"Tacking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had gone quite round in the night, and was now blowing hard in our teeth, from the south-west. It was to be a case of tacking down Channel,—a slow and, for landsmen, a very trying process. In the midst of my first mal de mer, I was amused by the appearance on board of one of my fellow-passengers. He was a small, a very small individual, but possessed of ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... it were not for the deficiency of feminine character (a deficiency which rehandlers evidently felt and endeavoured to remedy by the expedient of tacking on an obvious plagiarism from Tristan as an appendix, ostensibly dealing with the avenging of the hero), the fifth, Grettis Saga or Grettla, would perhaps be the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Tacking from corner to corner, now and then hitching up his trousers, to give freer play to his feet, he at length comes out upon the street which fronts upon the bay. In his week's cruising about the town he has acquired some knowledge of its topography, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... this topographically charming province, the main island had to be crossed at its widest, and, owing to lofty mountain chains, much tacking to be done to boot. Atmospherically the distance is even greater than afoot. Indeed, the change in climate is like a change in zone; for the trend of the main island at this point, being nearly east and west, gives to the one coast a southerly exposure, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... trying to the explorers than the navigation in which they were now engaged, day after day tacking off and on among large fields of ice, through which they in vain endeavoured to find a passage to the southward, with the constant risk, in thick weather, of running foul of icebergs, or of getting fast in the packed ice which might any moment enclose them, while all ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... wind drew ahead, and we had to beat up the coast; so that, in tacking ship, I could see the regulations of the vessel. Instead of going wherever was most convenient, and running from place to place, wherever work was to be done, each man had his station. A regular tacking and wearing ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... clear about thicky wreck. Likely as not 'twas the one I seed all yesterday tacking about: and if so be as I be right, a pretty lot of lubbers she must have had aboard. Jonathan, the coast-guard, came down to Lizard Town this morning, and said he seed a big vessel nigh under the cliffs toward midnight, or fancied he seed her: but fustly Jonathan's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to weather it, we held on our way. It was just ten o'clock as we approached this cape, and we found a passage westward that actually led into the ocean! All hands gave three cheers as we became certain of this fact, the ship tacking as soon as far enough ahead, and setting seaward famously ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... mamma says I shall,—and so does nurse; and I don't mind what any body else says.—I waited only for my revenge, till the two former withdrew; when sending the latter for a glass of water, I gave Miss such a glorious tacking, as I believe she has never tasted the like before or since.—In the midst of the fray, I heard nurse running up, which made me hasten what I owed on my own account, to remind her of the favours she had conferred on Lord Eggom and her brother.—If such a termagant in her ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... at meeting with this interruption, as it in some measure relieved us, at least shortened the dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation of the southern polar regions. Since, therefore, we could not proceed one inch farther to the south, no other reason need be assigned for my tacking and standing back to the north; being at this time in the latitude of 71 deg. 10' S., longitude ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... "Now then for the tacking!" she cried, and for five minutes on end there was silence, until— "Dear me!" quoth Miss Peggy in a tone of dismay, and peaked ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Dundas, declaring that they should have to encounter a strong south-easter, all their efforts were directed to double the headland of Fifeness and the dreaded Carr Rock, and get into the Forth; but their utmost endeavours were unavailing, so that the best part of a day was spent in tacking and veering to, close in with the land, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... favoured spots was at Tacking Point, a curious steep-to bluff, clothed on its sides with a dense thicket scrub, the haunt of hundreds of black wallabies and wonga pigeons, and also a large variety, of brown and black snakes, with an occasional death adder. The summit, however, was beautifully grassed, and ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... "Portuguese men of war," as the sailors call the independent little nautilus, sailed contemptuously past us in their fairy barks, as if they had been little steamers. A man fell overboard, but the weather being calm, was saved immediately. We have been tacking about and making our way slowly towards Havana, in a zigzag line. Yesterday evening the moon rose in the form of a large heart, of a red gold colour. This morning, about four o'clock, a fine fresh breeze sprung up from the north-east, and we are ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... far-reaching modifications in the government of the city, such as were afterwards carried out by Augustus, and the presence in the Lex Julia Municipalis of the clauses referred to is an example of the common process of "tacking" (legislation per saturam, as it was called by the Romans). The law deals with the constitution of the local senates, for whose members qualifications of age (30 years) and military service are laid down, while persons who have suffered conviction for various specified offences, or who are ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... shirt she was making for some charitable society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the boat half a mile from the shore, and then, in tacking, gave it such a sudden twitch as to throw Mr. Parasyte, who was still standing, off his balance, and he went over the side into ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... desirous to get rid of his visitors, took an effectual method by tacking from the shore; our friends then departed apparently in high glee at the harvest they had reaped. They paddled away very swiftly, and would, doubtless, soon reach the shore though it was distant ten ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... contenting herself with calling something to us through a trumpet, which we could not understand. Pursuing our course in an opposite direction, we were soon at a considerable distance from the corvette, and then saw the frigate tacking to follow us; but having already greatly the advantage, and the mouth of the bay clear before us, we rehoisted our sails, and without waiting for further evidence of Chilian hostility, stood out to sea; thus escaping attempts upon our ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Inconveniences; it checks immoderate Ambition, stops Wars, Navies and Expeditions; especially it prevents Members making long Speeches when they have nothing to say; it keeps back Rebellions, Insurrections, Clashings of Houses, Occasional Bills, Tacking, &c. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... against the westerly winds by the same route, which we had followed in the boats to the settlement at Woollya. We did not see many natives until we were near Ponsonby Sound, where we were followed by ten or twelve canoes. The natives did not at all understand the reason of our tacking, and, instead of meeting us at each tack, vainly strove to follow us in our zigzag course. I was amused at finding what a difference the circumstance of being quite superior in force made, in the interest of beholding these savages. While in the boats I got to hate the very sound of their ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... whole it will do good. So with Socialism. The evils of Capitalism are so monstrous that any remedy is better than none. Socialism may not be the direct course: it may be a tremendously awkward tack, but it is only by tacking that we get along. So with positive education, but I have enlarged upon this already. What a sermon to my dear godfather! Forgive me, but you will have to take sides, and do, please, be a little ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... my whim for writing, fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior; whilst I saw that his experiences were as good as mine. Give them to me and I would make the same use of them. He held the old; he holds the new; I had the habit of tacking together the old and the new which he did not use to exercise. This may hold in the great examples. Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare we should not be conscious of any steep inferiority; no, but of a great equality,—only that he possessed ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan—we make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him meant progress. Success is a question of temperament—it is all a matter of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll was a success; happy, exuberant, joying in life, reveling ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... be called his "Last Blast," there is as sharp speaking as any in the "First Blast" itself. He is of the same opinion to the end, you see, although he has been obliged to cloak and garble that opinion for political ends. He has been tacking indeed, and he has indeed been seeking the favour of a queen; but what man ever sought a queen's favour with a more virtuous purpose, or with as little courtly policy? The question of consistency is delicate, and must be made plain. Knox never changed his opinion about female rule, but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ned felt uncomfortable. Both thought of the repayment of the latter's friendly loan. The girl made her machine rattle still more hurriedly to prevent any further remarks trending in that direction. At last Mrs. Somerville, her tacking finished, got up and took ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... and passed it, though it was a money-bill, "containing extraneous enactments," and as such contravened one of their own standing orders which had been passed in the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, when the system of "tacking," as it was called, had excited great discontent, which was not confined to themselves. The propriety of rejecting the bill on that ground was vigorously urged by the only two lawyers who took part in the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... outlet from the Sound to the sea. Beyond Sivan Island lighthouse is Ocracoke inlet, and next is the inlet of Hatteras. There are also three others known as Logger Head inlet, New inlet, and Oregon inlet. The Ocracoke was the one nearest the Ebba, and she could make it without tacking, but the Falcon was searching all vessels that passed through. This did not, however, make any particular difference, for by this time all the passes, upon which the guns of the forts had been trained, were guarded ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... fringed the creek. But a broad space had been cleared to make a gap upon the bank, so that Ethne could see the sunlight on the water and the wooded slope on the farther side, and a sailing-boat some way down the creek tacking slowly against the light wind. Ethne looked about her, as though she was summoning her resources, and even composing her sentences ready for delivery to the man who was walking steadily towards her across the lawn. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... As sure as a gun, For old Peter Patch is departed; And Eyres and Delaune, And the rest of that spawn, Are tacking about broken-hearted. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... had another rebuff for us. The wind shifted and blew from the east right out of the bay. We could see the way through the reef, but we could not approach it directly. That afternoon we bore up, tacking five times in the strong wind. The last tack enabled us to get through, and at last we were in the wide mouth of the bay. Dusk was approaching. A small cove, with a boulder-strewn beach guarded by a reef, made a break in the cliffs on the south side ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... sailing. But he was bound for a port which few mariners have ever come near, and he knew that the wind was ever in his teeth. It was only by taking a course that was a constant series of zigzags, it was only by perpetually tacking, that he could ever hope to come into harbour. He was not, therefore, the less acutely aware of his precise course. He was merely adopting the most strictly scientific method of navigation. The fluctuating judgments which Flaubert seems to pronounce on the aim ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... their way to the sea with the tide that was running down, the lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa. Now, Pa, in the character of owner of a lumbering square-sailed collier, was tacking away to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds to make his fortune with; now, Pa was going to China in that handsome threemasted ship, to bring home opium, with which he would for ever cut out Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, and to bring home silks and shawls without end for the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the great harbour was soon over, but the boat which lay waiting for him had a considerable distance to traverse, for the Tacheia was no longer at the landing place, but was tacking outside the Pharos, in order, if the warrant of arrest were issued, not to be stopped at the channel dominated by the lighthouse. He found the slender trireme pervaded by a restless stir. His uncle had long been expecting ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... she crept across the hall and sat on the side of Fidy's bed, waiting to give her the next dose of medicine. Her eyes were fixed on the bare lathes over the headboard where she had once knocked the plaster off tacking up a tomato-can label. But she did not see the hole or the wall. Calvary Alley and Cemetery Street had ceased to exist for her. She was already transported to a region of warmth and gaiety and song. All that ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... voices ceased. The young ladies were in awe. Miss Moore was not there to answer for them. No one dared act as spoksman. Young Jim Wheaton was on a step-ladder rather dangerously resting on the backs of two pews. He was tacking the letter G to the gallery. He noticed the silence ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... their force and brass cannon, which were commended by Whitelocke, who showed the difference in the make between these ships and the English frigates; that these, for strength to endure an assault and make defence, were very good, but that the English frigates had much advantage in their nimble tacking about, their fleet sailing to fetch up another ship, and the lying of their guns for use of fighting; with which discourse Wrangel seemed much pleased, and he preferred their brass cannon before those of iron, which Whitelocke assented unto as not so soon hot with firing, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... "heavy chance" the two ships that remained beat up and down tacking with the wind, Sir Humphrey hoping always that the weather would clear up and allow him once more to get near land. But day by day passed. The wind and waves continued as stormy as ever, and no glimpse of land did the weary ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... navigator on the ocean of life, putting out into the open waters at the time when such storms are frequent. Every day we see such craft scudding with all sails spread before the blast without attempt at reefing or tacking. Right ahead they drive before the wind with no doubtful course. But it was not and could not be so in the case of the Marchese Lamberto. The whole habits of a life—the ways, notions, hopes, desires, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... ordinary 3 x 6 foot size. In the latter case, of course, a purlin and supporting posts, as shown in diagram, must be supplied. Every second or third top sash should be hinged, to open for ventilation, and by tacking strips over the edges of the sash where they come together, a very tight and roomy little house can be put up quickly, easily and very cheaply. New sash, glazed and painted one coat, can be bought for $3 to $3.50 each. Ten of these ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... toward the Old Forest, which lies beyond the mountains that are visible upon the other side of the plain stretching out before Lustadt. At the same time other troopers rode in many directions along the highways and byways of Lutha, tacking placards upon trees and fence posts and beside the doors of every little rural ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... last remark, his quick eye saw that the wind had hauled so far round to the westward, as to supersede the necessity of tacking, and that they were actually going eight knots in a direct line from Portsmouth. Casting an eye behind him, he perceived that the cutter had given up the chase, and was returning towards the distant roads. Under circumstances ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of it," said Ralph. "And if he isn't in the boat, of course he is not on the ship. Perhaps he did not have anything to do with that vessel's coming here. It may have been tacking in this direction, and so come near enough for people ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... day for a week—every man had more than he could eat, and what was left over we threw on the floor like gentlemen. And then one day, as we saw San Huegedos, and wanted to sail in to spend our money, the wind changed round from behind us and beat us out to sea. There was no tacking against it, and no getting into the harbour, though other ships sailed by us and anchored there. Sometimes a dead calm would fall on us, while fishing boats all around us flew before half a gale, and sometimes the wind would beat us out ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... early in the morning, and had then to proceed against the wind with hard weather. We kept tacking with great assiduity till about midday, when the tide compelled us to stop, and we came to anchor under the Vlieter.[44] The boat being full of drinking people, there had been no rest the whole night. My good friend[45] ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... promoted from the steerage to the after cabin were in the dark in regard to their duty, though in these instances the parties had a general idea of what was required of them. But it was necessary to have the crew ready to work together, for the seaman who had hauled on the weather-brace in tacking was now an officer, and the stations of many were new ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... open Kara Sea, past the north point of Yalmal and Bieloi-Ostrov (White Island). There was no ice to be seen in any direction. During the days that followed we had constant strong east winds, often increasing to half a gale. We kept on tacking to make our way eastward, but the broad and keelless Fram can hardly be called a good "beater"; we made too much leeway, and our progress was correspondingly slow. In the journal there is a constantly recurring entry ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... stowed away in a basket under the chair, in order that the lady might accept the invitation of the gentleman to walk with him on the deck; and as the wind had freshened by this time, and walking in skirts was like tacking in a stiff breeze, the gentleman offered his arm to the lady, and ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... usually that of the mudar (Calotropis hamiltoni). The nest thus constructed forms a deep and narrow purse, about 3 inches in depth, an inch in diameter at top, and 1.5 at the broadest part below. The tacking together of the stems of the grass is commonly continued a good deal higher up on one side than on the other, and it is through or between the untacked stems opposite to this that the tiny entrance exists. Of course above the nest ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... sailor as he moved slowly, like a ship leaving port in heavy weather, with many a lurch and much tacking against an adverse wind. By the expression on the Semitic face you might have thought that Isaac Zahn was beholding some new and interesting object of natural history, instead of a ponderous and grumpy old sailor, who seemed to doubt somewhat the bona fides of the Kangaroo ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... be known as Robin Fitzooth Montfichet—'tis but tacking on another name to him," said the Squire. "If he lives here, as I shall devise in my will, right soon will he be known as Gamewell, and that only! That fate has befallen me, and one might believe me now as Saxon ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Chinamen with their balanced vegetable baskets. She knew the house and its management at her fingers' ends, and supervised everything that went forward. Laurie Flagg coming to call upon her, on Wednesday afternoon, to remonstrate upon her sudden defection, found her in the act of tacking up a ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... Nordland boat-builders have long since discovered the high fore and aft, sharp-keeled boat, to be the most practical, with one mast and a broad, prettily cut square sail admirably suited to what is most required, rapid sailing in fore and side winds, though less so for tacking. The boat is exactly the same shape under water as the fast-sailing clippers for which the English and Americans have of late become famed. What it has cost the Nordlanders to perfect the form that now enables them almost to ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... uncommonly touge all through the year, sir," replied Eaton, tacking on the "sir" in order to impress Midshipmen Flint and Austin with the tremendous dignity or all ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... them, in good earnest. He would have tacked in preference to waring, and it would have been much wiser to do so; but it was clearly expedient to get the ship on the other tack, and he lent all his present exertions to the attainment of that object. Waring is much easier done than tacking, certainly; when it does not blow too fresh, and there is not a dangerous sea on, no nautical manoeuvre can be more readily effected, though room is absolutely necessary to its success. This room was now wanting. Just as the ship had ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... landscape—their swift flight reduced by distance to a leisurely transition. The bright surface of the stream was furrowed by a hundred vessels; tiny rowboats creeping from shore to shore; knots of black barges following the lead of puffing tugs; sloops with languid motion tacking against the tide; white steamboats, like huge toy-houses, crowded with pygmy inhabitants, moving smoothly on their way to the great city, and disappearing suddenly as they turned into the narrows between Storm-King and the Fishkill Mountains. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... did not dare to go ashore, as many crowds of people were seen on the beach, who appeared to be hostile; as well as because he had yet no news of the army, without which he had orders not to do anything, and he had no forces for that. On that account the fleet kept tacking to windward on one tack and another for the space of three days. But at the end of that time, a felucca was seen to cross the bar of Lingayen headed toward the flagship. The father vicar of the said village came aboard ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... and daring, and working such wonders as men never worked before: writing plays, without thought of posterity, that are today the mine from which men work their poetry; producing comedies that are classic; sailing trackless seas and discovering continents; tacking proclamations of defiance on church-doors; hunted and exiled for the right of honest speech; welcoming fierce flames of fagots; falling upon blocks of marble and liberating angels; painting pictures that have inspired millions! But not one touched life at so many points, or reveled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... made a most feverish moment on board the Proserpine, as she came up fast toward the headland. All depended on getting by without tacking. The appearances were favorable for deep water close in; but there is always the danger of rocks to be dreaded near mountainous coasts. The promontory, too, was comparatively low; and this was rather an indication that it ought not to be approached too closely. Winchester was in his berth, just beginning ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... our journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses—it did not amount to a village—buried in trees, where we got our four horses and two postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... warm sunshine. Masses of jagged rocks stretched far out from land, making a wide sweep necessary in order to get round the Point. Steering was Marjorie's special duty, and long practice had made her very skilful in avoiding dangerous spots, and tacking against cross-currents. She it was, too, who begged Estelle not to jump about in the boat, and so imperil the lives of the party by her delight in the new world ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... standing N.E., at others N.N.E., until sunrise, when they tacked to the south to reach the island, which was now concealed by a great mist. Another island was in sight from the poop, at a distance of eight leagues. Afterwards, from sunrise until dark, they were tacking to reach the land against a strong wind and head-sea. At the time of repeating the Salve, which is just before dark, some of the men saw a light to leeward, and it seemed that it must be on the island they first saw yesterday. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... large house, built on the summit of a rock, which nearly overhung the shore below; there were, to be sure, a series of zigzag tacking paths down the face of this rock, but from the house they could not be seen. Old or delicate people would have considered the situation bleak and exposed; indeed, the present proprietor wanted to dispose of it on this very account; but by its present inhabitants, this exposure ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on the floor, tacking down a bedroom carpet, hammered away without an answer. After waiting a minute, she dropped down on the floor beside him, upsetting a saucer full of tacks as she did so. "Say, Alec," she began, in a confidential tone, "what ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men proved to be watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a small target on the stub of a dead sugar pine. This accomplished, he led the way back some seventy-five or ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... was against us, and we had to pull. At 7.30 we went ashore for breakfast. We were very chilly, our things still being wet, and we lighted a large fire and got everything dry. After breakfast we managed to sail a little, tacking against the wind, and by 12.30 p.m. we had made Sugar Island. Here was the American channel, and we resolved to get dinner, and wait for a tow. In this we were very fortunate, for just as we were finishing dinner ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... extent of the danger we had encountered: the land we had seen proved to be the round head of Bustard Bay, which, as the wind was blowing directly upon it, we were fortunate in having room to clear. The Dick was apprized by us of the danger in time, and succeeded in clearing the land by tacking to ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... punctuated the melody with strong language designed to encourage the mules. One wailing voice came to our ears with the set refrain, "O feed me, white folks! White folks, feed me!" The crates and barrels were loaded on lighters and floated out to little sailing boats that went tacking past our bows on their way ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... course seems to have been that, starting with a simple Egyptian tale, the resemblance to the shepherd of the Asiatic myth, led to a Ramesside author improving the story by tacking on the branches of the myth one after another, and borrowing the name. If this be granted, we have here in Bata the earliest indications of the elements of the Atys mysteries, a thousand years ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... Flossie was tacking her way towards them. Joan acted on impulse. "I wish you'd give me your address," she said "where I could write to you. Or perhaps you would not mind my coming and seeing you one day. I would like you to tell ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... It did. Tacking was, of course, out of the question, but with the gale astern the launch answered her helm and slid over the waves instead of rolling between them. I sighed in relief. Then I remembered my passenger sitting silent beside me. She did not deserve consideration, but I vouchsafed a ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... displacement of the Battery, the rig is very small and not sufficiently effective. Shrouds were not required; the masts were supported by runners that were shifted when the yards were reversed, and in tacking. Apparently the jibstays also could be slacked off so that the lateen yards would not have to ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... tacking up some tarlatan at a window to keep the midges out. Rita offered to help her, as she had done for the past ten years. Nan's "No, thanks," cut ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... among the many others near, all similar in appearance? It cannot tell exactly save by the sign-board of certain details known to itself alone. Therefore, still on the wing, tacking from side to side, it examines the locality. The home is found at last: the Halictus alights on the threshold of her abode and dives into ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... all around, whether blinding and topping off the half-wild ponies or throwing them and tacking cold-wrought "cowboy" shoes to their flint-like feet, and more than one enthusiast came away limping or picking the loose skin from a bruised hand. Yet through it all the dominant note of dare-devil hilarity never failed. The solitude of the ranch, long endured, had left its ugly mark on all ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... them. He asked me for a list of nurseries growing them. Nursery nut trees are not being produced in very great quantities except by Mr. Jones, and they are unlisted in the nursery catalogues, or only listed in an incidental way, very much as though they were tacking on something in the way of citrus fruit, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... in the pipe, it can be cleaned out better if the pipe is straight than if it is laid with numerous bends. Such a pipe should have a grade of at least one quarter inch to a foot, and this is conveniently given by tacking a little piece of wood one half inch thick on one end of a two-foot carpenter's level and then setting the pipe so that with this piece of wood resting on the pipe at one end and the end of the level itself on the pipe at its other end, the bubble will be in the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... under the corner of the damaged wing, swearing to himself and tacking linen to mend the jagged hole broken through the covering by the skid. He ducked his head and peered out at ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... and one of these boats comes nearer and nearer to us, tacking to perfection. Through our glasses we already seem to see the stalwart figure of the pilot standing in the stern. On his brow he wears a storm-defying cap, the badge of the warrior of the waves; the loose shirt, the top boots, and the weather-beaten jacket all combine to ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... with sails spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that our skipper was master of the situation. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... succession, were silenced, so long as we could bring our broadside to bear upon them; but the moment we passed a battery, it was re-animated, and a constant, heavy fire kept up from all that we could not point our guns at. We suffered most when wearing or tacking; it was then I most sensibly felt the want of another frigate. At half-past four, the wind inclining to the northward, I made the signal for the bombs and gunboats to retire from action, and, immediately after, the signal to tow off the gunboats and prizes, which was handsomely executed ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the long bench, and round it sat the neat-handed little maidens gluing, tacking and trimming, while they sang and chatted at their work as busy and happy ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Parahaki; from whence is clear the view of the island Tahua. I see with regret the lofty Taumo, where dwells Tangiteruru. If I were there, the shark's tooth would hang from my ear. How fine, how beautiful, should I look. But see whose ship is that tacking? Is it yours? O Hu! you husband of Pohiwa, sailing away on the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... dropped the rock which would have completed his house of stones, as he saw a sail tacking across the river straight ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... another. We thought it would never do to display a total ignorance of the signals; Ryan therefore ordered the signal-bag to be produced, and we strung some flags together haphazard, and hoisted them. This signal the schooner acknowledged, tacking at the same time and standing toward us once more; but we were far too busy to wait for her, for although she had all the looks of a slaver, we knew, from the course she was steering, that she could have no slaves on board, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... brief song at intervals—a sound as of shattering glass. The whinchat was rarely seen, but I constantly met the small, prettily coloured stonechat flitting from bush to bush, following me, and never ceasing his low, querulous tacking chirp, anxious for the safety of his nest. Nightingales, blackcaps and white-throats also nested there, and were louder and more emphatic in their protests when approached. There were several grasshopper-warblers on the common, all, very curiously as it seemed to me, clustered at one spot, so ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... ships and shipping. He mixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited the dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always befriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the full significance of what could be done by broadsides ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... over one another! At one moment the birds would wheel so as to bring their backs in shadow, and then would flash out the white of their breasts and under parts. It was like the opening and shutting of a giant hand, or the alternate rapid darkening and brightening of the sail of a tacking ice-boat. This is the spirit of the flock. When a hawk pursues a bird, the birds tack and turn as if linked together. When one robin dashes off in hot pursuit of another, behold how their movements exactly coincide! The hawk-hunted bird often escapes by reaching ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... figures; he takes them mostly from the ways of ordinary civil life, selecting his metaphors, now from the trader's shop or the merchant's counting-house, as "ratio constat" (An. I. 6), used when the debtor and creditor sides of an account balance one another; now from seamen steering and tacking vessels, or coachmen driving horses, as "verbis moderans" (An. VI. 2), which Nipperdey says ought to be rendered, "touching-up and reining-in his words, and driving only ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... four o'clock in the evening, and I am sitting on a cigar-box outside of our cabin. From this spot not a person is to be seen, except a man who is building a new wing to the Humboldt. Not a human sound, but a slight noise made by the aforesaid individual in tacking on a roof of blue drilling to the room which he is finishing, disturbs the stillness which fills this purest air. I confess that it is difficult to fix my eyes upon the dull paper, and my fingers upon the duller pen with which I am soiling it. Almost every other ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... well one black night in the mid-Atlantic, when we were beating up against a stiff breeze, coming on deck near midnight, just as the ship was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks and sheets (ropes which confine the clews or lower corners of the sails) are let run, in order that the yards may be swung round to meet the altered position of the ship. They must then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... was fitful. They traveled unsteadily, too, tacking back and across the estuary, because the breeze was so light, and no longer astern. Ten miles down the mouth of the stream they beheld an island where huge sheets of ice were piled one upon another, in an overhanging jumble of ice-hummock, some fifty feet high. And along the edge of this ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... their great lateen sails were tacking across the river, passing from one shore to the other, and recalling the shape of the mystic baris of the times ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... one of the men to his nearest mate, "talk about 'tacking the enemy, if wrong's happened to our young gentleman, all I can say is, as I hopes it's orders to land every night to burn willages and sack ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... the bay was a schooner tacking against the wind, while just rounding Rocky Point was a trim little yacht with all sail set, flying straight ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... walk so many paces north, turn and go so many feet west, and then north again. You then came to a white stone, from which you laid your course through more latitude and longitude until you were right over the spot. The police of Hoboken did as directed, and after tacking round and round the field, found the dynamite. Of course, the union said the whole thing was a plant, and that Guthrie had put the dynamite in the field himself at the instigation of his employers, but before the case ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... not venturing to attack us, though only one ship to thirteen. At 3 A.M. on the 16th, we crowded sail and went in amongst them, firing a broadside within half musket shot at one of the frigates with evident effect, as, from the damage caused, they did not return our fire. Whilst tacking to give them the other broadside, our mainsail split in two, and night setting in, we relinquished the pursuit ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... seeing that the skiff was lost, set sail, it being already night, tacking about until the next day; as soon as it was morning they anchored at the place where they had seen the skiff carried to, and he ordered two boats to be got ready with a matter of fifty or sixty men, and he went ashore in person and burned the whole village, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... her horse at bowlderfield, where horses are usually left, and without difficulty, or delay, made the summit. Just as she reached the top, a storm struck the mountain and, inside of a few minutes, hid the trail. Pluckily Miss Broughm worked her way down, tacking back and forth, mistaking the way but making progress. She was afraid to trust the dog to guide her. Late in the evening she descended the trough, a steep rock-filled gully that extends far below the timberline. The trail ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... sparrow or the goldfinch. It is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird so closely, flashing and turning, and timing his movements with ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... put this thing into your head?" inquired Mr. Eldridge. "You were in full sail for party this morning, liquor and all; this sudden tacking for a new course is a ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... of tacking a Tragic Head with a Comic Tail, in order to refresh the Audience, it is such a piece of Jargon, that I don't know what ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... cannot be completed on a moderate scale for less than fifty millions of dollars, nor manned in time of war with less than fifty thousand men, and in peace, two thousand. And when done, they avail little; because all military men agree, that wherever a vessel may pass a fort without tacking under her guns, which is the case at all our sea-port towns, she may be annoyed more or less, according to the advantages of the position, but can never be prevented. Our own experience during the war proved this on different ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not be so if you will only cease tacking that 'yes' on to the end of every question that you find occasion ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... the letter should be divided into as many paragraphs as there are distinct subjects in the letter, or a new paragraph should be commenced at every change of the subject. The habit which some persons have of tacking one subject to the end of another, and thus making a letter one continuous paragraph of mixed up information, instructions and requests, is extremely objectionable. It destroys the force of what is said, instead ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... visited door after door, shouted, "Hey, Billy!" and proceeded to the next one. He was getting pugnacious at his lack of success when he espied Mr. Billy Williams tacking along the accidental street as if he owned it. Mr. Williams was executing fancy steps and was trying to sing ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... landed her on the opposite side, and I had to make my way all round to get her off again. Aleck remained on his side of the Cove, and we amused ourselves for some time in contriving to get the little boat to sail backwards and forwards, tacking ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous |
