"Harpoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bait, and feeling the hook in his horrid jaw, tugged most fiercely to release himself, but in vain. Twelve sailors hauled him in, when, with distended jaws, he seemed to look out for the legs of the men, whereupon they rammed the butt-end of a harpoon down his throat, which put a stop to all further proceedings on his part. He was said to be quite young, perhaps the child of doting parents. The juvenile monster had, however, already cut three rows ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... sapper wields his pick, a peculiar affair not unlike a harpoon, and scrapes the loosened earth back with a short grubber to another man who removes ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... 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
... and after two hours' search of the ship, I got back to my own, and half an hour later came upon all the three missing whale-boats about a mile apart, and steered zig-zag near to each. They contained five men each and a steerer, and one had the harpoon-gun fired, with the loose line coiled round and round the head and upper part of the stroke line-manager; and in the others hundreds of fathoms of coiled rope, with toggle-irons, whale-lances, hand-harpoons, and dropped heads, and grins, and lazy abandon, and eyes that stared, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... 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 and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... thither by the common prospect of food promised by the wreck of the slaver. There were albacores, and bonitos, and dolphins, and many other kinds of ocean fish, rarely seen, or only upon such melancholy occasions. With a long-handled harpoon, which Snowball had succeeded in securing, he was enabled to strike several of these creatures; so that by the evening of the sixth day, his larder was considerably increased,—comprising, in the way of fish, an albacore, a brace of bonitos, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... 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
... 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 ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... crew one Ned Land, a gigantic Canadian of forty, who was considered to be the prince of harpooners. Many a whale had received its deathblow from him, and he was eager to flesh his harpoon in this redoubtable cetacean which ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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
... chance it would be if we could capture it!" cried the sailor. "Ah! if we only had a proper boat and a good harpoon, I would say 'After the beast,' for he would be well worth ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... known New 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. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... never got a bite. What do you think of that? The wind died down, his engine got stalled, and he and Hosey Talbot had to row home from the Bell Reef Shoals. Haw, haw! Maybe I didn't roar when I saw them come pulling in against the tide, mad as two man-eating sharks. Fit to harpoon the first person they met, they were. I sung out and asked them were they practicing for the Harvard and Yale boat race and Dave was that peeved he shied an oarlock after ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... so the most courageous of the men try to kill them whenever they can get near enough. When the Kalopaling sits sleeping, the hunter comes up very cautiously and throws a walrus harpoon into him. Then he shuts his eyes tight until the Kalopaling is dead, otherwise the hunter's boat would be capsized and he be drowned. They dare not eat the flesh of the creatures, for it is poisonous; but ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... done for, if, as often happens, he in attempting to escape seeks his deliverance in the sea. There, he is, as the hunters say, "as easy to kill as a sheep," but one has to make haste to get hold of the killed animal with a harpoon or in some other way, for it speedily sinks, unless ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... 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 darting ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... head among them. Well, now for nobler game! I am to face this leviathan Charles, who will presently swim hitherward, cleaving the deep before him. I must, like a trembling sailor, throw a tub overboard to amuse him. But I may one day find the chance of driving a harpoon ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... iron and half of bone, shall remain sticking in your flesh; and you shall feel in your body the reverberation of the iron and the scraping of the bone; and on your skin shall grow the rasupa-tree and the shiuri-tree of which the spear-handle is made, and the hai-grass by which the tip of the harpoon is tied to the body of it, and the nipesh-tree of which the rope tying the harpoon itself is made, so that, though you are such a mighty fish, you shall not be able to swim in the water; and you shall die, and ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... intense 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!" ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... drawn with three strokes of the 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 ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... and then a visit to the presidio, filled up our 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 the water. This is fine sport. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... no more; and in this he 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 at a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Martha's boat's crew on 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. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... now pulled 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
... fight for his life. A man had a chance then to show his skill and power over the brute, he said. He held, too, that man's highest object in life was to know how to kill a whale skilfully; and he heartily despised the whale "as would submit quietly to the harpoon, and die like a lubber." He also affected great contempt for the landsman who had lived like a gentleman, and never killed ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Dad hurt me—shamed me, and I dug out for the West. It was this way. 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 ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... for shells, Mr. Pike is attacked by "a tazarre, a fish something like a fresh-water pike," which comes right at him repeatedly, "like a bulldog," and is only subdued by being speared in the head with a harpoon. Creatures elsewhere the most evasive and timid are here found fighting like gladiators: the eels bite everybody within their reach—one of these combative eels caught by our author measured twelve feet three inches; the fresh-water prawns "strike so sharply with their tails as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... scarce, and the chief species they take is that denominated the white fish, of little value in 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 ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... 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 good ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... cheap brass stickpin, much as Gray wore his. During the meal he watched how the guest used his knife and fork and made awkward attempts to do likewise, but a table fork was an instrument which, heretofore, Buddy had looked upon as a weapon of pure offense, like a whaler's harpoon, and conveniently designed either for spearing edibles beyond his reach or for retrieving fragments of meat lurking between his back teeth. He even did some hasty manicuring under the edge of the ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... peasant that kneels on its floor. He admired her 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. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... would fain pass by it, that the gin-shop, like a devil-fish, sends forth long tentacles and ruthlessly sucks him in; with the mother-whale, when her wilful young one insists on swimming up the fiord, and she who has risked her life to warn him must hear the thud of the harpoon in his side; with the old tired horse, when they fetch him in from his sober reverie in the fields, and put his blinkers on; with anything else?—yes, with the bluebells, whose life above ground is so short, when wasteful children tread them down;—these ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... latter, complacently, "if it interests you at all I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis Strait, have been found afterwards on the coast of Tartary, still carrying a European harpoon in their side." ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... harpoon into each other ruthless, though? Why, you could see that old girl fairly squirm when she got one of them assault-and-battery glances. Her under lip would quiver a bit, she'd wink hard three or four times, and then she'd sort of ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... with a spear they seldom escape, for the line is fastened to the side of the spear-head, which detaches itself from the staff and holds in the flesh like a harpoon. Sometimes, however, the seal will slip away after the spear is thrown, and, instead of striking him, it strikes the ice where he had been lying. This is very aggravating after the cold and tedious labor of working up upon it has been accomplished; but the ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... 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 ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... thrown from the Carthaginian upon the Roman ships; and, as they could not cut the harpoons themselves, nor the chains suspended by which they were thrown upon their ships, as each of the ships of war of the enemy, being pulled back, drew with it a transport, connected with it by a harpoon, you might see the fastenings by which the transports were joined together rent asunder, and in another part a series of many vessels dragged away together. In this manner chiefly were all the bridges of communication torn to pieces, and scarcely had the troops who fought in front time ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... the walrus 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 ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand, being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l.-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 off. He objected ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... 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
... infuriated beast springs toward them, its enormous jaws extended, and often succeeds in crushing the frail canoe to splinters. The hunters, if thrown in the water, immediately dive—as the beast looks for them on the surface—and make for the shore. Their prey is soon secured, for the well-aimed harpoon has done its work, and the hippopotamus is soon forced to succumb. Should it be under water, its whereabouts is indicated by a float on the end of the long harpoon rope, and it is ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Zealand as a matter of course 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 a ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... a meat hook for taking boiled meat out of the pot, with five or more prongs; hence "harpoon." ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... continued their cautious advance. One of them, armed with a very primitive harpoon—a long nail at the end of a stick—kept himself in the bow of the boat, while the other two noiselessly paddled on. They waited till the necessity of breathing would bring the manatees up again. In ten minutes or thereabouts the animals would certainly appear in ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... 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 ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... occupied by women. Instead 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 ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... 