"Back country" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this Province we'd go to work and 'cipher' right off. Halifax is nothing without a river or back country; add nothing to nothing, and I guess you have nothing still—add a railroad to the Bay of Fundy, and how much do you git? That requires ciphering—it will cost three hundred thousand dollars or seventy-five thousand pounds your money—add for notions omitted in the addition ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... a wild lad" (I repeat his exact words), "and I ran up a bill in Charlestown that would have filled a folio volume. Faith, all I had left me was the clothes on my back and a good horse. I made up my mind one night that if I could pay my debts and get out of Charlestown I would go into the back country and study law and sober down. There was a Mr. Braiden in the ordinary who staked me two hundred dollars at rattle-and-snap against my horse. Gad, sir, that was providence. I won. I left Charlestown with honor, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... very much alarmed. She was awfully pale; she was a monstrous pretty girl too—the prettiest by all odds I ever saw, and that's saying a good deal. By Jove! Well, it turned out that she had been stopping in the back country for a month, at a house somewhere up the river, with her father. Her father had gone down to Ottawa a week before, and was expected back on this day. She had come out to meet him, and had lost her way. She had been out for hours, and was completely bewildered. She was also ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... could not talk readily, even in a small company, and was hopeless when it came to "speaking a piece" on Friday at the school. But he was a sturdy, outdoor boy, by this time remarkably proficient with horses. At the age of fifteen he had explored the back country for miles roundabout. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... they'd murdered a white man or two, the rest of us whites—there wasn't more than a handful of us at that time up on the Leura—banded together and drove them off into the back country. We had a dangerous job with those Blacks until King Mograbar was ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... glad to meet somebody from the back country, Mr Ellis,' she said. 'Walter so seldom brings a stranger here, and I get tired of talking to the same people about the same things, and seeing the same faces. You don't know what a relief it is, Mr Ellis, to see a new face and talk to ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... importation of slaves continued a part of the trade of the country, held its own with the most thriving cities of the east coast, through the great advantage it derived from its easy harbour, but with the abolition of that traffic came the downfall of its prosperity; for having no back country by the exportation of whose produce it might sustain itself, it was speedily deserted by the mercantile community, and its carrying trade usurped by Providence, although the latter is situated some thirty miles higher up the river. A railroad from Boston through the wealthy manufacturing ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... line of road over its Coast Range, which is too difficult to be generally adopted, and will probably be abandoned for a better since discovered; but its noble harbour is too good, and the extent of back country it commands too extensive in area, for it not ultimately to take its place as an important port. Burke Town is but starting into existence, but already supplies the settlers of the Flinders and other Gulf rivers ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... "The Man in the Buffalo Hide" by Ned D——. He (D——) was then a prosperous citizen, having made a small fortune by "striking it rich" on the Gilbert and Etheridge Rivers goldfields. Returning from the arid wastes of the Queensland back country to Sydney, he tired of leading an inactive life, and hearing that gold had been discovered on one of the Solomon Islands, he took passage thither in the Sydney whaling barque Costa Rica packet, and though he returned to Australia without discovering ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... imposing than the White Mountains, and in the distance we see old Cuyamaca, nearly seven thousand feet high. But we must take the next train for San Diego, or this chapter will be a volume in itself. And I have not even alluded to the "Great Back Country." ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... marshes—"the low, green prairies of the sea," and the beaches of Hampton and Salisbury. The scenery of the Merrimack is familiar to all readers of Whittier: the cotton-spinning towns along its banks, with their factories and dams, the sloping pastures and orchards of the back country, the sands of Plum Island and the level reaches of water meadow between which glide the broad-sailed "gundalows"—a {519} local corruption of gondola—laden with hay. Whittier was a farmer lad, and had only such education as the district school could supply, supplemented by two years at the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... of Cape Lannes, and Guichen Bay, a little to the south of Cape Bernouilli, have more particularly drawn the attention of the local Government, rendered necessary in consequence of the rapid settlement of the back country. Recent surveys have enhanced the value of these two bays, and townships have been laid out at each. That at Rivoli bay being called Grey Town, that of Guichen bay Robe Town. At the latter, there is a resident magistrate and a party of mounted police. Many allotments have been sold in both towns, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... in the back country, by filling all the tributary creeks and streams, converts the larger rivers into headlong and destructive torrents, that rush and foam along with "curbless force," carrying huge blocks of ice and large timbers, like feathers ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... too. So I made some inquiries. It was difficult to trace the facts because there were no relatives. Old Post seemed to have been just a solitary prowler, coming from nowhere, like so many of the old timers. But finally, I found an old fellow in the back country who had known old Post. He told me that little Hunt Post, as he called him, had been killed with his father and mother in a railway accident. I asked where they got the child's name and he said the mother's name was Huntingdon. He knew ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... and inserted here and there passages taken at random from the Gems of Irish Oratory. Mr. Pollard's notions of the "Yankees," and the condition of things among them, would be creditable to a Chinaman from pretty well up in the back country. No society could hold together for a moment in the condition of moral decay which he attributes to the Northern States. Before writing his next volume he should read Charles Lamb's advice "to those who have the framing of advertisements ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... talking, boys," he said. "The man was here last night, and he isn't now, and it don't count for very much how he got away. Head right away for the railroad, two of you. Another two will strike for the pass in the main divide, and if you get through quick enough you'll turn him off into the back country. The rest of you will stop right here and help Okanagan to ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... public edifices of splendid architecture, for the religious and civil service of the state, and elegant mansions and palaces for the wealthy aristocracy, and walls and towers for the defense of the whole. Let him then imagine a back country, extending for some hundred miles into the interior of Africa, fertile and highly cultivated, producing great stores of corn, and wine, and rich fruits of every description. Let him then look at ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a young friend, a few years before her death, she says: "When I was about your age, we spent six months of the year in the back country, two hundred miles from Charleston, where we would live for months without seeing a white face outside of the home circle. It was often lonely, but we had many out-door enjoyments, and were very happy. I, however, always had one terrible drawback. Slavery ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... houses 'our side of the water,' no matter where, but away up in the back country, how teetotally different they be! bean't they? A great big, handsome wooden house, chock full of winders, painted so white as to put your eyes out, and so full of light within, that inside seems ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... should be improved by having seeds sown during the beginning of the wet season to produce plants with deep roots which will take the place of the annuals. If this was done and tanks and wells made in the back country the land would probably carry at least twice the quantity of stock it could now; but to get improvements of that character made a freehold tenure would probably be required. At 11.40 Jemmy and I waited behind the main party on this extensive plain and made an observation of the sun, ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... expectation entertained by the other States, that North Carolina and Georgia would complete the plan already so far executed by New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina, but that the opinion was in no small degree prevalent, that the just title to this "back country," as it was termed, had vested in the United States by the treaty of peace, and could not rightfully be claimed by any ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... was still far above reproach, a little further back country—and Dexter Allison owned the sawmills that droned in the valley. His men drove his timber down from the hills in the north; his men piled the yellow planks upon his flat cars which ran in over his spur line that had crept up from the south. His ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... self-important personages, with canes and well-powdered periwigs—among the crowd of meaner men who bestowed their attention upon Dr. Melmoth and his friend as they rode by. The town being the nearest mart of a large extent of back country, there are many rough farmers and woodsmen, to whom the cavalcade was an object of curiosity and admiration. The former feeling, indeed, was general throughout the village. The shop-keepers left their customers, and looked forth from the doors; the female portion of ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... expect at your leisure, the other documents you mention as explanatory of your boundaries. Copies of the most westerly grants, that have been made by the Crown within your State, would tend greatly to elucidate your claim, as would also copies of acts of the Legislature laying out the back country into counties or parishes, if any ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... high stony ridges, and immediately beyond came to some steep sand-drifts, among the hollows of which I dug for water, but at five feet was stopped by rock. The scrubby, hilly, and rugged nature of the back country, generally about three hundred feet above the level of the sea, now compelled me to keep the beach for five miles, from which I was then again driven by the hills terminating abruptly towards the sea, and forcing ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... by two streams of migration, one westward from the sea and the other southward from the other colonies—Germans from Pennsylvania and Scotch-Irish furnishing the main supply. "By 1770, tide-water Virginia was full to overflowing and the 'back country' of the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah was fully occupied. Even the mountain valleys ... were claimed by sturdy pioneers. Before the Declaration of Independence, the oncoming tide of home-seekers had reached the crest ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... case) have rather a pleasing appearance. The situation of this city is advantageous, both from the direct communication which it enjoys with the Atlantic, by means of sloops and schooners, and the large tract of back country which it commands. A trade with Canada is established by means of the Erie and Hudson canal. The capitol, and other public buildings, are large and handsome, and being constructed of either brick or stone, give the city ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... through early in the session. Anderson introduced it. Nobody paid any attention to it because he's a back country Swede and his bill was very wordy. The governor signed it to-day. That bill provides for the recall of any public official, alderman or legislator if the people are not satisfied with ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine |
