"Ambergris" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sea Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore: And dived as desperately for each piece Of earth, as if't had been of ambergris; Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, Less than what building swallows bear away; Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll, Transfusing into them their dunghill soul. How did they rivet, with gigantic piles, Thorough the centre their new-catched miles; And to the stake a struggling ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... behind the Turkish lines. They halted at a ruined palace in the desert. The Arabs led him through the various rooms, explaining that each was scented with a different perfume. Although Lawrence could smell nothing, they claimed that one room had the odor of ambergris—another of roses—and a third of jasmine;—at length they came to a large and particularly ruinous room. "This," they said, "has the finest scent of all—the smell of the wind and the sun." I last saw Colonel Lawrence in Paris, whither he had brought the ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... ceased not so doing until he had landed them on the further bank. Here the twain took ground and began to pace forwards, gazing around them the while and regarding the trees which bore for burthen ambergris and lign-aloes, sandal, cloves, and gelsamine,[FN35] all with flowers and fruits bedrest whose odours broadened the breast and excited the sprite. There also the birds warbled, with various voices, notes ravishing and rapturing the heart by the melodies of their musick. So Mubarak turned to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... employed for addition to soaps are almost entirely of vegetable origin, and consist of essential oils, balsams, and resins, animal perfumes such as musk, civet, and ambergris being reserved principally for the ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... discouraged. "My idea is right," he said. "I shall make a larger distiller and try again. There's plenty more roses. Next time we are by the sea I shall look for ambergris. It is found floating on the shores of warm countries, and all scent should have ambergris ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... finding a channel to run in beyond all these islands, could I have spent time here, and either got to the main of New Holland or find out some other islands that might afford us water and other refreshments; besides that among so many islands we might have found some sort of rich mineral, or ambergris, it being a good latitude for both these. But we had not sailed above a league farther before our water grew shoaler again, and then we anchored in ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... with scented and plain hair-powder. In 1771, "Gentlemen's Fine Washballs" were advertised in Boston, and "Scented Marbled Washballs." Other varieties of these substitutes for soap were Chemical, Greek, Venice, Marseilles, camphor, ambergris, and Bologna wash-balls. This is a rule given in olden times for the "Composition for Best ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... twice a day, two hours before meals; fasten cupping glasses to the hips and belly. Take of styrax and calamint one ounce, mastick, cinnamon, nutmeg, lign, aloes, and frankincense, of each half ounce; musk, ten grains, ambergris, half a scruple; make a confection with rosewater, divide it into four equal parts; one part make a pomatum oderation to smell at if she be not hysterical; of the second, make a mass of pills, and let her take three every other night: of the third make a pessary, dip it ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... our mouths to meet And throws the melons at our feet; But apples plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice. With cedars chosen by His hand From Lebanon He stores the land; And makes the hollow seas that roar Proclaim the ambergris on shore. He cast (of which we rather boast) The Gospel's pearl upon our coast; And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound His name. O, let our voice His praise exalt Till it arrive at Heaven's vault, Which thence (perhaps) rebounding ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the shell that enclosed the kernel was hard to crack, and was, moreover, like the 'Sileni' of the old French apothecaries, as described by Rabelais, so decorated with wondrous figures, harpies, satyrs, horned geese and bridled hares, that men were incredulous, and doubted that precious ambergris, musk and gems were to be found within. In his first crudities, fyttes and tilts with thought, both knight and field are covered with a cloth of gold so dazzling that the crystalline lenses of our common vision are in danger of dissolution, and we vainly hope for page or dame who will whisper ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... beast. [79] When he drew near them, he wrapped his trunk about them both and taking them with him into the boat, rowed out with them to the midst of the lake, then fared on with them [80] till he brought them to the other shore, where they landed and walking on, saw there trees of ambergris [81] and aloes and sandal-wood and cloves and jessamine, [82] full-grown and laden with ripe fruits and flowers [83] whose fragrance dilated the breast and cheered the spright; and there [they heard] the voices of the birds twittering their various notes and ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... but a hero in battle. And Rudabeh too came out to behold the child, and she joined her lamentations unto theirs. Then they built for Sohrab a tomb like to a horse's hoof, and Rustem laid him therein in a chamber of gold perfumed with ambergris. And he covered him with brocades of gold. And when it was done, the house of Rustem grew like to a grave, and its courts were filled with the voice of sorrow. And no joy would enter into the heart of Rustem, and it was long before ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... jail; no, not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he'll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes, I'm for it; and so saying he started for the quarter-deck. By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... have found large pieces of ambergris on the coasts. When they discovered that the Spaniards value it, they gathered it, and have made profit from it. The past year of six hundred and two, some natives found in the island of Sebu a good-sized piece of ambergris, and ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... to revolution, convulsion, or decay; and so it fared with the empire of the three kings of Bermuda, albeit they were monarchs without subjects. In an evil hour, in their search after turtle, among the fissures of the rocks, they came upon a great treasure of ambergris, which had been cast on shore by the ocean. Beside a number of pieces of smaller dimensions, there was one great mass, the largest that had ever been known, weighing eighty pounds, and which of itself, according to the market value of ambergris in those days, was worth about ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... a cloak, Captain Courtier, which can even defy the camera. Let us inhale the gratifying odour, suggestive of truffles frying in oil, which is the hall-mark of your true cafe, and is as ambergris in the nostrils of the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... behind walls of sundried mud overgrown with Persian roses, and with airy pavilions mirrored in pools that were seldom darkened by a cloud. Under date palms the white-robed Arabs sat smoking. From time to time black slaves brought them coffee flavored with ambergris. After sundown, at the hour called "maghrib," when the sky was turning green, having performed ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... Deep, dark, and horrible—with none to soothe His sufferings, let the murderer lingering die. The work of heaven performing, Feridun First purified the world from sin and crime. Yet Feridun was not an angel, nor Composed of musk and ambergris. By justice And generosity he gained his fame. Do thou but exercise these princely virtues, And thou wilt be renowned ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... Great beds of it occur at various points in Europe. On the Prussian seaboard it is mined, and often washes ashore. In 1576 a piece of amber was found that weighed thirteen pounds, and for which $5,000 was refused. In the cabinet of the Berlin Museum there is a piece weighing eighteen pounds. Ambergris, from which perfumery is made, is a secretion taken from the intestines of the whale, and a piece purchased from the King of Tydore by the East India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales' teeth, the tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are all used. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... sharply, and flowed out of sight under a natural archway of rock, and when I went to examine it more closely I found that inside the cave the walls were thick with diamonds, rubies, and masses of crystal, and the floor was strewn with ambergris. Here, then, upon this desolate shore we abandoned ourselves to our fate, for there was no possibility of scaling the mountain, and if a ship had appeared it could only have shared our doom. The first thing our captain did was to divide equally amongst us all ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... tobacco, sugar, herb of Paraguay, salt, and European goods, for which they give in exchange red cedar boards, timber of different kinds, ponchos of various qualities, hams, pilchards, dried shell-fish, white-cedar boxes, embroidered girdles, and a small quantity of ambergris which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... fine day's work,' and the pestiferous Mr. Garboy taken down a peg. I read the entire entry, but the part that really concerns us, is the part about the ambergris they picked up. Tell me, Blake, do ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... of musk, four drachms; essence of ambergris, four drachms; oil of cinnamon, ten drops; English lavender, six drachms; oil of geranium, two drachms; spirit of wine, twenty ounces. To ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... "Do you know that we have found a lump that will weigh close to 250 pounds, and do you know that ambergris is selling in San Francisco at $40 an ounce? Do you know that we have picked up nearly $150,000 right out here in the ocean and are in a fair ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... Sea Belle. Some old hooker, she was," said Cap'n Amazon briskly. "We was out three year and come home with our hold bustin' with ile, plenty of baleen, some sperm, and a lump of ambergris as big as a nail keg—or ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... one pint of highly rectified spirits of wine, put an ounce of the oil of rosemary, and two drams of the essence of ambergris. Shake the bottle well several times, and let the cork remain out twenty-four hours. Shake it daily for a whole month, and then put the water ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... older, and bold as you please, I shipped on the good ship Firkin of Cheese, For a v'yage of discovery in the far South Seas, To gather up a cargo of ambergris That grows in a cave on the amber trees Where the medicine men, all fine M.D.'s, For the sake of the usual medical fees, Crawl in by night on their hands and knees In a strictly ethical manner to seize The amber fruit that is used to grease The itching palm in Shekel's Disease,— ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... wassails, wakes, Of bride-grooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of Youth, of Love;—and have access By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness; I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece, Of balm, of oil, of spice, of ambergris. I sing of times trans-shifting; and I write How roses first came red, and lilies white. I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King; I write of Hell; I sing, and ever shall Of Heaven,—and hope to ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... AMBERGRIS. A fragrant drug found floating on sea-coasts, the origin and production of which was long a matter of dispute, although now known to be a morbid product developed in the intestines of the spermaceti whale (Physeter macrocephalus). It is ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the seas we have to mention is that of Herkend[1]. Between this sea and that of Delarowi there are many islands, said to be in number 1900, which divide those two seas from each other[2], and are governed by a queen[3]. Among these islands they find ambergris in lumps of extraordinary bigness, and also in smaller pieces, which resemble plants torn up. This amber is produced at the bottom of the sea, in the same manner as plants are produced upon the earth; and when the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... pint of alcohol slowly on to an ounce and a half of the oil of lavender, two drachms of ambergris. Keep the lavender water in a tight-corked bottle—it should be shook up well ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... born of Evil, many times, As pearls and precious ambergris are grown, Fruits of disease in pain and sickness sown, So think not to unravel, in thy thought, This mingled tissue, this mysterious plan, The Alchemy ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... may talk of Country Christmasses, Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carp's tongue, Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris, the carcasses Of three fat wethers bruis'd for gravy, to Make sauces for a single peacock; yet their feasts Were ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... the mouth of Ali bin Bakkar; and they ceased not so doing till they were satisfied, when the table was removed and they washed their hands. Then the waiting-women fetched censers with all manner of incense, aloe-wood and ambergris and mixed scents; and sprinkling-flasks full of rose-water were also brought and they were fumigated and perfumed. After this the slaves set on vessels of graven gold, containing all kinds of sherbets, besides fruits fresh and dried, that heart can desire and eye delight ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... fared forth, saying, "Allah grant thee safety, O my son!" Presently behold, up came four slave-girls, whose like none ever saw, and entering the pavilion, doffed their outer dresses and washed it. Then they sprinkled it with rose- water and incensed it with ambergris and aloes-wood and spread it with brocade. After these came fifty other damsels, with instruments of music, and amongst them Jamilah, within a canopy of red brocade, whose skirts the handmaidens bore up with hooks of gold, till she had entered the pavilion, so that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... a piece of ambergris, but had, of course, often heard of it, and knew it to be valuable; I accordingly ordered the mainyard to be laid aback, and sent the boatswain away with a crew in the gig to pick up the piece of "flotsam." ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... essences from Idumean palm, What ambergris, what sacerdotal wine, What Arab myrrh, what spikenard, would be thine, If I could swathe thy memory in such balm! Oh, for wrecked gold, from depths for ever calm, To fashion for thy name a fretted shrine; Oh, for strange gems, still ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... and disregarding his dying injunction, sailed for England. Three only of the men volunteered to remain, and for some time after their companions left they continued to cultivate the soil, but unfortunately they found some ambergris, and they fell into innumerable quarrels respecting its possession. They at length resolved to build a boat and sail for Newfoundland with their prize, but, happily for them, they were prevented by the arrival of a ship from Europe. An extraordinary interest was excited in England by the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and put in it twelve ounces of the best spirits of wine, one essence of ambergris, twopennyworth of musk, and three drachms of oil ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... against the bright bonnets of waiting motor cars. There were smart victorias, shabby cabs, hotel omnibuses, and huge carts; and, mingling with the floating dust of the spilt flour was a heavy perfume of spices, of incense perhaps blown from some far-off mosque, and ambergris mixed with grains of musk in amulets which the Arabs wore round their necks, heated by their sweating flesh as they worked or stalked about shouting guttural orders. There was a salt tang of seaweed, too, like an undertone, a foundation for all the other smells; ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... kind she ever heard, and few of that few were beautiful, and none were beautifully sung. Fatimah's homely ditties were all she knew, the same that had been crooned to her a thousand times when she had not heard. Most of these were songs of the desert and the caravan, telling of musk and ambergris, and odorous locks and dancing cypress, and liquid ruby, and lips like wine; and some were warm tales which the good soul herself hardly understood, of enchanting beauties whose silence was the door of consent, and of wanton nymphs whose love tore ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... a.m. we made the island of Sokotra, and about seven o'clock saw 'The Brothers,' two islands where large quantities of turtle and ambergris are found. Though generally uninhabited, they are sometimes visited by the natives for the purpose of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... walked to his right; and, meaning to count five doors and enter the sixth, he counted six and entering the seventh, found himself in a place whose floor was carpeted with brocade and whose walls were hung with curtains of gold- embroidered silk. And therein stood censers of aloes-wood and ambergris and strong-scented musk, and at the upper end was a couch bespread with cloth of gold on which he seated himself, marvelling at the magnificence he saw and knowing not what was written for him in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... cruises of moderate length had its origin in Europe, where the Basques during the Middle Ages fairly drove the animals from the Bay of Biscay, which had long swarmed with them. Not a prolific breeder, the whales soon showed the effect of Europe's eagerness for oil, whalebone and ambergris, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century the industry was on the verge of extinction. Then began that search for a sea passage to India north of the continents of Europe and America, which I have described in another chapter. The passage was not discovered, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... resin, rosin; gum; lac, sealing wax; amber, ambergris; bitumen, pitch, tar; asphalt, asphaltum; camphor; varnish, copal[obs3], mastic, magilp[obs3], lacquer, japan. artificial resin, polymer; ion-exchange resin, cation-exchange resin, anion exchange resin, water softener, Amberlite[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
