"Larboard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is getting high; Petites Coquilles has been passed and left astern, the eastern end of Las Conchas is on the after-larboard-quarter, the briny waters of Lake Borgne flash far and wide their dazzling white and blue, and, as the little boat issues from the deep channel of the Rigolets, the white-armed waves catch her and toss her like a merry babe. A triumph for the helmsman—he it is who sighs, at intervals ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... been more than two minutes afterwards until we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek—such a sound as you might imagine given out by the water-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... experienced a gale equal to a hurricane, on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of October, which, during the evening between the 9th and 10th, was so violent that the captain expected the vessel would have foundered. She was at one time struck by a sea that twisted her in such a manner that the seams on her larboard side opened, and the water gushed into the cabin and into the mate's birth as if it came from a pump, and every body at first thought her side was stove in; however the Lord was pleased to protect every one from harm, nor was ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... many days' sailing, knew not whither they had been carried. At length when the weather again cleared up, they saw a land which was without mountains, overgrown with wood, and having many gentle elevations. As this land did not correspond to the descriptions of Greenland, they left it on the larboard hand, and continued sailing two days, when they saw another land, which was flat and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... some hours, and were expecting to see the dawn break over the trees on our larboard bow, when the channel became even narrower than before. Had it not been that the current still ran with us, I should have supposed that we had entered some other stream; but the way the water ran showed that this could not be the case. We therefore continued on as ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... were," replies the King, "for these Swedes to be sitting at home, killing their sacrifices, than venturing under the weapons of the 'Long Serpent.' But who owns the large ships on the larboard side ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... became smooth, the water was found to have receded, the wind, light, had hauled to W.S.W., and Cape Antoine was judged by dead reckoning to bear S.S.W. about thirty miles distant. The larboard fore-shrouds were found to have been scorched by the lightning, which had completely melted the tar from the after-shroud. All hands were now busily employed repairing the wreck, which by two o'clock P.M. they had got so far completed ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... disturbed the pleasure we felt at being so favoured by the wind; a sailor lad 15 years of age, fell into the sea, through one of the fore port-holes, on the larboard side; a great many persons were at the time, on the poop and the breast work, looking at the gambols of the porpoises.[8] The exclamations of pleasure at beholding the sports of these animals, were succeeded by cries of pity; for some moments ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... Porgie on the deck, To his mate in the mizzen hatch, While the boatswain bold, in the forward hold, Was winding the larboard watch. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Gus Plum, solemnly. "By the chronometer I have still seven minutes before the boat and pail sink out of sight forever. However, the pail was there, sitting, like a hen, on the larboard mast, filled with gooseberries, which Pocahontas had picked at dawn, in company with General Grant and King Henry the Sixty-second. Looking at this pail, John Paul Jones slapped his sailor thigh and asked, 'Why is a gooseberry?' a ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... of the wind, into close action. At forty-five minutes past two the signal was made for close action. The Niagara being very little injured I determined to pass through the enemy's line, bore up and passed ahead of their two ships and a brig, large schooner and sloop from the larboard side, at half pistol shot distance. The smaller vessels at this time having gotten within grape and canister distance, under the direction of Captain Elliott, and keeping up a well-directed fire, the two ships, a brig and a schooner, surrendered, a schooner and a sloop ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... was suspended at the stern, just under the taffrail; and to reach this point I had to pass through the smoke that enveloped the cabin. But although the atmosphere seemed perfectly stagnant, the cloud of smoke leant a little towards the larboard side, and on the opposite, or starboard side, the way was partially clear. I had observed one or more persons glide through towards the stern, and ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... scarcely reached it when he heard this cry resounding through the vessel, "Breakers on the starboard!" followed almost immediately by a second shout of "Breakers on the larboard!" ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... recoiled with a look of horror, and prepared for instant flight; but the Skipper's gesture reassured him. "Franci, look if there is a whale on the larboard bow!" said ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... most violent storm, and we had with it so thick a fog that it was impossible to see at the distance of two ships' lengths, so that the whole squadron disappeared.* On this a signal was made by firing guns, to bring to with the larboard tacks, the wind being then due east. We ourselves lay to under a reefed mizzen till noon, when the fog dispersed; and we soon discovered all the ships of the squadron, except the Pearl, which did not join us till near a month ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... the 25th we made the island of Pulo Timon, and two hours afterwards saw Pulo Tinga. The 28th at three p.m. we had oosy ground at twenty fathoms, having divers long islands on our starboard and sundry small islands on our larboard, forming the straits of China-bata, which we found to be truly laid down in a chart made by a Hollander called Jan Janson Mole, which he gave to Mr Hippon, who gave it to the company. Pulo Bata, one of these islands, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... perceive that there was a restraint in the demeanour of the men on both sides; but there was a tacit armistice for the occasion. I heard afterwards that they did not talk to each other, except on strict matters of duty, and when taking their short walks on deck, one confined himself religiously to the larboard, the other to the starboard. Travers took me in tow, while the alert Count with his quick manner strode to and fro with Leader, and kept up a jerky fire of conversation nearly all to himself, occasionally ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... ship-master than Latin, and I often have, even now, recourse to one, though it may not be exactly in Scripture language. I seldom want a wind without praying for it, mentally, as it might be; and as for the rheumatis', I am always praying to be rid of it, when I'm not cursing it starboard and larboard. Has it never struck you that the world is less moral since steamboats ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... avoid the punishment, and do his duty? "Yes," said the noble sailor, "I will do my duty, and that is to blow up your ship the very first opportunity in my power." This was said with a stern countenance, and a corresponding voice. The captain seemed astonished, and first looking over his larboard shoulder, and then over his starboard shoulder, said to his officers, "this is a damn'd queer fellow! I do not believe he is an Englishman. I suppose he is crazy; so you may unlash him, boatswain:" and he was soon after sent out ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... having discovered the French early on the morning of the 1st of June, about three or four miles to leeward, in order of battle, immediately stood towards them. At about seven in the morning, he was abreast of them, and then he wore to the larboard tack, the French awaiting his approach in the same position. The signal for action was made about half-past eight o'clock, orders having previously been given for the fleet to close, to pass through the French line, and engage them to leeward, van ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... am greatly mistaken, sir, here's a large craft without any lights creeping up on our larboard quarter." ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... compass, and found it to be from 27 deg. 50' to 30 deg. 26' W. Probably the mean of the two extremes, viz. 29 deg. 4', is the nearest the truth, as it nearly agrees with the variation observed on board the Adventure. In making these observations, we found that, when the sun was on the larboard side of the ship, the variation was the least; and when on the starboard side, the greatest. This was not the first time we had made this observation, without being able to account for it. At four o'clock in the ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... studding sails ready!" Up comes the little doctor, rubbing his hands; "Ha! ha! I have won the bag." "The devil take you and the bag; look, what 's ahead will fill all our bags." Mast head again: "Two more sail on the larboard beam!" "Archer, go up, and see what you can make of them." "Upon deck there; I see a whole fleet of twenty sail coming right before the wind." "Confound the luck of it, this is some convoy or other, but we ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... Commission from her Maiestie for his voiage he had in hand. And immediatly we followed with a slacke gale, and in the very entrance (which is but narrow, not aboue 2 buts length) the Admirall fell vpon a rocke on the larboard side by great ouersight, in that the weather was faire, the rocke much aboue water fast by the shore, where neither went any sea gate. But we found such readinesse in the English Marchants to helpe vs in that danger, that without delay there were brought a number of boates, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... was scarcely a day's sail beyond the flow of the Caribbean Sea, that one of those noblest results of man's handiwork, a fine ship, might have been seen gracefully ploughing her course through the sky-blue waters of the Atlantic. She was close-hauled on the larboard tack, steering east-southeast, and to a sailor's eye presented a certain indescribable something that gave her taut rig and saucy air a dash of mystery, which would have set him to speculating at once as to her character and the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... she again made signals of distress, upon which I brought-to, and sent the carpenter on board her, who returned with an account that she had sprung a leak under the larboard cheek forward, and that it was impossible to do any thing to it till we had better weather. Upon speaking with Lieutenant Brine, who commanded her, he informed me that the crew were sickly; that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... seemed to sport with the elements like a duck, fell off a little, drew ahead swiftly, obeyed her rudder, and was soon flying away on the top of the surges, dead before the gale. While making this rapid flight, though the land still remained in view on her larboard beam, the fort and the groups of anxious spectators on its rampart were swallowed up in the mist. Then followed the evolutions necessary to bring the head of the cutter up to the wind, when she again began to wallow her weary ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... idea what I have done or said, now! but when Madame gives her three-cornered frown, I know there are reefs ahead, on the starboard or the larboard side, and I'd better ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Saunders issued his instructions as to the order of sailing. He divided the transports into two divisions, the Starboard flying a red flag, and the Larboard a white one: he assigned to each vessel its position and duties, and pointed out to each Master of a hired transport that if the orders of his officers were not promptly and exactly carried out they would be fired on, adding with a touch of grim humour that the cost of the powder ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... get a glimpse of the captain's cabin, where I very seldom went, and never stayed long: so down we went, lighted up the lamp, and looked about us. There wasn't much, however, to see. It was a black little hole, with a brass stove and lockers, and a couple of berths, larboard and starboard, and a small picture of a fore-and-aft rigged schooner, very low in the water, and looking a reg'lar clipper; and no name to her. Well, mates, all at once I caught sight of a pack of cards lying on a locker. 'Here's a bit o' fun,' says I; 'Lawry, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... I would put up my sail, and then my business was only to steer, while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans; and when they were weary, some of the pages would blow my sail forward with their breath, while I showed my art by steering starboard or larboard as I pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my boat into her closet, and hung it on a ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... performance in the "Reach," by the crew of H. B. M. steamer Salamander. The larboard side of the forecastle was allotted to them; and they gave a drama "adapted to their stage," by one of their number called the "Smuggler," which they produced with good effect. The performance was, as they gave out, "under the distinguished patronage ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... were swept into a bustle and confusion. Captain Jonathan Wellsby was in haste to catch a fair wind and make his offing before nightfall. His sailors ran to and fro, jumping at the word, active and cheery. Stately and slow, the high-pooped merchant trader filled away on the larboard tack and pointed her ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud Whence the thunderbolt will fall Long and loud, Four galleons drew away From the Spanish fleet that day, And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the battle thunder broke ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... had been set at noon, and the starboard and larboard watch told off, as customary on the first day a vessel goes to sea. Salve had the middle watch; and by that time the sea was running high, and they were plunging through the darkness under a double-reefed mainsail, the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... had ample opportunity given her to swing around and sweep swiftly out of danger. She had barely escaped paying dearly for her pursuit of the Goshawk. Her satisfaction, however, consisted only in part of the damage she had done to the bark, for, in getting around, she had let drive her entire larboard broadside. It was a waste of ammunition, certainly, but no Yankee man-of-war commander would ever have forgiven himself if he had failed to make a good reply to a shot from the Castle of San Juan de Ulua. Moreover, the sloop's gunners were ready to ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... over to Madagascar, and coasted along this Island to the Northward, as far as the most northerly Point, when turning back, he enter'd a Bay to the northward of Diego Suares. He run ten Leagues up this Bay, and on the larboard Side found it afforded a large, and safe, Harbour, with plenty of fresh Water. He came here to an Anchor, went ashore and examined into the Nature of the Soil, which he found rich, the Air wholesome, and the Country level. He told his Men, ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... and lay with her bow to their sterns. Then with a shout Eric's men cast the irons and soon the ships were locked fast and the fight began. The spears flew thick, and on either side some got their death before them. Then the men of that vessel, named the Raven, which was to larboard of the Gudruda, made ready to board. On they came with a rush, and were driven back, though hardly, for they were many, and those who stood against them few. Again they came, scrambling over the bulwarks, and this time a score of them leapt aboard. Eric turned from the fight against ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... the crew, eager to save themselves, lowered the larboard quarter-boat, and sprang into it. Among these were James Duncan, the first mate, to whom some blame seems to have been attached, and Mr. Ruthven Ritchie, of Perthshire. It is little wonder that in such a crisis all should do what ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... completed till sunset, when, all the boats being recalled to the ships, they got under weigh, the Monzambano towing the Elba, with the Ichnusa ahead, and the Brandon on her larboard bow. The engineers began paying out the cable at eight o'clock, proceeding at first slowly, as the night was dark, and being desirous to try cautiously the working of the machinery. As the water deepened, the cable ran out fast, and the speed was increased, so that by midnight we had ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... garden of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis on the "larboard." The mythological allusions have been justly censured, as not being always used with notice of their vanity; but they contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate exercise of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Morgan maintained the same composure that he had exhibited all the while, only now and then delivering an order to the man at the wheel, who, putting the helm over, threw the bows of the galleon around more to the larboard, as though to escape the bow of the galley and get into the open water beyond. This course brought the pirates ever closer and closer to the man-of-war, which now began to add its thunder to the din of the battle, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... inside the ship, the sea-water is let into a cistern in the hold, and it is from that pumped up to wash the decks. In some ships, the water is drawn up the side in buckets, and there is no water-cock. To get out the old water-cock, it was necessary to make the ship heel so much on her larboard side as to raise the outside of this apparatus above water. This was done at about eight o'clock, on the morning of the 27th August. To do it, the whole of the guns on the larboard side were run out as far as they would ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... for a suitable hiding place for the boats," he told the others, "and remember, it must be on the larboard side, because that's the way we expect to tramp in search of the ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... perhaps one Gentleman's metaphorical knack of preaching comes of the sea; and then we shall hear of nothing but "starboard" and "larboard," of "stems," "sterns," and "forecastles," and such salt-water language: so that one had need take a voyage to Smyrna or Aleppo, and very warily attend to all the sailors' terms, before I shall in the least understand my teacher. Now, though such a sermon may possibly do some good ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... stays, two top-mast back stays, trusses, chains, and lifts of the main yard, shot away. Our sails had several cannon shot through them, and were beside considerably cut by grape; much of our running rigging cut to pieces. One of our anchor stocks, and our larboard cable, shot away, and a number of grape shot were sticking in different parts of the hull, but not a man hurt! A boat belonging to the John Adams, with a master's mate (Mr. Creighton) and eight men, was sunk by a double-headed shot from the batteries, while in tow ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... in the afternoon we weighed and stood to the eastward, between the main and King William's Island; leaving the island on our larboard side and sounding till we were past the island; and then we had no ground. Here we found the flood setting east by north, and the ebb west by south. There were shoals and small islands between us and the main, which caused the tide to set very inconstantly, ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... the wrong line," murmured George, as they passed. And at that precise moment the man did it, and the boat rushed up the bank with a noise like the ripping up of forty thousand linen sheets. Two men, a hamper, and three oars immediately left the boat on the larboard side, and reclined on the bank, and one and a half moments afterwards, two other men disembarked from the starboard, and sat down among boat-hooks and sails and carpet-bags and bottles. The last man went on twenty yards further, and then got ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... in order to "oblige him to do the same, or suffer himself to be raked by our getting across his bows."[430] The fall of the "Guerriere's" mast effected what was desired by Hull, who continues: "On our helm being put to port the ship came to, and gave us an opportunity of pouring in upon his larboard bow several broadsides." The disabled state of the British frigate, and the promptness of the American captain, thus enabled the latter to take a raking position upon the port (larboard) bow of the enemy; that is, ahead, but on the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... seemed to be all about us. So I prayed to the Mother of Heaven and kept the lead busy, and always found deep water: and more by God's guidance than our management we missed the Desertas, where a tall bare rock sprang out of the fog so close on our larboard quarter that the men cried out it was a giant in black armour rising out of the waves. So we left it and the noises behind, and by-and-by I shifted the helm and steered towards the east of the bank, which seemed ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... situation. Daylight gradually disappeared, and, as darkness came upon them, so did the scene become more appalling. The vessel still ran before the gale, but the men at the helm had evidently changed her course, as the wind that was on the starboard was now on the larboard quarter. But compass there was none on deck, and, even if there had been, the men in their drunken state would have refused to listen to Philip's orders or expostulations. "He," they said, "was no sailor, and was not to teach them how to steer the ship" The gale was now at its height. The rain ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said, two hours later, "that one of your wishes is going to be fulfilled. There is a cloud rising very rapidly on the larboard bow, and from its colour and appearance it seems to me that we are going ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... spectacle, and rendered still more striking by the melancholy occurrence of the forenoon. "That's the very identical, damnable baste himself, as murthered poor little Louis this morning, yeer honour; I knows him from the torn flesh of him under his larboard blinker, sir—just where Wiggen's boat hook punished him," quoth the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... of his wrist Mr. Henderson moved the wheel which controlled the tube. It was deflected and sent the boat to larboard. ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... the men faltered with a little superstitious feeling, and hesitated for a minute about going on board. But the poor lonely ship wooed them too lovingly, and they climbed over the broken ice and came on deck. She was lying over on her larboard side, with a heavy weight of ice holding her down. Hatches and companion were made fast, as Captain Kellett had left them. But, knocking open the companion, groping down stairs to the after cabin they found their ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... entering the bay. Already one or two wherries were putting off from the wharf to board her. From where he stood, Mr. Blood could see the glinting of the brass cannons mounted on the prow above the curving beak-head, and he could make out the figure of a seaman in the forechains on her larboard side, leaning out ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... officers of the Fury, by their own choice, pitched a tent on shore for messing and sleeping in, as our accommodation for two sets of officers was necessarily confined. Every preparation being made, at three A.M. on the 18th we began to heave her down on the larboard side; but when the purchases were nearly ablock, we found that the strops under the Hecla's bottom, as well as some of the Fury's shore-fasts, had stretched or yielded so much that they could not bring the keel out of water within three or four feet. We immediately ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Disparting crush beneath him, buds much more And leaflets. On the car with all his might He struck, whence, staggering like a ship, it reel'd, At random driv'n, to starboard now, o'ercome, And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves. Next springing up into the chariot's womb A fox I saw, with hunger seeming pin'd Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins The saintly maid rebuking him, away Scamp'ring he turn'd, fast as his hide-bound corpse ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... where you come round to t' cold again; and they'll stay there for three year at a time, if need be, going into winter harbour i' some o' th' Pacific Islands. Well, we were i' th' southern seas, a-seeking for good whaling-ground; and, close on our larboard beam, there were a great wall o' ice, as much as sixty feet high. And says our captain—as were a dare-devil, if ever a man were—"There'll be an opening in yon dark gray wall, and into that opening I'll sail, if I coast along it till th' day o' judgment." But, for all our sailing, we never seemed ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the gale had freshened into a hurricane, and our after-sail split into ribbons, bringing us so much in the trough of the water that we shipped several prodigious seas, one immediately after the other. By this accident we lost three men overboard with the caboose, and nearly the whole of the larboard bulwarks. Scarcely had we recovered our senses before the foretopsail went into shreds, when we got up a storm staysail, and with this did pretty well for some hours, the ship heading the sea much more steadily ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... Associated Words: sinister, sinistral, sinistrality, sinistrorse, sinistrorsal, haw, port, larboard. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 18th, we left the ship about nine o'clock in the morning. We soon got round Long Island and Long Point. We continued sailing and rowing for East Bay, keeping close in shore, and examining with our glasses every cove on the larboard side, till near two o'clock in the afternoon, at which time we stopped at a beach on our left going up East ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... just daylight. We were in the middle of a lake, surrounded by small rocky islands. One of these was only a stone's throw distant on our starboard. The stakes between which our course lay were close by on the larboard. We had missed the channel by some twenty or thirty yards, and run upon a bed of solid boulders. The pilot, it seemed, had been drinking a little too freely of schnapps, and had fallen asleep at the helm. It was a miracle that we were not all dashed ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... wreath of white smoke curled up from the forecastle, and a moment later a ball came skipping over the water under their larboard deck, while the boom of a cannon sounded over the sea. As the fine spray clipped from the crested waves by the shot, flew over the deck, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... they were sailing. Napoleon used to start a subject of conversation; or revive that of some preceding day, and when he had taken eight or nine turns the whole length of the deck he would seat himself on the second gun from the gangway on the larboard side. The midshipmen soon observed this habitual predilection, so that the cannon was thenceforth called the Emperor's gun. It was here that Napoleon often conversed for ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the very unpleasant discovery that we were in the midst of shoals, owing to some negligence in our lookout. This was not found out until we were hemmed in between two, one lying not more than fifty fathoms from our larboard quarter, and the other about three times the distance on the starboard beam. I went up to the mast-head, and distinctly saw the rocks, not more than two or three feet under water on the larboard side. We fortunately passed through this danger without accident; ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... approach of the hurricane, had, after hailing his men to come down from aloft, lashed the wheel hard-a-starboard, and then, accompanied by Mr Bowen, he hurried away to the foot of the main-mast, where they cast off the starboard fore-braces and hauled in upon the larboard until they had braced the topsail as sharp up as it was possible for two men to get it. The result of this manoeuvre was that, when the gale struck the Aurora, her main-topsail, which was a-shiver, was blown clean out of the bolt-ropes in an instant, as also was the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... punishment for aggressions committed on her commerce, in seas however distant, the ship was got underway the following morning, and brought to, with a spring on her cable, within less than a mile of the shore, when the larboard side was brought to bear nearly upon the site of the town. The object of the Commodore, in this movement, was not to open an indiscriminate or destructive fire upon the town and inhabitants of Quallah Battoo, but to show them the irresistible power of thirty-two pound shot, and to reduce the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... this attitude to all led captains, tutors, dependants, and bottle-holders of every description. ) Thus escorted, the Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man of war, and every now and then yawing to starboard and larboard to discharge a broadside upon ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... "On which ever word we lay the emphasis, whether on the first, second, third, or fourth, it strikes out a different sense."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 243. (25.) "To inform those who do not understand sea phrases, that, 'We tacked to the larboard, and stood off to sea,' would be expressing ourselves very obscurely."—Ib., p. 296; and Hiley's Gram., p. 151. (26.) "Of dissyllables, which are at once nouns and verbs, the verb has commonly the accent on the latter, and the noun, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... It had been arranged that the attack was to be made in two lines. The barge, pinnace, and gig were to board on the starboard quarter; and the other line, consisting of the three other boats, on the larboard quarter. For upwards of two hours longer the boats pulled on, the gloom of evening gradually closing over them. Still they could distinguish the dim outline of the brig ahead. The First-Lieutenant having got within ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... this morning I mounted the poop and made as keen a scrutiny as I could of everything on board. Everything appeared as usual. The Chancellor was run- ning on the larboard tack, and carried low-sails, top-sails, and gallant-sails. Well braced she was; and under a fresh, but not uneasy breeze, was making no less than eleven ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... my lad! get over to larboard there, and I'll see what we can do. You can be pilot and give your orders, and I'll ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs on—an expression in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety—she will give them, I dare say, "Little Tafflin". Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, 'the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... at the soldiers!" cried Amyas; but the work was too hot for much discrimination, for the larboard galley, crippled but not undaunted, swung round across his stern, and hooked ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the people they had left, and the present duties on board ship; while the captain strove hard to procure some kind of order by hasty commands given in a loud, impatient voice, to right and left, starboard and larboard, cabin and steerage. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that there was King Olaf, with the Swedish host. 'Better were it for the Swedes to stay at home and lick the blood from their bowls than to board the "Serpent" under thy weapons.' 'But whose are the ships lying out yonder on the larboard of the Danes?' 'They pertain,' came the answer, 'to Eirik Hakonson.' Then answered King Olaf, 'Good reason, methinketh, hath he to meet us, and from that fleet may we await the fiercest of fights, seeing that they too are of Norway even ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... Green's River to come into one, and so continu'd for four or five Leagues, which makes a great Island betwixt them. We proceeded still up the River, till they parted again, keeping up Hilton's River on the Larboard side, and follow'd the said River five or six Leagues farther, where we found another large Branch of Green's River to come into Hilton's, which makes another great Island. On the Starboard side going up, we proceeded still up the River some four ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... east-and-by-north, you are doing well, and you can stand on till you open the light from that northern headland, when you can heave to and fire a gun; but if, as I dread, you are struck aback before you open the light, you may trust to your lead on the larboard tack; but beware, with your head to the southward, for no lead will ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... flew for the slaves on the larboard benches to hold water for a minute and the galley's head came round. Nothing gives more spirit than a flying enemy. From mouth to mouth ran the whisper that the English were showing their heels; and in a moment these poor devils, who owed all their misery to France, were pulling ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... run off some sixty miles to the south-west. Again the "Constitution's" good luck seemed to justify the sailors' belief, for at noon she ran into a group of vessels. The first vessel was sighted on the larboard bow, and, as the frigate overhauled her, proved to be a full-rigged ship. Soon after a second sail, also a ship, was sighted; and a few minutes more sufficed to show that both were men-of-war. The one first ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... an opening through which we could see the sea on the 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 ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... large over the town and the adjacent prairie, seeking such diversion as young men in their exceedingly early twenties delight in: Mr. Riley's saloon, the waters of the Wahoo, by moonlight, the melliferous strains of "Larboard watch," the shot gun, the quail and the prairie chicken, the quarterhorse, and the jackpot, the cocktail, the Indian pony, the election, the footrace, the baseball team, the Sunday School picnic, the Fourth of July celebration, the dining room girls at the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... 'Revenge' was entangled with the 'San Philip,' four others boarded her, two on her larboard and two on her starboard. The fight thus beginning at three o'clock in the afternoon continued very terrible all that evening. But the great 'San Philip,' having received the lower tier of the 'Revenge,' ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... round, which is no doubt true; and it is just as true that its opinions turn round with it, which brings me to the object of my remark—yon fellow shows more of his broadside, Sir, than common! He is edging in for the land, which must lie, hereaway, on our larboard beam, in order to get into smoother water. This tumbling about is not favorable to your light craft, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... only a petty officer, and not yet recommended by his worship the governor for the full command, I thought it but right to consult with my superiors, not as to the management of the craft, but the best as is to be done. What does your honour think of making for the high land over the larboard bow yonder, and waiting for the chance of the night-breeze to take ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... and somewhere about the end of the afternoon watch a strong breeze sprung up from the southward, which soon caused a good deal of sea. The boat was hauled close to the wind on the larboard tack, but she scarcely looked up to her course, besides making much lee-way. She proved, however, more seaworthy than might have been expected, but we shipped a good deal of water at times, to the great inconvenience of the wounded ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... were divided into two forces, and one stationed on the starboard, the other on the larboard side; every man was given a long iron-headed pole, with which to ward off threatening pieces of ice. Soon the Forward entered such a narrow passage between two lofty pieces, that the ends of the yards touched its solid walls; gradually it penetrated farther into a winding valley ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... barren peak: The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie relined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... cleared up, and the wind veered to the W.S.W., where it continued till midnight, after which it veered to N.W. Being at this time in the latitude of 56 deg. 4' S., longitude 53 deg. 36' W., we sounded, but found no bottom with a line of one hundred and thirty fathoms. I still kept the wind on the larboard-tack, having a gentle breeze and pleasant weather. On the 8th, at noon, a bed of sea-weed passed the ship. In the afternoon, in latitude 55 deg. 4', longitude 51 deg. 43' W., the variation ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... feet sank inch by inch. They were shut off from the larboard side of the vessel. For a time they had heard oaths and cries from the other men, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... tackles to enable the gun to be worked. As the sides of the two ships were actually grinding together the Frenchmen saw the preparations being made; a double squad of marines was brought up at a run to the larboard gangway, and opened a swift and deadly fire into the cabin, crowded with English sailors busy rigging their gun. The men dropped in clusters; the floor of the cabin was covered with the slain, its walls were splashed ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... affirmatively from his state-room, and shortly after opens the door and makes his appearance. Other officers emerge from the side of the vessel, or disappear into it, in the same way. Forward of the ward-room, adjoining it, and on the same level, is the midshipmen's room, on the larboard side of the vessel, not partitioned off, so as to be shut up. On a shelf a few books; one midshipman politely invites us to walk in; another sits writing. Going farther forward, on the same level we come to the crew's department, part of which is occupied by the cooking-establishment, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... adept at "daping, dapping, or dibbling" with a grasshopper, and who once brought in a string of trout which he laid out head to tail on the grass before the house in a line of beauty forty-seven feet long. A mighty bass voice had this Collins also, and could sing, "Larboard Watch, Ahoy!" "Down in a Coal-Mine," and other profound ditties in a way to make all the glasses on the table jingle; but withal, as you now suspect, rather a fishy character, and undeserving of the unqualified ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... my lord, and see if the Dover has hove in any upon her larboard bower, so as to bring ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not entirely successful. The snow was of the right consistency for a school boy's frolic, and would have thrown a group of American urchins into ecstacies. Whenever our pace quickened to a trot or gallop, the larboard horse threw a great many snowballs with his feet. He seemed to aim at my face, and every few minutes I received what the prize ring would call 'plumpers in the peeper, and sockdolagers on ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... her hull—a fear which happened to be only too well founded; for though fired at an elevation of 97, the first shot carried away the davits, forecastle, bridge, life-boats, gunwale companion and larboard marling-spike, the water pouring in, literally in volumes, through the shrouds, and rapidly extinguishing the fires. Further progress being difficult under the circumstances, the Captain, acting under the advice of the Civil Experimental Director of the Admiralty, thought it unwise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... starboard and d—d us larboard, Right down from rail to the streak o' the garboard. Nor less, wife, we liked him.—Tom was a man In contrast queer with Chaplain Le Fan, Who blessed us at morn, and at night yet again, D—ning us only in decorous strain; Preaching 'tween the ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... islands. From the south part of Amboyna to Banda, the course is E. by S. and to the southwards, 30 leagues. The latitude of Banda is 4 deg. 40' N. and the going in is to the westwards. There is a very high hill which burns continually, which hill must be left to larboard, having the great island on the starboard. The entry is very narrow, and cannot be seen till within half a mile; but you may stand fearlessly to within two cable's length of the island on which is the high hill, for so you must ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... racked with fear, Joy stole in gentle counterchange. He hails The crews, and biddeth them the masts uprear, And stretch the sheets. All, tacking, loose the brails Larboard or starboard, and let go the sails, And square or sideways to the breeze incline The lofty sailyards. Welcome blow the gales Behind them. Palinurus leads the line; The rest his course obey, and follow at ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... upon the curving poop Rested his neck, and view'd the azure waves. By zephyrs wafted o'er th' Ioenian sea, They reach'd Italia when the sixth time rose Aurora. Pass'd Scylacea, and the fane Of Juno, on Lacinia's noted shore; Japygia left, and shunn'd Amphissia's rocks With larboard oars; and, coasting on the right, Ceraunia, and Romechium pass'd, and pass'd Narycia and Caulonia; they, (the risks Of sea, and of Pelorus' narrow straits Surmounted) pass th' AEolian monarch's isles; Metallic Themesis; Leucasia's land; And warm ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... bewildered in this sea; so said we to the look out man,[FN256] "Get thee to the mast head and keep thine eyes open." He swarmed up the mast and looked out and cried aloud, "O Rais, I espy to starboard something dark, very like a fish floating on the face of the sea, and to larboard there is a loom in the midst of the main, now black and now bright." When the Captain heard the look out's words he dashed his turband on the deck and plucked out his beard and beat his face saying, "Good news indeed! we be all dead men; not one of us can be saved." And he fell to weeping ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... he had stumbled. A comical object he looked, as, half-seas-over, he attempted to pull on a mud-covered boot, which he had just extricated from the hole where it and his leg had parted company. A piece of wood, which his imagination transformed into a shoe-horn, was in his hand. "Put it into the larboard side," (suiting the action to the word), "there it goes—damn her, she won't come on! Put it into the starboard side there it goes—well done, old girl," and he triumphantly rose from the ground, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... forecastle by the larboard rigging stood a big, broad-shouldered fellow, who nodded familiarly at the second mate, cast a bit of a leer at the captain as if to impress on the rest of us his own daring and independence, and gave me, when I caught his eye, a cold, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... sea fishing in summer. He said that on one occasion he wished to find out how far the land lay northward, or whether any man inhabited 10 the waste land to the north. Then he fared northward to the land; for three days there was waste land on his starboard and the wide sea on his larboard. Then he had come as far north as the whale hunters ever go. Whereupon, he journeyed still northward as far as he 15 could in three days sailing. At that place the land bent to the east—or the sea in on the land, he knew not ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... of forty or fifty, can move about freely from larboard to starboard, or from stem to stern, or seat themselves on the benches running along the inside of the guard railing on the two sides of the vessel. They are protected from rain by a roof, and from the rays of the sun by a curtain extending ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... a regular order of battle, Sir J. Jervis, by carrying a press of sail, came up with them, passed through their fleet, then tacked, and thus cut off nine of their ships from the main body. These ships attempted to form on the larboard tack, either with a design of passing through the British line, or to leeward of it, and thus rejoining their friends. Only one of them succeeded in this attempt; and that only because she was so covered with ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... of the wind struck us at the same moment. The old Sally S. heeled to larboard and that Newfoundland was jerked ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... crescent round the outside of the island. The Superb anchored two hundred and fifty yards astern of the flag-ship; the Minden anchored about her own length from the Superb, and passing her stream-cable out of the larboard gun-room port to the Albion, brought the two ships together. Next came the Impregnable. These sufficiently engaged the batteries on the island or mole. The heavy frigates passed ahead and anchored,—the Leander on the port bow of the Queen Charlotte, the Severn ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... bottom, and, breaking off, had happily remained fixed. Had it fallen out, no human power could have prevented the ship from foundering. Besides the leak, which was on the starboard side, the ship had sustained very extensive injury on the larboard. The sheathing from the bow on that side was torn off, and a great part of the false keel was gone. The carpenters at once commenced their work; and the forge was set up, that the smiths ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... with all his might the chariot smote, Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard. ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... the keel: in the neighborhood of the Balearic Isles the sides had been strained and had opened; and, as the plating in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. A violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in a grating and a porthole on the larboard side, and damaged the foretop-gallant-shrouds; in consequence of these injuries, the Orion had run back ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... for any two of my inches. And then again, I brought to mind that Harry would be a heavy purse the better of sending me to Davy's locker, seeing we had both been just paid off, and got a lot of prize-money to boot;—and at last (the real red devil having fairly got me helm a-larboard) I argufied with myself that Tom Mills would be as well alive, with Harry Holmes's luck in his pocket, as he could be dead, and his in Harry Holmes's; not to say nothing of taking one's own part, just to keep one's self afloat, if so be Harry let his mind ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... did they go? Well, that's really hard to say. They usually set down the courses and distances on the bends. For instance, here is the first record of that sort, May 15th. 'S{t}' means starboard, right-hand side going up, and 'L{bd}' means larboard, to the left. ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... with bows and slings and javelins, with which to dislodge those who fought on the battlements. As well as these vessels he had eight quinqueremes in pairs. Each pair had had their oars removed, one on the larboard and the other on the starboard side, and then had been lasht together on the sides thus left bare. On these double vessels, rowed by the outer oars of each of the pair, they brought up under the walls some engines ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... in each boat was passed over to the other, and so on, till the whole starboard side of the Zephyr was manned by Butterflies, and the larboard side of ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... interest in ships, however, I do not assert; that he could have told you the difference between a brig and a schooner is barely imaginable. The board on which Sloper had flourished was not shipboard, it had nothing to do with starboard or larboard; he was a tailor, not a sailor, and the friends who ran down to see him were of his own ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell |