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 ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... his bow and arrow, and to wield the harpoon and spear. Abel once fashioned for him, from a block of wood, a very good imitation of a small seal, and Bobby and Jimmy had unending sport casting their harpoons at it, and presently they became so expert that seldom did they fail to make a ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... luck attend you, honest Louis, boatsteerer, in the shades beyond. You wielded harpoon and lance better than the pen, and couldn't write poetry. Your informing statement about the "ile" at once recalled to memory an inscription upon the wooden head-board of the grave of another boat-steerer which in 1873 was to be seen at Ponape, ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... forty-second year I'm little better'n a beachcomber. It sure hurt me to have to beg that ornery Scraggs for a job; if I ever sighed for independence it was the other night in Halfmoon Bay when, footsore an' desperate, we stood by an' let that little wart harpoon us. So now, when you ask me what I'm goin' to do with my money, I'll tell you I'm going to save it, after first payin' up about seventy-five bucks I owe here an' there along the Front. I'm through drinkin' an' raisin' hell. Me for a ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... assurances of my undying affection for him. As for Janet—Temple's letter, in which he spoke of her avowed preference for Oriental presents, and declared his intention of accumulating them on his voyages, was a harpoon in her side. By means of it I worried and terrified her until she was glad to have it all out before the squire. What did he do? He said that Margery, her mother, was niggardly; a girl wanted presents, and I did not act ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... exist in many other places. Sometimes they have been used as habitations and even as graves for men. Skeletons, weapons, and tools are found here together. There are axes, knives, scrapers, lance-points of flint; arrows, harpoon-points, needles of bone like those used by certain savages to this day. The soil is strewn with the bones of animals which these men, untidy like all savages, threw into a corner after they had eaten the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... pretty equally matched; but gradually the captain shot ahead, and it became evident that his harpooner, Amos Parr, was to have the honour of harpooning the first whale. Amos pulled the bow-oar, and behind him was the tub with the line coiled away, and the harpoon bent on to it. Being an experienced whaleman, he evinced no sign of excitement, save in the brilliancy of his dark eye and a very slight flush on his bronzed face. They had now neared the whale and ceased rowing for a moment, lest they ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... 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 ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... ingenious. Three days after they had stepped through the barrier of time at the outpost, Ross and Ashe balanced on the rounded back of a whale. It was a whale which would deceive anyone who did not test its hide with a harpoon, and whalers with harpoons large enough to trouble such a monster were yet well in ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... 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 flop ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... natives 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 Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... supper. But Macko, although he knew that there was the old lady, Sieciechowa, at Zgorzelice, who could easily fulfil Jagienka's duties, did not persuade her to remain, for he knew that sorrow does not like the light on human tears, and that a man is like a fish, when it feels the penetrating harpoon in its body it sinks ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... which fell later in smoky clouds along the shore. A multitude of fish of strange form, fascinated by the blinding light, swam curiously about the canoe like butterflies. Taua stopped padpling, and directed his twelve-pronged harpoon toward the biggest fish. With a quick and powerful stroke the heavy harpoon shot like an arow from his hand and pierced the flashing scales. Soon the baskets of purau-fiber were filled, and they took back the canoe to its resting-place, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... young topman, alongside of him. Her head-dress 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
... 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 harpoon flew ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain's room. And there in the middle of it was the man himself, his face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck upwards in his agony. Right through his broad breast a steel harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of the wall behind him. He was pinned like a beetle on a card. Of course, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that he had uttered that last ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... says I, "throw the harpoon! Got your yachtin' cap on, ain't you? Well, have I got to sub for you at ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the other sailors by his rough manner and the surly audacity that was expressed by his whole personality. Hearne was an American, and forty-five years of age. He was an active, vigorous man, and I could see him in my mind's eye, standing up on his double bowed whaling-boat brandishing the harpoon, darting it into the flank of a whale, and paying out the rope. He must have been fine to see. Granted his passion for this business, I could not be surprised that his discontent showed itself upon occasion. In any case, however, our schooner was not fitted out ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... of Nature, his skill in woodland lore, his unerring moral sense, his strong affections, and the veins of poetry that run through his rugged nature like seams of gold in quartz. Long Tom Coffin may be described as Leatherstocking suffered a sea-change,—with a harpoon instead of a rifle, and a pea-jacket instead of a hunting-shirt. In both the same primitive elements may be discerned: the same limited intellectual range combined with professional or technical skill; the same generous affections and unerring moral instincts; the same religious feeling, taking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... No harpoon, or such tackle we took. Brave boys! For we knowed they was no ava-a-a-il. No, we went for to look For that Whale—with a hook. That's how we went for that Whale, Brave boys! That's how ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... 