"Punt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of these boats approaches that of a salmon-fisher's punt used on certain British rivers. Being floored gives them the appearance of being absolutely flat-bottomed; but, though they tilt readily, they are very safe, being heavily built and fitted together with singular precision with ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... A pedestrian match in the Metropolis. In fact, Walker, London. A portrait of Sarah, after she has been let down into the punt, the shock having dislocated her shoulder. She might have kept Col. Neal's clothes round her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... get out the boats. The Espriella possessed three—a gig, shaped somewhat like a whaleboat; a useful, twelve-foot dinghy; and a small cockboat, or "punt" (to use our West Country name), capable, at a pinch, of accommodating two persons. This last we carried on deck; but the larger pair at the foot of the rigging on either side, whence we unlashed and lowered them by their falls. The punt ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of the lily beds done, John Walden sprang back again from the pier to the land, and there hesitated a moment. His eyes rested longingly on a light punt, which, running half out of a rustic boathouse, swayed suggestively on the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... niggers. Just as the proceedings for the day were about to begin, a pigmy paddler was observed bearing down on the flag-ship—her puffing funnel and foaming bows betraying no mean steam power. On closing she was made out to be one of the punt fleet come to pay a visit to the admiral. As she lay to she ran the St. George's Cross up to the main, and saluted it with seventeen guns (wooden ones), out of compliment to Admiral Coote, who shortly receives his promotion. She next asked permission (by signal) to part ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... to search for the drift. Shortly after they returned and said they had found it, and we must come, which we did, eventually arriving at the junction of two rivers (Vaal and Klip), where we found the Vaal impassable, but a small punt, capable of holding only two passengers at most, by which they said we must cross. I pointed out that it was impossible to get my carriage or horses over by it, and that it was not the punt the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... right in supposing that Eban Cowan was coming to their landing-place. The lad in the punt pulled up ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... all kinds of boats, small and great, from the four-oared punt up to the ten-oared galley, some of wood and bark, others of the boat-shaped, blue mussel shells. Our greatest pride, the large yacht—a great, mended trough, with one mast and a deck, that was constantly being fitted out for the Bergen market—was still not the best; and I can remember how ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... breakfasted this morning, we prepared to cross, to assist us in which undertaking we contrived to construct a sort of punt by taking the wheels and axletrees off one of the carts. We then placed the body of the cart on a large tarpaulin, the shafts passing through holes cut for them, the tarpaulin tightly nailed round them. The tarpaulin was then ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... Ladybrook, which turns the old water-wheel of Mary's Mill. It is a very picturesque old mill, and Mother has made beautiful sketches of it. She caught the last cold she got before going abroad with sketching it—the day we had a most delightful picnic there, and went about in the punt. And from that afternoon Arthur made up his mind that his next mill should be a ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... often on the water with her brother, she knew well how to handle an oar. Often, indeed, without him she had paddled a passenger across the ferry in her little canoe. He accepted her proposal, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the light punt put off from the shore opposite to that from which we were idly and uselessly looking on, and go gallantly over the surging torrent toward the sinking men. We feared, however, that it would not be in time to save them, as their cries for help grew fainter and fainter, till each ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... Kenna, or leans pensive over the rail of the vacant Ring; and early tradesman, or clerk from the suburban lodging, trudging brisk to his business,—for business never ceases in London. Then at noon, what delight to escape to the banks at Putney or Richmond,—the row up the river; the fishing punt; the ease at your inn till dark! or if this tempt not, still Autumn shines clear and calm over the roofs, where the smoke has a holiday; and how clean gleam the vistas through the tranquillized thoroughfares; ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... usefully as chaperone—a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban and Anna were lying in a punt at the water's edge, listening to the music of a distant guitar and watching the twinkling lights far away below the bridge where ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Reaching the Murrumbidgee, they found that river flooded, and after waiting three days for the water to fall, they crossed it borne on the body of one of their carts, with the wheels detached, and with the aid of the tarpaulin, rigged like a punt. South of the Murrumbidgee the country was broken and difficult to traverse, but it was well grassed and admirably adapted for grazing purposes. As it became too rough for the passage of their carts, these were abandoned, and the baggage and rations were ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... still," Cairn resumed. "A water rat rose within a foot of me and a kingfisher was busy on a twig almost at my elbow. Twilight was just creeping along, and I could hear nothing but faint creakings of sculls from the river and sometimes the drip of a punt-pole. I thought the river seemed to become suddenly deserted; it grew quite abnormally quiet—and abnormally dark. But I was so deep in reflection that it never occurred to ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... no one knows how. A high punt from behind sends the ball far up into the 'Varsity territory, and far before all others Bunch, who seems to have a kind of uncanny instinct for what is going to happen, catches the ball on the bound and makes for the 'Varsity line with a comparatively ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... pike, moving and motionless in the shallow water, a shadow more tangible than himself thrown by a jack-light on the mottled yellow rocks and sands of the bottom. A passing breath of wind, even the slightest motion of the punt, breaks every shadow and indentation into myriad fleeting ripples and waves of light, transforming the slender, silent fish into a sheaf of wriggling glimmers. With the stilling of the surface, the waiting pike and all ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... channel. The Molimo is the steersman at the helm, the Mokadamo is the head canoe- man, and he stands erect on the bows with a long pole in his hands, and directs the steersman where to go, aiding the rudder, if necessary, with his pole. The others preferred to stand and punt our boat, rather than row with our long oars, being able to shove her ahead faster than they could pull her. They are accustomed to short paddles. Our Mokadamo was affected with moon-blindness, and could not see at all at night. His comrades then led him ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... Spanish ship lay furled in port. From this glided out a punt poled like mad by a Spaniard racing to reach the platform first. Drake got athwart the fellow's path, knocked him over, gagged his yells, and was up the platform before the sleepy gunner on guard was well awake. The sentry only paused to make sure ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... plays you forget all about self-determination, syndicalism, guild-control, proletariats, sunspots and even Mr. SMILLIE. If you are a poet, and we are all poets nowadays, you dream yourself into a punt on the Sonning backwater, wondering if the summer was ever so amazing before, nearly being shipwrecked on a sandy spit, startling moorfowl or it may be dabchicks, sending a frisson into the fritillaries, losing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... of low rascality it unfailingly wore. For many days before our departure from Twist Tickle by the outside boat, my uncle would quit the Green Bull grounds, where he fished with hook and line, would moor his punt fore and aft, and take to the bleak hills of Twin Islands, there (it seemed) to nurse some questionable design: whence at dusk he would emerge, exhausted in leg and spirit, but yet with strength to mutter obscure ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... ourselves famously at Courbevoie," he said, as we rattled over the stones. "We'll dine at the Toison d'Or—an excellent little restaurant overlooking the river; and if you're fond of angling, we can hire a punt and catch our own fish for dinner. Then there will be plenty of fiddling and dancing at the guingettes and gardens in the evening. By the way, though, I've no money! That is to say, none worth speaking of—voila!... one franc, one piece of ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... pretty girls; but I was not after a pretty girl; I was after her. The river was a lot in my favour, I believe. It so happened that Belvoir's young brother, a Charterhouse boy, whom I knew slightly, nearly ran our punt down one Saturday with his launch. It made a big impression on Gladys, my knowing young Belvoir. You see she had been at school with Belvoir's cousin, so it all worked in. In a way I suppose I was happy ... yes, it's a wonderful thing, a tremendous thing to ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... couldn't see it. But then poor old Tuppy has never been very hot on the finer shades. He's one of those large, tough, football-playing blokes who lack the more delicate sensibilities, as I've heard Jeeves call them. Excellent at blocking a punt or walking across an opponent's face in cleated boots, but not so good when it comes to understanding the highly-strung female temperament. It simply wouldn't occur to him that a girl might be prepared to give up her life's happiness ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... girls!" cried Ralph with a sudden return to a natural, boyish manner. "There's a whole hour yet before tea, and we can't sit here doing nothing. Let's go down to the river and punt. Do you punt, Miss Garnett? I'll teach you! You look the sort of girl to be good at sport. You'll pick ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... said to her mother. "I see of course that there are a few little whitecaps on the water, but I wouldn't be afraid to row across the lake in our old punt." ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... the sky as ships sailing over a celestial sea. The earth itself was sometimes emblematized in the same way. Then, too, there was the sepulchral barge in which the Egyptian corpses were borne over the Acherusian lake to be entombed. Also the "dark blue punt" in which Charon ferried souls across the river of death. In these surely there was no reference to Noah's ark. It seems altogether likely that what Bryant and his coadjutors have constructed into the Arkite system of interpretation was ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the thought of the famous Torrifino; and so, blindfolded, he was conveyed, partly by land and partly by water (what water, in those Apennine valleys where there are no streams save torrents in which even a punt would be impossible, it is difficult to understand), to a house standing in a garden. That it did stand in a garden appears to have been a piece of information volunteered by the mysterious Chevalier Graham, for Dr. Beaton expressly states that it was not till the two ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... for our practice, for old Hill himself was rather against it, and as he has a prejudice against St. Amory fellows generally, but especially when they're of the Junior School—some of your tribe scuttled his punt for him on the moat, didn't you?—I thought you would not mind humouring the man's amiabilities. The Coon and he talk rot—sporting rot—and it would only bore you ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... the yards in the harbour, he used generally to wait in some such conspicuous position till his friends came streaming down to the quay from school, and throwing their books down, sailed out in some punt or other to join him. Most of the boys had been expressly warned by their mothers against the reckless Kristiansen's son, but cross-trees and mast-heads became thereby only ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... thy Majesty, goeth forth with might; thy beams are upon [all] faces; thy rays of red and yellow cannot be known, and thy bright beams cannot be told. The lands of the gods and the eastern lands of Punt [Footnote: i.e., the east and west coasts of the Red Sea, and the north-east coast of Africa.] must be seen ere that which, is hidden [in thee] may be measured. [Footnote: I am doubtful about the meaning of this passage.] Alone and by thyself thou, dost manifest thyself [when] thou ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... I began to overhaul our memories in search of the most simple form of floating craft that we had ever seen, and it was not long before we decided that the Thames punt "filled the bill". That craft, so familiar to frequenters of the reaches of the Thames, and examples of which may be seen in Boulter's Lock any Sunday in summer, is, as everybody knows, a thing of ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... time at least) checked Mr. Verdant Green's aspirations to distinguish himself on the river; and he therefore renounced the sweets of the Isis, and contented himself by practising with a punt on the Cherwell. There, after repeatedly overbalancing himself in the most suicidal manner, he at length peacefully settled down into the lounging blissfulness of a "Cherwell water-lily;" and on the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Mediterranean. The merchants of the Said and the Delta had never entirely lost touch with the people dwelling on the shores of the Red Sea, and though the royal fleets no longer pursued their course down it on their way to Punt as in the days of Hatshopsitu and Ramses III., private individuals ventured from time to time to open trade communications with the ancient "Ladders of Incense." Necho despatched the Phoenician captains of his fleet in search of new lands, and they started from the neighbourhood ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Punt," one of our artist's best-known prints, was engraved by Rowlandson, and has acquired a good deal of his characteristic drawing in the process; and I may mention briefly here some prints dealing with Cambridge life—"The Hope of the Family," "Admission ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... always died hard. "There's still the Government yacht," he said, going to a huge iron punt that lay far above high-water mark. Mac called it a forlorn hope, and it looked it, as it lay deeply sunk in the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... L'espee cruist ne fruisset ne ne briset Cuntre le ciel amunt est resortie. Quant veit li quens que ne la fraindrat mie Mult dulcement la plainst a sei meisme. "E! Durendal cum ies bele e saintisme! En l'oret punt asez i ad reliques. La dent saint Pierre e del sanc seint Basilie E des chevels mun seignur seint Denisie Del vestment i ad seinte Marie. Il nen est dreiz que paien te baillisent. De chrestiens devez estre servie. Ne vus ait ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... days' trek from Eshowe in Zululand, but over the border in Portuguese territory. Indeed, I am not sure that one can trek all the way, at least when the rivers are in flood. Then it is necessary to cross one of them in a basket slung upon a rope, or if the river is not too full, in a punt. At this season the ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... until Miss Drewitt's fears for his leg became almost contagious. At the old stone bridge, spanning the river at the bottom of the High Street, he paused, and, resting his arms on the parapet, became intent on a derelict punt. On the subject of sitting in a craft of that description in mid-stream catching fish he discoursed at such length that the girl eyed ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... shrubbery on one side, and the trees and shrubs were exceedingly rare; a little below the house the ground sloped rather steeply, and a succession of terraces and flower-beds led down to a miniature lake with a tiny island; here there were some swans and a punt, and the tall trees that bordered the water were the favourite haunt of blackbirds ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a story here about Kinsey, the late and unlamented. Last spring a steamer heading north on Government business sighted a fishing punt being rowed rapidly towards it, the occupant waving a flag. The captain ordered, "Stop her," thinking that some acute emergency had arisen on the land during the long winter. A burly old chap cased in dirt clambered deliberately ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... philosophise, said that the word "boat" had aroused no definite image, because he had purposely held his mind in suspense. He had exerted himself not to lapse into any one of the special ideas that he felt the word boat was ready to call up, such as a skiff, wherry, barge, launch, punt, or dingy. Much more did he refuse to think of any one of these with any particular freight or from any particular point of view. A habit of suppressing mental imagery must therefore characterise men who deal much with abstract ideas; and as the power ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... end. If we could follow them perfectly, nothing would be hidden from us. But is not our knowledge of them still incomplete? Are there not many stars still beyond our horizon—lights that are known only to the dwellers in the far south-land, among the spice-trees of Punt and the gold mines ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... river to ourselves, except that, far in the distance, we could see a fishing-punt, moored in mid-stream, on which three fishermen sat; and we skimmed over the water, and passed the wooded banks, and no ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... The punt was moored at the lower end of Glover's Island on the Middlesex side, and rose and fell gently on the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the adjoining parts of the river. Leaving his friend in the enjoyment of his book, he ascended to the room, and watched like a detective. Soon he saw a waggon roll up to the bridge, and, almost simultaneously, a large punt in which was Ben Toner, come from nowhere. Three bundles of apparent grindstones were laboriously conveyed from the waggon to the punt, after which the waggon went back and the punt went forward, both becoming ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... river before sunset, offered to show the gentlemen the best pools. "The gentlemen" leaped at the offer more eagerly than ever trout leaped at an artificial fly; for they were profoundly ignorant of the gentle art, except as it is practised on the Thames, seated on a chair in a punt, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... Niece Ruth—I dunno about that," said the old man, sharply. "Seems ter me I could ha' gone an' been back by now. An' hi guy! there's four sacks o' flour to take acrost the river to Tim Lakeby—an' I kyan't do it by meself—Ben knows that. Takes two' on us ter handle thet punt 'ith the river runnin' like ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... as the public like the piece? He didn't consider Walker, London, a model of dramatic construction, but he looked upon the House Boat built on the stage as quite a model of construction; the end of the piece was a bit hazy, and he didn't yet know why everybody allowed him to go off with the punt, which they wouldn't get back, unless his friend, Mr. SHELTON, who was splendidly made up as a riverside boatman, brought it back, and, begging the Committee's pardon if they'd excuse his glove, he couldn't tell; not that it was a secret, because the clever author, a very nice retiring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... was undermanned. Imagine her length—42 ft.—with only two men to paddle. A third man was stationed on her bow to punt when possible and be on the look-out for rocks; while Alcides, whom I had promoted to the rank of quartermaster, was in charge of the steering. I had taken the precaution to make a number of extra paddles. We carried a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... wuds wantin mestirs. De tombako grous shust lyk de dockins en de bak o de lairts yart an de skeps dey kum fra ilka place an bys dem an gies a hantel o silder an gier for dem. Mi nane mestir kam til de quintry a sarfant an weil I wot hi's nou wort mony a susan punt. Fait ye mey pelive mi de pirest plantir hire lifes amost as weil as de lairt o Collottin. Mai pi fan mi tim is ut I wel kom hem an sie yu pat not for de fust nor de neest yeir til I gater somtig o mi nane, for I fan I ha dun wi mi mestir, hi maun gi mi a plantashon ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... quite capable of handling the punt, even in the rapids, so he merely growled his acquiescence. At that ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... one day out in a punt, when he encountered the old gentleman in a canoe. The old man said, purple with passion, that he was on his way to pay Mr. Scrymgeour a business visit. "Oh, yes," he continued, "I know who you are; if I had not discovered ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... latter mutter as the first sea crossed under us. "Dat was a peach." I took heart myself, for we lived that one through. "Bail!" I ordered, and they took their cups to it, while I did all I could with the long punt paddle to make some sort of course. Now and then the blazing trail of the Belle Helene's search-light swung across as we rolled, to leave us, the next instant, in blackness. As the seas permitted, we could see her, riding and rocking, sometimes, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... with a smile, "Go, then! Some one must go. Get the boat tackle ready, forward. Here, Willie, put your life-belt on. You, too, Duncan, though God knows life-belts won't be of no manner of use; but they'll save your insurance. Steady with the punt there! If it slips inboard off the rail there will be a broken back! And, Willie, don't get under the cutter's counter. She'll come atop of you and smash you like an egg. I'll drop you as close as I can to windward, and pick you up as close as ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... pull about in a little punt on the ocean as we did on the river at home," Eddie said, rather scornfully. "He has no idea what the ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... eponymus of "Africa." This word which, under the Romans, denoted a small province on the Northern Sea-board, is, I would suggest, A'far-Kahi (Afar-land), the Afar being now the Dankali race, the country of Osiris whom my learned friend, the late Mariette Pasha, derived from the Egyptian "Punt" identified by him with the Somali country. This would make "Africa," as it ought to be, an Egyptian ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the sacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and will much increase the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and water fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi's almanac (and I hear that Mr ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... struck a submerged sandbank and beached on it. Chips' little body bent on the pole, but except to swivel the punt on its axis it had ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... day except the capture of the ferry, which daring enterprise was carried out by volunteers from the South African Light Horse. Six swimmers, protected by a covering party of twenty men, swam the flooded Tugela and began to haul the punt back, whereat the Boers concealed in the kopjes opened a brisk fire at long range on the naked figures, but did not hit anyone nor prevent them all from bringing the punt safely to our side: a dashing exploit, of which their regiment—the 'Cockyolibirds,' as the army, with its customary irreverence, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... I can punt best." He stepped back, balancing the ball in his right hand, took a long stride forward, swung his right leg in a wide arc, dropped the ball, and sent it sailing down the field toward the distant goal. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... next high punt found him rock-like in steadiness. And rock-like he tossed high over his shoulders the tow-headed Welshman rushing joyously at him, and delivered his ball far down the line safe into touch. But after his kick he was observed to limp back into his place. The fierce pace ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... ball after it has been placed on the ground; the Punt, made by kicking the ball as it falls from the hands and before it reaches the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... overpowered she had succumbed philosophically. It was the fortune of war, and if she had thought of it she might just as well have been kneeling on Joan's chest, as Joan was kneeling, somewhat oppressively, on hers. Given her choice of walking the plank from the punt on the lake or being marooned on the rhododendron island, she had accepted the latter alternative, stipulating for an adequate supply of food; and a truce having been called, while pirate and victim made their toilets ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... laugh your simplicity would raise in public, if you were to require of anyone that he should not perjure himself, but believe that there was some deity in the temple, or at the ensanguined altar! That the souls of the departed are anything, and the realms below, and the punt-pole and frogs of the Stygian pool, and that so many thousands pass over in one boat, not even the boys believe, except those who are too young to pay for ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... deadly floating batteries and sail-boats were prohibited. To-day a punt gun is justly regarded as a relic of barbarism, and any man who uses one places himself beyond the pale of decent sportsmanship, or even of modern pot-hunting. Strange to say, although the unwritten code of ethics of English sportsmen is very strict, the English to this day permit wild-fowl ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... good way of teaching a person to swim, is a modification of that adopted at Eton. The teacher may sit in a punt or on a rock, with a stout stick of 6 or 10 feet in length, at the end of which is a cord of 4 feet or so, with loops. The learner puts himself into the loops; and the teacher plays him, as a fisherman would play a fish, in water ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... gone away in the yacht. As the jib and foresail were taken off her, she shot up to the buoy. Murray hastened down to the landing-place, in time to meet Adair and the stranger, whom Archie pulled on shore in the punt. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... expressed their obedience. Once more they unlocked the doors, and carried down everything required. She then bade a lad notify the boatwomen go to the dock and punt out two boats. But while all this bustle was going on, they discovered that dowager lady Chia had already arrived at the head of a whole company of people. Li Wan promptly went up ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... guide: Love has some soft excuse to soothe your pride: Ye fair apostates from love's ancient power! Can nothing ravish, but a golden shower? Can cards alone your glowing fancy seize; Must Cupid learn to punt, ere he can please? When you're enamour'd of a lift or cast, What can the preacher more, to make us chaste? Why must strong youths unmarried pine away? They find no woman disengag'd——from play. Why pine the married—O severer fate! They find ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... carried the punt, the boat of Khafra and Sigur, and launched it on the clean waters. Then they prepared themselves and Deborah and Anubis for a journey, and ere they departed, Masanath, at Rachel's bidding, wrote with a soft soapstone upon ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... beside a broad sheet of water dotted with lilies and patches of rush and reed, while about fifty yards farther along the bank of the broad pool there was a roughly-thatched boat-house, with a mossy old punt moored to one of the posts by ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... It was like hock-cup out of a stone jar, while the others are on the bank looking for a place to tie the punt up. I noticed it too. I was ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... day long in the quiet bay The eddying amber depths retard, And hold, as in a ring, at play, The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred; And yonder between cape and shoal, Where the long currents swing and shift, An aged punt-man with his pole Is searching in the ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... alternative? True, she had said that she was coming here because it was so ideally lazy a backwater, but Georgie did not take that seriously. She would soon see what Riseholme was when its life poured down in spate, whirling her punt along with it. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... imagination, and we wonder in what other ancient countries there were women artists. We know that in Egypt inheritances descended in the female line, as in the case of the Princess Karamat; and since we know of the great architectural works of Queen Hashop and her journey to the land of Punt, we may reasonably assume that the women of ancient Egypt had their share in all the interests of life. Were there not artists among them who decorated temples and tombs with their imperishable colors? ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the springs, many ran the ducts. Fredi's pretty little bathshed or bower had a space of marble on the three-feet shallow it overhung with a shade of carved woodwork; it had a diving-board for an eight-feet plunge; a punt and small row-boat of elegant build hard by. Green ran the banks about, and a beechwood fringed with birches curtained the Northward length: morning sun and evening had a fair face of water to paint. Saw man ever the like for pleasing a poetical damsel? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... native police were scouring the country after him. He gave an order which I did not understand, and a wretched Bombay writer, I suppose a clerk of some money-lender, was dragged forward. Sivajee Punt spoke to him for some time, and the fellow then told me in English that I was to write at once to the officer commanding the troops, telling him that I was in his hands, and should be put to ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... punt, which had been sent to bring me across the river, drew up alongside the Theodora, the Countess came down from the ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... may be, one day, as we came in unexpectedly from a voyage in the punt, something was discovered burning among the logs on the kitchen hearth; and, though a desperate rescue was attempted, nothing was left but the barrel of our precious gun and some crooked iron representing the remains of the lock. There are things that are never entirely forgotten, though the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... have anything to do with that feller, 'cause he's a reg'lar duffer. He's too lazy to work, an' he hangs 'round the city like a loafer. That boat hain't his at all. I know who owns her. Bart West hain't got money enough to buy one end of a punt. He was goin'. to steal the yacht, that's what he was goin' to do, if he was goin' to do anything, an' if you had gone off with him, you'd got into a pile ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... Nils Nilsen towed the boat up the river, while Hardy fished with a minnow and caught a few trout. When they reached the shallows, which Hardy usually fished with a fly, he sent the boys on land to cast from the bank, and Nils Nilsen took the pole to punt the boat slowly down the stream. The trout rose freely for about an hour, and Helga had charge of the landing-net, and lost for Hardy several good fish, to Nils Nilsen's great disgust. She saw the long casts Hardy made, the light fall of the fly ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... the promise Plunger had made—that he should punt the raft back. His only desire was that they should put the river between them and their pursuers as quickly as possible. In less than a moment he had undone the rope which bound the raft to the bank, and ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... The punt sidled away obliquely for mid-stream. I stood at one end of it. The figure of Charon could be seen at the other, of long acquaintance with this passage, using his sweep with the indifference of habitude. Perhaps ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... Mrs. Daintree and Simcox. They were unnecessary. Mrs. Daintree would have got his story out of him if she thought he was really in need of sympathy, whether he sat in a chair all day or was able to row races in the lake in the gardener's punt. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... want peace; at least, not that kind of peace just at that moment. Sitting in a punt was not what she wanted. She was thrilled by the love of her less fortunate fellow-creatures, and the sense of power to help them, and the longing to go and do it. What she really wanted of Peter was that he should take her ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... comes in sight. Near its brink an old boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Manor by the Thames; I've seen it oft through beechen stems In leafy Summer weather; We've moored the punt its lawns beside Where peacocks strut in flaunting pride, The Muse ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... it. At ten o'clock therefore, you will quietly cross to the other side of the river, with two or three of your men, and under pretence of wanting them for some service or other—I leave you to imagine a plausible pretext—you will cause every species of embarkation, canoe, skiff, flat-boat or punt, to be taken over to this side. Not a floating plank must be left at Levis. If Arnold wants to get over, he will have to hew his boats out of the trees of the forest. Donald will be there to assist you, and may possibly be in possession of ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... ship, for Stephen Somers kept a count of them. Our personal baggage went into the Maria's boat, and the goods together with the four donkeys which were lowered on to the top of them, were rumbled pell-mell into the barge-like punt belonging to Hassan. Here also I was accommodated, with about half of our people, the rest taking their seats in the smaller boat ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... led me into the booth of one that sold wine; and when Nicarete had set garlands of roses on our heads, Phanes began and told me what I now tell thee but whether speaking truly or falsely I know not. He said that being on a voyage to Punt (for so the Egyptians call that part of Arabia), he was driven by a north wind for many days, and at last landed in the mouth of a certain river where were many sea-fowl and water-birds. And thereby is a rock, no common one, but fashioned into the likeness of the head of an Ethiopian. ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... certain it is, if Sarpint be fond of fish, he is no bad judge in selecting this as a residence; for about this same island there are abundance and variety, both to be met with at all hours, as I can testify, having sat in a punt, bearing a wary eye for hours at a stretch, and catching all sorts of things except a sight ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... are used on the railroads for carrying coals at Newcastle, &c. be constructed with iron handles. These may be made to hold one and a half, or two tons of coals (either of these weights, it is supposed, might be hoisted into a vessel without difficulty), and be all filled and placed on a raft or punt ready at each depot, thirty to sixty in number, according to its importance, awaiting the arrival of the packet steamer. The moment she comes into port, the punt will be alongside, and the whole will be hoisted in in a few hours, the place for receiving them ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... led her to the boat, and with some difficulty, for the satin train got between her feet, she managed to flounder into the punt. ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... the eldest boy, named John, aged ten, a native American, and a sailor already, whom I had twice fished up from a capsized punt. "Mother ain't a Bavarian," quoth the young salt. "Father's a Bavarian; mother's a Portegee. ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... in a punt in the lode alongside looked up at the girl's shrieks, and leapt on shore, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... to work him into one of his famous passions. But they dared not so much as nudge him; he is too earnest, too vigorous. He lashed them off with his tongue. And when a dinghy capsized through trying to sail off the wind in a squall, it was the old man who was quickest at the water's edge with a punt, and first on the spot, although a four-oared boat ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... stoutly, "we have things just as we want them wherever we go. If we wanted to bring the punt up here and put it on the dining-table filled with flowers, Jimmie would let us," to ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... of rickety, wooden stairs pitched downward from the edge of the grassy bank to a wharf at the water's edge—the mere skeleton of a wharf now, outlined only by decaying stringpieces. But here the patched-up punt was moored; and above it, nailed to a dead tree, the sign with its ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... Kurna, and over there the Ramesseum; that those rows of little pillars close under the mountain, and looking strangely modern, are the pillars of Hatshepsu's temple, which bears upon its walls the pictures of the expedition to the historic land of Punt; that the kings were buried there, and there the queens and the princes of the vanished dynasties; that beyond to the west is the temple of Deir-el-Medinet with its judgment of the dead; that here by the native village is Medinet-Abu. One knows that, and so the imagination is awake, ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... that the river was the boundary of the Hanyards on the side towards the village. About a hundred yards above the pocket of deep water where the jack had lain, I had built a little covered dock, and here I kept a craft, half boat and half punt, which I used for my fishing, and in which mother and Kate could lie on cushions while I rowed them on the river on warm summer nights. It was heavy and ungainly, but very comfortable, and as safe ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... just stringin' 'm along nice when you comes buttin' in an' rings down the curtain on me, see. I's workin' fer Brady then. An' when I says the Honorable Milt has white wings folded acrost his back I says it sincere, believe me. Him 'n' me went fishin' together in the same punt last week!" ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Punt, the region on both sides of the Red Seamouth, including El-Yemen and Cape Guardafui, was made holy by the birth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Dr. Brugsch-Bey shows that one of the titles of the he-god was Bass, the cat or the leopard (whence our "Puss"); whilst his wife, Bast (the bissat or ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... hwen he punt hire [&] [gh]elden ah e hearmes. ladlich ing is hit wat crist hwen me make i tune man of ancre ahte. Nu enne [gh]ef eani mot nedlunge habben hit loki [/] hit namon ne eili ne ne hearmi ne [/] hire oht ne beo nawiht ron ifestnet. ...
— Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250 - Part I: Texts • Various
... Ginral Punt moved that this meetin do to wunst proceed to the settlement, and clean em out. They wuz a reproach to Kentucky. Of course, ez they were heathens and savages, sich goods ez they hed wood fall to the righteous, uv whom we wuz which, and he insisted upon a fair divide. All he wanted wuz a bureau ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... not a bad fellow. I think we'll ask him round here one evening. Lady Cecily's very fond of him ... she used to come up to Cambridge to see him ... before the affair with the proctor, of course ... and Gilbert and I took her and another female out in a punt once!" ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... going down the field to get the quarterback who is receiving the punt Bob and Hugh leaped forward at the same time. They had both had experience in football and it stood them in good stead now. The man went down, both boys literally ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... back to punt. Far and true the ball soared into the Princeton field, and the lithe Freshman had somewhat redeemed himself. But now, for their own part, the sons of Old Nassau found themselves unable to make decisive gains against ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... have tea with Mrs. Vesey. I wrote this morning to say that we should come. And then, on our way back, I shall pull round to old Mrs. Dempster's; I want to have a talk with her about Ned. You won't mind sitting in the boat if I tie her to the old punt, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... silver clouds—the belles of the air—were following its course, as if to watch themselves in the watery winding mirror. And near the reedy island, at the shadowy point always haunted by three swans, whom I suspect of having been there ever since the days of Odin-faith, was the usual punt, with its elderly gentlemanly gudgeon-fishers. But far below me, along the dark line of the hedge, was a sight which completed the English character of the scene—a real Gipsy camp. Caravans, tents, waggons, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... back and forth until, by a punt, it reached Colby Hall's 20-yard line. It landed close to Jack, and like a flash he gathered it to his breast and ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... place where the river was broad and comparatively still, some seventy or eighty yards above a furious rapid. At this spot I had built my raft. I now launched it, made my swag fast to the middle, and got on to it myself, keeping in my hand one of the longest blossom stalks, so that I might punt myself across as long as the water was shallow enough to let me do so. I got on pretty well for twenty or thirty yards from the shore, but even in this short space I nearly upset my raft by shifting too rapidly from one side to the other. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... imperiled side kicks it half the length of the field, and the scrimmages are renewed. But it is rarely kicked at all except at such junctures. Foot-ball! I say to myself that it is a gladiatorial combat with an occasional punt thrown in by way of identification. But every one around me is declaring that the play of both sides is magnificent, that the team work is perfection, and the head qualities displayed unique in the annals of the game. Sam tells me again and again that Fred is doing sheer wonders and ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... advantage of the larger size, was that it enabled me to carry in the cabin of my yawl, another boat, a little dingey {3} or punt, to go ashore by, to take exercise in, and to use for refuge in last resource if shipwrecked, for this dingey also I determined should be a lifeboat, and yet only eight feet long. The childhood of this little boat was somewhat unhappy, and as she ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor |
