"Shoal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leisure for the General to devote his whole energies against the little city of Alkmaar. On that bank and shoal, the extreme verge of habitable earth, the spirit of Holland's Freedom stood at bay. The grey towers of Egmont Castle and of Egmont Abbey rose between the city and the sea, and there the troops sent by the Prince of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... harbor, going to and fro, for more than an hour, enjoying every minute of it just as much as the children did. When at length, however, the children began to quiet down a little (the sharp edge of novelty being worn off), the Captain ran into shoal water, and brought his boat's head once more up into the wind; but this time, instead of letting her head "pay" off to starboard, he steered her right into the wind's eye, with the sails shivering all the time, until the boat stopped, when he cried ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... is all the same. You have read of panic stricken people, when a church or a theatre is on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap, and crowding each other to death? It is something like that with the fish. They are swimming along in a great shoal, yards thick; and when the first can get no farther, that does not at once stop the rest, any more than it would in a crowd of people; those that are behind come pressing up into every corner, where there is room, till they ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... by sunken rocks, on which the sea does not break; but generally applied to every place where the water is shallow, whatever be the ground. (See FLAT SHOAL, SHOLE, or SCHOLE.) Also, denotes a great quantity of fishes swimming in company—squamosae cohortes. Also, a vessel is said to shoalen, or shoal her water, when she comes from a greater into a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... with which he misled those the most who watched him the keenest. If he possessed news calculated to make the funds rise, he would commission the broker who acted on his behalf to sell half a million. The shoal of men who usually follow the movements of others, sold with him. The news soon passed through Capel Court that Rothschild was bearing the market, and the funds fell. Men looked doubtingly at one another; a general panic spread; bad news was looked for; ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... flames, which rapidly appeared and vanished. Suddenly, this extraordinary mass advanced to the bay; and we ran down, fall of curiosity. We found, on our arrival, that this strange phenomenon was caused by a shoal of herrings. These shoals are so dense, that they are often taken for sand-banks, are many leagues in extent, and several feet in depth: they spread themselves over the seas, carrying to barren shores the resources that ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... done it many a time—on the chart. I know every bluff and reef and shoal and cay around Andros from Morgan's Bluff to ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... when there were only two or three stars, but now the managers have starred a whole shoal of mediocre players and sacrificed plays and dramatist to them. That there seems to be a dearth of good plays is in part because of the fact that some good ones are ruined by changes made in them, whilst others are refused because they ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... to the personal appearance and habits of the latter, a shoal of silver arrow heads passed the boat and flittered into the water with a ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... There is no space in which to tell of the King's palace, with its gardens and orchards, its painted pavilions, and the groves where the palace ladies coursed the game with dogs, and, tired of the pastime, flung off their robes and ran to the lake, where they disported themselves like a shoal of silver fishes. But a word must be said of the junks, which came sailing into the harbour four and twenty miles away, and up the river to the city; and of the great concourse of ships which came to Zaiton (perhaps ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... grimly, as, shaking his fist towards the beacon, he rapped out an oath, and said—"No, no, you precious rascals, you don't juggle one of my boats ashore this blessed night. You do well, you thieves—you do benevolently to hoist a light yonder as on a dangerous shoal. It tempts no wise man to pull off and see what's the matter, but bids him steer small and keep off shore—that is Charles's Island; brace up, Mr. Mate, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... ought to be a little to the southward of French Shoal. While I was satisfying myself in regard to our position, another gun sounded ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... fine; our minds, longing for more agreeable sensations, were harmonized by the soothing aspect of nature, and admitted a ray of hope. About four in the afternoon a circumstance occurred which afforded us some consolation: a shoal of flying fish passed under the raft, and as the extremities left an infinite number of vacancies between the pieces which composed it, the fish got entangled in great numbers. We threw ourselves upon ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... the Mortimers featured him between two fashionable bishops at a dinner. Mrs. Vendenning, who adored bishops, immediately remembered him among those asked to her famous annual bal poudre; a celebrated yacht club admitted him to membership; a whole shoal of excellent minor clubs which really needed new members followed suit, and even the rock-ribbed Lenox, wearied of its own time-honoured immobility, displayed the preliminary fidgets which boded well for the stolid candidate. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... little. Winnipeg has not always been happy in the matter of its water supply, and the day and the Prince came together to inaugurate a new era. It was accomplished in the modern manner. The Prince pressed a button on the platform and water-gates on Shoal Lake outside the city swung open. In a minute or two a dry fountain in the gardens before the Prince threw up a jet of water. The new water had come ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... opinion of Larnaca. A good roadstead and safe anchorage offer great advantages, but until some protection shall be afforded that will enable boats to land in all weathers Larnaca can never be accepted as a port. There is shoal water for a distance of about two hundred yards from the shore, which causes a violent surf even in a moderate breeze, and frequently prevents all communication with the shipping. The quay was in many places undermined by the action of the waves, and it would be necessary to create ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... ejaculation, "Lord!" occurs but once that I have observed in 1660, never in '61, twice in '62, and at least five times in '63; after which the "Lords" may be said to pullulate like herrings, with here and there a solitary "damned," as it were a whale among the shoal. He and his wife, once filled with dudgeon by some innocent freedoms at a marriage, are soon content to go pleasuring with my Lord Brouncker's mistress, who was not even, by his own account, the most discreet of mistresses. Tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking, become his ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred—the carpenter's mate succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running on, without one particle of progress. Livingstone ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... perceive a breach in the low barrier; the woods ceased; a glittering point ran into the sea, tipped with an emerald shoal the mark of entrance. As we drew near we met a little run of sea—the private sea of the lagoon having there its origin and end, and here, in the jaws of the gateway, trying vain conclusions with the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between the strong iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside, certain packages, wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, though as numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the primitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the merchant clothiers in Paris, was the one whose stores were always the best provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whose commercial honesty never lay under the slightest ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... of it then," interrupted the seaman of the shawl. "As for your Cid, to me it is an useless volume, since it teaches neither the latitude of a shoal, nor ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... on it, so they were glad enough to sell for somethin' down to bind what Raish and Jethro called 'options.' Anyhow, when the Eagle people finally started in to put their grand plan into workin', they bumped bows on into a shoal, at least that's the way father used to tell about it. They found that all that Skoonic Creek land was in the hands of Raish Pulcifer and Cap'n Jeth Hallett; those two either owned it outright or had options where they ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stupor by the cries of a vast flock of sea birds, and, opening her eyes, she saw that the canoe was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of bonita that leaped and sported and splashed about almost within arm's length of her. They were pursuing a shoal of small fish called atuli, and these every now and then darted under the canoe for protection. Sometimes, as the hungry bonita pressed them hard, they would leap out of the water, hundreds together, and then the sea birds would swoop down ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... delighted to walk by the banks of the river. I, one day, observed something like a black string moving along the edge of the water where it was quite shallow. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that this was a shoal of young eels, so closely joined together as to appear, on a superficial view, on continued body, moving briskly up against the stream. To avoid the retardment they experienced from the force of the current, they kept close along the water's edge the whole of the way, following ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy messengers daily reporting what progress he and it had made. At length, one bright summer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing in loose order, Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places, steering ahead, and showing them ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... milk-and-waterism. He often gives a foretaste of the terrific power which preachers will wield when they draw inspiration from science and life. Without ever frightening people with horrid pictures of the future, he has a sense of the perils which beset human life here, upon this bank and shoal of time. How needless to draw upon the imagination, in depicting the consequences of violating natural law! Suppose a preacher should give a plain, cold, scientific exhibition of the penalty which Nature exacts for the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... more, far more, I grieved 500 To see displayed among an eager few, Who in the field of contest persevered, Passions unworthy of youth's generous heart And mounting spirit, pitiably repaid, When so disturbed, whatever palms are won. 505 From these I turned to travel with the shoal Of more unthinking natures, easy minds And pillowy; yet not wanting love that makes The day pass lightly on, when foresight sleeps, And wisdom and the pledges interchanged 510 With our ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... a passing notice. During periods of elevation the area of the land and of the {293} adjoining shoal parts of the sea will be increased, and new stations will often be formed;—all circumstances most favourable, as previously explained, for the formation of new varieties and species; but during such periods there will generally be a blank in the geological record. On the other hand, during subsidence, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... immediately adopted. And, accordingly, the designated numbers were told off to man the river, and at once set in motion to perform the duty; while the rest retraced their way to the village, except the hunter, who, seeking a shoal place, waded the river, and was soon out of sight