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, and continued to err from the fascinations of sin. He ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... approached the 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; ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... 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 ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... 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 ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... also in our way: for the Indians had surrounded the shore with staves and javelins 16 feet long, with a piece of bone at the end in the form of a harpoon, in their hands, hallooing and shouting in the most hideous manner, at the same time making signs with their hands for us to be gone; always taking care, as the boat sailed along the shore, to move ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... accompanied the howartis, or hippopotamus hunters, for a day's sport. There were numbers of hippos in this part of the river, and we were not long before we found a herd. The hunters failed in several attempts to harpoon them, but they succeeded in stalking a crocodile after a most peculiar fashion. This large beast was lying upon a sandbank on the opposite margin of the river, close to a bed ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... dig up buried cities," interrupted Kinney, "or a pleasure trip? I don't want to see harpoons! I wouldn't know a harpoon if you stuck one into me. I ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... which he has ventured to 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 ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... at Nanomaga was a Samoan. He was intended by nature to be a warrior, a leader of men; or—and no higher praise can I give to his dauntless courage—a boat-header on a sperm whaler. Strong of arm and quick of eye, he was the very man to either throw the harpoon or deal the death-giving thrust or the lance to the monarch of the ocean world; but fate or circumstance had made him a missionary instead. He was a fairly good missionary, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... 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 ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... plenmano, "-shake," manpremo. handkerchief : naztuko. handle : 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, cikatrigxi. health ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... companions. They were armed in the same fashion, and Ned Land was also brandishing an enormous harpoon he had stowed in the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... which curved out from the shaft. The whole of the barb turned on a stout pivot of steel, but was kept in line with the shaft by a tiny wooden peg which passed through barb and shaft, being then cut off smoothly on both sides. The point of the harpoon had at one side a wedge-shaped edge, ground to razor keenness, the other side was flat. The shaft, about thirty inches long, was of the best malleable iron, so soft that it would tie into a knot and straighten out again without fracture. Three harpoons, or "irons" as they were always ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... into the front office in my shirt sleeves, and was leanin' against the gym door listenin' to Pinckney and his friend slangin' each other—and, believe me, it's a wonderful gift to be able to throw the harpoon ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... effective exposed 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 apt to ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... "We will harpoon it, if you like, though I do not know why I should risk the lives of my crew. Where's Bowline? Pass the word for Bowline," said ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... water. It also 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
... Fisheries, the planting of a harpoon in the vitals of a Right whale gives the planter a pre-emption claim to it. If subsequently appropriated by another party it becomes, so far as that party is concerned, the Wrong whale, and on Trying the case its value may be recovered in a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... I wish I had a spear, or a harpoon!" cried Dick excitedly, as once more the water was churned up and the net came ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... His mother caught one harpoon. Anvik seized another. The great paws were digging into the igloo! The dogs had attacked the bear, but she fought them off, killing some with the powerful ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... the brig, Blancard hoisted enough sail to work the boat, and Langlade ran to the prow and held up the king's cloak on the end of a sort of harpoon. Soon the voyagers perceived that they had been sighted, the brig went about to approach them, and in ten minutes they found themselves within fifty yards of it. The captain appeared in the bows. Then the king hailed him and offered him a substantial ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... follows:—A large junk of pork was made fast to a rope and suspended from 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 nine feet in length, and as he came alongside, his back fin rose some ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... however, support this opinion. At this time we knew of no land, nor is it even probable that there is any, nearer than New Holland, or Van Diemen's Land, from which we were distant 260 leagues. We had, at the same time, several porpoises playing about us; into one of which Mr Cooper struck a harpoon; but as the ship was running seven knots, it broke its hold, after towing it some minutes, and before we ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Pullman-car conductor, negro porter and newsboy somehow managed to pull me out into the midnight temperature of 80 below freezing. It was just like having one's head put under the pump, but it did not quite revive me, for I mistook my host in his sleigh for a walrus, and tried to harpoon him with my umbrella. After matters had been explained, we went off, at least I did, and never woke up till I fell out into a snow-drift, just as we turned a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... it. The whale would go down out of sight. Each officer would place his boat where he thought the whale would come up. When the whale came up to get breath, the men in the nearest boat would row toward it. The officer who stood in the bow of the boat would then throw a harpoon, which would stick fast in the whale. As soon as the whale was struck with the harpoon, he would go down into the water. There was a line fast to the harpoon, which was coiled in a tub standing in the whaleboat. Sometimes the whale would run down so far, that it would take more ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... 