"Raft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inner end of the cave he searched among the wreckage for wood, with which to make a raft, but it was so shattered that he found no pieces large enough to be thus used. He found, however, a barrel of pork and another of pease jammed into a crevice. These proved an immense relief to his feelings, for they secured him against absolute starvation, ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... he asked. "I shall be obliged to show him the door, yet, Josephine. You ought to snub him. He's worse than his pictures. Well, you've had a whole raft of ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... been to pack through to Teslin Lake, build a raft there and float down the Hotalinqua into the Yukon and so on to Dawson City, but at Glenora I found a letter from my mother waiting for me, a pitiful plea for me to "hurry back," and as we were belated a month or more, and as winter comes ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... we had finished our inspection, "we've got to get across somehow. I guess we'll have to sail in, the first thing to-morrow morning, and build a raft. These pine-trees down here by the water will cut easy and float well, and there's some comfort in that, anyway. But what I'm after right ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... the very gods. Those objects that depend upon women, careless persons, men that have fallen away from the duties of their caste, and those that are wicked in disposition, are doubtful of success. They sink helplessly, O king, like a raft made of stone, who have a woman, a deceitful person, or a child, for their guide. They that are competent in the general principles of work, though not in particular kinds of work are regarded by men as learned and wise for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is already known to the public, as one of the most awful and appalling that ever befel any class of human beings. The Shipwreck, and the dreadful scenes on the Raft, have been recorded in the Narrative of Messrs Savigny and Correard. But the adventures of the party who were cast ashore, and forced to find their way through the African Desert, could be reported only imperfectly by those gentlemen who were not eye-witnesses. This want is supplied in the first ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... home restrictions, and so many more, on which our parents used to rely, have failed us, broken in our hands by the vigorous destroying of the young generation, and, therefore we have clutched with frantic fingers at this new fair-looking life raft, in pursuit of the one aim to protect our children. Myself, I have done this. It is with uttermost sadness I have to acknowledge now that I do not believe we can help the young very far or deeply by all our teaching. Not ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... longer, my head is on fire!" So the mother exerted all her strength in a piercing scream, and to her joy, an answering cry came back through the rain. Hugh made an effort to steer the spars towards the floating deck, and those on board pushed their raft towards him as well as they could. Still it was slow work, and as the dawn grew brighter, the mother saw her preserver's haggard face, and the blood matted in his curly hair. He did not speak, as, holding the baby in one arm, with the other ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... foolin' around on a raft there, an' first thing you know Dick fell in, right into deep water, over by the dam. Couldn't swim a stroke, neither. And the Perfessor, who jest happened to be comin' along in that 'bus of his, heard the boys yell. Didn't he hop out o' the wagon as spry ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... bottom selected for a feeding-ground lies at a depth of fifteen or twenty feet below the surface, and is covered with a short growth of algae and other aquatic plants,—facts I had previously determined while sailing over it on a raft. After alighting on the glassy surface, they occasionally indulged in a little play, chasing one another round about in small circles; then all three would suddenly dive together, and ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... stream of the Biobio, he had to use a primitive raft, formed of four trunks of trees, about eighteen feet long, lashed together by hide-thongs to two poles, one at each end. A horse was fastened to it, by knotting his tail to the tow-rope, and on his back was a boy, holding on by the single lock ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... sayin' yet," Kirby commented. "Splashin' 'round some in a little-bitty wadin' pool, an' gittin' out in this, don't balance none. Ain't every hoss takes kindly to water, neither. I'd say we'd better see what's the chances of knockin' together a raft or somethin'. 'Less we can find us ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Emperor Napoleon, whose courtesy was manifest in all his actions, ordered a large raft to be floated in the middle of the river, upon which was constructed a room well covered in and elegantly decorated having two doors on opposite aides, each of which opened into an antechamber. The work could not have been better executed in Paris. The roof was ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... eye Houten's gold sands offered little of allure. On both shores the river seemed exactly as other rivers, except for a small cluster of ramshackle grass huts under a clump of dwarf trees and a rough raft of logs tied with grass ropes to a stake set in the bed of the river itself. Of life there was none visible; but as oars rattled in the boat to swing her inshore, a sleepy native emerged from one of the huts, and his swift cry brought a score of his fellows ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... supporting the weight of one man. On the other hand, large balsas constructed for use in crossing the rough waters of the deeper portions of the lake are capable of carrying a dozen people and their luggage. Once I saw a ploughman and his team of oxen being ferried across the lake on a bulrush raft. To give greater security two balsas are sometimes fastened together in the fashion of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... tooke Iohn Ortiz aliue, and carried him to Vcita their Lord. And those of the brigandine sought not to land, but put themselues to sea, and returned to the Island of Cuba. Vcita commaunded to bind Iohn Ortiz hand and foote vpon foure stakes aloft vpon a raft, and to make a fire vnder him, that there he might bee burned: But a daughter of his desired him that he would not put him to death, alleaging, that one only Christian could do him neither hurt nor good, telling him, that it was more for his honor to keepe him as a captiue. And Vcita ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... even in unhappiness, called aloud for solitude. He must struggle alone through his deep waters: waters of the soul, wherein float neither life-preserver nor raft, rope or even light; neither coral reef nor oozy grave, for such as he. Darkness and struggle alike lasted till the end of his strength; but, with exhaustion and the coming of dawn, came at last one mighty breaker, by which Ivan was thrown high ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... when commanding the "Juno" on the Jamaica station, in 1791, exhibited a noble instance of intrepid humanity. The ship was lying in St. Anne's harbour, when a raft, with three persons upon it, was discovered at a great distance. The weather was exceedingly stormy; and the waves broke with such violence, as to leave little hope that the unfortunate men upon it could long ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... AND POMERANIAN WHEAT are accounted by authorities most excellent. Large raft-like barges convey this grain down the rivers, from the interior of the country to the seaports. This corn is described as being white, hard, and thin-skinned; and it yields a large quantity of flour, having a small proportion ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... alone on foot, leaving the others to follow as best they might. A French Indian fired at them from ambush, but missed his mark, and to escape pursuit by his tribesmen, they walked steadily forward for a day and a night, until they reached the Allegheny. They tried to make the crossing on a raft, but were caught in the drifting ice and nearly drowned before they gained an island in the middle of the river. Here they remained all night, foodless and well-nigh frozen, and in the morning, finding the ice set, crossed in safety to the shore. Once across, they reached the house of ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... so near the banks of this river suggested other thoughts. At once a design entered into my mind. "We can build a raft," thought I, "launch it upon this noble river, and float down to the Amazon, and thence to the mouth of the great stream itself. There is a Portuguese settlement there—the town of Grand Para. There we shall be safe ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... column the happy scenes in the cabin before the calamity is feared. He depicts the stern face of the commander as he stands, pistols in hand, to keep the passengers from the boats. The full moon rises. The wind abates. A raft is constructed at a cost of one column and a half of out and out plagiarism. Corkey, Lockwin and forty wood-choppers are saved on the raft. The captain goes down on his ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... river—and in one way or another he was always writing of it we feel the claim of the old captivity and that it still holds him. In the Huckleberry Finn book, during those nights and days with Huck and Nigger Jim on the raft—whether in stormlit blackness, still noontide, or the lifting mists of morning—we can fairly "smell" the river, as Huck himself would say, and we know that it is because the writer loved it with his heart of hearts and literally drank in its environment ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... steam-engine to keep the water down while the work was in progress. At first he was successful, but one day, while the men were busy laying their bricks in cement one of them drove into the roof, and a deluge of water burst in on them, and although they tried to continue their work on a raft the water prevailed and at last drove them out. They escaped with difficulty up one of the air-shafts. The water having put an effectual stop to the work, the directors felt disposed to give it up, but Stephenson ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... adventures as they travelled down the coast from the north, had at length reached Walfish Bay. But they will give you an account of themselves. Do not ask, though, about their poor sister," he whispered. "She is gone! Died soon after they landed; and that wretched fellow Kydd, he was washed off the raft in passing through the surf. These three young men alone remained, with scarce a rag on their backs, and not a sixpence in the world. They were therefore very glad to accept the offer made to them by my friend, to assist him in shooting elephants, and rhinoceroses, and other ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... casks that we had found, and Ernest and I soon cut them in half. With these tubs we made a kind of raft, though it was no slight task. The tubs, in fact, were a fleet of eight small round boats, made so fast to some planks that no one of them could float from the rest. The next thing to be done was to launch the raft. This we at length did, and when the boys saw it slide down the side of the ship ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... that many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning the Impassable with paved highway, could the Editor construct; only, as was said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck character; the darkness, the nature of the element, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... begun upon the construction of a raft, and was not in a home-going mood. Thus encouraged by his young friend the man who mended the boats sat down on ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... bore along with it the Calhouns and the Boones. Abraham Lincoln was born in a hilly, barren portion of Kentucky in 1809. In 1816, when Lincoln was a boy of seven, his father, a poor carpenter, took his family across the Ohio on a raft, with a capital consisting of his kit of tools and several hundred gallons of whiskey. In Indiana he hewed a path into the forest to a new home in the southern part of the state, where for a year the family lived in ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... way—yes," he agreed. "But we are not in a desperate case. We have food, I have my rifle, and it will be possible to make a raft and float down the river until ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... orderlies glided back and forth among the excited people, prescribing their distance; the raft of small craft shifted its position and presently a salute was fired from all the cannon of the arsenal; the Doge, in his great State barge, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... that amused the boys was a balsa, or raft, made by the Mojaves, of the cane-grass which grew in the river-bottoms to the height of fifteen feet. A large bundle bound at the ends with grass ropes would sustain two men. The boys borrowed one of an Indian girl, ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... we do not plan to lower the divers from the steamer or from a raft. Instead they will step directly out on the sea floor from a door in the submarine which opens out of an air chamber. In this the diver can be closed and the air pressure increased until it is high enough ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... a far cry from the clash of armies to the romance of a honeymoon spent on a raft de luxe drifting lazily down a river of Burma. That is the theme of Love's Legend (CONSTABLE), by Mr. FIELDING HALL, author of The Soul of a People. But there may be a war of sex with sex scarcely less tragic than the wars of men with men (or brutes). ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... started forth the most curious-looking craft ever seen on water. It was the famous Monitor, designed by Captain John Ericsson, to whose inventive genius we owe the screw propeller and the hot-air engine. She consisted of a small iron hull, on top of which rested a boat-shaped raft covered with sheets of iron which made the deck. On top of the deck, which was about three feet above the water, was an iron cylinder, or turret, which revolved by machinery and carried two guns. She looked, it was said, like "a cheesebox mounted ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... circumstances, as it is called, are those who have learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, and have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy instant. Mr. Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity, and the country is to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole where the main current was, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... eight years ago crossing the Mahawelli river upon a raft which my coolies had hastily constructed, and reaching a miserable village near Monampitya, in the extreme north of the Veddah country. The river is here about four hundred paces wide, and, in the rainy season a fine volume of water rolls along in a rapid stream toward Trincomalee, at which ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... this crisis, gathered about them. The group was sufficiently large; there were about fifty men all told. A couple of hundred paces from them stood the wreck of the artillery bridge, which had broken down the day before; the major saw this, and "Let us make a raft!" he cried. ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... the dog, playing as it were the jackal to him. But this sounds rather absurd. It looks as if man had already acquired enough seamanship to ferry himself across the zoological divide, and to take his faithful dog with him on board his raft or dug-out. Until we have facts whereon to build, however, it would be as unpardonable to lay down the law on these matters as it is permissible to fill up the ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... and we wade perforce. In many places the bottom is a quicksand, into which we sink, and it is with great difficulty that we make progress. In some places the holes are so deep that we have to swim, and our little bundles of blankets and rations are fixed to a raft made of driftwood and pushed before us. Now and then there is a little flood-plain, on which we can walk, and we cross and recross the stream and wade along the channel where the water is so swift ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... render the country a service which will never be forgotten. In 1861, he appeared before the navy department with a plan for an iron-clad consisting of a revolving turret mounted upon an armored raft. He secured an order for one such vessel, to be paid for only in the event that it proved successful. The majority of the board which gave the order doubtless laughed in their sleeves as the inventor withdrew, for what chance of ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... one's loved ones, yea, even one's would-be enemies is equivalent to leaving one's companions on a sinking raft and, without sentiment or remorse, save one's ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... long wide couch. The floor was of polished oak, with a skin on either side of the bed. At the foot of the bed was a small writing-table, with a penny bottle of ink on it. A few coloured prints and engravings —representing, for example, Louis Philippe and his family, and people perishing on a raft—broke the tedium of the walls. The first impression on Sophia's eye was one of sombre splendour. Everything had the air of being richly ornamented, draped, looped, carved, twisted, brocaded into gorgeousness. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... ropes and chains fastened to the rocks. In the afternoon the rafts which had been launched reached the narrow part of the strait. The two smaller ones got through, but the largest stuck. Octavian then attacked. On the big raft were one thousand Opitergian colonists, under the captaincy of the tribune Vulteius. They fought till night, when, seeing that their case was hopeless, they determined to die rather than surrender. At dawn the struggle ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... against Vincennes and Kaskaskia. He was sent by that commander with despatches for Kentucky. He passed through the streets of Vincennes, then in possession of the British and Indians, without discovery. Arriving at White river, he and his party made a raft on which to cross with their guns and baggage, driving their horses into the river and compelling them to swim it. A party of Indians was concealed on the opposite bank, who took possession of the horses as they mounted the bank from crossing the river. Butler and his party ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... the bank of the river which ran into the great cave; where, considering the river with great attention, I said to myself, 'This river, which runs thus under ground, must come out somewhere or other. If I make a raft, and leave myself to the current, it will bring me to some inhabited country, or drown me. If I be drowned I lose nothing, but only change one kind of death for another; and if I get out of this fatal place, ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... tba varying from one-half to two sacksful is put into a dugout and brought to the spot selected. Everybody comes provided with a fish spear, fishing bow, bolo, boat or raft, and conical traps[60] made for the occasion. The tba is then pounded as it lies in the boat, a little water being added. This process occupies the greater part of an hour, and is a very animated one, everybody being in high hopes of a grand feast. Where there ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... one moon before this happened, a wise man had told the people that they must build a large raft. [116] They did as he commanded and cut many large trees, until they had enough to make three layers. These they bound tightly together, and when it was done they fastened the raft with a long rattan cord to a big pole in ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... raft reaches the place of destination, occasionally with some loss and damage to the timber. In this case the master-lumberer bears the loss, and is obliged to refund the expenses incurred as best he can. At any rate, the men are now paid off, and set ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... with him: he was too much herself to be treated cunningly. She felt that she floated on a sea vastly bigger than she had ever known, and its waves were love and fear and cruelty and fate, but in a moment he turned and she saw a raft on which she ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are far from being uncommon. Several men were drowned in the attempt to swim across, not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust himself upon a table as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool, where his mangled body eddied ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... poor Sainte-Beuve's funeral. How the little band diminishes! How the few survivors of the Medusa's raft ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... that stream," murmured Jack, with half a shudder, as he looked out upon the prodigious volume rushing southward like myriads of wild horses; "it seems to me no one can swim to the other shore, nor can a raft or ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... champion of the movement was, however, Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824), whose epoch-making picture, 338, The Raft of the Medusa, we now observe. This daring and passionate revolt from frigid classicism and preoccupation with a conventional antiquity was received but coldly by the professional critics on its appearance in 1819, though with enthusiasm ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... to raise it to its proper curvature. On this calculation the necessary apparatus required for the hoisting was prepared. The mode of action finally determined on for lifting the main chains, and fixing them into their places, was to build the central portion of each upon a raft 450 feet long and 6 feet wide, then to float it to the site of the bridge, and lift it into its place by ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... standing broke loose from the shore, and was driven by a strong south-west wind out to sea. Conrad having a sledge with him, fastened some seal-skins and bladders to it to keep him buoyant, and turning it upside down used it as a raft; in this he paddled a full English mile back to the firm ice, being commissioned by his companions to procure a boat, and send it to their assistance. The sea, by God's mercy, being calm, he reached the shore ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... moonlight..." I was going on to defend my suggestion by pleading that such an impulse would, so far as I could judge, be quite in character, but no further argument was needed. I had created a sensation. My feeble straw had suddenly taken the form of a practicable seaworthy raft, big enough to accommodate all the family—with the one exception of Frank, who, as it were, grasped the edge of this life-saving apparatus of mine, and tested it suspiciously. His preliminary and perfectly futile opening to the effect that the moon had already ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... together. But a roller ground the wreck farther on to the reef, and the sudden snap broke the rope, as I suppose, and the boat went to sea. I never knew the misfortune till I saw her adrift. I could have got over that by making a raft; but the gale from the north brought such a sea on us. I saw she must break up, so I got ashore how I could. Ah, I little thought to see your face again, still less that I should ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... together into Appalachicola Bay, where, some of us remembered, a newspaper item had said that we had gunboats stationed. The creek that ran through the stockade flowed to the east, and we reasoned that if we followed its course we would be led to the Flint, down which we could float on a log or raft to the Appalachicola. This was the favorite scheme of the party with which I sided. Another party believed the most feasible plan was to go northward, and endeavor to gain the mountains, and thence get ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... so that it shall never again glare with its baleful eyes, or brandish its venomous tongue. Let not the fate and fortunes of this glorious country be committed to the keeping of a clumsy, misshapen raft, compacted of twenty-four or thirty-four logs, good enough to float down a river, but sure to go to pieces when it gets into deep water; Let let them be embarked on board a goodly ship, well found, well fastened, well manned—in which every timber and plank has been ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... were not seen nor taken notice of by those under the command of Cornelis, because they were busy in butchering their companions, of whom they had murdered between thirty and forty; but some few, however, got off upon a raft of planks tied together, and went to the island where Mr. Weybhays was, in order to acquaint him with the dreadful accident that had happened. Mr. Weybhays having with him forty- five men, they all resolved to stand upon their guard, and to defend themselves ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... the woods to the waterfront, and a raft of logs extended out into the river for hundreds of feet. Both sides of the raft were lined with busy fishermen—men and women, too. A little to the north of the base of the building a huge mound of earth smoked ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... man or woman is sick and like to die, they are laid all night before the idols, either to help their sickness or make an end of them. If they do not mend that night, the friends come and sit up with them, and cry for some time, after which they take them to the side of the river, laying them on a raft of reeds, and so let them float down ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... exerted themselves to the utmost to avoid them; whereas I could see no other way of escape, especially for the lady sitting beside me, than by boarding one of these very rafts. In order to effect this (against the wish of our two oarsmen) I seized with one hand a projecting peg on a raft we were passing and held our little vessel fast, and, while the two rowers screamed that the Ellida would be lost, quickly hoisted the lady out of the skiff on to the raft, across which we walked to the shore, calmly leaving our friends to save ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... you dog, that you don't drown us," said the Officials, when they saw the raft rising and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... Goldsack rockets; but, in consequence of the treacherous handling of the Spanish soldiers who had filled them, they proved worse than useless, doing nearly as much injury to the men who fired them as to the enemy. Only one gunboat was sunk by the shells from a raft commanded by Major Miller, who also did some damage to the forts and shipping. On the night of the 4th, Lord Cochrane amused himself, while a fireship was being prepared, by causing a burning tar-barrel to be drifted with the tide towards the enemy's shipping. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... said with a laugh. "We have been down with a raft of timber from the mountains, and are on our way back. That must be our story till we have passed Ratisbon. There is but one objection, and that is a serious one. As raftsmen we should certainly speak the Bavarian dialect, which none of us can do. For that reason ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... concerned in the races, which duly followed one another with the ringing of bells and firing of pistols, unheeded. By the time the signal came to clear the course for the crews, the pleasure-craft pushed within the barriers formed a vast, softly undulating raft covering the whole surface of the water, so that you could have walked from the barrier to the shore without dipping foot in the flood. I have suggested that the situation might have had its perils. Any panic must have caused ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... "We'll make a raft. We'll do it to-morrow, you and I. Don't tell any of the others yet. Morvyth's been so nasty lately, I'm fed up with her, and Ardiune would only laugh. When we've got the thing really started, we'll take them over and let them help, but not till then. Will you promise to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... laden with stones and clods of earth. The boats are then attached to the Zinkstuk, and this combined flotilla is so disposed along shore that the current carries it to the place where the Zinkstuk is to be sunk. When the current begins to make itself felt, the raft is loaded by the simple process of heaping the contents of the barges upon the middle of it. The men form in line from the four corners to the centre, and the loads of stone and earth are passed on to the centre of the raft, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... husband were on friendly, even intimate, terms; Magsie showed Warren a letter, Warren murmured advice; Magsie reached a confident little brown hand to him from the raft; Warren said, "Be careful, dear!" when she sprang up to leap from the car. Well, said Rachael bravely, no harm in that! Warren was just the big, sweet, simple person to be flattered by Magsie's affection. How could ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... race : raso, gento; vetkuri. radish : rafaneto. "horse-," rafano. raft : floso. rag : cxifono. rail : relo. "-way," fervojo. "-way station," stacidomo. rainbow : cxielarko. raisin : sekvinbero. rake : rast'i, -ilo. rampart : remparo. rancid : ranca. rank : vico, grado, rango. raspberry : frambo. rat : rato. rate : procento, —"of," po. rattle ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... prized duly, will resist the water for a surprising length of time. An instance is recorded in strong proof of this, which occurred at Kingsland upon James river in Virginia, where tobacco, which had been carried off by the great land floods in 1771, was found in a large raft of drift wood in which it had lodged when the warehouses at Richmond were swept away by the overflowing of the freshets; an inundation which had happened about twenty years ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... by new restrictions, with severe penalties and powers of search hitherto unknown in the law of the United States. On Lake Champlain, on June 13, 1808, a band of sixty armed men fired upon United States troops, and carried a raft in triumph over the border. A prosecution for treason against one of the men ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... believe Columbus knew where he was going to or had ever been there before. The memorable cry of "Land ho!" thrilled every heart in the ship but his. He gazed a while through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line lying on the distant water, and then said: "Land be hanged,—it's a raft!" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Calypso at her spinning. After many words, the nymph consented to give up her captive, for she was kind of heart, and all her graces had not availed to make him forget his home. With her help, Odysseus built a raft and set out upon his lonely voyage,—the only man remaining out of twelve good ships that had left Troy ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... a boat, or small vessel, and in this they embarked such of their stores as it would hold. The greater part were placed on a large raft made for the purpose, like one of the rafts of timber which every summer float down the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. Here was their stock of corn,—in part the produce of their own fields, and in part bought from the Hurons in former years of ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... island, and we felt very seriously affected by it, especially when we considered that we had so often unwittingly incurred the same danger before while bathing. We were now forced to take to fishing again in the shallow water, until we should succeed in constructing a raft. What troubled us most, however, was, that we were compelled to forego our morning swimming excursions. We did, indeed, continue to enjoy our bathe in the shallow water, but Jack and I found that ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and fall. But when the winter freshets come on and the snow begins to melt in the spring up in the Yola Bolas, where the San Hedrin has its source, we'll have plenty of water for driving the river. Once we get the logs down to tide-water, we'll raft them and tow them up to the mill. So you see, Bryce, we won't be bothered with the expense of maintaining a logging ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... their cavern; no further than the green mound or toft which lay at the mouth thereof: but the waters were thronged with fowl, as mallard and teal and coots, and of these they took what they would. Whiles also they waded the shallows of the flood, and whiles poled a raft about it, and so had pleasure of the waters as before they had had of the snow. But when at last the very spring was come, and the grass began to grow after the showers had washed the plain of the waterborne mud, and the snowdrop had thrust up and blossomed, and the celandine ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... right intent, health and a big red handkerchief is to be greatly blessed. John Jacob got a job next day as oarsman on a lumber-raft. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... thanks to the natural rollers, not so hard as might have been anticipated. Ben and Frank managed the placing of the rollers, which were carried in front of the logs as fast as its hinder end cleared some of them. In this manner their "raft," if such it could be ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... FIND DROWNED PERSONS.—Make a board raft, ten or twelve feet square. Cut a round hole in the center, eight or ten inches in diameter. Lie down on the raft with the face over the hole, covering the head with a coat or shawl, to exclude the light. By this contrivance the rays of the light ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... to tell how we crosses the Red River on de Red River Raft. Back in them days the Red River was near closed up by dis timber raft and de big boats couldn't git up de river at all. We gits a li'l boat, and a Caddo Indian to guide us. Dis Red River raft dey say was centuries old. De driftwood floatin' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... watching through the windows in a kind of impassivity, as much as he could see of the method by which the racing-boat was attached by long, rigid rods to the steady floating raft that had risen from beneath. (He was even interested to observe that these rigid rods were of telescopic design, and were elongated from their own interiors. One of them pushed forward once to within a foot of the windows; then the tapering end ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... over-hours to stand about in by-streets in the hope of discovering her, and would start up in the night, saying, 'That rascal's torturing her to maintain him!' To which his wife would answer peevishly, 'Don't 'ee raft yourself so, Ned! You prevent my getting a bit o' rest! He won't hurt her!' and ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... as a drowning man might grasp at a good substantial raft that should come floating down ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Bridgwater, we draw nearer Parret. Now by this evening, we shall be close over against this place Combwich, so that one may go thither and spy what there is to be done, and come back in good time and tell us if crossing may be made by raft or boat. Let this rest till then. But if it may be so, then I, and Heregar and his following, and two hundred men will surely cross, and wait for what may betide. For I think this plan ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... not his, by the way, having been built several years previously by a couple of miners who had got out a raft of logs at that point for a grub-stake. They had been most hospitable lads, and, after they abandoned it, travelers who knew the route made it an object to arrive there at nightfall. It was very handy, saving them all ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... contest our crossing further at the bridge, which he had burned. The troops were set to work at once to construct a bridge across the South Fork of the Bayou Pierre. At this time the water was high and the current rapid. What might be called a raft-bridge was soon constructed from material obtained from wooden buildings, stables, fences, etc., which sufficed for carrying the whole army over safely. Colonel J. H. Wilson, a member of my staff, planned and superintended ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... said the captain, "step aboard. You sing like a bird; it's only right you should fly like one." It was obvious that the worthy seaman was making clumsy efforts to be cheerful. "I'll see you in two days, or three at most; we've got a raft ready, you know, in case the fire beats us. But, bless you, I shouldn't be surprised if we have a fire-engine coming through the sky next; there's no knowing what these clever young sparks won't be inventing. God ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... commenced on November 30th, 1905, but ill-luck had not been eluded. The airship was moored upon a raft which was to be towed out into the lake to enable the dirigible to ascend. But something went wrong with the arrangements. A strong wind caught the ungainly airship, she dipped her nose into the water, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... ... we fell in with a party of French Indians, who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but fortunately missed." The next day they came to a river. "There was no way of getting over but on a raft, ... but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice.... I put out my setting pole to try and stop the raft that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with such force against the pole, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... morning of August 5, after having bombarded some of the coast cities of Algeria they found themselves cut off on the east by a French fleet and on the west by an English fleet, but by a very clever bit of stratagem they escaped. The band of the Goeben was placed on a raft and ordered on a given moment to play the German national airs after an appreciable period. Meanwhile, under the cover of the night's darkness the two German ships steamed away. After they had a good start the band on the raft began to play. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... Southern extraction. Tennessee and Kentucky, having no longer a supply of good land at low prices, sent the younger generation on to a new frontier. In the year 1816 the father of Abraham Lincoln took his family across the Ohio on a raft and hewed his way into the timber lands along the river bottoms of Indiana. With these migratory Kentuckians went also descendants of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish who had peopled the Great Valley in the previous century. Even from the Carolinas came all sorts and ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... was directed, and very soon they were standing on the little raft a few yards from shore. Then her companion put down his stick, and took the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... In urging my raft along the shore line of one of the stagnant lagoons one day I was surprised to find a broad rock jutting out from the shore, its upper surface some ten coprets above the water. Disembarking, I ascended it, and on examination recognized it as the remnant of an immense mountain which ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... breakfasts. Once a wide tow of coal-barges, loaded clear down to the gunwales, Gave us the slack of the current, with proper formalities shouted By the hoarse-throated stern-wheeler that pushed the black barges before her, And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade from her paddles. Then, as a raft of logs, which the spread of the barges had hidden, River-wide, weltered in sight, with a sudden jump forward the pilot Dropped his whole weight on the spokes of the wheel just ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... mother, reluctantly, remembering the unbroken bill in her "upper drawer." "I do' know's I have a right to send them back. I didn't tell her how many, but—mercy on us!—who'd dream of such a raft! If there's one, there's ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... months of wandering, hardships, and peril, they all came in sight of the Euxine, and perhaps no shipwrecked sailors clinging to a raft ever cried "Land!" "Land!" with more joy than those Greeks who had climbed a hill-top shouted ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... whole thing indeed reminded one of some bas-relief of a Bacchanalian procession carved on a Greek sarcophagus—and especially so in its hilarity and suggestion of friendly intimacy with the god. There were singing of hymns and the floating of the chief actors on a raft round a sacred lake. And then came the final Act. Siva, or his image, very weighty and borne on the shoulders of strong men, was carried into the first chamber or hall of the Temple and placed on an altar with a curtain hanging in front. The crowd followed ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to get him across the river. The ferryman got him across the river on his bamboo-raft, the wide water shimmered reddishly in the ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... purpose, at the same time that we should entangle ourselves in the mushy grounds which had been seen both from Mount Cunningham, Farewell Hill, and our present station; and that therefore we should immediately proceed to construct a raft on which we might transport our provisions and baggage across the river, afterwards taking such a course as we deemed most likely to bring us to the Macquarie river, and so keep along its banks to Bathurst. This work, and the task of getting the baggage over, will take ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... to make a strong raft of the wood and planks which were scattered all over the shore. Then I collected as many diamonds and rubies and as much wrecked treasure as my raft would hold, and took my last little store of food. I launched the raft with great ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... rudder, or scull rather, having a broad blade fixed in a fork or crutch. Those who steer are obliged to exert the whole strength of the body in those places especially where the fall of water is steep, and the course winding; but the purchase of the scull is of so great power that they can move the raft bodily across the river when both ends are acted upon at the same time. But, notwithstanding their great dexterity and their judgment in choosing the channel, they are liable to meet with obstruction in large trees and rocks, which, from the violence of the stream, occasion their rafts to be overset, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... English ones, that I did not recognise at first what they were. Our English Bladder-worts, as everybody knows, float in stagnant water on tangles of hair-like leaves, something like those of the Water-Ranunculus, but furnished with innumerable tiny bladders; and this raft supports the little scape of yellow snapdragon-like flowers. There are in Trinidad and other parts of South America Bladder-worts of this type. But those which we found to-day, growing out of the damp clay, were more like in habit to a delicate stalk of flax, or even a bent of grass, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... the country, back a little from the coast, we have found a shelter from the shipwreck. That we live at all is owing to the bravery of a seaman who superintended the making of a raft after the ship struck, and almost forced us to save our lives by risking them upon it. The other passengers refused to go, and for a long time we hesitated, but Ben Benson was so determined, that at last we trusted every thing to his frail craft, which, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... Dan Beard knows and has written about the building of every simple kind of boat, from a raft to a cheap motor-boat, is brought together in ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... this fish is shipped to Wilmington and to Cincinnati. Wild-fowls abound, and the shooting is excellent. The fishermen say flocks of ducks seven miles in length have been seen on the waters of Bogue Sound. Canvas-backs are called "raft-ducks" here, and they sell from twelve to twenty cents each. Wild geese bring ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... not let Clarkson know that he had complained, he took courage, by their advice, to threaten him with the law. One day soon after this, Clarkson and his servant were both engaged loading a kind of raft, or flat boat, with various produce for market. A dispute arose between them, the boy fell or was pushed overboard, and though the creek was quite shallow, and he was known to be able to swim, he was ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... as day as she walked across the long bridge built especially for her and lit with torches on either side. She had no sooner stepped upon the bridge than a new spectacle was provided, for as soon as the music gave signal that she was so far advanced, a raft on the lake, disposed as to resemble a small floating island, illuminated by a great variety of torches, and surrounded by floating pageants formed to represent sea-horses, on which sat Tritons, Nereids, and other fabulous deities of the seas and rivers, made its appearance upon the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... real kinder mortified to think that I didn't pay no attention to Mr. and Miss Parmer; I didn't see 'em at all whilst I wuz there. But I spoze she wuz busy helpin' her hired girls, it must take a sight of work to cook for such a raft of folks, and it took the most of his ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... little fun from their immersion. Here and there the bathing ghaut is diversified by a burning ghaut, and one may catch a glimpse of the extremities of the corpse twisting among the faggots. Here and there is a boat or raft in which a priest is seated under his umbrella, fishing for souls as men in punts on the Thames fish for roach. And over all is the pitiless sun, hot even now, before breakfast, but soon to ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... men discover that they could travel on the water? Some one may at first have made use of a log to cross a river and, afterwards, have tied several logs together, making a raft. When they had learned how to make a canoe out of a log, by burning or hewing it out with rude axes, they could then take long journeys on the water to new lands. Since paddling was very tiresome, some one, brighter than the rest, probably thought of making ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... by simplicity of manners. The kings and nobles did not consider it derogatory to their dignity to acquire skill in the manual arts. Ulysses is represented as building his own bed-chamber and constructing his own raft, and he boasts of being an excellent mower and ploughman. Like Esau, who made savoury meat for his father Isaac, the Heroic chiefs prepared their own meals and prided themselves on their skill in cookery. Kings and private ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... who had glasses, and they cried out that it was a black object, and finally reported it a raft with people on it. Later, when Jimmie reached port, he heard an explanation of the sparkle which had caught his eye—a woman on the raft had a little pocket-mirror, and had used this to flash the sun's rays upon the vessel, until at ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... the Patent Office who in the early thirties of the last century suggested that the Patent Office be abolished, because "everything that possibly could be invented had been invented." A similar feeling must have spread through the prehistoric world when the first sail was hoisted on a raft and the people were able to move from place to place without rowing or punting or ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... unreal golden light, raft after raft of wild ducks rose and whirled into the east; blue herons flopped across the water; a silver-headed eagle, low over the waves, winged his way heavily toward some goal, doggedly ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... followed it, and Marie saw herself drifting on to her doom. Half a mile below was the fall, and at the side of the fall, went ever and ever around with tremendous violence, the rending fans of the water-mill. Marie knew full well that any drift boat, or log, or raft, carried down the river at freshet-flow, was always swept into the toils of the inexorable wheels. Yet, if she were reckless and without heed a few minutes before, I am told that now she was calm. As she is present, I must refrain from too much eulogy ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... many wanderings, and loss, Like to Ulysses on his poplar raft, His treasure hid beneath the tunnelled moss Lest that a thief his labour steal with craft, Up the round hill, sheep-dotted, was his way, Zigzagging where some ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... about two feet across alone combated the white fields and the black trees .... At six o'clock a man's figure carrying a lantern crossed the field .... A raft of twig stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert .... A load of snow slipped and fell from a fir branch .... Later there was a mournful cry .... A motor car came along the road shoving ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... which render it impossible to walk along its banks. To reach the Tinguians, it is necessary to have recourse to a slight skiff, that can easily pass through the current and the most shallow parts. My guide and my lieutenant soon contrived to make a small raft of bamboos; when it was finished we embarked, Alila and myself, our guide refusing to accompany us. After much trouble and fatigue, casting ourselves often into the water to draw our raft along, we at length got clear ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... oncoming swell. The floe, therefore, was pitching in the manner of a ship, and it had cracked across when the swell lifted the centre, leaving the two ends comparatively unsupported. We were now on a triangular raft of ice, the three sides measuring, roughly, 90, 100, and 120 yds. Night came down dull and overcast, and before midnight the wind had freshened from the west. We could see that the pack was opening under the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... poetical necessity of the case I shall not trouble myself. I leave it to our poets to tell how they manage to steer that collocation of words, "The United States of North America," down the swelling tide of song, and to float the whole raft out upon the sea of heroic poesy. I am now speaking of the mere purposes of common life. How is a citizen of this republic to designate himself? As an American? There are two Americas, each subdivided ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... though he remarked, "Well, by golly!" when he discovered that the station at Katadumcook, the end of the line, was an aged freight-car; Babbitt's moment of impassioned release came when they sat on a tiny wharf on Lake Sunasquam, awaiting the launch from the hotel. A raft had floated down the lake; between the logs and the shore, the water was transparent, thin-looking, flashing with minnows. A guide in black felt hat with trout-flies in the band, and flannel shirt of a peculiarly daring blue, sat ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the inner room, where was a large-sized figure of Buddha, with the attendant figures at each side called his sons, Buddhavista, meaning "future Buddhas." Driving on, we came to another missing bridge. Here we were taken across on a rude raft, the carriage following, and then the horses. As we drew near Boro Boedor, a feeling of awe came over us, for we were to behold a temple which for centuries had been buried from the sight of man. Indeed, until ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... rose and warmed the air, the boys strength and spirits revived, and in a few hours they were so refreshed that they determined to set about their raft. The wind had now entirely dropped, the waves were still very high, but they came in long, smooth, regular swells, over which they rose ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... reached, it was proposed to form a raft; but the Mandingoes insisted that it would be necessary to build a bridge to enable them to cross. It was most ingeniously and rapidly constructed. The people, however, were too sickly to carry the baggage over, and negroes were therefore hired for the purpose, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... great efforts were made to infuse some life into a dozen stupid cattle. These efforts were attended with very indifferent success. A deep barranca extends to the Mescala, the largest river in Southern Mexico, across which we passed on a raft of gourds, propelled by two naked Indians, who swam across, each holding in his right hand ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft, Poor castaways upon a lonely sea, Dream of green fields and pleasant water-courses, And then wake up with red thirst in their throats, And die more miserably because sleep Has cheated them: so they die cursing sleep For having sent ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... look here. Go see thas girl whale on a bamboo raft. No good sit on log all night, sing ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... at a few cables' distance with some enemy destroyers, who, not knowing what state she was in, sheered off after a few rounds. Shaitan, holed forward and opened up aft, came across the survivors from Gehenna clinging to their raft, and took them aboard. Then some of our destroyers—they were thick on the sea that night—tried to tow her stern-first, for Goblin had cut her up badly forward. But, since Shaitan lacked any stern, and her rudder was jammed hard across where the stern should have been, the hawsers parted, ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... brilliant butterflies, among them a very large metallic green and black species (Ornithoptera priamus) and a large one of a bright blue (Papilio ulyses). The same afternoon we three went out shooting on the lake. Two of the Agai Ambu canoes were lashed together and a raft of split bamboo put across them, and two Agai Ambu men punted and paddled us about. Before starting we had first educated them up to the report of our guns, and after a few shots they soon ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... 'em are right here, Colonel. We ain't got what I wished; but we've taken 'em from friend and foe, and here comes the last of my boys with Major Skeene's big raft and, if I ain't mighty mistaken, with a bag o' charcoal aboard that must ha' ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... head of the procession, his proud little head crowned with a wreath of fire-tree blooms, the corners of his raft decorated with sprigs of the flaming buds. Cautiously they poled down the swift stream, avoiding treacherous logs and snapping crocodiles. Piang chuckled with delight as they stole along, for the enemy would not discover the ruse until they ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... present moment the negro was placing in the water a curious-looking little raft that he had brought on one shoulder from its place of concealment. It was something like a flat-bottomed scow, the sides being just high enough to prevent whatever cargo it carried, from rolling ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... and Greg get some of the fellows and rush down as many ties as you can from that pile by the railroad tracks. Dalzell, you and Harry get down at the edge of send him your way. Make a raft by laying four ties side by side, and lash the ends. Do it as quick as a flash. I'll be there ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... first clear the river of the obstruction placed below the forts. Farragut ordered two gunboats to steal through the darkness without lights and clear this raft. The work was swiftly done. The task was rendered unexpectedly easy by a break ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon |
