger still, the exchange was arranged and effected by correspondence! To the saints moreover ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... does, the gnat would perforce have to dive into the water. With the beautifully adapted transfer of the functional spiracles, their position is appropriately arranged for the gnat's emergence at the surface, and the empty pupal cuticle floats serving the insect as a raft. On this it rests securely and the crumpled wings have opportunity to expand and harden before the insect ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... water, there was a rude pier of logs built out, for the convenience of landing the parties. This loose structure suggested to me the means of reaching the main shore; and, without waiting for breakfast, I "piped" away my boatmen, and proceeded to build a raft. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... river; some thirty boats were crowded together under the bridge, when suddenly one of the occupants of a boat near mine threw up his hands and fell overboard. We immediately began diving for him, but in vain; some hours later the body was found under a raft. ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... eyes solved the mystery. It was a rudely built raft with a stool upon it, and upon the stool sat a ragged urchin ten ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some bad boys starting off pleasuring in a sailboat. He was filled with consternation, because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sunday invariably got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a log turned with him and slid him into the river. A man got him out pretty soon, and the doctor pumped the water out of him, and gave him a fresh start with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... think how they tampered with the chains on that lumber raft so that the raft went to pieces in that storm on the lake!" added May. "Oh, I think they ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... its wash rising all along the shore. A multitude of hands went up to shade the eager eyes, and exclamations of wonder burst out from many men at the sight of a crowd of canoes of various sizes and kinds lying close together with the effect as of an enormous raft, a little way off the side of the Emma. The excited voices rose higher and higher. There was no doubt about Tengga's being on the lagoon. But what was Jorgenson about? The Emma lay as if abandoned by her keeper and her crew, while the mob of mixed boats ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... appointed signal by lighting three fires, which, however, were not seen nor taken notice of by those under the command of Cornelis, because they were busy in butchering their companions, of whom they had murdered between thirty and forty; but some few, however, got off upon a raft of planks tied together, and went to the island where Mr. Weybhays was, in order to acquaint him with the dreadful accident that had happened. Mr. Weybhays having with him forty- five men, they all resolved to stand ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... round by the Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope. She twice sailed from England. On her first departure, which was in March last, she had on board thirty female and ten male convicts; but being obliged to put back to Spithead, to stop a leak which she sprung in her raft port, eight of her ten male convicts found means to make their escape. This was an unfortunate accident; for they had been particularly selected as men who might be useful in the colony. Of the two who did remain, the one was a brick-maker and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... tranquillity and rolled along in peace, but for the presence of an island, which, growing up in the centre of the expanse, consolidated by the roots of a thousand willows and other trees that delight in such humid soils, and, in times of flood, covered by a raft of drift timber entangled among its trees, presented a barrier, on either side of which the current swept with speed and fury, though, as it seemed, entirely unopposed by rocks. In such a current, as Roland thought, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... she steadily refused to be separated from Ossoli and Angelo. On a raft with them, she would have boldly encountered the surf, but alone she would not go. Probably, she had appeared to assent to the plan for escaping upon planks, with the view of inducing Mrs. Hasty to trust herself to the care ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... a triangular sail, having a black spot painted in the middle, supported by a raft, also triangular, which is floated by three barrels, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... changed. Next day the cyclone had passed, but the swell was still very heavy. Equipped with everything necessary to float the launch, we marched along the beach, which was beaten hard by the waves. We had to cross a swollen river on an improvised raft; to our satisfaction we found the boat quite unhurt, not even the cargo being damaged; only a few copper plates were torn. Next day Mr. W. arrived, lamenting his loss; for his beautiful schooner was pierced in the middle by a sharp rock, and she hung, shaken by the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Second time she Stuck fast; but this was of no consequence any farther than giving us a little trouble, and was no more than what I expected as we had the wind. While the Ship lay fast we got down the Foreyard, Foretopmast, booms, etc., overboard, and made a raft of ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... python faced him. The great snake, escaping somehow from the catastrophe to the menagerie ship, had swum for the same refuge Jack had chosen. Now it was dragging its brilliantly mottled body, as thick as a man's thigh, up upon the hatchway. The floating "raft" dipped under the great snake's weight, while Jack, literally petrified with horror, watched without motion ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... named Christina, living in the neighbourhood in pagan times, who was thrown into the adjoining lake by her persecutors, with a large flat stone attached to her body. Instead of sinking her, the stone formed a raft which floated her in a standing attitude safely to the opposite shore, where she landed—leaving the prints of her feet upon the stone as an incontestable proof of the reality of the miracle. The altar with which ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... on the raft with the boathooks, and crowd the stuff over to the starboard side," said the captain when he had found the place ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... such cruelties by an overseer to a slave, that he twice attempted to drown himself, to get out of his power: this was on a raft of slaves, in the Mobile river. I saw an owner take his runaway slave, tie a rope round him, then get on his horse, give the slave and horse a cut the whip, and run the poor creature barefooted, very fast, over rough ground, where small black jack oaks had been cut up, leaving the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... some of the compartments; putting, for instance, two or even three small bags into one, and tin cases into a few of the others, instead of the large bags. These panniers, with the bags inflated, and connected together by a stage, would form an excellent and powerful raft. If secured within a wagon about to cross a deep river, they would have enough power, in all ordinary cases, to cause it to float and not to sink to the bottom. I trust some explorer will try this plan. I may add that the macintosh ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... day I heard him talking about it in the club. "Yes," he was saying, "a submarine. It torpedoed William,—my gardener. I have both a chauffeur and a gardener at the war. William was picked up on a raft. He's in pretty bad shape. My son Alfred had a cable from him that he's coming home. We've both telegraphed him to stick ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... same spot as he had found the first party. But this time the Frenchmen had made a raft, and upon this they were preparing to cross the water when the Spaniards came upon them. The Frenchmen were in such misery that many of them greeted the appearance of their enemies with joy. But others were filled with misgiving. Still they resolved ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... they paid less attention than the others to the angling, and allowed their floats to swim back right up to the bank. The high reddish reeds rustled quietly around, the still water shone quietly before them, and quietly too they talked together. Lisa was standing on a small raft; Lavretsky sat on the inclined trunk of a willow; Lisa wore a white gown, tied round the waist with a broad ribbon, also white; her straw hat was hanging on one hand, and in the other with some effort she held up the crooked rod. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... feel astonished that the number of Indians and negroes embarked were only sufficient to work the raft, and that a larger number were not taken in case of an attack ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... rapids the large rafts are, as it were, unyoked, and divided into small portions, which go down separately. The excitement and motion of such transit must, I should say, be very joyous. I was told that the Prince of Wales desired to go down a rapid on a raft, but that the men in charge would not undertake to say that there was no possible danger; whereupon those who accompanied the prince requested his Royal Highness to forbear. I fear that, in these careful days, crowned heads and their heirs must often find themselves in the position ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... every virtue. And I, rejoicing at these things, will do all that thou hast desired of me. I will by my servants cut thee in abundance timber of cedar and timber of cypress, and will bring them down to the sea, and command my servants to construct of them a float, or raft, and navigate it to whatever point of thy coast thou mayest wish, and there discharge them; after which thy servants can carry them to Jerusalem. But be it thy care to provide me in return with a supply of food, whereof we are in want as inhabiting ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... following morning the Handsome King of the Apes rose very early, built him a raft of old pine trees and took a bamboo staff for a pole. Then he climbed on the raft, quite alone, and poled his way through the Great Sea. Wind and waves were favorable and he reached Asia. There he went ashore. On the strand ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... send his family to a Graymouse school. He said that Uncle Squeaky's band couldn't play as good as the Frog Orchestra, and that Uncle Squeaky didn't know anything about the Lake, if he did make a raft and float around. Ah, Grandpa Bull Frog thinks he is a ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... to bed." Jock stood up and laughed good-naturedly. "Go to bed and get up steam for to-morrer. When you see the whole collection you'll warm up your ideas. You're a terrible plucky kid to trust your own soul on a trifling little raft like this religion of yours. You better not overload it with more souls, though; the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... his, by the way, having been built several years previously by a couple of miners who had got out a raft of logs at that point for a grub-stake. They had been most hospitable lads, and, after they abandoned it, travelers who knew the route made it an object to arrive there at nightfall. It was very handy, saving them all the time and toil of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... at that moment. A lieutenant, who had accompanied him, then took the command, and continued to fight the ship. A youth of seventeen, by name Villemoes, particularly distinguished himself on this memorable day. He had volunteered to take the command of a floating battery, which was a raft, consisting merely of a number of beams nailed together, with a flooring to support the guns: it was square, with a breast-work full of port-holes, and without masts—carrying twenty-four guns, and one hundred and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... "But we are not in a desperate case. We have food, I have my rifle, and it will be possible to make a raft and float down the river until we meet your ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... began, Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to get him across the river. The ferryman got him across the river on his bamboo-raft, the wide water shimmered reddishly in the light ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... direst distress thou dependest on thyself. To cross the fearful river of life without a raft and with the aid of only one's bare arms implies ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... inlet has been used before for some such purpose as that for which we are using it, namely, for careening vessels for repairs and refit. These poles have been employed for lifting guns or other heavy material taken out of a ship or from off a raft. Now I wonder who it may be that has used these things? The Spaniards would not need to use this inlet for any such purpose, for they have their own ports on the island, where this kind of work could be done far ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Paul must soon come back with the police. It would be some comfort even if Flambeau came back from his fishing, for Flambeau, physically speaking, was worth four other men. But there was no sign of Flambeau, and, what was much queerer, no sign of Paul or the police. No other raft or stick was left to float on; in that lost island in that vast nameless pool, they were cut off as on ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... make a raft," she said, "a small one, large enough to hold a tray. By stopping the launch some yards above the island we can float his luncheon to ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... marked by simplicity of manners. The kings and nobles did not consider it derogatory to their dignity to acquire skill in the manual arts. Ulysses is represented as building his own bed-chamber and constructing his own raft, and he boasts of being an excellent mower and ploughman. Like Esau, who made savoury meat for his father Isaac, the Heroic chiefs prepared their own meals and prided themselves on their skill in ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... attempting to land upon one, when I caught sight of a glimmering light at a distance in the centre of the stream. I directed my course towards this in preference; and I perceived as I approached that it proceeded from a raft, moored off one of the islands, upon which the crew were probably cooking their evening meal. I knew that if I approached this raft in front, I should inevitably be sucked under, and never see the light again; at the same time, if I gave it too wide ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... unchallenged sway over his subordinates, his mastery of the river; the variegated colours of that lawless, picturesque, semi-barbarous life of the river—all these sweep by us in a series of panoramic pictures as Huck's raft swings lazily down the tawny river, and Horace Bixby guides his boat through the dangers of the channel. Mark Twain is primarily a great artist, only unconsciously a true sociologist. But his power as a sociologist is no less real that it is unconscious, indeed infinitely ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... submarine. Only 27 of the Bayano's crew of 250 were saved. Fourteen officers, including the commander, went down with the ship. The Bayano was a new twin screw steel steamer of 5,948 tons. The survivors were afloat on a raft when rescued. The loss of the Bayano was the most serious of the submarine blockade of the British coasts ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... work of unloading the wreck. There was an inlet or mouth of a creek not far from the place where they first landed, and, constructing a raft on the wreck and loading it with arms, provisions, ammunition and tools, they took advantage of the tide to float it in to shore. This was repeated daily for weeks. Clothing, sails, provisions of all kinds, half a hundred guns and as many pistols and cutlasses, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... one way of hiding our trail," he mused. "If we could come upon some river or large stream of water, where there was a boat, or we could make a raft, we should be safe. A big rainstorm would do as well, for it would wash out ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... start. First I tried a pontoon bridge, but the stones for the bottom course were so heavy that they sank the pontoons, and I lost a couple of hundred niggers before I saw that it couldn't be done. Then I tried a big raft, but in order to get her to float with the stones I had to use such big logs that she was unwieldy, and before I knew what had struck me I had lost six big dressed stones and another hundred niggers. I got the laugh, of course. Every numskull in Egypt wagged his beard over it; I could ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... roe of this fish is shipped to Wilmington and to Cincinnati. Wild-fowls abound, and the shooting is excellent. The fishermen say flocks of ducks seven miles in length have been seen on the waters of Bogue Sound. Canvas-backs are called "raft-ducks" here, and they sell from twelve to twenty cents each. Wild geese bring ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... Sioux. The Indians killed a cow and when the drovers remonstrated, they killed one of them and stampeded the cattle. The drovers all ran for their lives. Two of them managed to elude the Indians, and took the road leading east. Our man was one, the other was drowned while crossing the river on a log raft, the rest were never found. Many of the cattle ran wild on the prairies. The Indians used often to kill them and sell the meat to the whites. One of the claims at Traverse de Sioux was for these cattle from ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... sea, at last, was satisfying this young man; he savoured now what he had longed for as a little boy, guiding a home-made raft on the waters of Neeland's mill pond in the teeth of a summer breeze. Before he had ever seen the ocean he wanted all it had to give short of shipwreck and early decease. He had experienced it on ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... with a tenacity that would end only with life. One stroke of Drusus's fist as he surged alongside the wreckage sent the dagger flying; and in a twinkling he had borne Pratinas down and had him pinioned fast on the planking of the rude raft. There was a great shout rising from the enemy on the mole. A few darts spat in the water beside the fugitives; but at the sight of the approaching galley the Alexandrians gave way, for on her decks were swarming archers and slingers, and her powerful ballistae were already working ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... understand? Wery well, then; you stay in here until that there clock have marked off a good half-hour; arter that you may come out and do the best you can for yourself; there's plenty o' spars knockin' about the decks here, which you can lash together, and make a tip-top raft out of 'em, upon which you can go for a cruise on your own account; but if you shows your ugly head outside this here cabin before the half-hour's out, damn me if I won't lash your neck and heels together, and heave you into the middle of the fire there ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... water, Thorogood had no very clear recollection; but by instinct he struck out through the welter of gasping, bobbing heads till he was clear of the clutching menace of the drowning. The Commander, clad simply in his wrist-watch and uniform cap, was standing on the balsa raft, with scores of men hanging to its support. "Get away from the ship!" he was bawling at the full strength of his lungs. "Get clear ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the Mississippi, and then make their way down that stream to civilization, following in a general way the course of the mighty stream. With their horses, and without large boats, they could not utilize the current, unless perhaps after descending a long distance they were able to construct a large raft. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... that we see such a Trial!—Well said or not, undoubtedly Society is an old criminal: not much more advanced than the state of spiritual worship where bloody sacrifice was offered to a hungry Lord. But it has a case for pleading. We may liken it, as we have it now, to the bumping lumberer's raft; suitable along torrent waters until we come to smoother. Are we not on waters of a certain smoothness at the reflecting level?—enough to justify demands for a vessel of finer design. If Society is to subsist, it must have the human with the logical argument against the cry of the free-flags, instead ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brought disturbed Captain Boggs, who commanded the garrison, as a number of men were away on a logging expedition up the river, and were not expected to raft down to the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... arrival of the Nuestra Senora del Rosario at Manila the coastguard cutter Candelaria sailed for Dinshaw's island. Peth and Doc Bird, seeing the steamer approaching, attempted to leave the island on an uncompleted raft, which broke up with them, and both were drowned, Doc clinging to the mate when they were thrown ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... deemed totally uninhabited, and filled with the hope that the stranger might be able to give him some information relative to the geographical position of the isle, and even perhaps aid him in forming a raft by which they might together escape from the oasis of the Mediterranean, Wagner proceeded toward the mountains. By degrees the wondrous beauty of the scene became wilder, more imposing, but less bewitching, and when he reached the acclivities of the hill, the groves of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... last victim—Frankenstein himself—the creature is filled with remorse at the "frightful catalogue" of his sins, and makes a final bid for our sympathy in the farewell speech to Walton, before climbing on an ice-raft to be "borne away by the waves and lost ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... were, I doubt if Mr Scoones would let us; besides, she will run a great risk of being thrown on the rocks, or swamped during the darkness. The ship does not give signs of going to pieces yet; perhaps the wind may abate before morning, we shall then be able to get ashore on a raft, if any shore is near, and there is one boat left which nobody seems ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... the gloomy place and flies away, which less ethereal wanderers might likewise be fain to do. Now and then the stillness that reigned over that home of malign things was broken by the sound of a boat-horn on a lumber raft ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... to keep the frightened child from risking their main chance of safety. A few more strokes and she would reach the boat, rest a moment, then, clinging to it, push it leisurely to shore. Feeling that the danger was over, she hurried on and was just putting up her hands to seize the frail raft and get her breath when Milly, thinking she was to be taken in her arms, leaned forward. In rushed the water, down went the boat, and out splashed the screaming child to cling to Ruth with the desperate ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... meticulously serious in their ritual, and then boys and girls deriving also a little fun from their immersion. Here and there the bathing ghaut is diversified by a burning ghaut, and one may catch a glimpse of the extremities of the corpse twisting among the faggots. Here and there is a boat or raft in which a priest is seated under his umbrella, fishing for souls as men in punts on the Thames fish for roach. And over all is the pitiless sun, hot even now, before breakfast, but soon ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... But Drake, whose penetration immediately discovered all the circumstances and inconveniencies of every scheme, soon determined upon the only means of success which their condition afforded them; and ordering his men to make a raft out of the trees that were then floating on the river, offered himself to put off to sea upon it, and cheerfully asked who would accompany him. John Owen, John Smith, and two Frenchmen, who were willing to share his fortune, embarked with him on the raft, which was fitted out with a sail made ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... the men to set up some fifty feet of the fence where it parted us from an alley- way, for I wanted a chance to dry some of the boards, which had just been hauled from a raft in the North River. The truckmen had delivered them helter- skelter, and they lay, still soaking, above each ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... me quick." I had to humbly confess to him that if there were any others I had not the good fortune to know of them. What a red-letter-day it is to a boy, the day he first opens "Tom Sawyer." I would rather sail on the raft down the Missouri again with "Huck" Finn and Jim than go down the Nile in December or see Venice from a gondola in May. Certainly Mark Twain is much better when he writes of his Missouri boys than when he makes sickley romances about Joan of Arc. And certainly he never did a better ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the slow weedy waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a lady's. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... set, build a raft and set himself and the apparatus adrift upon the water in the ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... middle of August that the carpenter received instructions from the landowner to make some wooden steps and a small raft and to fix them up on the banks of the river for the convenience of bathers. It did not take the carpenter and Petrushka long to make these things, and one afternoon Petrushka drove down to the river to fix them in their place. The river was broad, the banks were ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... year 1822, the first settlers to dwell on the island were traders in the Archipelago, and they lived in raft houses, so called, or more probably in huts, erected on poles in the Malay style, and these were located on the site of the present "Commercial Square," which was then little more than a mud flat covered ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... where Charley, standing where you all stood before him, actually caught a flounder with his own hand, whereat he screamed loud enough to scare all the folks on Eagle Island. We have also been to Maquoit. We have visited the old pond, and, if I mistake not, the relics of your old raft yet float there; at all events, one or two fragments of a raft ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... heathen deity, Vishnu, Father Boushet mentions an Indian tradition, concerning a flood which covered the whole earth, when Vishnu made a raft, and, being turned into a fish, steered it with his tail. Vishnu, like Dagon, was represented under the figure ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... parties to kill them, and who destroy several thousands at one chase: their flesh is considered a great delicacy. These animals migrate, at different seasons; and have the credit of ingeniously ferrying themselves over rivers, by using a piece of bark for a raft, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... this one held out longer than the others; but the rock being guarded on all sides, escape was thought impossible. The murids, however, having devised a plan for preserving the life of their chief by the loss of their own, constructed from materials previously collected in the cave, a raft of sufficient size to carry several persons, and letting it down at night into the river below, then followed themselves. The guard on the bank observing this manouvre, immediately gave chase to the raft, those on horseback plunging ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... the present moment the negro was placing in the water a curious-looking little raft that he had brought on one shoulder from its place of concealment. It was something like a flat-bottomed scow, the sides being just high enough to prevent whatever cargo it carried, from rolling off into ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... tinged yellow about two feet across alone combated the white fields and the black trees .... At six o'clock a man's figure carrying a lantern crossed the field .... A raft of twig stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert .... A load of snow slipped and fell from a fir branch .... Later there was a mournful cry .... A motor car came along the road shoving the dark ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the wiggler grew tired, and came, like many tired beings, to the top. For a time he was quiescent, but soon the sun's rays gave force to the inner impulse which "rent the veil of his old husk," and transformed it into a canoe or raft, containing a draggle-tailed-looking creature with a big head and six staggery legs. Poising itself upon the raft, the outcome of the wiggler sunned its crumplety wings, till "like gauze they grew," and then all of it, a whole pailful of it, made for the sleepers, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... up within ten days like shipwrecks on a raft," Martin Leland said when he managed to make a trip back to the ranch in December. "We're in for a hard winter. I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't get in again or you get out before well on ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... lot of paper, as it proved, the bottom dropped out of the Treasury tub. On that paper was to have been printed our new issue of ten per cent, convertible, you know, and secured on that up-country cotton, which Kirby Smith had above the Big Raft. I had the printers ready for near a month waiting for that paper. The plates were really very handsome. I'll show you a proof when we go up stairs. Wholly new they were, made by some Frenchmen we got, who had worked for the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... perfect trap," said Meta, trying to squeeze the muddy water from her own dress and Monica's. "I believe it's nothing but a kind of raft, made out of all the dead wood and rubbish that have accumulated in the lake. I expect seeds have blown on to it, and then trees and bushes have sprung up. Now I think of it, I don't believe it was in the same place last year, so it ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... more in height, the Christ visible afar, stretched upon His red cross; arundo donax is waving all around, and willows near; behind, far off, soar the peaked hills, blue and pearled with clouds; past the cypress, on the Rhone, comes floating a long raft, swift through the stream, its rudder guided by a score of men: one standing erect upon the prow bends forward to salute the cross; on flies the raft, the tall reeds rustle, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... prove it to me!" said the fox. "Come up to the surface of the water and form a raft that will reach from this island to the mainland. Then I can walk over all of you, and I shall be ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... paralyzed by the danger. He was not the sort to give up while there was any hope left. Surely the guard in the cabin would have departed with the others, leaving him free to act. He could smash his way out through that door, and find something on deck to construct a raft from. This was Lake Michigan, not the ocean, and not many hours would pass before he was picked up. Vessels were constantly passing, and daylight would ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... say," replied the Tsarevich Malandrach; "I am a merchant from India, and have come hither in a ship with my wares. Our vessel was wrecked in a storm, and I was cast upon the shore of this kingdom upon a raft, to which ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... water—and these illuminated spots finely relieved the otherwise sombre depth of colour. Our boat was slow, and we had between two and three hours of unsurpassed scenery before reaching our destination. An immense raft of timber, gathered from the loose logs which are floated down the Lougen Elv, lay at the head of the lake, which contracts into the famous Guldbrandsdal. On the brow of a steep hill on the right lay the little town of Lillehammer, where we ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... away into slavery. The village was burned after being plundered, and the unfortunate people have since been living in the jungle, with only such food as they could get there. The head of the tribe and about six of his followers came down the river on a raft to ask assistance from me, and I had the story from them. They were relieved as far as my means admitted, and returned far happier than they came. The very same day arrived news that six men of the Sows were cut off by a wandering ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... in the Hudson Bay Store yesterday and found it much more metropolitan than I had expected. And I find I am three whole laps behind in that steeplechase known as Style. But I got a raft of things for Pauline Augusta, and a Boy ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... to 25 tons, belonging to Torbay, which were at this time accustomed to run across the Channel, load up with the usual contraband, and then hover about outside the limits of the land. When they were convinced that the coast was clear of any cruisers they would run into the bay and land, sink or raft ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... ingratitude had I repined because there was no boat in the ship. Yet for all that I could not but see it was a matter that concerned me very closely. Should the vessel be crushed, what was to become of me? It was easy to propose to myself the making of a raft or the like of such a fabric; but everything was so hard frozen that, being single-handed, it was next to impossible I should be able to put together such a contrivance as would be fit to live in ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the cause of the democracy as its own. The feeling which prevailed there is shown by the conduct of a division of recruits from Opitergium (Oderzo in the delegation of Treviso), which not long after the outbreak of the war in the Illyrian waters, surrounded on a wretched raft by the war-vessels of the enemy, allowed themselves to be shot at during the whole day down to sunset without surrendering, and, such of them as had escaped the missiles, put themselves to death with their own hands during ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... rendered it less marvellous than hers.—Just after the loss of Snowball, came floating into the farmyard, over the top of the gate, with such astonishment of all who beheld that each seemed to place more confidence in his neighbour's eyes than in his own, a woman on a raft, with her four little children seated around her, holding the skirt of her gown above her head and out between her hands for a sail. She had made the raft herself, by tying some bars of a paling together, and crossing them with what other bits of wood she could find—a brander she ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... head of secession, now and forever, so that it shall never again glare with its baleful eyes, or brandish its venomous tongue. Let not the fate and fortunes of this glorious country be committed to the keeping of a clumsy, misshapen raft, compacted of twenty-four or thirty-four logs, good enough to float down a river, but sure to go to pieces when it gets into deep water; Let let them be embarked on board a goodly ship, well found, well fastened, well manned—in ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... most wonderful strain coming from that direction. The river was about three or four hundred yards away across the road, in front of them, and upon a raft slowly passing by were a couple of habitans singing. What strain was this, so weird, so solemn, so earnest, yet so pathetic, so ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... high solitude of the waters naught Was seen but here and there unfrequently A frail raft, heaped with languid men that fought Weakly with one another for the grass Hanging about a cliff not yet submerged, And here and there a drowned man's head, and here And there a file of birds, that beat the air ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... not a peso at the disposal of the Provincial Governor for local improvements. If a bridge broke down so it remained for years, whilst thousands of travellers had to wade through the river unless a raft were put there at the expense of the very poorest people by order of the petty-governor of the nearest village. The "Tribunal," which served the double purpose of Town Hall and Dak Bungalow for wayfarers, was often a hut of bamboo and palm-leaves, whilst others, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... said modestly, "you should see my raft—that is worth seeing. I have invented a way of arranging corks so that it will float in the severest storm. It could not sink if it tried, unless, of course, it became waterlogged. But I can only work at that when we are ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton |
