"Shoal" Quotes from Famous Books
... enclosed by a ring of glittering surf as white as snow; immediately outside of which is the rich dark blue of deep water. All the sea is perfectly clear from any mixture of sand or mud. It is this perfect clearness of the water which renders navigation among coral reefs at all practicable; as a shoal with even five fathoms water on it, can be discerned at a mile distance from a ship's mast-head, in consequence of its greenish hue contrasting with the blue of deep water. In seven fathoms water, the bottom can still be discerned on looking over ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Larnaca. A good roadstead and safe anchorage offer great advantages, but until some protection shall be afforded that will enable boats to land in all weathers Larnaca can never be accepted as a port. There is shoal water for a distance of about two hundred yards from the shore, which causes a violent surf even in a moderate breeze, and frequently prevents all communication with the shipping. The quay was in many places ... — Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... invoked the favour of the Most High upon that journey, implored His blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in derision ... — Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... frequently made the voyage from the Sandwich Isles to Canton, asserts his having discovered a shoal in 14 deg. 42' latitude, and 170 deg. 30' longitude. I can neither confirm nor confute this assertion; and my only motive for repeating it here is, that vessels passing near that point may be put ... — A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... he said. "There's a cruiser been up and down a matter of ten miles out. Me and my mates will put out at daybreak and see if we can get within hail of her. There's the light-ship, too, off Morden's Shoal. 'Tain't likely as a boat could have slipped between 'em without being seen. For if she was just drifting, you know, sir, she wouldn't ... — The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... apprehensions as to the course of the raft were confirmed by the discovery of breakers ahead, which I knew, from the position of the "Juanita" on the previous night, could indicate nothing else than that we were running down upon the Square Handkerchief Shoal, of which I had hoped to pass clear to ... — Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... cannot be delayed for its sorrows. David must wait in his shop, and James must be at the bank; and in two weeks Donald had to leave for Edinburgh, though Christine was lying in a silent, broken-hearted apathy, so close to the very shoal of Time that none dared say, "She ... — Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... bespoke his utter bewilderment. He must have though me bereft of my senses to be paddling about at that hour of the night. The tide had made, and the Sylph, righting her listed masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up red-hot rocks to the ... — The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... we gathered the twelve we required between us. At noon we sat under the bank, with the tangled roots of trees above us, and the smooth oily river slipping by. You may be sure we always selected a spot protected by very shoal water, for the crocodiles were numerous. I always shot these loathsome creatures whenever I got a chance, whenever the sound of a shot would not alarm more valuable game. Generally they were to be seen in midstream, just the tip ... — The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... at a heap of dead fish, the captain shouted to them to come over to the starboard side; and on doing so they beheld a shoal of small fish being chased by big ones. To escape their pursuers the small fish jumped out of the water, and were instantly seized by the gulls, a flock of which were hovering around. The gulls had a splendid feast, several hundred of small fish being eaten by them before the Twilight ... — Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... pilot me Over life's tempestuous sea, Unknown waves before me roll, Hiding rock and treacherous shoal; Chart and compass come from Thee, Jesus, ... — The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... he has sharp rogues about him. If they once made good their landing here, it would be difficult to dislodge them. It must all be done from the land side then, for even a 42-gun frigate could scarcely come near enough to pepper them. They love shoal water, the skulks—and that has enabled them to baffle me so often. Not that they would conquer the country—all brag—but still it would be a nasty predicament, and scare the poor cockneys ... — Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... but he come to in a little while, and went cheerily to work again," continued Mr. Mate, who though pleased with the Captain's determination to make the nearest port, seemed to dread that all would not be right in Charleston—that the bar was a very intricate one—water very shoal in the ship-channel, and though marked with three distinctive buoys, numbered according to their range, impossible to crops without a skilful pilot. The mate plead a preference for Savannah, asserting, according ... — Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... is done. The moment is pregnant with futurity, and if not seized at once by Congress, I know not on what shoal our bark is next to be stranded. The state legislatures should be immediately urged to relinquish the right of establishing banks of discount. Most of them will comply, on patriotic principles, under the ... — Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... were in smooth water, for but a small stream is discharged by this channel. On our right was a sandy beach, on our left great beds of grass growing out of the shoal water—weedy banks filled up the once spacious harbour, and cattle waded amongst the long grass, where within the last twenty years a frigate has lain at anchor. Wading and aquatic birds were abundant in the marshes, ... — The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... the boats up on the shore side of a big shoal, and all hands, with sacks, spread out and began picking. Every now and again the clouds thinned before the face of the moon, and we could see the big oysters quite distinctly. In almost no time sacks were filled and carried ... — Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... tangled cables, dimly seen in the shoal water, the line of wreckage in the channel, and the weed-covered strip of torn concrete which led through the hills, it testified to the arrival of the air age. Bridges, highways, and harbors alike had passed their day ... — Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... still, by shot between wind and water, he might render her more unwieldy and less manageable,—a weight of water being thus admitted which would bring down the ship so as to endanger her lower ports and prevent the use of them in action. He might thus also prevent her approach to shoal water. The Warrior and her companions are, however, formidable ships, and in deep water, with ample sea-room, ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... the moving thing upon the shoal—there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing—against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or it may be bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the ... — Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... black gaping mouths of cannon. The shore outlines rose about five hundred feet on each side and great batteries and the white tents of some of Kitchener's army were to be seen almost everywhere. There was certainly no doubt about England being at war. As we drew near the breakwater a shoal of paddle wheel tugs rushed out to welcome us with their sirens blowing to pilot us safely into the most noted harbour in the world. From this port sailed such great captains as Drake, Hawkins and Cooke, ... — The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... for it is a short, heavy board, and in the back-wash is apt to fly back on the unwary, hitting them on their food-receptacle, and effectually (to use a schoolboy term) "bagging their wind." You walk out in the shoal water up to your shoulders, and as a big sea comes in, you throw yourself chest foremost on to your plank, and are then carried along on the top of the roller at the pace of a leisurely train (an Isle of Wight train), to be deposited with a bang on the ... — Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... right into the Long Shoal!" exclaimed Manton, anxiously, as the squall which had been approaching struck the schooner and laid her almost ... — Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... Shoal Lake, Manitoba, furnish breeding ground for many thousands of Pelicans. They build their simple nests on the ground, making them of sticks and weeds. They generally lay two eggs, but often three ... — The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... course! They were Marblehead men, Gloucester men, Beverly men, seamen all, par excellence! They clapped on the frigate to aid the middies, and by-and-by started her out into the stream. In doing this their own pilot took the chance to run them purposely on a shoal in the intricate channel. A great error of judgment on his part! as he perceived, when he found himself in irons and in confinement. "The days of trifling with traitors are over!" think the ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... There, with the light blue sky above him and the dark blue waves beneath, nothing on the surface of the water can escape his penetrating eyes. Quickly, with a sudden swoop, he seizes a single fish from an unsuspecting shoal, and announces his success by the ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... shoal of mighty shoulders lean Through the long swell of waves, Reaching beyond the sunset and the hollow caves, And the ice-girdled peaks that hold serene Each its own star, far out at sea to mark Thy westward way, O Princess, through the ... — The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... Wears its accustomed aspect, with foul wrecks And blood disfigured; floating carcasses Roll on the rocky shores; the poor remains Of the barbaric armament to flight Ply every oar inglorious: onward rush The Greeks amid the ruins of the fleet, As through a shoal of fish caught in the net, Spreading destruction; the wide ocean o'er Wailings are heard, and loud laments, till night, With darkness on her brow, brought grateful truce. Should I recount each circumstance of woe, ... — Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... among the mountain roots of everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours its unresting waters into the thirsty ... — The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... been happy in the matter of its water supply, and the day and the Prince came together to inaugurate a new era. It was accomplished in the modern manner. The Prince pressed a button on the platform and water-gates on Shoal Lake outside the city swung open. In a minute or two a dry fountain in the gardens before the Prince threw up a jet of water. The new water had come ... — Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... from the bed and sides of the channel above, unless the current be exceedingly strong, is greater than the buoyant capacity of the water, and falls to the bottom, along which, sometimes, it is forced by the abrasion of the water, until it meets some obstruction, which gathers the particles into shoal formations. This fact causes much inconvenience in the navigation ... — Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had been made in water so shoal, that the boat had barely escaped being dashed to pieces on the coral. Had it not been so suddenly relieved from the pressure of near a thousand pounds in weight, it is probable that this calamity would have befallen it, the water received on board contributing so much to weigh it down. ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... it happened to him to be shipwrecked near Myconos, and while every one else perished, Coiranus alone was saved by a dolphin. And when at last he died of old age in his native country, as it so happened that his funeral procession passed along the seashore close to Miletus, a great shoal of dolphins appeared on that day in the harbor, keeping only a very little distance from those who were attending the funeral of Coiranus, as if they also were joining in the procession ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "We shall have very shoal work of those mangroves, Yeo," said Amyas; "I doubt whether we shall do aught now, unless we find a ... — Great Sea Stories • Various
... when through the mooring-chains The wide-eyed corpse rolled free, To blunder down by Garden Reach And rot at Kedgeree, The tale the Hughli told the shoal The lean ... — The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... I deem'd that Death had freed my soul From Love's tormenting, overwhelming thought, To crush its aching burthen I had sought, My wearied life had hasten'd to its goal; My shivering bark yet fear'd another shoal, To find one tempest with another bought, Thus poised 'twixt earth and heaven I dwell as naught, Not daring to assume my life's control. But sure 'tis time that Death's relentless bow Had wing'd that fatal arrow to my heart, So often bathed in life's dark crimson tide: But though I ... — The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... below and put my feet on the table after we pass the Shoal of Seals," he explained. "That is the time I take my 'watch below,' as we call it, when we come down for a rest or a sleep. But you are eager to hear the story. Very good. Here goes. A good many years ago an ... — The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... in bright colors, and the floor was covered with an Uxbridge carpet, the colors of which were green and red, and made fresh by the glare of a spirit lamp that burned upon the table. A chart of the South Shoal, a map of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and sundry rude drawings in crayon and water colors, hung suspended from the walls. The air of quiet cheerfulness that pervaded the sitting room, bespoke the care ... — The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... 'There was a shoal of fish,' he says, 'which pursued our vessel and followed her strangely, and along close by our rudder.' The master mariner's eye had evidently been following the movements of the fish throughout the day, as he asked himself: 'What are those fish? I never saw fish ... — A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... plain! Oh, give me a gleam of your eyes, love adream With the kiss of the sun and the dew, And mountain nor swale, nor the scorch nor the hail Shall halt me from spurring to you! For wild as a flood-melted snow for its blood— By crag, gorge, or torrent, or shoal, I'll ride on my steed and lay tho' it bleed, My heart at ... — The California Birthday Book • Various
... the sea of thought thus backward roll? Memory's the breeze that through the cordage raves, And ever drives us on some homeward shoal, As if she loved the melancholy waves That, murmuring shoreward, break ... — St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... himself indignantly from "this bank and shoal of time," or the frail tottering bark that bears up modern reputation, into the huge sea of ancient renown, and to revel there with untired, outspread plume. Even this in him is spleen—his contempt of his contemporaries makes him ... — Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... compass, and soon perceived the sea to break right a-head of us; we immediately sounded, and shoaled our water from thirteen to seven fathom, soon after deepening it again from seventeen to forty-two; so that we went over the end of a shoal, which a little farther to the northward might have been fatal to us. Cape Blanco at this time bore W.S.W. 1/2 S. distant four leagues: But we were still at a loss for Port Desire, it being impossible that any description should be more confused ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... harvest; and they have little real hardship and a good deal of excitement. On calm nights, after the nets are shot, there are hours of keen expectancy, until the oily flicker on the surface of the water tells that the great shoal is moving to its fate; then there is the wild bustle among the whole fleet while the nets are hauled in; and then comes the pleasant morning lounge after the ... — The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Indians had taken. The savages were overtaken and a parley ensued. The leader's thoughts were now in two places at once, and he was not far enough from the shore not to be able to cast a glance towards the Aimable, and to say to his lieutenants, as he saw the vessel drifting near shoal water, "If she keeps on in that course, she will soon be aground." Still, no time was to be lost. The parley with the Indians did not hinder them long, and soon they were on the way towards the village whither the captive had been taken. Just as they entered its precincts and looked upon its ... — The Junior Classics • Various
... over which the high tides flow considerably. It refers to a long stretch of shore at the entrance to King Sounds, where the tides cover immense tracts of country, and which has, in consequence, been called Shoal Bay. ... — The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... skimmy up the shore a ways." Already Quain was moving off in search of it. "Noticed her this morning. Daresay she leaks like a sieve, but at worst the water's pretty shoal inshore, hereabouts." ... — The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... earthly possessions or delights. How should they have a sense of community of aims with grovelling hearts that cling to wealth or ambition, that are not at peace with God, and have no holdfasts beyond this 'bank and shoal of time'? A man who has drunk into the spirit of Christ's life is thereby necessarily thrown out of gear ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... three o'clock in the afternoon and lasted till darkness. But even this did not terminate it; and all night Spaniards and Dutchmen grappled in deadly conflict. All this time the vessels were drifting as the winds and tide took them, and at last grounded on a shoal called The Neck, near Wydeness. Just as morning was breaking John Haring of Horn — the man who had kept a thousand at bay on the Diemar Dyke, and who now commanded one of the vessels — gained a footing on the ... — By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... the host of which we spoke, sailed towards Ireland, and it was not far across the sea, and he came to shoal water. It was caused by two rivers; the Lli and the Archan were they called; and the nations covered the sea. Then he proceeded with what provisions he had on his own back, and approached the ... — The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... satisfy myself that the gas was not absorbed by caustic potash, but was partly taken up by pyrogallic acid, that is to say, that little or no carbonic acid was present, but that a fair amount of oxygen was present, diluted of course by nitrogen. The exposure of a shoal of the beautiful blue pelagic Siphonophore, Velella, for a few hours, enabled me to collect a large quantity of gas, which yielded from 24 to 25 per cent. of oxygen, that subsequently squeezed out from the interior of the chambered cartilaginous float, giving only 5 per cent. But the most ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... of repair, and there is no travel at present over the old Ute Crossing. The fording of the river on horseback was effected by dropping down to the river through a narrow side canyon, and crossing to the centre on a shoal, then following a centre shoal down quite a distance, and completing the crossing at a low point on the opposite side. This was only possible at the very lowest ... — Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... Immediately on opening the inlet we encountered a rapid current setting outward, and, after rowing a mile and a half to the N.W.b.W., the breadth of the stream varying from one third of a mile to four or five hundred yards, came to some shoal water extending quite across. Landing on the south shore and hauling the boats up above high-water mark, we rambled up the banks of the stream, which are low next the water, but rise almost immediately ... — Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... depths. The American flag on the fort rippled, a thing of living light, the stripes transparent. High pink clouds were riding down from the north, their flush dying as they piled aloft. There were shadings of peacock colors in the shoal water. Jenieve enjoyed this sunset beauty of the island, as she ran over the rolling pebbles, carrying some leather shoes by their leather strings. Her face was eager. She lifted the shoes to show them to three little boys playing on the ... — The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... in the water before they could fully see the burning roundhouse. A moment later, chilled to the bone but with his mind cleared by the sharp plunge, Bucks felt his companion's arm drawing him toward the farther shore where, in the slack water of an elbow of the stream, Dancing led the way across a shoal of gravel and Bucks waded ... — The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... all the noblest gifts of person, temperament, and mind slip like sand through the grasp of an infirm purpose; Othello, that the perpetual silt of some one weakness, the eddies of a suspicious temper depositing their one impalpable layer after another, may build up a shoal on which an heroic life and an otherwise magnanimous nature may bilge and go to pieces. All this we may learn, and much more, and Shakespeare was no doubt well aware of all this and more; but I do not believe that he wrote his ... — Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... betide the unfortunate tadpole which, first of the shoal, attains to the dignity of possessing limbs, for so ferocious are the later ones, and so jealous of their precocious little brother, that they almost always fall upon him, and not content with killing, never rest till every morsel of ... — Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... 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 ... — Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... Sun blazing in his own splendour. Indeed, the Pandavas afflicted with fear, timidly gazed at Bhishma who was then achieving super-human feats in that battle. And the Pandava troops, thus fleeing away, O Bharata, failed to find a protector, like a herd of kine sunk in a shoal of ants while being trod down by a strong person. Indeed, the Pandavas could not, O Bharata, look at that mighty car-warrior incapable of being shaken, who, furnished with a profusion of shafts, was scorching the kings (in the Pandava army), ... — The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 'fiery yet gloomy;' measuring 17 deg. 3' from the meridian of Greenwich. The coast is exceedingly dangerous; consequently shipwrecks are rare. The owners, as their national wont is, have done their best to make it safe. Two lighthouses to the north of the true Cape mark and define a long shoal with a heavy break, the Almadies rocks, a ledge mostly sunk, but here and there rising above the foam in wicked-looking diabolitos (devilings), or black fangs, of which the largest is die-shaped. ... — To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... there is," Connie answered gravely. "In a storm especially. You see, the water is very shallow around here and if a big ship runs in too close to shore she's apt to get on a shoal. That isn't so bad in clear weather—although a ship did get stuck on the shoal here not so very long ago and she was pretty much damaged when they got her off. ... — Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... officers who volunteered to command the fireships were assembled on board the Caledonia, and supplied with instructions according to the plan previously laid down by myself. The Imperieuse had proceeded to the edge of the Boyart Shoal, close to which she anchored with an explosion-vessel made fast to her stern, it being my intention, after firing the one of which I was about to take charge, to return to her for the other, to be employed as circumstances might require. ... — 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
... passing-bell doth toll, And the Furies, in a shoal, Come to fright a parting soul, Sweet Spirit, ... — The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... a dryad, from her native bole Coming at dusk, when the dim stars emerge, To a slow river at whose silent verge Tall poplars tremble and deep grasses roll, Come thou no less and, kneeling in a shoal Of the freaked flag and meadow buttercup, Bend till thine image from the pool beam up Arched with blue heaven like an aureole. See how adorable in fancy then Lives the fair face it mirrors even so, ... — Poems • Alan Seeger
... Thermopylae was not a ravine among mountains, but a narrow space between mountains and the sea. The mountains landward were steep and inaccessible; the sea was shoal. The passage between them was narrow for many miles along the shore, being narrowest at the ingress and egress. In the middle the space was broader. The place was celebrated for certain warm springs which here issued from the ... — Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... one may assume, the only good woman in the world who cannot draw a definite line between sympathy and mere curiosity. With many the display of sympathy is nothing but a half-conscious bait to attract a shoal ... — From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... the trawlers lay before thee these gifts by the grace of thine aid from the promontory, having imprisoned a tunny shoal in their nets of spun hemp in the green sea-entrances: a beechen cup and a rude stool of heath and a glass cup holding wine, that thou mayest rest thy foot weary and cramped with dancing while thou ... — Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... beaver lodge was discovered, the trap was set at the edge of the dam, at a point where the animal passed from deep to shoal water, and always under the surface. Early in the morning, the hunter mounted his mule and examined all ... — The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... sailed on her next trip, she was probably the most dangerous pirate ship that was ever afloat. You see they were all of them experienced men. They had years of practice behind them. They knew their ship, and they knew the ocean. There wasn't a shoal or a passage, an inlet or a creek from one end of the Spanish Main to the other that they didn't know. Black Pedro spread terror into far corners of the ocean, where neither his father nor grand-father had ever been heard of. They would have been proud indeed, if ... — The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... Island," and doubtless prided himself not a little on this addition to his limited dominions. But, alas, for human ambition! About a year after the date of its first appearance, Nyoe sank into the depths out of which it arose, and its position is now marked only by a moderate shoal. ... — Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... found the only opening in this barrier of coral. A long cleft, perhaps eight feet wide, at the outer edge of the reef, ran in, narrowing to a mere crack near the shore. Watching a favorable chance, the boats were guided through the surf into a cleft as far as shoal water, when the men jumped on to the reef and carried baggage and instruments ashore as quickly as possible. The boats, which were new when they entered the surf, came out much the worse for wear, and the ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... shoal of barramundi had been bombed with dynamite. Immediately after the explosion the white onlookers as well as the blacks dived off-hand into the stream to secure the helpless fish. One of the party seized a weighty and ... — Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... his anxious eyes rest on the deep soft blue of the water, close in, and became interested directly, for in one spot a cloud of silver seemed to be sweeping along—a cloud which, from his south coast life, he was not long in determining to be a great shoal of fish playing on the surface, and leaping out clear every now and then as they fed on the small fry ... — Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... thin an' vew Avore the zummer sky o' blue, An' I'd noo ho but how to vind Zome play to entertain my mind; Along the water, as did wind Wi' zedgy shoal an' hollow crook, How I did ramble by the brook That ran all down ... — Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... prevail on that coast soon carried the vessel on a shoal, and Columbus was roused from his sleep by the striking of the ship and the cries ... — Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... nation, commerce or trust with all nations, peace at home, grounded upon our enemies' fear or love of us abroad, and attended with plenty of all things necessary either for the preservation of the public weal or thy private welfare, be things worthy thy esteem (though it may be beyond thy shoal conceit) then next to God and thy King give thy thanks for the same to the Navy. As for honour, who knows not (that knows anything) that in all records of late times of actions, chronicled to the everlasting fame and renown of this nation, still the naval ... — From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the pleasant litter of a boat-yard. In the cove before them lie at their moorings in the late afternoon a fleet of fifteen or twenty fishing and pleasure boats, all cat-rigged, all of one general build, wide, shoal, with one broad sail, all painted white, by the custom of the place, and all or nearly all kept neat and clean: they are all likely enough to be called upon now and then for sailing-parties. Often of a bright afternoon in summer ... — By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... a soft grating sound, as though a boat had just touched in shoal water. The Jackal spun round quickly and faced (it is always best to face) the creature he had been talking about. It was a twenty-four-foot crocodile, cased in what looked like treble-riveted boiler-plate, studded and keeled and crested; ... — The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... to the schooner, one that could go over banks where we would strike, what did the scamp do but shave close to a dangerous spot, my pilot following faithfully in his wake. Then, jumping upon the taffrail of his craft, as we came abreast the shoal, he yelled, like a Comanche, to my pilot to: "Port the helm!" and what does my mutton-headed jackass do but port hard over! The bark, of course, brought up immediately on the ground, as the other had planned, ... — Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... of November, 1776. The entrance to the river from the west, the side of their approach, is through a small canyon in the homogeneous sandstone, no more than ten feet wide. The course is then about half a mile down the middle of the river over a long bar or shoal to the opposite side, where the exit is made upon a rocky slope. It is a most difficult ford. The trail through the water at the low stage, when, only, fording is possible, is marked by piles of large stones. There is no ford at the ... — The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... she herself acted from any insight into primary quality. When therefore she had to do with a girl who did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the law to which she bowed as supreme, she was out of her element—had got, as it seemed to her, into water too shoal to swim in; whereas, in fact, she had got into water too deep to wade in, and did not know how ... — Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... that went away from us, swearing revenge (for which we cared little enough), and we rowed up the river to a place where three streams met, and then up the least of the three, some four days' journey, till it grew all shoal and swift; and there we hauled the pinnace upon the sands, and Mr. Oxenham asked the men whether they were willing to carry the gold and silver over the mountains to the North Sea. Some of them at first were loath to do it, and I and others advised that we should ... — Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... toward the shoal. Again and again the fish broke for the deeper water and Lew had to give him line. But each time he stopped the rush and patiently worked the fish back toward the shoal. At last the trout was fairly on the edge ... — The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... was detained for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred—the carpenter's mate succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running on, without one particle of progress. ... — The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... obstruction, barrier, impediment, obstacle, barricade, hindrance; shoal, sandbar, bank; ingot; lever, pole, ... — Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... full of the petty events which make up life on shipboard. The trail of smoke from a passing steamer, the first shoal of flying fish, the inevitable dance, the equally inevitable concert and, most inevitable of all, the Sabbatic contest between the captain and the fresh-water clergyman who insists upon reading service: all these ... — On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... put a stop to its little irregularities. Mere art, perhaps, could do but little to remove the impediments to the navigation of this immense river. This end could only be obtained by taking advantage of the natural causes which have made a deep channel in one part and a shoal out a few yards lower down. Dame Nature, like dames in general, may be easily led if we can only persuade her that she is acting of her ... — Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... for him to know that I belonged to a family which he knew and liked, and hearing, moreover, of my fervent devotion to modern Italian and French music in particular, he decided that I was the very man for him. He had the whole shoal of Bellini's, Donizetti's, Adam's, and Auber's operatic scores copied out, and I was to give the good people of Riga the benefit of them with all ... — My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... for him to do, on making sail again, would be to stand southward along the west side of the island looking for an anchorage. The first few miles of the shore have rocky exposed points, and the bank where there is shoal water only extends half a mile from the shore. Immediately beyond that the bottom shelves rapidly down to a depth of 2000 fathoms, so that if Columbus was sounding as he came south he would find no bottom there. Below what ... — Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... present was hopeless; but the crew were kept constantly busy until nightfall, pulling and hauling. Some were sent ashore in a skiff, with a big hawser, which was made fast to a tree, and then all the power of the boat, men and steam, was put upon it to twist her nose off from the shoal into which it was stuck. All sorts of devices were resorted to, and a small gain was made once in a while; but it looked very much as if the calculation of Charlie, five feet in an hour, was too liberal an allowance for ... — The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... river; but, once in the river, it was lost. He had to find the ford for himself, and it proved to be a very narrow and difficult one. It led in a direct line across the river nearly halfway, and then turned down the stream in an oblique direction. A part of the ford was over a slippery shoal. At some points the water was knee-deep, at others ... — Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... silences, its births and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of ... — The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... rounded San Giorgio, turning into the broad Giudecca, a shoal of little boats came over the water ... — A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... there been any whales driven in here, while you have been resident in Scalloway?-There was one shoal of whales driven into the bay below this place since I came here. They were sold by auction. Mr. Garriock, of Reawick, managed the sale. The parties concerned in the capture got two-thirds of the proceeds of the ... — Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... little about the first part of our voyage. We had the usual amount of rough weather and calm; also we saw many strange fish rolling in the sea, and I was greatly delighted one day by seeing a shoal of flying-fish dart out of the water and skim through the air about a foot above the surface. They were pursued by dolphins, which feed on them; and one flying-fish, in its terror, flew over the ship, struck on the rigging, and fell upon the deck. ... — The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... Clair flats are formed by the St. Clair River, which empties into the lake of that name by several mouths, and which forms a bar or shoal on which in its natural state there is not more than 6 or 7 feet of water. This shoal is interposed between the mouth of the river and the deep water of the lake, a distance of 6,000 feet, and in its natural condition was a serious obstruction to navigation. ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... the harbor, they saw in the distance the pirate ships, which were easily recognized, and wanted to attack them at once, but were obliged first to sail around a large shoal known as the "French Sand-bank," and the pirates, mistaking this circuit for flight, ... — The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... these efforts, they were being overhauled slowly, but Seymour still held on and did not despair. There was one chance of escape. Right before them, not a half league away, lay a long shoal known as George's Shoal, extending several leagues across the path of the two ships; through the middle of this dangerous shoal there existed a channel, narrow and tortuous, but still practicable for ships of a certain size. He was ... — For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Cut-Through a little ways, and then come about, and back he comes again, never slacking speed a mite, and running close to the shoal as he could shave, and all the time going through the bloodiest kind of pantomimes. And past he goes, to wheel 'round and commence ... — Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... both sides. The sounding continued quite regular three and three and a quarter fathoms, with the surf thundering within a stone's throw on our starboard beam, and nothing visible in the blinding torrents of rain. I knew that if my calculated position was correct, the water would shoal very suddenly just before reaching the bar; but a trying hour or more of suspense had passed before the welcome fact was announced by the leadsmen. The course and distance run, and the soundings up to this point proved, beyond doubt, that we had now reached the "horse shoe" ... — The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... (t.v., p. 181) mentions a Spanish ordinance of 22nd February 1674, which authorized Spanish corsairs to go out in the pursuit and punishment of pirates. Periaguas, or large flat-bottomed canoes, were to be constructed for use in shoal waters. They were to be 90 feet long and from 16 to 18 feet wide, with a draught of only 4 or 5 feet, and were to be provided with a long gun in the bow and four smaller pieces in the stern. They were to be propelled by both oars and sails, and ... — The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... fish implies that all of a certain size are to count as twelve to the dozen, the shoal or school-fish eighteen or twenty-four to the dozen, and the squire, thirty or thirty-six to the dozen—the latter just according to their size, the redbream at ... — A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... myself," the manuscript goes on, "I was lying in a pebbly shoal. The moon was aloft in heaven. I was cold to the heart, cold to the marrow of my bones. I could move neither hand nor foot, and thought I was dead. By slow degrees a little power came back, and I managed at length, after much agonizing effort, to get up on my feet—only to fall ... — The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... else's fault that you ran your ship La Foudre aground on the shoal in the middle of the lake? You would not be piloted. You knew your way. You took no soundings even. The result was that we lost three precious days in getting canoes to bring off your men and your gear. Those three days gave the ... — Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... we happen upon a fleet of fourteen cormorant fishers at a moment when the excitement of their pursuit is at its height. About seventy or eighty cormorants are diving and chasing about among a shoal of fish in a big silent pool, while fourteen wildly excited Chinamen, clad in abbreviated breech-cloths, dart their bamboo rafts about hither and thither, urging each one his own cormorants to dive by tapping them smartly with their poles. The scene is animated in the extreme, ... — Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... hold of the plank and made me try it again, and didn't leave me till I was able to paddle about on that plank almost as well as any Eskimo in his skin canoe. My good old dad finished the lesson by tellin' me to keep always in shoal water till I could swim, and to look out for squalls in future! It was lucky for me that I had learned to obey him, for many a time I was capsized after that, when nobody was near me, but bein' always in shoal water, I ... — The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... Last night, at dinner, we were startled by hearing that we seemed to be running on a rock or shoal, where no rock or shoal was known to exist. We backed our screw, and finally went over the alarming spot, and on sounding found no bottom. The sea was discoloured, but whether it was by the spawn of fish or sea-weed we could not discover. Peel took up water in a bucket, but could discover ... — Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... those poor fishermen now; there will be a white squall some day, and they will go down with those lateen sails of theirs, and be food for the very prey they were going to catch; and if you continue living here, you may eat one of your neighbours in the shape of a shoal of red mullets, when it is the season. The great secret, we cannot penetrate that with all our philosophy, my dear Herbert. "All that we know is, nothing can be known." Barren, barren, barren! And yet what a grand world it is! Look at ... — Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Moulton House," she exclaimed penitently. "I am so sorry. I had a perfect shoal of callers. People who would not go. I only arrived ... — Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it, or with how many alterations, junctions, or re-touchings; the one thing I ask of you is, that the line shall be right, and right by measurement, to the same minuteness which you would have to give in a Government chart to the map of a dangerous shoal. ... — Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... encounter, when suddenly the four natives who had accompanied them appeared running at full speed, and, through their assistance, though not without some difficulty, bloodshed was prevented. Very shortly after this adventure, when the men had just pushed their boat off from a shoal, upon which it had struck, they noticed a new and considerable stream coming from the north, and uniting its waters with those of the Murray. Upon landing on the right bank of the newly-discovered stream, the natives came swimming over from motives of curiosity; ... — Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... received the name of Providence. This channel is a continuation of what is called "The Tongue of the Ocean," which extends over a hundred miles south of New Providence, a hundred and fifty fathoms in depth, and bordered by innumerable cays, reefs, and very shoal water. ... — Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... with the golden sword. Over the shadowy hills and windy peaks she draws her golden bow, rejoicing in the chase, and sends out grievous shafts. The tops of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes awesomely with the outcry of beasts: earthquakes and the sea also where fishes shoal. But the goddess with a bold heart turns every way destroying the race of wild beasts: and when she is satisfied and has cheered her heart, this huntress who delights in arrows slackens her supple bow and goes to the great house of her dear brother Phoebus Apollo, to ... — Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Dutch walghvogel. It is a curious coincidence, that as the bird of Nazareth has been found in books only, so the island of Nazareth has been found only on paper. At first, it appeared quite a respectable island; as maritime discovery progressed, it degenerated to a reef, and from that to a shoal; till at last, expunged from the more correct charts of modern hydrographers, it no longer can boast of a local ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... high water was four feet deep. As I prepared to wade across George, the black boy, shouted over his shoulder towards a slowly swaying cloud in the deep pool overhung with foremost flounces of the jungle. The cloud was a shoal of sea mullet. Save for a clear margin of about three feet, the fish filled the pond—an alert, greyish-blue mass edged with cream-coloured sand. There were several hundred fish, all bearing a family resemblance as to size ... — My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... round hill at the right entrance of the Sarawak river and the next hill a-head, and as you approach the river's mouth, steer for a small island close to the shore, called Pulo Karra, or Monkey Island. These marks will conduct you over a shoal with 1/4 three, the least depth at high water; you will then deepen your water, and keep away for the low green point on the far side of the river, edging gradually in; and when you are some distance from the opposite low point on the port hand, cross the ... — The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... invade the Dominican Republic. His two armies were at first successful and captured several border towns, but that which entered in the south was repulsed at Estrelleta, while that which invaded the north was defeated at Beler. A small Haitian fleet which set out to attack Puerto Plata blundered on a shoal where it was left high and dry and ... — Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... suffocated you like, my lady: it is all the same. You have read of panic-stricken people, when a church or a theatre is on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap and crowding each other to death? It is something like that with the fish. They are swimming along in a great shoal, yards thick; and when the first can get no farther, that does not at once stop the rest, any more than it would in a crowd of people: those that are behind come pressing up into every corner where there is room till they ... — Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... the British with adequate resources, which were utilized judiciously and energetically by Captain Douglas; but to get these to the Lake was a long and arduous task. A great part of the Richelieu River was shoal, and obstructed by rapids. The point where lake navigation began was at St. John's, to which the nearest approach, by a hundred-ton schooner, from the St. Lawrence, was Chambly, ten miles below. Flat-boats and long-boats ... — The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... but seldom interrupted by inlets as far north as Galveston Harbor. On this coast the tides are variable and exceptionally weak, being less than one foot in height, while the amount of waste swept along the shore is large. The lagoon is extremely shallow, and much of it is a mud flat too shoal for even small boats. On the coast of New Jersey strong tides are able to keep open inlets at intervals of from two to twenty miles in spite of a ... — The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... answered I. "I took a good look round while we were coming in, and I noticed a distinct discoloration of the water about a mile out, as dead to leeward of the island as it can possibly be. I have no doubt we shall find that to be the shoal of which your friend spoke. And there was another thing I noticed while I was aloft, and which I will take this opportunity of mentioning. The island is literally covered with birds, sir, and, unfortunate as is the necessity, I am afraid that our very first task ... — Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... was so much astonished and terrified by the consequences of his own valorous deed, that he tumbled backwards amongst the feet of the people, who, too busy to attend to him, were actively engaged in getting the boat into shoal water, out of the whale's reach. Here he lay for some minutes, trampled on by the feet of the boatmen, until they lay on their oars to bale, when the Udaller ordered them to pull to shore, and land this spare hand, who had commenced the fishing ... — MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... husband's house a day or two after their return, when Tollman entered with a face full of apprehension. He had just suffered a fright which had made his heart miss a beat or two and had set his brain swirling with a fevered vision of all future happiness wrecked on a shoal of damnable folly. When he had presented his wife with the keys of his house he had not laid upon her any Bluebeard injunction that one door she must never open. Bluebeard lived in a more rudimentary ... — The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... fleets of Europe besides. About seven miles in depth, and varying in width from two to three and a half, it is fissured on every side by beautiful little bays, with deep water everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, or a bar, throughout the whole extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf has its protection by the long coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away to the southward and eastward, so that the security is perfect, and a vessel once anchored within the headlands between Lerici ... — Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... especially, to profit by any outlet offering least danger from the vigilant patrol outside. The skipper had already chosen his course. Because of the gale, he calculated that the blockaders would get a considerable offing, lest they flounder mid the shoal waters inshore. He knew too, even if it were not so dark, that a long, foamy line of surf curtained the bay from any watchful eye on the open sea. By the time she reached the beach channels, La Luz had full speed on. Then, knifing the higher and higher ... — The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Limpopo widened out until it was fully a quarter of a mile in width, the combined effect of these two circumstances being the formation of numerous eddies and so much slack water that the soil held in suspension by the two streams was here afforded an opportunity to settle and form a shoal extending right across the main river, with a maximum depth of water over it of barely four feet. This shoal we thoroughly tested both on foot and on horseback, with the result that we found it to ... — Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... North-East. Extream of the Land to the southward, which we took for Cape St. Thomas, South-West 1/2 South; distance 5 or 6 leagues; Depth of Water 13 fathoms, Grey sand. At 11 a.m. tack'd in 14 fathoms and Stood to the South-South-East, and at 3 a.m. Stood over a Shoal or Bank of 6 fathoms, afterwards the Depth increased to 30 fathoms, at Noon in 36 fathoms. Latitude Observed 22 degrees 37 minutes South, which is 10 miles to the Southward of the Log. No Land in sight. Wind South-East ... — Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... first the hallowed tree Was launched by the lone mariner on some primeval sea, No stouter stuff than the heart of oak, or tough elastic pine, Had floated beyond the shallow shoal to ... — War Poetry of the South • Various
... are a North-West Passage Unto the glowing India of the soul; And as the good ships sent upon that message Have not exactly ascertained the Pole (Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage),[mc] Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal; For if the Pole's not open, but all frost (A chance still), 't is ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Santiago, to Cape Frances, where the foul ground west of the Isle of Pines terminates. The Isle of Pines itself was to be seized, in order to establish there a secure base, for coal and against hurricanes, for the small vessels which alone could operate in the surrounding shoal water; and an expedition, composed mainly of the battalion of marines, was actually on the way for that purpose when the protocol was signed. During the three weeks occupied by the preparation and passage of the Santiago expedition, the blockade had ... — Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... degree; and shoals form, even in the splendid roadstead of Kingston, within the memory of young inhabitants. An American revenue vessel, pierced for, I believe, twenty-four guns, and carrying an enormous Paixhan, grounded in the autumn of last year on a shoal in that harbour, which was not known to the ... — Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... I had made a mistake in ordering a three-hundred-egg incubator to start building a prize flock with Mr. Golden Bird and the ten Ladies Leghorn, but in this case Adam had guided me from off that shoal, and by telegram I had changed the order for three fifty-egg improved metal mothers and the implements needed in accomplishing their maternal purpose. In one of them were now fifty beautiful white pearls that I could not refrain from visiting and regarding ... — The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and orchards, its painted pavilions, and the groves where the palace ladies coursed the game with dogs, and, tired of the pastime, flung off their robes and ran to the lake, where they disported themselves like a shoal of silver fishes. But a word must be said of the junks, which came sailing into the harbour four and twenty miles away, and up the river to the city; and of the great concourse of ships which came to Zaiton (perhaps the modern Amoy), the port of the province. ... — Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... hour we found ourselves nearing the land on the eastern shore of the bay, where we observe the railway comes out to meet us. The water on this side is so shoal for a distance from the shore that no ships of any considerable burden can float in it, so that the railway is carried out on piles into the deep water for a distance of nearly a mile. Here we land, and get into the train waiting alongside; then the engine begins to snort, and we ... — A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... went aground on a shoal on the island of Jolos, near these Philipinas Islands. Being seen by the Indians and natives of that land, the latter attacked them, and put them all to the sword, leaving only the captain alive for the ransom that they can get for him. For two years ... — The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... us, as we sat on the shore, waiting for the boat to take us round to La Brea, and drank in dreamily with our eyes the beauty of that strange lonely place. The only living things, save ourselves, which were visible were a few pelicans sleeping on a skerry, and a shoal of dolphins rolling silently in threes—husband, wife, and little child—as they fished their way along the tide mark between the yellow water and the green. The sky blazed overhead, the sea below; the red rocks and green forests blazed around; and we sat enjoying the ... — At Last • Charles Kingsley
... are so good that our own National Lifeboat Institution would do well to study the model for use in places where a sandy beach and shoal water make it sometimes impossible to launch the type of ... — Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Noblesse oblige. On the river Olynthiakos[41] in Northern Greece stood the tomb of the hero Olynthos, who gave the river its name. In the spring months of Anthesterion and Elaphebolion the river rises and an immense shoal of fish pass from the lake of Bolbe to the river of Olynthiakos, and the inhabitants round about can lay in a store of salt fish for all their needs. "And it is a wonderful fact that they never pass by the monument of Olynthus. They say that formerly the people used to perform the accustomed rites ... — Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... arose behind, and next moment they were caught up in the toils of a net constructed of towels knotted together, stretching across the path, and held at each end by two swift runners who swept them along at a headlong pace, catching up a shoal of stray fish on the way until even the stalwart dredgers were compelled, from the very weight of their "take," ... — Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... aroused from her stupor by the cries of a vast flock of sea birds, and, opening her eyes, she saw that the canoe was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of bonita that leaped and sported and splashed about almost within arm's length of her. They were pursuing a shoal of small fish called atuli, and these every now and then darted under the canoe for protection. Sometimes, as the hungry bonita pressed them hard, they would leap out of the water, hundreds together, and then the sea birds would swoop down and seize them ... — The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... with the white spray of breakers on a rocky shoal, and a beach beyond. And beyond that, in hard outline against a golden sky, was a gigantic tube that stood vertically in air to reach beyond the upper limits of the ... — Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... effect on the insensate fellows who are the betting-man's prey, and thus this precious sport has become a source of idleness, theft, and vast misery. One wretch goes under, but the stock of human folly is unlimited, and the shoal of gudgeons moves steadily into the bookmaker's net. One betting-agent in France receives some five thousand letters and telegrams per day, and all this huge correspondence comes from persons who never take the trouble to see a race, but who are bitten with the ... — The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Ayre, keeping in seven fathoms till within three miles of the point, where one cast we had a quarter less seven, and the next cast only three fathoms. Some supposed we here touched, but it was not perceived by me. Off this point there is a shoal almost even with the surface of the water, but having seven fathoms within two cables length of its edge. This afternoon, while standing towards three Dutch ships that rode right in the fair-way, and when within a mile of them, our ship grounded; but, God be praised, ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... left the ferry at Market Street I saw that the Norwegian steamer Taunton was unloading bananas at the Ericsson pier. Less than a month ago she picked up the survivors of the schooner Madrugada, torpedoed by a U-boat off Winter Bottom Shoal. On the Madrugada was a young friend of mine, a Dutch sailor, who told me of the disaster after he was landed in New York. To come unexpectedly on the ship that had rescued him seemed a great adventure. What a poem Walt Whitman could ... — Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... through the early night, even when he lay motionless on his bed staring at the wall. And as he stared it seemed to him that there passed upon the wall clouds upon clouds of exquisite and evanescent colour, and that strange forms appeared and moved upon the clouds. He saw a shoal of fishes (they were fishes, radiant, iridescent, gorgeous fishes, with the tails of peacocks); they swam round and round the room just under the cornice, an ever-revolving, ever-floating frieze. He was immensely interested in these decorative hallucinations. His ... — The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... spoken when upwards of a dozen out of a large shoal leaped, or flew rather, right in among us, while as many more passed clean over the boat. It was a curious coincidence, and at all events afforded us not only a substantial, but a very delicious meal, cooked by the skilful hands of Monsieur Jacotot. It put us all in good spirits, ... — James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... receives ships of any ordinary burthen, the port there being called Topsham. But now by the application, and at the expense, of the citizens the channel of the river is so widened, deepened, and cleansed from the shoal, which would otherwise interrupt the navigation, that the ships come now quite up to the city, and there with ease both deliver ... — From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... sea-level, though their fronts are back in narrow fiords, eight or ten miles from the sound. A similar point juts out into the sound five or six miles to the south, while the missing portion is submerged and forms a shoal. ... — Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... arm of the sea on the ocean or on our lake shores, on the margin of which may exist a commercial city or town engaged in foreign or domestic trade, but is made to embrace waters, where there is not only no such city or town, but no commerce of any kind. By it a bay or sheet of shoal water is called a harbor, and appropriations demanded from Congress to deepen it with a View to draw commerce to it or to enable individuals to build up a town or city on its margin upon speculation and for their ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... shown to the present General Assembly that the Government of the United States is solicitous that certain lands at Old Point Comfort, and at the shoal called the Rip Raps, should be, with the right of property and entire jurisdiction thereon, vested in the said United States for the purpose of fortification and other objects ... — The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... continued to beat until eight o'clock, P.M., when all the guns having been thrown overboard (except one, retained for signals), and all means taken to lighten her, she began to heave, and in about an hour after she swung off the shoal,—not, however, without having lost ... — Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... rate our party were unanimous about starting early. "Better make an early start," said the Colonel, when the idea of the party was suggested. "Oh, yes," said George Popley, the bank manager, "we want to get right out on the shoal while the ... — Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... the starboard bow, edged by lines of breaking surf, sand-dunes topped with green merged gradually southward, into strange jade-green hills, low and soft as brushed velvet in the distance. To the North the dunes tapered to a long, narrow shoal over which, as far as the eye could reach, swells of clearest emerald broke into ... — Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... first thought was to have Daubleday[288] lead the Indian Expedition, the auxiliary white force of which was to be selected from the regiments at Fort Scott. Doubleday accordingly made his plans, rendezvoused his men, and arranged that the mouth of Shoal Creek should be a rallying point and temporary headquarters;[289] but events were already ... — The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... on again, but in half an hour after passing more shoal water, saw another rapid, not steep, but too shallow to float the canoe, even with both men wading. Here Quonab made what the Frenchmen call a demi-charge. He carried half the stuff to the bank; then, wading, one at each end, they hauled the canoe up the portage and reloaded her above. ... — Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... rock on which we split, and hate is the shoal on which many a bark is stranded. When we are fearful, the judgment is as unreliable as the compass of a ship whose hold is full of iron ore; when we hate, we have unshipped the rudder; and if we stop to meditate on what the gossips ... — Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... them lovingly, even when, on account of their foolishness and evil conduct, they deserve to be abandoned and left to themselves. Well, then, the good Fairy, as soon as she saw that I was in danger of drowning, sent immediately an immense shoal of fish, who, believing me really to be a little dead donkey, began to eat me. And what mouthfuls they took; I should never have thought that fish were greedier than boys! Some ate my ears, some my muzzle, others ... — Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... indeed, were the praises he sung that his statements were received in England with a good deal of hesitation. But they were amply corroborated by Wilkes and others who followed many years later. "Nothing," says Wilkes, "can exceed the beauty of these waters and their safety. Not a shoal exists in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound or Hood's Canal, that can in any way interrupt their navigation by a 74-gun ship. I venture nothing in saying there is no country ... — Steep Trails • John Muir
... quit such a pack of female dogs. But before I had passed on many steps, I was surprised to see another shoal of imprisoned wenches, twice more detestable than they. Some had been changed into toads, some into dragons, some into serpents who were swimming and hissing, glavering and butting in a fetid, stagnant pool, much larger than Llyn Tegid. {84} "In the ... — The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... then, with the greater speed, and had soon descended the slope of Aros to the part that we call Sandag Bay. It is a pretty large piece of water compared with the size of the isle; well sheltered from all but the prevailing wind; sandy and shoal and bounded by low sand-hills to the west, but to the eastward lying several fathoms deep along a ledge of rocks. It is upon that side that, at a certain time each flood, the current mentioned by my uncle sets so strong into the bay; a little later, ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Rome, among a shoal of visitants, to congratulate the new pope, perhaps not without a commission from Alfonso to see what he could do for his native country, on which the rival Medici family never ceased to have designs. The ... — Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... opposite side, and a kind of sound is formed by some islands to the North East and some islands of considerable size to the South West, and in the intermediate space there are several small islands and rocks. On the larboard hand of the North entrance there is a shoal, on which the sea appears to break although there is from ten to twelve fathoms of water upon it. In the other part of the entrance there is forty fathoms of water or more. Our boat had only time to examine the entrance and the larboard side of the sound, in which there are ... — Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... and shoal obscurely mapped, And hauntings of the gray sea-wolf, The palmy Western Key lay lapped In the warm ... — Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor) |