among the thickets of ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... and lurch, the sleigh left the grade, and took the white snow edging the shoal water that led out to the deep green of the middle ice. The watcher ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... Telemachus. "Are you so foolish as to think you can please so many lords? If you give not the bow to the suppliant, my hands shall drive you from the land, and if I were strong enough I would expel this whole shoal of lawless men." Thus encouraged, Euinaeus handed the great ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... across dry shod? He could,—and he did. We all remember it well. A range of submarine mountains was discovered, stretching from America to Europe. Their top formed a plateau, which, lying within two miles of the surface, offered an undulating shoal within human reach. A fleet of steamers, wary of storms, one day cautiously assembled midway over it. They caught the monster asleep, safely uncoiled the wire, and laid it from shore to shore. The treacherous, dreadful, omnipotent ocean was conquered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... other customs which the various nations of Europe received from the classical times, and which it is not our object to investigate, they derived from thence a shoal of superstitious beliefs, which, blended and mingled with those which they brought with them out of their own country, fostered and formed the materials of a demonological creed which has descended down almost to our own times. Nixas, or Nicksa, a ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... on a shoal in Charleston harbour, 31/2 m. from the town; occupied by Major Anderson with 80 men and 62 guns in the interest of the secession of South Carolina from the Union, and the attack on which by General Beauregard on 12th April 1861 was the commencement of the Civil War; it held out against attack ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... hour; To crown my rose-wreath with a greener flower' To do my master's bidding, that's to give Life to yourself, who only think you live. But listen! Have you seen the nine waves roll Monotonous upon the shoal, Rising and falling like a maiden asleep; Then with a lift and a leap The ninth wave curls, and breaks upon the beach, And rushes up it, swallowing the sand? I am that ocean.... Now, ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley
... stern-moulding, terminating on the fore-side of the stools of the quarter galleries. They are, when the rudder or tiller is damaged, worked by tackles hooked to the after-channel bolts. But their principal use in later times is to save the rudder if unshipped by striking on a reef or shoal. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the coast, northward. The ship found to be in a gulph. Anchorage near the head of the gulph. Boat expedition. Excursion to Mount Brown. Nautical observations. Departure from the head, and examination of the east side of the gulph. Extensive shoal. Point Pearce. Hardwicke Bay. Verification of the time keepers. General remarks on the gulph. Cape Spencer and the Althorpe Isles. New land discovered: Anchorage there. General remarks on ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... point of his first descent, the sergeant found a shoal. It was a flat space of shallow water—discoverable by the color of the bottom. The water was not over four feet deep. It was a remarkably level ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Bramble, as soon as he had passed any shoal or danger, pointed it out to me. He said, "I tell it to you, because you can't be told too often. You won't recollect much that I tell you, I dare say. I don't expect it; but you may recollect a little, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... ensued. The leader's thoughts were now in two places at once, and he was not far enough from the shore not to be able to cast a glance towards the Aimable, and to say to his lieutenants, as he saw the vessel drifting near shoal water, "If she keeps on in that course, she will soon be aground." Still, no time was to be lost. The parley with the Indians did not hinder them long, and soon they were on the way towards the village whither the captive had been taken. Just as they entered its ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... continuation of what is called "The Tongue of the Ocean," which extends over a hundred miles south of New Providence, a hundred and fifty fathoms in depth, and bordered by innumerable cays, reefs, and very shoal water. ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... the river; they have power to receive donations for charitable purposes, and annually relieve great numbers of poor seamen and seamen's widows and orphans; and as they alone supply outward-bound ships with ballast, on notice of any shoal or obstruction arising in the river Thames, they immediately direct their men and lighters to work on it till it is removed. The profits arising to the Corporation by this ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... coax coal coast coarse float foam goat gloam groan hoarse load loan loaf oak oar oats roast road roam shoal ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... soft grating sound, as though a boat had just touched in shoal water. The Jackal spun round quickly and faced (it is always best to face) the creature he had been talking about. It was a twenty-four-foot crocodile, cased in what looked like treble-riveted boiler-plate, studded and keeled and crested; ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... life's tempestuous sea; Unknown waves before me roll, Hiding rock and treach'rous shoal; Chart and compass come from ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... from which projects a long handle. This is used only when there are floods; the fisher draws it up the rivulets, and every now and then pulls it up to look for his success. Sometimes he nets a great many at a time, and especially if he wait the arrival of the flood, because a large shoal mostly comes down with the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... well-earned, were being led across the sands from the level tide. The sand, uncovered by the sea for weeks, was bleached to an intolerable whiteness, but there was no wind to lift it, and the sea was tranquil, its little waves all hastening in one direction, like a shoal of fish making for a haven. The sun was already changing its early glory to heat. All the erections for amusement on the shore looked a little foolish in that solitude. I returned to the town along the empty asphalt roads and went with my ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... a little on this addition to his limited dominions. But, alas, for human ambition! About a year after the date of its first appearance, Nyoe sank into the depths out of which it arose, and its position is now marked only by a moderate shoal. ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... I should say, providentially, the current and tide-rip carried me to the mouth of a river, and, with a great effort, I got into the shoal-water, and finally staggered out on shore. There was a wood hard by, and thither I dragged myself. The sun was in mid heavens and very warm, and I managed to dry my clothes. I am always most particular ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... they anchored their boats as close together as possible near the middle of the river on some shoal or shallow spot, such as abound in this great river of shifting sand bars. Here they spent their quiet, restful days, having prayers and a couple of ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... exceed the beauty of these waters, and their safety. Not a shoal exists within the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound, or Hood's Canal, that can in any way interrupt their navigation by a seventy-four-gun ship. I venture nothing in saying there is no country in the world that possesses ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... after their return, when Tollman entered with a face full of apprehension. He had just suffered a fright which had made his heart miss a beat or two and had set his brain swirling with a fevered vision of all future happiness wrecked on a shoal of damnable folly. When he had presented his wife with the keys of his house he had not laid upon her any Bluebeard injunction that one door she must never open. Bluebeard lived in a more rudimentary age, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... time in the Thames, opposite Whitehall. Years had rolled on, but the Quaker mate who had so materially assisted the flying prince—by keeping the secret—arranging the escape with the crew, and when, in fear of danger from a privateer, rowing the prince ashore, and in shoal water carrying him on his shoulders to the land, near the village of Fecamp, in Normandy, yet he had not been with the king to claim any reward. This escape took place in 1651, and nearly twenty years had elapsed, ten of which were after the Restoration; so that in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "Petite Jeanne" was drawing six feet; the dinghy could sail across a shoal covered by eighteen inches of water. But such a shoal would be clearly visible on the surface of the water. Besides, there was no shallow like that nearer than the Goodwins. Barebone pressed out seaward. He knew every channel and every bank between the Thames and Thorpeness. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... advantage of every favourable circumstance; at midnight he had got beyond the sixty-sixth parallel, and the fathom line declared twenty-three fathoms of water; Shandon discovered that he was on the shoal where Her Majesty's ship Victoria struck, and that land was drawing near, thirty miles to the east. But now the heaps of ice, which up till now had been motionless, divided and began to move; icebergs seemed ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... various kinds found upon the beach. It was amusing to see such as are generally made use of as mantel-piece ornaments, teeming with life, and running about in every direction. A few fish were caught in nets outside the Runnymede, quantities of small ones being driven into shoal water by the large ones, which ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... became quite another creature. He discoursed so much, that she had to make him restore the handkerchief to his mouth; he held open the gate, showed her a shoal of minnows, and tried to persuade her to come round the garden before going in, but she clapped her hands at him, and hunted him back into the warm room, much impressed and delighted by his implicit obedience to his father. With Lucy and Sophy, his remaining seemed likewise to make ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unable to perceive things otherwise than through the succession of time, it is as though it were not. Let us be still more precise; let us take the case of a shipwreck. The ship that must perish has not yet left the port; the rock or the shoal that shall rend it sleeps peacefully beneath the waves; the storm that shall burst forth at the end of the month is slumbering, far beyond our gaze, in the secret of the skies. Normally, were nothing written, had the catastrophe[3] not already taken place in the future, fifty ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... At a point on Shoal Creek, about sixteen miles from Fat West, a brother by the name of Haun had built a flour mill. Besides the mill there were a blacksmith shop and half a dozen houses. About thirty families lived here, some of which had just arrived from the Eastern States and ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... worth a passing notice. During periods of elevation the area of the land and of the adjoining shoal parts of the sea will be increased and new stations will often be formed—all circumstances favourable, as previously explained, for the formation of new varieties and species; but during such periods there will generally be a blank in the geological record. On the other ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... towards evening there arose a tempestuous wind which made the waves run mountains high and parted the two carracks one from the other. Moreover, from stress of wind it befell that that wherein was the wretched and unfortunate Landolfo smote with great violence upon a shoal over against the island of Cephalonia and parting amidships, broke all in sunder no otherwise than a glass dashed against a wall. The sea was in a moment all full of bales of merchandise and chests ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a day's sail or so from the Cape de Verd Islands, when one day, as I was looking out, I saw on the starboard-bow what I was certain was a shoal of great extent covered with sea-weed. "Land on the starboard-bow!" I sung out, thinking there could be no mistake about the matter. I heard a loud laugh at my shoulder. ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... under the impression that the Humberts were a kind of bicycle . . . Isn't there a bishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animals we have known on earth in another world? How frightfully embarrassing to meet a whole shoal of whitebait you had last known at Prince's! I'm sure in my nervousness I should talk of nothing but lemons. Still, I daresay they would be quite as offended if one hadn't eaten them. I know if I were served up at a cannibal feast I should be dreadfully ...
— Reginald • Saki
... steamer built of light draft especially, to profit by any outlet offering least danger from the vigilant patrol outside. The skipper had already chosen his course. Because of the gale, he calculated that the blockaders would get a considerable offing, lest they flounder mid the shoal waters inshore. He knew too, even if it were not so dark, that a long, foamy line of surf curtained the bay from any watchful eye on the open sea. By the time she reached the beach channels, La Luz had full speed on. Then, knifing ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the twelve we required between us. At noon we sat under the bank, with the tangled roots of trees above us, and the smooth oily river slipping by. You may be sure we always selected a spot protected by very shoal water, for the crocodiles were numerous. I always shot these loathsome creatures whenever I got a chance, whenever the sound of a shot would not alarm more valuable game. Generally they were to be seen in midstream, just the tip of ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... breaking through a silver shoal of clouds; already its slender tentacles of light were probing the shadows behind the lattice where Jacqueline ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... this bank there was a shoal a half mile down, and I made shift to fetch it and draw breath there ere going forward; for I felt the hands of the river heavy upon my heels. Yet what will a young man not do for Love's sake? There was but little light from the stars, and midway to the shoal a branch of the stinking deodar tree ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... over, the post-bag arrived, and its contents were so numerous, that Lord Melville asked Scott what election was on hand—not doubting that there must be some very particular reason for such a shoal of letters. He answered that it was much the same most days, and added, "though no one has kinder friends in the franking line, and though Freeling and Croker especially are always ready to stretch ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... they were made most welcome by their countrymen. They observed that the straits of Booton was full of shoals, without which the water was deep. On the east there is good fresh water, and two leagues to the west lies a very rocky shoal. On the 8th of April, Cornelius de Vicaneze went for Banda, where the soldiers were landed, after being long ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... signallin' the channel to Dave Sinclair in the boat behind, with my hand; this way and so. But the second day Dave ran her aground. Young Lewis wouldn't allow that we knew how to lift a boat off a shoal up North. I let him break all the ropes tryin' to drag her off; then I showed him. Meanwhile, all this time, Grimy Caswell was dressin' himself up like a redskin in my boat; and smearin' his face with red earth. When it got dusk-like, he hid ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... his utter bewilderment. He must have thought me bereft of my senses to be paddling about at that hour of the night. The tide had made, and the Sylph, righting her listed masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up red-hot rocks ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... ship had struck. Rising high on a wave, she came down with a force which caused her mainmast at once to go over the side. Another lift on the next sea and then, high and fast, she was jammed on the rocks of the Black Shoal. The distance from shore was but small, not more than three hundred yards, and the shouts of the sailors on board could be heard in ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... and found it impossible to row back against the tide with the fyke. I then untied it, and it went downstream, stake and all. I got it into the boat, rowed up, and set the stake again. Then I tied one end to the stake and got out of the boat myself in shoal water. Then the boat got away in deep water; then I had to swim for the boat. Then I rowed back and untied the fyke. Then the fyke got away. Then I jumped out of the boat to save the fyke, and the boat got away. Then I had to swim again after the boat and row after the fyke, and finally ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... and there were Dutch whalers upon the coast, in which they could all be conveyed to Europe. As for wintering where they were, that dreadful experiment had been already tried too often. No time was to be lost; the ships had driven into shoal water, having but fourteen fathoms. Should they, or the ice to which they were fast, take the ground, they must inevitably be lost; and at this time they were driving fast toward some rocks on the N.E. Captain ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... sufferings that afternoon and night were pitiable. There were some families with women and children, and such shelter as a canvas awning could afford was kindly arranged for them. When we anchored in shoal water off the coast next morning, and the big flat-boats came to take them ashore, they had hardly strength and spirit sufficient to tumble into these craft, no doubt promising themselves, as usual, never, never again to quit the dry ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... other motive, set the men to work salting and drying the fish, so that we secured three barrels full, as an addition to our ordinary fare, which was very acceptable. The flying fish were pursued by a shoal of dolphins, which continued to play round our ship for several days, and some of these we captured with the line and ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... who closed with him, and bore Down by the length of lance and arm beyond The crupper, and so left him stunn'd or dead, And overthrew the next that follow'd him, And blindly rush'd on all the rout behind. But at the flash and motion of the man They vanish'd panic-stricken, like a shoal Of darting fish, that on a summer morn Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot Come slipping o'er their shadows on the sand, But if a man who stands upon the brink But lift a shining hand against the sun, There is not left the twinkle of a fin Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower; So, scared but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... the long shelving area extending from the coast out to the edge of the continental plateau and stretching from the South Shoal off Nantucket to New York, making in all, from the eastern part of the Grand Bank to New York Bay, a distance of about 2,000 miles, an almost continuous extent ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... he told me, and as I looked down into the clear, deep water, that looked almost black from its depth, I could see quite a shoal of fish, with their sides barred with dark stripes, sailing slowly about between me and the dead leaves and rotten branches which strewed the ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... inventions are in the brain of the future; I don't know what garments may be woven, with the years to come; but I do know, coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a greater blessing, a grander glory, than liberty for ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... You'll allow only genius could hit upon either. That he once was the Idle Man none will deplore, But I fear he will never be anything more; The ocean of song heaves and glitters before him, The depth and the vastness and longing sweep o'er him. He knows every breaker and shoal on the chart, He has the Coast Pilot and so on by heart, Yet he spends his whole life, like the man in the fable, In learning to swim on his library ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Carnaveral. It extends along nearly the entire eastern coast of Florida, varying in width from three to six miles, and is separated from the Atlantic by a narrow sand ridge, which is pierced at different points by shifting inlets. It is very shoal, so much so that we were obliged to haul our boat out nearly half a mile before she would float, and the water is teeming with stingarees, sword-fish, crabs, etc. But once afloat, we headed to the southward with ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the shrouds, and the dashing of the waves, mingle with the roar of the thunder. The swelling sea seems lifted up to the heavens, to scatter its foam among the clouds; then sinking away to the bottom assumes the color of the shoal—a Stygian blackness. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... upon the silver shoal; And I have ta'en the lute, my only friend: The vibrant chords beneath my fingers blend; They sob awhile, then as ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... passed out of sight. The settlement, the railway, the people, were gone; the magnificent wilderness was ours. We swept down with a four-mile current between rather low banks, using the oars mainly for guidance, and meeting no difficulty worse than a shoal, on which the boats all grounded for a few moments, and the breaking of his oar by Jones who steered our boat. About noon having run three miles, a landing was made on a broad gravelly island, to enable Andy to concoct a dinner. A heavy gale was tearing fiercely across the bleak ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... beautiful island of Hispaniola often resort in their canoes to the isle of Savona, not far distant, where is their chief fishery, especially of tortoises. Hither those fish constantly resort in great multitudes, at certain seasons, there to lay their eggs, burying them in the sands of the shoal, where, by the heat of the sun, which in those parts is very ardent, they are hatched. This island of Savona has little or nothing that is worthy consideration, being so very barren by reason of its sandy soil. True it is, that here grows some small quantity of lignum sanctum, or guaiacum, of ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... to carry a battery of 22 long guns (32-pdr.), on the main deck 12 carronades (42-pdr.), on forecastle and quarter decks. She was to have been rigged to rather lofty and very square topgallant sails, and would have been capable of sailing fairly well, though of rather shoal draft, drawing only about 8 feet 6 inches when ready for service. She was sold on the stocks at the end of the war and her later ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... accompanied us to the steamer, also Webster and R. Wood, and J. and T. Dean, and Abraham Taylor came with us in the steamer. Lunched, left us at one. Left New York at 11. The day truly delightful; only 7 passengers, dined at 4, but little wind and that not favourable; a shoal of porpoises, 6 and 8 close together. Gave T. D.'s servants two dollars. Am much pleased with the Captain, mate and crew, and also the passengers. The steamer left us at 1 and the pilot at half past ten. Paid for washing 17 pieces ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... pursuit of the children of Israel. But here we find conflicting opinions. Some say that Pharaoh, arriving at the bank and seeing the impossibility of overtaking them, turned and retired; others, that there were shoal places in those far-away days where any one could cross; others, that they crossed on flats very like the ordinary modern mortal. But I do not accept this attempt to question the orthodox version, but will verify it ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... slow endosmose has saturated the albumen and fibrin of the serum, which is returned to the liquid state. The red globules which desiccation had agglutinated, had become motionless like ships stranded in shoal water. Now behold them afloat again: they thicken, swell, round out their edges, detach themselves from each other and prepare to circulate in their proper channels at the first impulse which shall be given them by ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... said Witta, "that a great Shoal runs three days' sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which grows in the sea. South and east of the Forest my father came to a place where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he said, ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... Caledonia, which island was at that time unknown to him; the fresh appearance of the cocoa-nut seen by us renders, however, even this conclusion doubtful; Captain Flinders also found one as far to the south as Shoal Water Bay. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... a stop to its little irregularities. Mere art, perhaps, could do but little to remove the impediments to the navigation of this immense river. This end could only be obtained by taking advantage of the natural causes which have made a deep channel in one part and a shoal out a few yards lower down. Dame Nature, like dames in general, may be easily led if we can only persuade her that she is acting of her ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... on the swift outflowing of the tide; and just as the sailors on that ship were becoming jubilant over the prospect of a victory, a mighty quiver throughout the ship told that she had been left on a shoal by the ebb tide. The enemy was not long in discovering the helpless condition of the "Delaware;" and field-pieces and siege-guns were brought down to the river-bank, until the luckless Americans saw ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... very small, had not the wind blown too fresh for such an undertaking, and at the time we passed the Island we had only 10 fathoms Water, a rocky bottom; I was therefore afraid of running down to leeward for fear of meeting with Shoal Water and foul ground. These Islands have no place on the Charts, unless they are the Arrow Isles, which, if they are, they are laid down much too far from New Guinea. I found the South part of these to lay in the Latitude 7 degrees 6 minutes South, Longitude 225 degrees ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... himself indignantly from "this bank and shoal of time," or the frail tottering bark that bears up modern reputation, into the huge sea of ancient renown, and to revel there with untired, outspread plume. Even this in him is spleen—his contempt of his contemporaries makes him turn back to the lustrous past, or project himself forward ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... admirably adapted for those who prefer to frolic rather than to swim. Ropes indicate the shallow area. There is then a stretch of sea, which is perhaps eight feet deep at the deepest, for about twenty yards, and then a sandy shoal arises where the depth is not more than three to four feet. Since only the swimmers can reach this vantage ground, one soon learns which they are. But, as I say, the sea takes a secondary place and is used chiefly as a corrective to the sun's rays when they have become ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... they steered still farther to the west with some repining from the crew, and at night the same fog gathered, the same deadly chill came on. Finding themselves in shoal water, and apparently near some island, they decided to anchor the boat; and as the man in the bow bent over to clear away the anchor, something came down upon him with the same awful force, and knocked him overboard. His body could not be recovered, and as the wind came up, they drove ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... found that it was very complimentary to himself, fully as much so as he had expected; and the prospects of a new printing house, under his care, were set forth strongly. He had scarcely finished reading the letter, when the vessel struck on a shoal; for they were not out of the bay yet. She sprung a leak, and there was considerable excitement on board before the ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... crime thus committed did not long remain unpunished, for Gilling's brother, Suttung, quickly went in search of the dwarfs, determined to avenge him. Seizing them in his mighty grasp, the giant conveyed them to a shoal far out at sea, where they would surely have perished at the next high tide had they not succeeded in redeeming their lives by promising to deliver to the giant their recently brewed mead. As soon as Suttung set them ashore, they therefore gave him the precious compound, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the boundary between the Adriatic and Tuscan Seas. There a strong east wind arose for them, and on the following day it carried the ships to the point of Libya, at the place which the Romans call in their own tongue "Shoal's Head." For its name is "Caputvada," and it is five days' journey from ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... take us and our baggage ashore. We were cast adrift in the open sea on account of a doubtful shoal. We had eight miles to row before we could reach Goa. Fortunately there was no storm. We rowed a mile and a half of open sea, five miles of bay, and one and a half of winding river, and at last landed on a little stone pier jutting a few yards into the water. We found a total ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... in the lake;—everywhere beautiful country life, busy and gay, healthy and civilized likewise—and in the midst of it, the Maker of all heaven and earth sitting in a poor fisher's boat, and condescending to tell them where the shoal of fish was lying. It is a wonderful scene. Let us thank God that it happened once on earth. Let us try to see what we may learn from it in these days, in which our God and Saviour no longer walks this ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... mind as plausible, as well as discreet. To recover even a single man would be a great advantage, and he had lingering hopes that some of the people might yet be found on the reef. Then Bob's idea about getting the ship through the shoal water, by passing to leeward, in preference to making the attempt against the wind, was a sound one; and, on a little reflection, he was well enough disposed to acquiesce in it. Accordingly, when they quitted ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the bank the 'wild willow,' or water-betony, with its woody stem, willow-shaped leaves, and pale red flowers, grows thickly. Across where there is a mud-bank the stout stems of the willow herb are already tall. They quite cover the shoal, and line the brook like shrubs. They are the strongest and the most prominent of all the brook plants. At the end of March or beginning of April the stalks appear a few inches high, and they gradually increase in size, until in July they ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... some rum, half a goat, two great coats, one of which was to lie on, and one to put on at night. I set sail in the sixth year of my reign. On the East side of the isle, there was a large ridge of rocks, which lay two miles from the shore; and a shoal of sand lay for half a mile from the rocks to the beach. To get round to this point, I had to sail a great way out to sea; and here I all but lost ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... as they entered the shabby little town, they sprang off the car before a small inn, and ere their feet were on the ground were appropriated by one of a shoal of guides, in dress and speech an ultra Irishman, exaggerating his part as a sort of buffoon for the travellers. Rashe was diverted by his humours; Cilla thought them in bad taste, and would fain have escaped from his brogue and his antics, with some perception ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feet on each side and great batteries and the white tents of some of Kitchener's army were to be seen almost everywhere. There was certainly no doubt about England being at war. As we drew near the breakwater a shoal of paddle wheel tugs rushed out to welcome us with their sirens blowing to pilot us safely into the most noted harbour in the world. From this port sailed such great captains as Drake, Hawkins and Cooke, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... and soon perceived the sea to break right a-head of us; we immediately sounded, and shoaled our water from thirteen to seven fathom, soon after deepening it again from seventeen to forty-two; so that we went over the end of a shoal, which a little farther to the northward might have been fatal to us. Cape Blanco at this time bore W.S.W. 1/2 S. distant four leagues: But we were still at a loss for Port Desire, it being impossible that any description should be more confused than that which Sir John Narborough has given of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... beach than before, and she had now in her bilge above nine feet of water, which reached higher than the lower-deck beams. On looking down the stern-post, which, seen against the light-coloured ground, and in shoal water, was now very distinctly visible, we found that she had pushed the stones at the bottom up before her, and that the broken keel, stern-post, and deadwood had, by the recent pressure, been more damaged and turned up than before. ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... mile or more south of 'Sconset there is a shoal (locally called "the rips") where wind and tide occasionally, coming in opposition, cause a fierce battle of the waves, a sight well worth a good deal of ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... had many interesting experiences in the eastern archipelago, but no mishaps except that the ship grounded on a rocky shoal near one of the islands. Fortunately there was no leak, and after throwing overboard eight of their cannon, three tons of cloves they had gathered in their voyage through the isles of spices, and many bags of meal, the "Golden Hind" was got afloat again, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... praises he sung that his statements were received in England with a good deal of hesitation. But they were amply corroborated by Wilkes and others who followed many years later. "Nothing," says Wilkes, "can exceed the beauty of these waters and their safety. Not a shoal exists in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound or Hood's Canal, that can in any way interrupt their navigation by a 74-gun ship. I venture nothing in saying there is no country in the world that possesses ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... shivered, and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal—there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing—against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, straw-laden, with a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like a child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud on stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck out of the mud, and an old landing-stage ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... sure to swing round into the happy morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past.—H. W.] ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... Between these two capes was a bay capable of receiving small vessels. The identity here of the description with the coast near Laguna de Moron seems very clear. The cape east of Laguna de Moron coincides with Cape Palmas, the Laguna de Moron with the shoal river described by Columbus; and in the western point of entrance, with the island of Cabrion opposite it, we recognize the two projecting capes he speaks of, with what appeared to be a bay between ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... fabled marine monster than a vessel meant for speed and comfort. Her length was immense, and her draught necessarily very light—not four feet when full loaded; for the Alabama is subject to many vagaries and what was a clear channel yesterday may be only a two-foot shoal to-day. Of course, with solidity and strength sacrificed to this extreme lightness, when the powerful engines are put to any strain, the high, thin fabric thrills from stem to stern with their every ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon |
