"Harpoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they would harpoon the animals from their kayaks, but this was the great harvest time when they killed them by spearing through holes in the ice where the seals came at intervals to breathe, for a seal will die unless it can get fresh air occasionally. Early in the morning each ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... of a New Zealander—an excellent mariner, whose stock of English was limited to nautical phrases and a frightful power of oath, but who, in spite of his cannibal origin, ranked as a sort of officer, in virtue of his harpoon, and took command of the ship when mate and captain were absent. What a capital story, by the bye, Typee tells us of one of this Bembo's whaling exploits! New Zealanders are brave and bloodthirsty, and excellent harpooners, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the throwing-stick is indicated in Fig. 1 by a drawing of H.W. Elliott. The Eskimo is just in the act of launching the light seal harpoon. The barbed point will fasten itself into the animal, detach itself from the ivory foreshaft, and unwind the rawhide or sinew line, which is securely tied to both ends of the light wooden shaft by a martingale device. ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... almost solely by fishing and hunting. The Japanese laws, which have year by year been made more stringent, have somewhat interfered with the sporting proclivities of the people. Nets and fish traps are now forbidden, and fishing for the most part is effected by means of a spear or harpoon, either from the shore or from the somewhat primitive canoes used by the people. Poisoned arrows were once largely used for the purpose of capturing game, but they are now forbidden by law. Originally the modus operandi in hunting was to set a trap with one of these arrows ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... winding up his exhausted antimony, as the nutritive blood winds up exhausted nerves, the comparison would be complete. The subject may be summed up, as Du Bois-Reymond has summed it up, by reference to the case of a whale struck by a harpoon in the tail. If the animal were 70 feet long, a second would elapse before the disturbance could reach the brain. But the impression after its arrival has to diffuse itself and throw the brain into the molecular condition necessary to consciousness. Then, and not till then, the command to ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... of course these smugglers stood little chance of detection; although vigilant looking policemen were always standing by. And though these "Charlies" might suppose there were tobacco smugglers passing; yet to hit the right man among such a throng, would be as hard, as to harpoon a speckled porpoise, one of ten thousand ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz, a race of men quaint, venturesome, and fabulously bold, left many widows, from their habit of sailing out into the roughest seas to harpoon whales. Leaving their wives to God or the Devil, they threw themselves in crowds into the Canadian settlements of Henry IV. As for the children, these honest worthy sailors would have thought about them more, if they had been clear as to their parentage. But on their return home they would ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Along a mottled green-and-brown stretch of shore, which rolled undulatingly toward the icy fringe of the polar sea, more than twoscore hunters were engaged in unusual activity. Some were lacing tight over the framework the taut skin of their kayaks. Others sharpened harpoon points with bits of flint. Tateraq busily cut long lashings from tanned walrus hides. Maisanguaq deftly took these and pieced them together into long lines, which were rolled in coils lasso-fashion. Arnaluk and a half dozen others sat on their haunches, between their knees great balls ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... doubt that the cause of the fishers' frenzy was the quiet, inoffensive bottle-nosed whale, leisurely prowling about the Sound in search of a living, and, in fact, none other than the one that my friend had supposed to be a reef. These creatures rarely run amuck until the harpoon is thrust into them. They usually roll about the sea in the most harmless way. No doubt the sight of a huge creature in localities unaccustomed to it creates an impression of dull alarm, and, strange though ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... pencil. Another (3) is a sailor, drawn with two squares, two circles, and two triangles. Another (5), Henry VIII, drawn with a square and nine straight lines. Another (6), invented for this book, an Esquimaux waiting to harpoon a seal, drawn with eleven circles and a straight line. The remaining figures are a cheerful pig and a despondent pig (4), and a cat (2), drawn with the utmost ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... : tenilo, manpreni. hang : pend'i, -igi. hansom : kabrioleto, fiakro. happen : okazi. harbour : haveno. harden : malmoligi, (health), hardi hare : leporo. harm : difekti, malutili. harness : jungi, jungajxo. harpoon : harpuno. harrow : erpi, erpilo. harvest : rikolto. hasten : rapid'i, -igi. hatch : kovi. hatchet : hakilo. haunch : kokso. hawk : akcipitro; kolporti. hawthorn : kratago. hay : fojno. hazlenut : avelo. heal : resanigi, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... only wanted to encounter the unicorn, harpoon it, haul it on board, and carve it up. They surveyed the sea with scrupulous care. Besides, Commander Farragut had mentioned that a certain sum of $2,000.00 was waiting for the man who first sighted the animal, be he cabin boy or sailor, mate or officer. I'll let the reader decide whether eyes got ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... their crews giving way with might and main, gathered round from different directions. The captain was the first to strike his harpoon into the whale, following the weapon with a couple of lances; he was fast, but he quickly backed off from the monster, which, leaping half out of the water, and turning partly round made a dash with open mouth at another boat coming up, and in an instant crushed it ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... saw an old man emerging from a path that wound to the shore through a grove of doddered hazel; he carried a halve-net on his back, while behind him came a girl, bearing a small harpoon, with which the fishers are remarkably dexterous in striking their prey. The senior seated himself on a large grey stone, which overlooked the bay, laid aside his bonnet, and submitted his bosom and neck to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... a sniper's post surrounded by a perfect thicket of barbed-wire, and I had a bright scheme for its removal. I got hold of a trench catapult, an ingenious contrivance of elastic that hurls a bomb some hundreds of yards, and placed in it a harpoon attached to a long coil of rope. The idea was that on release of the catapult the harpoon would be hurled in the air, the rope would neatly pay out, and then, as soon as the harpoon had grappled Mahomet, all we would have to do would be to haul on the rope and over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... the cavalry were Don Quixote de la U.V.M., Knight of the patent-leather gaiters, terrible in his bright rectangular cuirass of tin (once a tea-chest), and his glittering harpoon; his doughty squire, Sancho Panza; and a dashing young lady, whose tasteful riding-dress of black cambric, wealth of embroidered skirts and undersleeves, and bold riding, took not ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... constrain the Swiss Guards. Granier, of Marseilles, at the head of the staircase, holds two of them at arms' length, trying in a friendly manner to draw them down.[2691] At the foot of the staircase the crowd is shouting and threatening; lighter men, armed with boat-hooks, harpoon the sentinels by their shoulder-straps, and pull down four or five, like so many fishes, amid shouts of laughter.—Just at this moment a pistol goes off; nobody being able to tell which party fired it.[2692] The Swiss, firing from ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... was in the wagon, and snatching it out I struck the end against a stone, and the stabber flew into the mill-pond. 'There,' says I, 'old colt,' as I threw the goad back into the wagon, 'he won't harpoon you again with that iron.' The poor old brute knew well enough what I said, for I looked him in the eye and spoke horse language. At that moment the brute that owned the horse came out of the store, and down the hill towards us. I slipped behind ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... parcel and took out the earrings. "There 's what 's left of five hundred and twenty dollars, and you must make the most of 'em. Hold 'em up to the light and see how handsome they are. I don't know, after all, but they are worth while for a man to pitch overboard off Cape Horn and harpoon whales two years for. All is, just tell folks they cost five hundred dollars, and they 'll be just as ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... Hallstock and Belsher," Tom was saying, "is about four fathoms of harpoon line apiece, and something to ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... the stern, letting it sink about a foot under the surface. C——, Smith, and I were in the captain's boat, with three sailors, under the orders of Lapworth, who had taken his stand immediately above with a harpoon. The shark came up, nibbling and smelling at the pork, so close to us in the boat that he almost rubbed along the side without apparent alarm or taking any notice of our presence. He was a monster, nearly ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... gold-tinted beauty Crown'd proudly the mantel-piece, reserved for bettermost occasions. Unheard of, then, was the gas, with briliant jet and gorgeous chandelier, Nor hunted they from zone to zone, with barbed harpoon the mighty whale, Making the indignant monarch of ocean, their flambeau and link-boy: For each household held within itself, its own fountain of light. Faithful was the rural housewife, taking charge of all ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... wonderful, the holy love which comes upon us, for the simple, senseless, powerless things, that fill us with so much hope, and strength, and energy! I saw a whale once, who, when her young one was struck by the harpoon, came right between it and the ship, and bore the blows, and took the fatal weapons again and again into her bleeding body; and when she was struggling in her flurry, and the sea around was dyed as red as scarlet, still she tried to save ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... another what they would order at their first meal ashore; for now the land was in plain sight. A Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, a man in the little pulpit on the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, his bare head plastered down with the wet. "And all's well!" he sang cheerily, as though he were watch on a big liner. "Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... is turtle flesh, nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near the sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark. Nay, the infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or otherwise take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is permitted to form one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he takes the precaution of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to which no doubt a disinfectant ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... those who say that slavery is dead. We are like whalers who have been long on a chase—we have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or, with one 'flop' of his tail, he will yet send us ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... dived he ran to the edge of the hole, but now, instead of falling down, he stood quite still with the harpoon raised above his head ready to be thrown. In a few moments the monsters reappeared. Two rose close at the edge of the hole; one was a male, the other a female. They were frightfully ugly to look at. Shaking the water from his head and shoulders, the bull at once caught sight of ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... encounter with the shark, placed the harpoons in readiness; and amused me by seeming to picture himself a whaler, flourishing his harpoon ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the bark canoe. As usual, upon the arrival of the steamer, the long canoe, steadily held by a single boy and paddle, in a current swift as the Niagara, shoots out into the Saut, while the Indian, standing erect in the canoe, poising his harpoon and scrap net, strikes or swoops in the large and delicious white fish, assured of a capacious basketful and more, before ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... harpoon, Brave boys As was shaped on a whoppingish sca-a-a-le And he thought with delight, (The "magnanimous" mite!) He was going to catch that Whale, Brave boys! He made ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... whales, which used to come close to our ship, and blow the water up to a very great height in the air. One morning we had vast quantities of sea-horses about the ship, which neighed exactly like any other horses. We fired some harpoon guns amongst them, in order to take some, but we could not get any. The 30th, the captain of a Greenland ship came on board, and told us of three ships that were lost in the ice; however we still held on our course till ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... chanced that the Eskimos were to leeward of him, and a blaze of sunshine was at their backs, so that the seal when looking towards its human foes had its eyes dazzled. Ermigit had no weapons at the time, but by good-fortune a harpoon, line, and bladder were attached to ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... the heat of the deck as to render it unbearable; still the Abraham Lincoln had not yet breasted the suspected waters of the Pacific. As to the ship's company, they desired nothing better than to meet the unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist it on board, and despatch it. They watched the sea with ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... one stroke to hurl large boats high into the air, breaking them into a thousand fragments. The whale shows great affection for her young, which is called the calf; the fishermen well know this, and turn it to their own account; they try to strike the young with the harpoon, which is a strong, barbed instrument, and if they do this they are almost sure of securing the mother also, as nothing will induce her ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... first mate is always the mate par excellence—soon got fast to a huge bull-whale who, when he felt the deadly harpoon in his vitals, swiftly turned and struck the whale-boat a terrific blow with his tail, smashing it into kindling wood and hurling the men in every direction. After that {232} splendid exhibition of power, he got away scot-free save for the rankling iron and the dangling line which ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... whose name was Thomas, "I guess that you and the youngster will be almost ready to vacate these apartments; so, if you please, I will send you off to the ship, the Harpoon—that's her name—of Norfolk, in the United States. You will find her well flavoured with oil, for we are about full to the hatches; but, perhaps, under the circumstances, you will not mind that. Anyway, my Missus, who ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... "That there harpoon," he said, pointing to a rusty relic on the wall above the mantelpiece, "was given to me by the finest whaling captain that ever found his way into the North water. When I first went to sea I thought I'd like to be a whaler; but two voyages settled that fancy. I'm told they shoot their harpoons ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... spare time after hide-curing was over for the day. Another amusement, which we sometimes indulged in, was "burning the water" for craw-fish. For this purpose, we procured a pair of grains, with a long staff like a harpoon, and making torches with tarred rope twisted round a long pine stick, took the only boat on the beach, a small skiff, and with a torch-bearer in the bow, a steersman in the stern, and one man on each side with the grains, went off, on dark nights, to burn ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... hit thee hard. And faith, it would be hard to miss thee, even with harpoon. And thou lookest like to blubber, now. Capital, in faith! I have thee on every side, Jack, and thy sides are manifold; many-folded at any rate. Thou shalt have double expenses, Jack, for the wit ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... a little about the ship, which is a Norwegian whaler of 4,000 tons, and has accompanying it two little steamers, on each of which is mounted a gun, from which the harpoon is shot. The captain is returning from the South Shetlands (south of Cape Horn), and has caught 392 whales of two or three varieties. Below are 8,000 barrels of oil, which he is taking to Cape Town to be sent on from there to an English or ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... yet she was ever anxious to delay its beginning, and at these words from her my father did not urge me further, but quietly watched me as I rose from the table and took from a rack over the window a small harpoon, the sharp point of which I tested by pressing it against ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... stone, brickbat, grenade, shell, bomb, carcass, rocket; congreve[obs3], congreve rocket[obs3]; shrapnel, mitraille[Fr]; levin bolt[obs3], levin brand[obs3]; thunderbolt. pike, lance, spear, spontoon[obs3], javelin, dart, jereed[obs3], jerid[obs3], arrow, reed, shaft, bolt, boomerang, harpoon, gaff; eelspear[obs3], oxgoad[obs3], weet-weet, wommerah[obs3]; cattle prod; chemical mace. Phr. en flute; nervos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a score of years yet," jovially remarked Major Hawke, as he gazed at the well-preserved outer man of his uneasy entertainer. "The harpoon is deeply fixed in the old whale," mused Hawke, as he followed Hugh Johnstone. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... satisfactory issue between himself and his wary antagonist. But the latter would not touch the bait that concealed the hook. Driven to desperation by this unexpected discomfiture, Max next made sundry attempts to spear and "harpoon" him, all of which signally failed, so that at the end of the brief interval of fine weather, this patriarch of the lake, whose wisdom seemed to be proportioned to his venerable age and gigantic size, remained proof against all the arts and machinations ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the quotation, but I do not really think Mrs. Locock hunts walruses in Kashmir, and I know she doesn't use a harpoon. No matter, she proved a cheery and delightful companion, and we entirely forgave her for coming to Tronkol ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... this occasion. Betts steered, and he put them directly on the whale; Socrates, who looked fairly green under the influence of alarm and eagerness to attack, both increased by the total novelty of his situation, making his dart of the harpoon when the bows of the fragile craft were literally over the huge body of the animal. All the energy of the negro was thrown into his blow, for he felt as if it were life or death with him; and the whale spouted blood immediately. It is deemed a ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... monotonous but not unpleasant, that voyage out. We had the customary sports on crossing the line; we fished and caught very little, though the men captured the inevitable shark with the lump of salt pork; and used the grains, as they called the three-pronged fork, to harpoon dolphins. I had my first sight of flying fish, and made friends with the officers. Then there was music and dancing on the hot moonlit nights; deck quoits under the awning by day; a good deal more sleep than we took ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... ship, on the ensuing day. These having with them a seal-skin bag filled with air, they began to kick it at each other and at the strangers: in this play the Englishmen joined, to the great amusement of both parties. The inflated skin was what the men had been using as the buoy to a harpoon, in the killing of a sea-unicorn. They gave to Captain Ross a piece of dried sea-unicorn's flesh, which appeared to have been half roasted. This gentleman had already seen them eat dried flesh; and he now had an opportunity of ascertaining that they did not scruple ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... spot to place a bullet was at the base of the animal's skull. A walrus instantly killed this way generally sinks, leaving a trail of blood and oil to mark the place of his descent. When hunting these animals it is well to have an Eskimo along with harpoon and line in readiness to make fast; otherwise one is ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... craft was of seal-skins, sewed together and drawn tight as a drum-head over a frame composed mainly of the rib-bones of the walrus. The double-bladed paddle was tied to the kayak with a long thong; as was also a harpoon, made of bones laid together, and wound over with a long thong of green seal-skin. The lance-blade at the point was of very white, fine ivory; probably that of the walrus. Attached to the harpoon was a very long coil of line, made also of braided seal-skin, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... rather unpleasant: in a rough sea, the other boats out of sight, and each moment the wind increasing. We continued to strain every muscle till we were hard upon the whale. Tabor sprang to the bow, and stood by with the harpoon. "Softly, softly, my lads," said the headsman. "Ay, ay sir!" "Hush-h-h! softly! Now's your time, Tabor!" Tabor let fly the harpoon, and buried the iron. "Give him another!" "Stern all!" thundered P——. "Stern all!" And, as we rapidly backed from the whale, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... all essentials a completely evolved human being, with a whole past of slowly acquired culture lying dimly and mysteriously behind him. Already he had invented the bow with its flint-tipped arrow, the neatly chipped javelin-head, the bone harpoon, the barbed fish-hook, the axe, the lance, the dagger, and the needle. Already he had learnt how to decorate his implements with artistic skill, and to carve the handles of his knives with the figures of animals. I have no doubt that he even ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... York for a generation or two cannot fail to be struck with its changed appearance as seen from the ferry-boat. It used to lie as low and flat as a whale's back, with perhaps a harpoon sticking out here and there,—to wit, a steeple. The steam elevator has proved quite an Aladdin's Lamp in its magical feats of architecture, by developing a vertical in place of a lateral growth of buildings. The best building-lots are now in the air, and to be had without ground-rent. Troy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... After leaving college I tried to please him by tackling one thing after another that he set me to do. On the square, I had no head for business. I made a mess of everything. The governor got sore. He kept ramming the harpoon into me till I just couldn't stand it. What little ability I possessed deserted me when I got my back up, and there you are. Dad and I had a rather uncomfortable half hour. When I quit—when I told him straight out that I was going West to fare for myself, why, it ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... consisted of a white flowing wig made of oakum, with a green turban; on her shoulders was an ample yellow shawl; her petticoat was red bunting; on her feet were sandals made from the green hide of a bullock. In her right hand she held a harpoon; her cheeks were thickly smeared with ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and of business. Half heroes, half ruffians, they did their work, and unconsciously brought the islands a stage nearer civilization. Odd precursors of English law, nineteenth-century culture, and the peace of our lady the Queen, were these knights of the harpoon and companions of the rum-barrel. But the isolated coasts and savage men among whom their lot was cast did not as yet call for refinement and reflection. Such as their time wanted, such they were. They played ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... saw an old man emerging from a path that winded to the shore through a grove of doddered hazel; he carried a halve-net on his back, while behind him came a girl, bearing a small harpoon with which the fishers are remarkably dexterous in striking their prey. The senior seated himself on a large gray stone, which overlooked the bay, laid aside his bonnet, and submitted his bosom and neck to the ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... sharply round, and young Jack, standing up on the head of the boat, held the harpoon ready for use when they ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... harpoon was thrown, the Tyee paddled furiously away, for when a harpoon strikes a whale, he is likely to lash violently with his tail, and may destroy his enemy, and this is a moment of terrible danger to the harpooner. But the whale ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... a man in Pennsylvania took it into his head to probe the ground for the source of a certain oil that made its appearance upon the surface. Down, down into the bowels of the earth he thrust his steam-driven harpoon, until he touched the living fountain of oil, which, gushing up, half drowned him. Now, all the region round about him swarms with industry. Thousands of men are hurrying to and fro; the puff of the engine is heard everywhere; tens of thousands of barrels ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... with my two companions, and resumed our course to the northward, over that of last year, excepting that we steered inside of Pelican Island, and to leeward of Island 4. We passed several large sting-rays asleep on the surface of the sea, which our people ineffectually endeavoured to harpoon. On the former island large flights of pelicans were seen, and upon the sandbank, to the southward of it, there was a flock of two or three hundred ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... sentimentality of their nation, throw such an air of ease and frankness, that their victims resemble the finny tribe in the famous tunny fishery. While they conceive the whole ocean is at their command—disport here and there in imagined freedom—they are already encased by the insidious nets; the harpoon is already pointed, which shall surely pierce them. Delancey plunged headlong into pleasure's vortex—touched each link between gaiety and crime. He wandered from the paths of virtue from the infatuation of folly, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... the nearest illustrations of what man may have been during the glacial age. Their implements hardly differ from those of palaeolithic man, and some of their tribes do not yet know fishing: they simply spear the fish with a kind of harpoon.(25) They know the use of iron, but they receive it from the Europeans, or find it on wrecked ships. Their social organization is of a very primitive kind, though they already have emerged from the stage of "communal marriage," even under the gentile ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... winnowing fin the breezy South; From towns deserted rush the breathless hosts, Swarm round the hills, and darken all the coasts; Boats follow boats along the shouting tides, 450 And spears and javelins pierce his blubbery sides; Now the bold Sailor, raised on pointed toe, Whirls the wing'd harpoon on the slimy foe; Quick sinks the monster in his oozy bed, The blood-stain'd surges circling o'er his head, 455 Steers to the frozen pole his wonted track, And bears the iron tempest on ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... himself. He surfaced, caught a quick breath, then went under again. Scotty was picking up the spear. Rick saw him place it in the gun barrel, swing the loader over the razor-sharp harpoon head, and shove down on the spring. In a moment the gun was loaded again. Luckily the spear had not bent when the prop blade ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... this lake, and, very shortly after I had killed the first, I shot a second much in the same manner. I always carried a harpoon in the boat with the rope and ambatch float. The latter was painted red, so that it could be easily observed. I therefore, stuck the harpoon in the dead hippopotamus as a mark, and hastened back to my diahbeeah for assistance, as the flesh ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... tell the truth, that's sartain, shipmate. You see, the sparmacitty don't take the harpoon quite so quietly as the black whale does; he fights hard to the last, and sometimes is very free with his jaws. The very large ones are the most easy to kill; so we always look out for them when we can, as they give less trouble, and more oil; the most dangerous are the half-grown, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... and to my horror a huge whale was coming upward with extended jaws. His half-human eyes were turned benignantly upon me; but he was evidently in pain, and from a point in his back, where a broken harpoon still remained, gouts of blood curdled upward, coloring the water. His vocal power lay in his spiracle, and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Atlantic and seen whalers attack the blue whale—the largest animal now living in the world, for it often attains to a length of 90 feet. At the present day whalers use strongly built, swift, and easily handled steam-launches, and shoot the harpoon out from the bow with a pivoted gun. In the head of the harpoon is a pointed shell which explodes in the body of the whale, dealing a mortal wound, and at the butt end a thick rope is secured. The vessel follows the whale until it is dead. Then it is hauled up ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... shown his best goods to the innocent reporter of his sayings. However that may be in this case, let me contrast in a single glance the momentary effect in conversation of the two neighbors, Hawthorne and Emerson. Speech seemed like a kind of travail to Hawthorne. One must harpoon him like a cetacean with questions to make him talk at all. Then the words came from him at last, with bashful manifestations, like those of a young girl, almost—words that gasped themselves forth, seeming to leave a great deal more behind them than they told, and died ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... sardines, and such other small fish as come in shoals, are attacked with this instrument; which is struck into the shoal, and the fish are caught either upon or between the teeth. Their hooks are made of bone and wood, and rather inartificially; but the harpoon, with which they strike the whales and lesser sea-animals, shew a great reach of contrivance. It is composed of a piece of bone, cut into two barbs, in which is fixed the oval blade of a large muscle-shell, in which is the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... a breathing-space, before Randolf, the eighth of them, made trial of Walter's defence (962-981). After him came Eleuther, whose other name was Helmnod, with a harpoon and a line, and the line was held by Trogus, Tanastus, and the king; Hagen still keeping aloof, though he had seen his nephew killed. The harpoon failed; three Frankish warriors were added to the slain; the king and Hagen were left ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... harpoon into the monster's quivering blubber, and with a dexterity that was wonderful in a man of his size, he seized another and thrust it to the hilt beside ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... told us that he had been the first to send out a whaler from Havre, and had secured almost a monopoly of the oil-trade. Some years afterwards I made a passage with his brother, and learned from him the history of this Yankee enterprise, which had filled two capacious purses, and substituted the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the very stronghold of the emblem of peace; and now the collier with his pickaxe has driven them both from the field. But the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not wait for the change. Its broad court was never enlivened ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... says I, "throw the harpoon! Got your yachtin' cap on, ain't you? Well, have I got to sub for you at a ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... September they saw another alcatraz coming from the westwards and flying towards the east, and great numbers of fish were seen with gilt backs, one of which they struck with a harpoon. A rabo de junco likewise flew past; the currents for some of the last days were not so regular as before, but changed with the tide, and the weeds were not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... of tunny-fish, (fish four and five feet long, and belonging to the dolphin tribe,) were seen tumbling about the ship. A harpoon was quickly procured, and one of the sailors sent out with it on the bowsprit; but whether he had bad luck, or was unskilled in the art of harpooning, he missed his mark. The most wonderful part of the story, though, was that all the fish disappeared as ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... under water, the harpooner goes at once to the prow of the shallop with his harpoon, an iron two feet long and half a foot wide at the lower part, and attached to a stick as long as a small pike, in the middle of which is a hole to which the hawser is made fast. The harpooner, watching his time, throws his harpoon at the whale, which enters him ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... Man. Ra spake unto the god Ami-haf, and an injury was done unto his mouth, that is to say, he was wounded in [that] mouth. And Ra spake unto the god Ami-haf, saying, 'O heir of men, receive [thy] harpoon;' and the harpoon-house came into being. Behold, O god Ami-haf, two divine brethren have come into being, [that is to say], Senti-Ra came into being, and Setem-ansi-f came into being. And his hand stayed not, and he made his form into that of a woman with a lock of hair which became the divine ...
— Egyptian Literature
... before, and I immediately bought one of them as food for the dogs. This meat was stowed on the quarter-deck of the Roosevelt. There are several of these "whale factories" on the Labrador coast. They send out a fast steel steamer, with a harpoon gun at the bow. When a whale is sighted they give chase, and when near enough discharge into the monster a harpoon with an explosive bomb attached. The explosion kills him. Then he is lashed alongside, towed into the station, hauled out on the timberways, and there cut up, every part of the ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... fishing; left their canoe and ran on the approach of our boats. My men wished to steal it, which of course I prevented; it was a simple dome palm hollowed. In the canoe was a harpoon, very neatly made, with only one barb. Both sides of the river from the Bahr el Gazal belong to the Nuehr tribe. Course S.E.; wind very light; windings of river endless; continual hauling. At about half an hour before sunset, as the men were hauling the boat along by dragging at the high ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... the company; but, for my part, I throw myself upon your mercy. I wouldn't, for the world, hint that we are more solid than the girls, but 'tis very certain that we are more lumbering. If I were to begin a tale, I'd flounder through it, like a whale with a harpoon in its body; while any of the girls, even down to little Anna, would glide along, like a graceful, snow-white swan upon a silver lake—happy in her element, and giving pleasure to all who witnessed her ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... of that ship was a good man. He taught me many things. Once, when we had left the cold seas and were among the islands of Tonga, he struck me in his rage because I threw the harpoon at a great sperm whale, and missed. That night I slipped over the side, and swam five miles to the land. Dost know the place called Lifuka? 'Twas there I landed. I lay in a thicket till daylight, then I arose and went ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... one day a big sea-mullet came into view. Without a moment's hesitation, and as it flashed past the boat, Tom, using the oar as a spear, hit the slippery fish with such precision and force as to impale it. He will harpoon a turtle as it rushes away from the boat, 5 feet beneath the surface, with the coolness of a billiard-player, and with unerring accuracy "taking off" for the speed of the boat and the refraction of the water. All the ways and habits of fish, and their favourite feeding-grounds, are to him as pages ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Nabbum went to sea A huntin' after lions; He came upon an island where There was a pair of giants. He brought his nets and big harpoon, And thought he'd try to catch 'em; But Nabbum found out very soon There was no need ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... a species of medals made of mother of pearl, or of pearls." For arms they carried bows, poisoned arrows with sharp points hardened in the fire, or tipped with bone and steeped in the juice of a herb, great stones, heavy wooden swords made of stiff wood, with three harpoon points, each more than a handbreadth long. Slung over their shoulders they had haversacks exceedingly well made out of palm leaves, and filled with biscuits made from certain roots which ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... commerce. In pursuing them they have now adopted the European boat in preference to their own, and those most frequently employed are six oared, rowed by twelve men. The harpooner stands in the bow with his harpoon, or iron spear, which is stuck on a shaft one or two fathoms long, and is provided with a leathern thong of considerable length, to which are attached from five to ten bladders of seal skin. If the whale be struck he immediately dives to the bottom of the sea, where he remains till he is ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... production; when Lord Falconet, who had had the news from Percy Popjoy, approved of the genius of young Pen; when the great Lord Steyne himself, to whom the Major referred the article, laughed and sniggered over it, swore it was capital, and that the Muffborough would writhe under it, like a whale under a harpoon, the Major, as in duty bound, began to admire his nephew very much, said, "By gad, the young rascal had some stuff in him, and would do something; he had always said he would do something;" and with a hand quite tremulous with pleasure, the old gentleman sate down to write to the widow at Fairoaks ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dolphins during the passage, by striking them with a small harpoon as they played under the bow of the brig. They are not at all like the creatures I remember carved in stone at the entrance of some gentleman's park near Dublin. They measure about four feet in length; are thick in the middle, with a green back and a yellow belly, and have a sinking between the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... Oxford Dictionary. This is to be the more regretted as its etymology is very obscure. It may, however, be traced with little doubt to the old Norse 'grein,' a branch or prong, surviving in the word 'grains,' a pronged harpoon or fish spear. From its meaning, 'branch,' it might seem to be akin to 'stem' and to 'bow,' which is only another spelling of'bough.' But this is not likely. The older meaning of 'bows' was 'shoulders,' and this, it is agreed, is how it ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... Jacks came tumbling up with the luggage, shouts of "Hi! that's mine," rent the air; and if Jack, in the hurry and confusion, did not attend to the cry, out would dart one or other with umbrella or stick, as the case might be, and harpoon him under the fifth rib; for, with a heavy burden on his head and shoulders, necessarily supported by both hands, defence was impossible. I must say, Jack took it all in good humour, and filing a bill "STOMACH v. RIBS," left it to Old Neptune ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... all the more for this, and yet he saw that she would be a harder prize to win than he had once thought. If he made up his mind that he would have her, he must go armed with all implements, from the red hackle to the harpoon. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... when I turn to retrospect. Even now I mark it as a day of great adventure. Since then I have battled with salmon in northern waters, I have felt my line strain under the tarpon's despair, I have heard my reel sing with the rushes of the bass, yet I do not believe that a whale with my harpoon in his side, as he thrashes the sea, would give me the same exulting thrill that came with a tiny trout's first tug at my hook. Filled with so exciting a prospect, I did not look back as we swung down the hill from the farmhouse. I dared not, lest I should see my too solicitous mother ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... had followed our very rapid ride with real courage climbed on to the blocks. A harpoon was thrown with marvellous skill on to our icy wreck so as to retain us in our position, for the current, rather strong underneath, might have caused us to move. A ladder was brought and planted against one of the large blocks; its steps afforded us means of delivery. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... of the axe, Charley lopped off all the branches save one close to the small end of the trunk. This one he cut off so as to leave a projecting stub of about four inches, thus making of the end of his sapling a sort of rude harpoon. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... this article would not obtain a market except under the more popular name of cod-liver oil. Catching sharks is not an employment entirely devoid of danger, as they are large and powerful, often measuring twenty feet and more in length. The shark, like the whale, when it is first struck with the harpoon, must be given plenty of line, or it will drag down the fishermen's boat in its rapid descent to deep water. Sometimes the struggle to capture the fish is a long and serious one, as it must thoroughly exhaust itself before it will yield. When it is finally drawn ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... lay there three weeks when I sailed in the whaler Scotsman out of Glasgow, and more by token we named the place Thievish Harbor, for one of the Indians stole a harpoon out of our boat and away with it before we could reach him. 'T is a goodly river, broader and deeper than yon, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... of information upon the sperm whale to add to his own memories. Very literally the story begins as an autobiography; even the elemental figure of the cannibal, Queequeg, with his incongruous idol and harpoon in a New Bedford lodging house, does not warn of what is to come. But even before the Pequod leaves sane Nantucket an undercurrent begins to sweep through the narrative. This brooding captain, Ahab (for Melville also broods, though with characteristic difference), and his ivory ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... everything was done according to what he had said. Then this Boat of Ra was brought by the winged Sun- disk upon the waters of the Lake of Meh,[FN87] [and] Heru-Behutet took in his hands his weapons, his darts, and his harpoon, and all the chains [which he required] for ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... heart and shame to her cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. Col. Sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who should say "Now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before him "Let me help you, Washington—Lafayette pass this plate Washington—ah, well, well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, I tell you. Speculation—my! the whole atmosphere's full of money. I would'nt ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... chum to stand ready to drive the steel spur at the end of the line into the ice to hold the beast, while he went forward with the harpoon. Right at the edge of the broken ice, within ten feet of the monster, Jack Darrow stood a moment ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... stuck into horizontal holes along the beams. On one side was a claw-footed old table lashed to the deck; a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre crucifix attached to the bulk-head. Under the table lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some; melancholy old rigging, like a heap of poor friars' girdles. There were also two long, sharp-ribbed settees of Malacca cane, black with age, and uncomfortable to look at as inquisitors' racks, with a large, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... turkeycock's about the whale having his unmentionable parasite—and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy—I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... looked round the rocks and found that they had left the iron kettle, three breakers, five oars, and a harpoon and staffs; a gang-board, a whale line of 200 fathoms, an old saw, a bag of broad-headed nails, and two ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... are seized and confiscated "for the benefit of those whom it may hereafter concern," namely, the "cabin gentry;" the claims of the captors being waived, set aside, and overruled. The two mates soon followed their commander, "armed and equipped," the one with the graves, (a sort of harpoon for taking smaller fish,) and the other with a large reel of fish-line and hooks, baited with salt pork—the commentators on the two last chapters of Acts broke up their conference, leaving St. Paul and the centurion in comfortable ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... watch out for fins! Throppy, you steer as Budge tells you! Stand by to take the dory, Perce, and go after any fish I'm lucky enough to iron. Filippo, be ready to throw that buoy and coil of warp off the starboard bow the minute I make a strike. I'll get out in the pulpit with the harpoon. Keep alive, everybody! We're liable to run across ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... apples. Sharpening the end of a long stick, he began harpooning, through the hole, the apple-heap below; and though the hole was greatly too small for admitting the finer and larger specimens, and they, in consequence, fell back, disengaged from the harpoon, in the attempt to land them, he succeeded in getting a good many of the smaller ones. Old John Clark the gardener—far advanced in life at the time, and seeing too imperfectly to discover the crevice which opened high amid the obscurity of the loft—was in a perfect ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... single-minded population of that part of Suffolk should regard the bold and skilful harpooner, or lancer, with favour, as it is for the belle at a watering-place to bestow her smiles on one of the young heroes of Contreras or Churubusco. His peculiar merit, whether with the oar, lance, or harpoon, is bruited about, as well as the number of whales he may have succeeded in "making fast to," or those which he caused to "spout blood." It is true, that the great extension of the trade within the last twenty years, by drawing so many from a distance into its pursuits, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... wa'n't lookin' forward to any treat. I ain't so strong for this recital stuff as a rule; but I was anxious to size up the young lady who'd thrown the harpoon into Mr. Robert so hard. Same way with Vee. So we edges through to a front ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... above all the other animals stationed so much lower down, and by virtue of which he is lord and master of them all, leading Behemoth over the land with a ring in his nose, and towing Leviathan across the waters with a harpoon in his ribs. Fine as the line may appear which separates instinct from the divine gift of reason, we must see that progress, an essential consequence of the latter, is denied to the former. It is quite possible that the dogs which accompanied the first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or rather it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a coil of cord in the boat, and, if the harpoon is not good, or not well thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain or ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... through the Sound, a herd of porpoises came gambolling by, their black bodies and fins now appearing, now sinking beneath the surface. Captain Truck had a harpoon ready, and he placed himself in the forechains, with a rope round his waist. He stood with his weapon high poised in the air, ready to strike. We were all on the watch. In a few moments his ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at L4:10s., a head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta for Rs.275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby"; but if ever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... was helped by the gladiators, for they now approached him, and their frantic enthusiasm kept him for some time from all other thoughts. While they flourished their weapons-some the sword and buckler, and others the not less terrible net and harpoon—the time-honored cry rose from their husky throats in eager acclamation: "Hail, Caesar! those about to die salute thee!" Then, in rows of ten men each, they crossed the arena ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... boats smashed to kindling by fighting whales, of the attack renewed with harpoon and lance, of ships actually rammed and sunk, would fill a volume by themselves and have been stirringly narrated in many a one. Zanzibar and Kamchatka, Tasmania and the Seychelles knew the lean, sun-dried Yankee whaleman and his motto of a "dead whale or a stove boat." ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... given a touch of variety to his life by shipping on a New Bedford whaler which had touched at one of the Puget Sound ports. The whaler went up to a part of Alaska where bears were very plentiful and bold. One day a couple of boats' crews landed; and the men, who were armed only with an occasional harpoon or lance, scattered over the beach, one of them, a Frenchman, wading into the water after shell-fish. Suddenly a bear emerged from some bushes and charged among the astonished sailors, who scattered in every direction; but the ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... backward strained eyes, seemed to implore rescue from its fate. Were any other means of response to so tragic an appeal available? The crowbar! Hastily made fast to the stern line, it was hurled harpoon-like with energy sufficient to batter in the forehead of a bullock. But the listless implement bounced off the head of the shark as a stick from a drum, provoking merely a contemptuous wave of the tail which seemed ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... indeed Father suggested, "We ought to stay and see the movies. Look! Royal X. Snivvles in 'The Lure of the Crimson Cobra'—six reels—that sounds snappy." But his exuberance died in a sigh. A block down Harpoon Street they saw a sign, light-encircled, tea-pot shaped, hung out from a great elm. Without explanations they ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... side. Another cry came of "There again!" indicating that the whale had once more come to the surface, and was spouting. The monster was at no great distance. Mr Gibson, the first mate, took the lead, pulling the bow oar of his boat, that he might be ready to strike the harpoon into the animal as soon as it ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sullivan with a note of gruff pleading. "You know how the papers are roasting the department just now. For every little slip, we get the harpoon or the laugh. I'll be obliged to you if you don't say anything that'll let this thing get into ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... lived a whale who exhibited in his own person indubitable proof of having found that elusive Anian Strait. At Herald Island, due north of Bering Strait, in 1886, a whale was caught who carried round in his inside pocket of blubber the head of a harpoon marked Ansell Gibbs. The Ansell Gibbs was wrecked at Marble Island south of Chesterfield Inlet on Hudson Bay on October 13, 1871. Imagination sees opportunity in this for establishing hyperborean letter-service between ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... black leather, consisting of a pair of trousers, and a long pea-jacket, very similar to those worn by the Esquimaux Indians, which we occasionally fell in with in the Northern Ocean. They each held a long harpoon, formed entirely of bone, in their ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... him company. It was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women have often a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business side of a situation; and it was the skipper's daughter who insisted that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of extricating the young man from ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... courage of the lads, he returned soon after, and attempted to force a window in the back part of the house, which opened upon a narrow alley inclosed by a high fence. As soon as Isaac heard the noise, he seized an old harpoon that was about the premises, and told his companion to open the window the instant he gave the signal. His orders were obeyed, and he flung the harpoon with such force, that it passed through his uncle's vest and coat, and nailed him tight to the fence. When he told the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... till the returning inundation, as so many vivaria in which the fish were preserved for dwellers on the banks. Fishing with the harpoon, made either of stone or of metal, with the line, with a net or with traps, were all methods of fishing known and used by the Egyptians from early times. Where the ponds failed, the neighbouring Nile furnished ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... floor on his stomach, butting his head occasionally against the table in order to suggest to them their danger. The attitude of the children still remained that of polite spectators. True, the youngest boy did make the suggestion of borrowing the kitchen toasting-fork, and employing it as a harpoon; but even this appeared to be the outcome rather of a desire to please than of any warmer interest; and, the whale objecting, the idea fell through. After that he climbed up on the dresser and announced to them that he was an ourang-outang. They watched him break a soup-tureen, ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... amiable satisfaction, "if it interests you, I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis's Straits, are caught some time afterwards in the neighbourhood of Tartary with the European harpoon still in their flanks." ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... and foods was made between the contracting parties, but the bridegroom's friends had to give the larger amount, and the bridegroom had to pay the parents for his wife, the usual price being a canoe or dugong harpoon, or shell armlet, or goods to equal value. The man might give his sister in exchange for a wife, and thus save the purchase price. A poor man who had no sister might perforce remain unmarried, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... brass and iron, which, no doubt, facilitated commerce and colonization, even at this early period of the world's history. The discovery of works of art, of however primitive a character, in the drifts of France and England, indicates an early colonization. The rudely-fashioned harpoon of deer's horn found beside the gigantic whale, in the alluvium of the carse near the base of Dummyat, twenty feet above the highest tide of the nearest estuary, and the tusk of the mastodon lying alongside fragments of pottery in a deposit of the peat and sands ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the ancient fisherman: "Now, bring me my harpoon! I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon." Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb; Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... call a sistrum. It consists of what appears to be two brass bell bodies, a larger and a smaller welded together at the tapering ends. On the face of the larger bell is represented the now well-known group of a king or chief with a sort of Persian head-dress, with a harpoon-like projection at the top. He is supported on both sides by similarly dressed individuals; somewhat above the level of his head the chief is flanked by two tablets, each upheld by a hand emerging from the background. The background is enchased with an elegant foliated ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... it extended its great flexible tentacles, enveloped the entire boat, man and all, and then dragged the whole down into the clear depths. The diver's horrified comrades rushed to his assistance, and an attempt was made to kill the octopus with a harpoon, but without success. Several of his more resourceful companions then dived into the water with a big net made of stout twine, which they took right underneath the octopus, entangling the creature and its still living prey. The next step was to drag up both ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... England outside of agriculture was the fisheries. This industry, started by hardy sailors from Europe, long before the landing of the Pilgrims, flourished under the indomitable seamanship of the Puritans, who labored with the net and the harpoon in almost every quarter of the Atlantic. "Look," exclaimed Edmund Burke, in the House of Commons, "at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... feelings at this juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that Right whaling on the Nor'-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of finding a harbour (Bunder), as the name of the village implied, the shore was a gradual shelving open roadstead, in which two buggaloes were lying at anchor, waiting for cargoes, and four small sailing-boats were preparing, with harpoon and tackle, to go ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... understood their ignorance. With a smile he fitted to the groove of the short stick the shaft of a short harpoon, whose head, about a foot and a half in length, they now discovered to be made of thin, dark slate, ground sharp on each edge and at the point. When the chief had fitted the butt of this dart against the ivory tip, he grasped the lower end of the nogock ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... the ancient fisherman—"Now bring me my harpoon! I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon." Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb; Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... able to read of a neighbor's success without reaching for the harpoon. A man who will give his last cigar to a stranger and then go home and kick his wife on the shins because she spent forty ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... excitement now arrived. We pulled as if for life or death. Not a word was spoken, and scarcely a sound was heard from our oars. One of the men sprang to his feet, and grasped a harpoon. A few more strokes of the oar, and we were hard upon the whale. The harpooner, with unerring aim, let fly his irons, and buried them to the sockets in his huge carcass. "Stern all!" thundered the mate. "Stern all!" echoed the crew, but it was too late. Our bows ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, years afterward slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered .. nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... think so—just yet. They look too mad. I gave 'em the harpoon in good shape, as is usual, but I didn't expect they'd run here so soon. Thought they would ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the heart of a large cypress log. In this he often glided swiftly and noiselessly down some stream where the salmon trout lived. He held in his right hand a tough spear, made of a charred reed with a barbed end. When he saw a fish almost as large as himself close at hand he hurled his harpoon at it with all his force. And the fish darted off, leaving a trail of crimson in the clear water and dragging the boat behind it; for the boy clung to the end of the spear and soused the wounded fish in the water until its strength ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... green and rotting piers where chunky, square-rigged whalers, green and rotting, too, were moored alongside. The life of the whaler was in those days something infinitely fascinating to us boys. We read of the chase, the hurling of the harpoon, the mad ride over the waves towed by the plunging monster. And here were the very ships which had taken the brave whalers to the hunting grounds, here on their decks were some of the whale boats which had ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... Lester, reaching down into the cabin, drew out and displayed to the astonished eyes of the boys a long harpoon. ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... made by the walrus when irritated, may be heard, on a calm day, with great distinctness at the distance of two miles at least. We found musket-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of their skin being such that whale-lances generally bend without penetrating it. One of these creatures being accidentally touched by one of the oars in Lieutenant Nias's boat, took hold of it between its flippers, and, forcibly twisting it out of the man's hand, snapped it in two. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... said Berry. "I know. I'll go as a mahout. Now, that's easy. Six feet of butter muslin, four pennyworth of woad, and a harpoon. And we can lock the elephant's switch and park ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... acknowledge the Portuguese authority, and even make them pay for leave to pass unmolested. Throughout the whole course of the river hippopotami were very abundant, and at one village a chase by the natives was witnessed. They harpoon the animal with a barbed lance, to which is attached, by a cord 3 or 4 fathoms long, an inflated bladder. The natives follow in their canoes, and look out to fix more harpoons as the animal rises to ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... on the part of Betty's image to separate itself from the others. He hated them, the whole damned, profiteering, arrogant, butterfly lot. He nursed an unholy satisfaction in having made some inroad upon their comfortable security, in having "sunk his harpoon" into their ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... horror to face. But it was no animal's fault in particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was manoeuvring ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... objects now floating in these unploughed waters, whilst the calf, all gambols, rubbed against the mother's side, or played about her. The proverbial shyness of these fish was proved by our fishermen and sportsmen to be an undoubted fact, for neither with harpoon nor rifle-ball could they succeed in capturing ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... like a springle-riser; line on the hum, like the string of Paganini winch on the gallop, like a harpoon wheel, Pike, the head-centre of everything, dashing through thick and thin, and once taken overhead—for he jumped into the hole, when he must have lost him else, but the fish too impetuously towed him out, and made off in passion for ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... very different thing with those fellows than with us. The carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the way to ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... of blizzards, there was usually sufficient work to be found to keep us all employed. Thus on June 2, Watson and I were making a ladder, Jones was contriving a harpoon for seals, Hoadley was opening cases and stowing stores in the veranda, Dovers cleaning tools, Moyes repairing a thermograph and writing up the meteorological log, Harrisson cooking and Kennedy sleeping ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... eyes of hunting men than any other fault or even crime of which he could possibly render himself guilty. The most unique item of this "Game Book," with the exception, naturally, of the two aurochsen, are assuredly the three whales which the emperor shot with a harpoon gun, on the occasion of his yachting trip to the furthermost portion of Norway a few summers ago. These three huge monsters of the deep form a fitting and amusing counterpart in the "Game Book" to the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy |