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 Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... 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 History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... shell, bomb, carcass, rocket; congreve^, congreve rocket^; shrapnel, mitraille [Fr.]; levin bolt^, levin brand^; thunderbolt. pike, lance, spear, spontoon^, javelin, dart, jereed^, jerid^, arrow, reed, shaft, bolt, boomerang, harpoon, gaff; eelspear^, oxgoad^, weet-weet, wommerah^; cattle prod; chemical mace. Phr. en flute; nervos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... critters!" the "able seaman" declared. "Stand by with that boathook, Miss Lou, and see if you can harpoon him." ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... sepulchral mounds. 40 7. Ground plan of a pueblo of the Mac-Elmo valley. 41 8. Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos. 42 9. House in a rock of the Montezuma canon. 43 10. 1. Fragments of arrows made of reindeer horn from the Martinet cave (Lot-et-Garonne). 2. Point of spear or harpoon in stag-horn (one third natural size). 3. and 4. Bone weapons from Denmark. 5. Harpoon of stag-horn from St. Aubin. 6. Bone fish-hooks pointed at each end, from Waugen. 61 11. Bear's teeth converted into fish-hooks. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... And 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 ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... deserted; of the four harpooners only one was left, a fierce barbarian 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, and they act up to the South-Seaman's war-cry, "A dead whale or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... to get a nearer view of the whale!" cried Andy. "Maybe he's hurt, or perhaps there's a harpoon with a line fast to it in him. We might get hold ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... 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
... bungling. Next they tied a stone to the end of the rope to carry it further and with better aim, but the result was no better. Then majestic old Toyatte tried his hand at the game. He tied the rope to one of the canoe-poles, and taking aim threw it, harpoon fashion, beyond the duck, and the general merriment was redoubled when the pole got loose and floated out to the middle of the pond. At length John stripped, swam to the duck, threw it ashore, and brought in the pole in his teeth, his ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... 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 ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... Barney hurried below to secure a native harpoon and skin-rope. Bruce provided himself with a high-power ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... element, Thus drew she from the mould, waxen candles, whose 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 intrusted ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... 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 ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... to rummage out a harpoon one day amongst the odds and ends in the forecastle of the Nancy Bell, and the sailor having been familiar with its use from long whaling experience, had not forgotten to bring it ashore when they abandoned the wreck—looking upon the weapon with almost as much veneration as Mr Lathrope ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... in his ample fist The long harpoon upheld to men: Behold obedient to my wrist A gray gull's-feather for ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... episodes of fragile 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 Civil War did not ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... peculiar barking noise 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 ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... 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
... in 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 ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Fowling-pieces of all sizes, from the long ducking-gun mounted on a swivel for boat use to the light single-barrel or carbine, stood in racks against the walls; game-bags, revolvers in their holsters, hunting and fishing knives in their sheaths, depended from hooks above them. In one corner stood a harpoon; in another, two or three Indian spears for salmon. The carpetless floor and rude chairs and settles were covered with otter, mink, beaver, and a quantity of valuable seal-skins, with a few larger pelts of the bear and elk. The only attempt at ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... a harpoon-like weapon used for pething (pithing) cattle; that is, killing them by piercing the spinal cord (pith, or ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... getting sight of any of the inhabitants, and indeed without a single incident worth notice. On the 22d, we killed a turtle for the day's provision, upon opening which we found a wooden harpoon or turtle-peg, about as thick as a man's finger, near fifteen inches long, and bearded at the end, such as we had seen among the natives, sticking through both shoulders: It appeared to have been struck a considerable time, for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... the harpoon is secured by a long and very strong rope wound round the handle: it is intended to come out of its socket, and while the iron head is firmly fixed in the animal's body the rope unwinds and the handle floats on ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... there were thick bull's-eye windows, by means of which the under-water travelers could look out into the ocean through which they were moving. As a defense against the attacks of submarine monsters there was a steel, pointed ram, like a big harpoon. There were also a bow and a stern electrical gun, of which more ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... as this lonely brace owned; but what could I imagine to be afraid of aboard a brig holding two persons only, with the whaler's boat and three men within a few strokes of the oar, and the old barque, Swan, full of livelies, many of them deadly in the art of casting the harpoon, within ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... should persist in our minds. Factious hatreds died out amidst universal good-fellowship, and a banquet, served on the field of battle, crowned our reconciliation with joviality. The whole ship resounded with song and, as a sudden calm had caused her to lose headway, one tried to harpoon the leaping fish, another hauled in the struggling catch on baited hooks. Then some sea-birds alighted upon the yard-arms and a skillful fowler touched them with his jointed rods: they were brought down to our hands, stuck fast to the limed segments. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... 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 was too much astonished to fight, and, with a terrific ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... story. One morning, at daybreak, they brought him up to a large, long whale. He darted his harpoon, and missed; and the fish sounded. After a while, the monster rose again, about a mile off, and they made after him. But he was frightened, or "gallied," as they call it; and noon came, and the boat was still ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... our encounter with the shark, placed the harpoons in readiness; and amused me by seeming to picture himself a whaler, flourishing his harpoon in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... months ago 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 of oil are rolled ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... The company being seated round the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish—in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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 ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... 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 he ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... of our retainers have knives and clubs, although Yatsuda, the first sail-maker, carries a hand-axe, and Uchino, the second sail-maker, sleeping or waking, never parts from a claw-hammer. Tom Spink has a harpoon. Wada, however, is the genius. By means of the cabin stove he has made a sharp pike-point of iron and fitted it to a pole. To-morrow be intends to make ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... 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 them with inexhaustible ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... animals. From time to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and soon we were so near that we had to row very cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sunk it again, a few more ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... tern mark the movements of the distracted shoals, the blacks in canoes fit in to the scheme of destruction, taking a general toll. So preoccupied are the bonito, that they fall a comparatively easy prey to the skilled user of the harpoon. Sharks continue the chain of destruction by dashing forays on the bonito, and occasionally man harpoons a shark. With his frail bark canoe tugged hither and thither by the frightened but still vicious fish, the black, endowed with nerve, then enjoys real sport. Not ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... good.' The goad with the iron brad 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 pile ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... whose costume was like the others. This goddess was personified by an athletic, ugly man, marked with the small-pox, dressed as a female, with a woman's night-cap on his head, ornamented with sprigs of sea-weed; she had a harpoon in her hand, on which was fixed an albicore; and in her lap lay one of the boys of the ship, dressed as a baby, with long clothes and a cap: he held in his hand a marlinspike, which was suspended round ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... table, and a ship's chronometer, and a compass.... There were charts in a tin tube upon the wall, and one that showed the Harbor and the channel to the sea hung between the middle windows. In the north corner, a harpoon, and two lances, and a boat spade leaned. Their blades were covered with wooden sheaths, painted gray. A fifteen-foot jawbone, cleaned and polished and with every curving tooth in place, hung upon the rear wall and gleamed like ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... the Flying Dutchman, and Davy Jones' Locker, and Captain Kidd, and how to harpoon a whale or dodge an iceberg or lasso a seal. Cap'n Bill had been everywhere in the world, almost, on his many voyages. He had been wrecked on desert islands like Robinson Crusoe and been attacked by cannibals, and had a host of other exciting adventures. So he was a delightful ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... "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 ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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
... through its breast had little or no effect, and even when the shot had been repeated more than once, it was as full of life as ever.[1] It feigned death and lay motionless, with its eye closed; but, on being pricked with a spear, it suddenly regained all its activity. It was at last finished by a harpoon, and then opened. Its maw contained several small tortoises, and a quantity of broken bricks and gravel, taken medicinally, to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... 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 ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... what reason was made the lock of hair of the 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 lock ...
— Egyptian Literature
... he goes!" Like a Titan in throes, With his wallopping tail, and his wave-churning nose, The spouting Cetacean Colossus! Eh? Harpoon that Monster! The thought makes one pale, With one thundering thwack of that thumping big tail, To the skies in small splinters he'd ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... might have hands stronger than the paws of the bear, and feet swifter than the feet of the reindeer; that his dart might never err, and that his boat might never leak; that he might never stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... assembled a mass 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 ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... their farm-house weeks; 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 ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... 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 ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... Sometimes they harpooned the alligators, and then, fastening lassos to their heads and tails, or to a hind leg, dragged them ashore; at other times they threw the lasso over their heads at once, without taking the trouble to harpoon them. It was a terrible and a wonderful sight to witness the Negroes in the very midst of a shoal of these creatures, any one of which could have taken a man into his jaws quite easily,—whence, once between these long saw-like rows of teeth, no man could have escaped ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... 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 at home; and at last ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... was objected by this gentleman, that while the activity of the Governor was not to be disputed, exertions wisely directed were alone worthy of praise; and he compared the project for netting the aborigines, with an attempt to harpoon a whale from the heights of Mount Wellington. The ardour of the people would not, however, admit a comparison which it required at that moment some political resentment to perceive. Nor is it precisely just to estimate the merits of a plan, by the success ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... clacking his hard fist on the table rim. "Law will tie more knots in a man's business than a whale can tie in a harpoon-line. There ain't no justice in it—only pickin's and stealin's. Why, I had a mate once that was downed on T wharf in Bos'n and robbed, and they caught the men, and the mate couldn't give witness bonds and they locked him up with 'em, and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... or sculling round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim down their throats. There were no threshers there to thresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance them. They were quite safe and happy there; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make them out of old beasts ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... new 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 became applied to the head of a ship. There is, however, ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... here comes one into whose hide I know you'd enjoy putting a harpoon—a pillar of the church. Look at the cut of those solemn Presbyterian whiskers. It makes me faint to remember how many times I've tried and failed to get my hooks into him. I know you could land ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... shot. And it's all arisen out of Dinky-Dunk's bland intimation that I am "a withered beauty." Those words have held like a fish-hook in the gills of my memory. If they'd come from somebody else they mightn't have meant so much. But from one's own husband—Wow!—they go in like a harpoon. And they have given me a great deal to think about. There are times, I find, when I can accept that intimation of slipping into the sere and yellow leaf without revolt. Then the next moment it fills me with a sort of desperation. I refuse to go up on the shelf. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Instantly he plunged his 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 ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... us. A sailor struck one with a harpoon, but it got off again. They are of a salmon colour, no more like pigs than horses, just the shape of salmon, only much larger. In swimming they turn ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... writer—Tupper, I think—remarks, places Man immeasurably 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 mariner in the first argosy were educated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Eddie Duke near the African Desert, and I immediately went scoutin' around for Joe, because Eddie liked him the same way the brewers is infatuated with the Anti-Saloon League and I knowed if Eddie got a chance to harpoon Joe with Gladys, ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... his glasses, must look funny enough in a dressing-gown!" thought Celestine, "but the harpoon is in his back and he'll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that invitation. He has played ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... remarking, as a proof how tenacious the walrus sometimes is of life, that the animal killed to-day struggled violently for ten minutes after it was struck, and towed the boat twenty or thirty yards, after which the iron of the harpoon broke; and yet it was found, on examination, that the iron barb had penetrated both auricles of the heart. A quantity of the blubber was put into casks, as a winter's ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... telling them to defend themselves if any robbers came. Having a mind to try the 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 ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... 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 ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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 ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore |
