"Poop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the end of the sixteenth century, was sometimes of as much as 900 tons. She was generally low in the waist, with a high square forecastle forward, a high quarter-deck, raised above the waist, just abaft the main-mast, and a poop above the quarter-deck, sloping upward to the taffrail. These high outerworks were shut off from the open waist (the space between the main-mast and the forecastle) by wooden bulkheads, which were pierced for small, quick-firing guns. Below the upper, or spar deck, she had a gun-deck, if ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... surrounded by a perfeck swarm of orfice seekers. Knowin he had been capting of a flat boat on the roarin Mississippy I thought I'd address him in sailor lingo, so sez I, "Old Abe, ahoy! Let out yer main-suls, reef hum the forecastle & throw yer jib-poop over-board! Shiver my timbers, my harty!" [N.B. This is ginuine mariner langwidge. I know, becawz I've seen sailor plays acted out by them New York theatre fellers.] Old Abe lookt up quite cross & sez, "Send in yer petition by & by. I can't possibly look at it now. Indeed, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... provided with a change of clothing, the resources of the slop chest happily proving fully equal to the strain upon its resources imposed by Chichester's bulky proportions. The change was effected in good time to allow the two friends to join the occupants of the poop cabin at supper, where Captain Marshall made them duly acquainted with his fellow adventurers. These were five in number, consisting respectively of Mr George Lumley and Mr Thomas Winter, Marshall's lieutenants, Mr Walter Dyer and Mr Edmund Harvey, gentlemen ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... in your lap, Mary," said he, dashing his own hand across his eyes. "By George, lass, when this leg of mine is sound we'll bear down for a spell to Brighton, and if there is a smarter frock than yours upon the Steyne, may I never tread a poop again. But how is it that you are so quick at figures, Rodney, when you know nothing of ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was ordered to amble along at half speed offshore. Then for hours together Julius Marston and his two especial and close companions, men of affairs, plainly, men of his kind, bunched themselves close together in their hammock chairs under the poop awning and talked interminably. Alma Marston and her young friends, chaperoned by an amiable aunt—so Captain Mayo understood her status in the party—remained considerately away from the earnest group of three. Arthur Beveridge attached ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water—the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tunes of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the general scheme of existence? While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyage to Civita Vecchia, Vexed in the squally seas as we lay by Capraja and Elba, Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel, Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows, 'This is Nature,' I said: 'we are born as it were from her waters; Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... any of the vessels after we had done trading with them. I told him we would strive to outdo them in civility, and that we would make good every part of his agreement; in token whereof, I caused a white flag likewise to be spread at the poop of our great ship, which was the signal ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... where he was in 'the frigate': whether he was addressing the crew on the deck, or the officers on the bridge, and when, his fantastic feat accomplished, he clinked glasses with them in the cabin on the poop. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... this and abode with the King, who called his secretary and steward and said to them, "Go and pass the night in this man's ship and keep it safe, Inshallah!" So they went up into the ship and seating themselves, this on the poop and that on the bow, passed a part of the night in repeating the names of Allah (to whom belong Majesty and Might!). Then quoth one to the other, "Ho, such an one! The King bade us keep watch and I fear lest sleep overtake us; so, come, let us discourse of stories of fortune and of the good we have ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... and the Sunday was kept as a fast. In the afternoon the stewards went ashore for fresh meat and vegetables. They came back with their boats loaded, and the prospect seemed a little less gloomy. Suddenly, as the Duke and a group of officers were watching the English fleet from the San Martin's poop deck, a small smart pinnace, carrying a gun in her bow, shot out from Howard's lines, bore down on the San Martin, sailed round her, sending in a shot or two as she passed, and went off unhurt. The Spanish officers could not help admiring such ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... meantime, the ship became more distinct to the naked eye: she was a stout, round Dutch-built vessel, with high bow and poop, and bearing Dutch colours. The evening sun gilded her bellying canvas, as she came riding over the long waving billows. The sentinel who had given notice of her approach, declared, that he first got sight of her when she was in the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... their pistols at them; but the doors were soon broken down, and the party, after firing a volley, sallied on the spar deck, which the enemy yielded to them,—a Spanish commodore falling by the wheel as he retreated. Berry had by this time reached the poop, where he hauled down the colors, while Nelson passed to the forward part of the ship, meeting on his way several Spanish officers, who, being by this time in the hands of British seamen, gave up to him their swords. The Spanish guns on the lower decks still continued firing ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... navies: weapons which have missed Find yet their victims, and the falling steel Fails not in middle deep to deal the wound. One vessel circled by Phocaean keels Divides her strength, and on the right and left On either side with equal war contends; On whose high poop while Tagus fighting gripped The stern Phocaean, pierced his back and breast Two fatal weapons; in the midst the steel Meets, and the blood, uncertain whence to flow, Stands still, arrested, till with double course Forth ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... by which fifty men were killed. Drawing off from this assailant, the galley found herself close to the Dutch admiral in the Half-moon, who, with all sail set, bore straight down upon her, struck her amidships with a mighty crash, carrying off her mainmast and her poop, and then, extricating himself with difficulty from the wreck, sent a tremendous volley of cannon-shot and lesser missiles straight into the waist where sat the chain-gang. A howl of pain and terror rang through the air, while oars and benches, arms, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Enderby, the passenger from Sydney, and he were walking the poop; his wife was asleep in a deck-chair on the other side. An open book lay in her lap. As the two men passed and re-passed her, the one noted that the other would glance in undisguised and honest admiration at the figure in the chair. And Enderby, who was as open as the ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Tristram underwent this shock of surprise, from a point about three yards above his head another person was watching the boat with some curiosity. This was the Commodore, M. de la Pailletine, who stood on the poop with his feet planted wide and his hands clasped beneath his coat-tails. He was wondering who this visitor ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... It was battered and tilted on its beam ends, but I could still make out the high poop that marked it as ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... several homes of retired shipmasters and owners of Cap'n Ira's ilk. These ancient sea dogs, on such a day as this, were unfailingly found "walking the poop" of their front yards, or wherever they could take their diurnal exercise, binoculars or spyglass in hand, their vision more often fixed seaward than ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... extraordinary enterprise?" In detailing the extent of this damage, we will take the ships in the order they descended. The first had her wheel carried away, and her hull much damaged, but escaped with the loss of only three men. A stone shot penetrated the second, between the poop and quarter deck, badly injured the mizzen-mast, carried away the wheel, and did other serious damage, killing and wounding twenty men. Two shot struck the third, carrying away her shrouds and injuring her masts; loss in killed and wounded, thirty. The fourth had her mainmast destroyed, with ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... came out on the verandah, the mission-boat was shooting for the mouth of the river. She was a long whale-boat painted white; a bit of an awning astern; a native pastor crouched on the wedge of the poop, steering; some four-and-twenty paddles flashing and dipping, true to the boat-song; and the missionary under the awning, in his white clothes, reading in a book, and set him up! It was pretty to see and hear; there’s no smarter sight in the islands than a missionary ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... faithfully paid the midshipman the two guineas for his assistance, was now on the poop keeping his watch, as midshipmen usually do; that is, stretched out on the signal lockers, and composing himself to sleep after the most approved fashion, answering the winks of the stars by blinks of his eyes, until at last he shut them ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... boat was a fine craft, forty-two feet long and about seven feet and a half beam. The poop was decked under for a cabin, with bunks for the men to sleep in. The rudder-like oar, several feet long, is held by the captain, who sculls and ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... everythung afore she could a-fetched up. There was naught tull do but keep on runnun'. An' uf ut worsened we were lost ony way, for soon or late that overtakun' sea was sure tull sweep us clear over poop an' all. ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... ado to persuade them that no harm was done, and that if any one had a right to complain, I had. I was rowing on, to put an end to the parley, when my eye caught sight of a bundle of garments on the boat's poop. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... an East Indiaman, and the windows were her bulging stern windows, carved and ornamented, though now all weathered to an ashen gray, and on each side of the doorway ran a stout carved wooden railing which had come from a ship's poop. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... sambuk which was to take them to Yambu, the port of Medina. As ninety-seven pilgrims were crowded on a vessel constructed to carry only sixty, most extraordinary scenes occurred. Thanks to the exertions of Sa'ad the Demon, Burton and his friends secured places on the poop, the most eligible part of the vessel. They would not be very comfortable anywhere, Sa'ad explained, but "Allah makes all things easy." Sa'ad himself, who was blessed with a doggedness that always succeeds, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... to my knees, fierce hands wrenched and tore at me, and grown faint with blows I was overborne, my hands lashed behind me, and thus helpless I was dragged along the gangway and so up the ladder to the poop where, plain to all men's sight, a whipping-post had been set up. Yet even so I struggled still, panting out curses on them, French and Spanish and English, drawing upon all the vile abuse of the rowing-bench ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Chronicle has a habit of identifying itself with the people and subjects which it discusses. Does it put forth an article on naval matters—straightway it becomes salter than Turk's Island, and talks of bobstays and main-top-bowlines and poop-down-hauls in a manner that, to put it mildly, is confusing, and would, if you read it, make you jump as if all your strings were pulled at once! Are financial matters under discussion—behold even JAMES FISK, Jr., is not so keen and shrewd, nor Commodore VANDERBILT ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... anchored again, and four days elapsed before any Danish galleys were seen. At the end of that time six large Danish war-ships were perceived in the distance. Edmund and Egbert from the top of the lofty poop ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... were pointed out, boats' crews detailed, and collision-fire measures practised. The promenade and boat decks were kept free for recreation and instructional work. The after well-deck held the horse shelters and an auxiliary kitchen. Under the fo'c'sle head was the main kitchen. Situated on the poop deck was a small isolation hospital. A separate mess and quarters received the warrant officers and sergeants; whilst the officers were allotted what had once been the accommodation ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... of your head," as Fox said to Bonypart. Wasn't it that great genus, Dennis, that wrote in Swiff and Poop's time, who fansid that the French king wooden make pease unless Dennis was delivered up to him? Upon my wud, I doan't think he carrid his diddlusion much further than a serting honrabble barnet of ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... journey, and Mr. Cooper reported to Cook that she was very crank. The latter at once wrote to the Admiralty that he considered it unsafe to proceed any further with her in that condition, and proposed that her poop should be cut down, her masts shortened, and her guns exchanged to four-pounders. The Navy Board, however, decided that she should be restored to her original state as far as it was possible to do so; she was therefore ordered to Sheerness, and her Captain was instructed to ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... cook and all went to work with their hands. A few minutes sufficed to dispose of every grain; then one of the Kroomen gave each of them a cup of water from a bucket. For half an hour after the meal they had the liberty of the deck, except the poop, for exercise, to wash and to sun themselves; for sunshine to a negro is meat and drink. At the end of this time they were sent below and another fifty brought up, and so on until all had been fed and watered. Paddy or rice was the staple article of food. At dinner boiled yams were given ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the bones crack. They were excellent, new "snekrs," nearly eighty feet long each; with double banks for twelve oars a side in the waist, which was open, save a fighting gangway along the sides; with high poop and forecastle decks; and with one large sail apiece, embroidered by Sigtryg's Princess and the other ladies with a huge white bear, which Hereward had ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... just come on deck, when, looking forward, he saw a figure falling into the water. Instantly there was a cry of "man overboard." He ran on to the poop. The first mate, who was the officer of the watch, instantly gave the necessary orders to clew up the courses, put the helm down, to brace the yards to starboard, and bring the ship on a wind. At the same time preparations were made to ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... efforts unavailing. To prevent the boat going down we were obliged to turn to and bail. Away we drifted, every moment, increasing our distance from the ship, and lessening our hope of being able to return. There stood our late companions on the poop of the sinking ship, some waving to us, some shouting and imploring us to return. Summoned by the captain, we saw that they then were endeavouring to form a raft. The thought that the lives of all on board depended mainly on our exertions ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... trembling all over. I could hear the talking and laughing that went on under the break of the poop. Two women were kissing, with little cries, near the hatchway. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... from ten to twenty rowers on a side. To each oar three men were apportioned—one to row, one to shield the rower, and one to throw missiles and fight, so that her crew numbered over sixty men. The forecastle and poop were very high, and the appearance of height was still further increased by the figurehead—the neck and head of a swan—and by a tail that rose from the stern-post, over the steersman's head. Both head and tail were richly ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... wonderful story to tell, to the effect that "In his land there was a river in the level country which was two leagues wide, in which were fishes as big as horses, and large numbers of very big canoes with more than twenty rowers on a side, and carrying sails; and their lords sat on the poop under awnings, and on the prow they had a great golden eagle. He said also that the lord of that country took his afternoon nap under a great tree on which were hung a large number of little gold bells, which put him to sleep as they ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... pulled up their lines, and took to the oars, and in a few minutes they were alongside the ship, and an officer leant over the side of the poop, and asked them to ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... said on board, the last handshakings took place on the poop, then the engine gave two or three turns of the screw and the steamer was ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... old gentleman came and looked in at the window; and I heard him calling out, "Nurse, there is a young and attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants." Are you ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... painter in his hand. At the same moment I became aware of a strange noise. Down in the bowels of the lorcha a weird, gentle commotion was going on, a multitudinous 'gluck-gluck' as of many bottles being emptied. A breath of hot, musty air was sighing out of the hatch. Then the sea about the poop began to rise,—to rise slowly, calmly, steadily, like milk in a ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... name, and she cannot have been more than nineteen years of age. I remember her telling me that she had not yet come out, the very first time I assisted her to promenade the poop. My own name was still unknown to her, and yet I recollect being quite fascinated by her frankness and self-possession. She was exquisitely young, and yet ludicrously old for her years; had been admirably educated, chiefly abroad, and, as we were soon to discover, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... here now and I don't mean to let you escape," laughed the other in response; "in my cabin—its aft there under the break in the poop, you'll find some more overalls, put them on and then I'll set you ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... throats, and in less than a minute the engines were silent, the vessel moving only with its headway. Then, with a blast of steam, they were reversed. Meanwhile, the after part of the hurricane deck, and the poop of the second saloon, were packed with eager souls scanning the surface of the water in the hope of catching sight of their ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... barque of 1,100 tons, and belonging to Captain Hosack, of Liverpool. She is most commodious; the cabins are much larger than is usual in a vessel of this size. Mine was not a large one, but it measured 8ft. by 10ft. 6in. There is, too, a poop deck 70ft. long, which is scarcely ever touched, even by a heavy sea. When people are constantly in each other's society for so long they gradually throw off many of the artificial restraints of society, and exhibit themselves as they would in their own ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... the ship having been kept as far as could be in fighting order all night, yet there was "clearing of decks, lacing of nettings, making of bulwarks, fitting of waistcloths, arming of tops, tallowing of pikes, slinging of yards, doubling of sheets and tacks." Amyas took charge of the poop, Cary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main-deck, while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, and more than ready, before the great ship was within two miles ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Cole, having been oft punished for drunkenness, was now ordered to wear a red D about his neck for a year," to wit, the year 1633, and thereby gave occasion to the greatest American romance, The Scarlet Letter. The famous apparition of the phantom ship in New Haven harbor, "upon the top of the poop a man standing with one hand akimbo under his left side, and in his right hand a sword stretched out toward the sea," was first chronicled by Winthrop under the year 1648. This meteorological phenomenon took on the dimensions of a full-grown myth ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were notoriously clumsy and unseaworthy. With short keel and towering poop and forecastle they were an easy prey for the long, low, close-sailing sloops and barques of the buccaneers. But this was not their only weakness. Although the king expressly prohibited the loading of merchandise on the galleons except on the king's account, this rule ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... was much increased, when some days after, a storm came upon us, and the captain rushed out of the cabin in his nightcap, and nothing else but his shirt on; and leaping up on the poop, began to jump up and down, and curse and swear, and call the men aloft all manner of hard names, just like a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... a pretty little ship, being a perfect model of an Elizabethan ship, built up high at bow and stern, "for," as Sebastian explained, "majesty and terror of the enemy", and with deck and orlop, waist and poop, hold and masts—all complete with forecastle and cabin, masts and spars, port-holes and guns, sails, anchor, and carved figure-head. The woodwork was painted in white and green and red, and at bow and stern was ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... bring him to under her stern; and he did not doubt but that such an old crazy vessel would be the better for being taken in tow. "But howsomever," added this arch adviser, "I'd have you take care of your upper-works; for if once you are made fast to her poop, egad! She'll spank it away, and make every beam in your body crack ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... as near the "Bellerophon" as the guard-boats would allow. Two or three persons were drowned; but still the swarm pressed on. Many of the men wore carnations—a hopeful sign this seemed to Las Cases—and the women waved their handkerchiefs when he appeared on the poop or at the open gangway. Maitland was warned that a rescue would be attempted on the night of the 3rd-4th; and certainly the Frenchmen were very restless at that time. They believed that if Napoleon could only set foot on shore he must gain ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... assurance as this would have restored hope to those on board the DUNCAN. Lady Helena and Mary Grant had been sorely tried by the suspense, as they stood on the poop waiting for the arrival of the boat, and trying to count the number of its passengers. Alternate hope and fear agitated the bosom of poor Mary. Sometimes she fancied she could see her father, Harry Grant, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... pursuing vessel overhauled them rapidly. With a great smother of foam at her bows she ducked into the choppy sea and came like a race horse. In half an hour she was almost abreast on the port quarter. A man with a megaphone appeared on her poop deck and leveled the instrument at the little ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... fainter, while the blows continued, accompanied occasionally by the gruff voice of the captain, until, my soul shrinking with horror, I could endure it no longer. I rushed out of my cabin, and there on the poop beheld a sight I can never forget. Poor Frederic was lashed to the shrouds with his hands above his head, which was then drooping on his shoulder; his back bare and bleeding. The brutal captain was standing by with a thick rope in his grasp, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... and one morning found George Dorety standing in the coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop, taking his first gaze around the deck. The Mary Rogers was reaching full-and-by, in a stiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing, including the staysails. Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop. He strolled carelessly, glancing at the passenger out of the corner of his ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... the big Turkish man-of-war was afire. The powder magazine blew up and the lifeboats went up in flames. The burning rigging fell down upon the doomed crew, and the admiral was struck down on his poop-deck. The ship was burned to the water's edge. The Turkish fleet scattered before the shower of blazing sparks, and was only brought together under the guns of the Dardanelles. This exploit made Kanaris the hero of Greece. Within the same year ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... stern-post to the taffrail. Like the beauteous model, who was declared to be the greatest belle in Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous catheads, a copper bottom, and withal a most prodigious poop. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... made. The men at the guns fidgeted, and kept casting glances towards the poop, in expectation of an order. It came at last, but was ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... short, we were carried quite out of the straits to the north in about an hour. Upon this shift of tide there arose such a short sea, and so lofty at the same time, that we alternately dipped our bowsprit and poop-lanterns into the water; our ship all the while labouring most violently, and refusing to answer the helm. The tide shifted again at midnight, and we shot through the straits, steering S. with a brisk gale at N.W. without seeing the land distinctly on either ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the date, but 'Dinkie' is going to 'poop' in a few days. He's got two tons under Bosche. It will be a —— fine show; right under his trenches. Ought to snip a ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... along the quays, and wondered what every body was waiting for. There were small vessels enough lying at the wharves, but every body on board seemed to be taking it easy. Cooks were lying asleep on the galleys; skippers were sitting on the poop, smoking socially with their crews; small boys, with red night-caps on their heads, were stretched out upon the hatchways, playing push-pin, and eating crusts of black bread; stevedores, with dusty sacks on their shoulders, were lounging about on the wharf, waiting ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Macedonian; she was thus of over 1,200 tons. (Cooper says more, "nearly double the tonnage of the Saratoga.") She carried on her main-deck thirty long 24's, fifteen in each broadside. She did not have a complete spar-deck; on her poop, which came forward to the mizzen-mast, were two 32-pound (or possibly 42-pound) carronades and on her spacious top-gallant forecastle were four 32—(or 42-) pound carronades, and a long 24 on a pivot. [Footnote: ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... through the ship, the junk swept past her quarter. The chief officer, joined now by the commander, looked down into the wretched craft. They could see her crew lashed in a bunch around the capstan on her elevated poop. She was laden with timber. Although water-logged, she could not sink if she ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... much the same manner; but, alas, the night—Mac and Smoky were blusteringly ejected from their bivvie by an officious sergeant, who said that the poop boat-deck was holy ground reserved for machine-gunners and men on guard. So they retired to the upper deck, and sought a spot whereon to lay their bones; but the ship was very full, and space limited. In an ill-considered moment they settled down partly under a seat, where ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... airy seat on the poop-deck of the little English steamer, and are wafted across the harbor, five miles, to a small sea-port, where coal-schutes and railways run out over the wharfs, and coasters, both fore-and-aft, and square-rigged, are gathered in profusion. A glass of English ale at a right salt-sea tavern, ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... o'clock next morning Jack found himself alongside the Wild Wave, a fine barque-rigged ship of about eight hundred and fifty tons. A number of riggers were at work on board, and Captain Murchison was on the poop talking to an officer, whom Jack at once guessed to ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... from the coast of South America. We then enjoyed bright and clear weather, while running pleasantly along at the rate of 150 or 160 miles a day before the steady trade-wind. The temperature in this more central part of the Pacific is higher than near the American shore. The thermometer in the poop cabin, by night and day, ranged between 80 and 83 degs., which feels very pleasant; but with one degree or two higher, the heat becomes oppressive. We passed through the Low or Dangerous Archipelago, and saw several of those most curious rings of coral land, just ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... engaging Mr. Orlando B. Sturge (who was exacting in details), had mounted it, at great expense, with a couple of lifelike guns, R. and L., and for background the overhang of the quarter-deck, with rails and a mizzen-mast of real timber against a painted cloth representing the rise of the poop. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of Washington, he is there lucky enough to find a young girl to pray for him. Then the curse is removed, the punishment is over, and a celestial vessel, with angels on the decks and "sweet little cherubs" fluttering about the shrouds and the poop, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... most trying state of suspense, we spent the night, the ship being by the hand of Providence kept up till the morning. The boats by this time had all been prepared; and as the captain and officers were coming upon the poop or roof of our prison, to abandon the ship, the water being then up to the coamings of the hatchways, we again implored his mercy; upon which he sent the corporal and an armourer down to let some of us out of irons, but three only ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... day of August. While we were furling our Sails, there came near 100 Boats of the Natives aboard, with 3 or 4 Men in each; so that our Deck was full of Men. We were at first afraid of them, and therefore got up 20 or 30 small Arms on our Poop, and kept 3 or 4 Men as Centinels, with Guns in their Hands, ready to fire on them if they had offered to molest us. But they were pretty quiet, only they pickt up such old Iron that they found on our Deck, and they also took out our Pump-Bolts, and Linch-Pins ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... Tom and the mate gained a place of partial security on the poop. The scene that met their gaze there was terrible beyond description. Not far ahead the sea roared in irresistible fury on a reef of rocks, towards which the ship was slowly drifting. The light of ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... ways to the favor of his chief. One creature of Fonseca, named Jimeno de Briviesca, carried his insolence beyond the bounds of the endurance even of the dignified and long-suffering admiral, who very properly took him by the scruff of the neck on one occasion and kicked him off the poop of the flag-ship. The delays of Fonseca and his agents caused incalculable injury to the public ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Kingston's Stern, and Captain Padnor ordered to hale for the third and last Time, and if no answer was return'd, to give her a Broadside. The Noise onboard the Kingston was now a little ceas'd, and Captain Trevor, who was on the poop with a speaking Trumpet to hale the Severn, by good Luck heard her hale him, answering the Kingston, and asking the Name of the other ship, ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... of a courier who had preceded him, a handsome lighter of eight oars. These lighters, in the shape of gondolas, rather wide and rather heavy, containing a small covered chamber in shape of a deck, and a chamber in the poop, formed by a tent, then acted as passage-boats from Orleans to Nantes, by the Loire, and this passage, a long one in our days, appeared then more easy and convenient than the high road, with its post hacks, or its bad, scarcely hung carriages. Fouquet went on board ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... surprised at this encounter, and especially at seeing Father Griffen, who, standing on the poop, attentively observed the maneuvers of the two ships, the chevalier said to the captain: "But how the devil do you find yourself here at a given point to receive me, coming out of that nutshell down ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... was a fine moonlight night, and nothing seemed to be in the way, so I began to play, and forgot all about the fellow on the bridge, and everything else for that matter, until I heard four bells go. This reminded me, so I stopped short, went on to the poop, and the other fellows came up with me. I was chaffing them about their row, and I heard the look-out man call out, 'A red light on the port bow, sir!' I saw we were going a long way clear, so took no notice; but the miner on the bridge increased his pace. In less than a minute the look-out man ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... times a favourite spectacle, and with all observers,—the old "salt" who has seen them a thousand times, and the young sailor on his maiden voyage, who beholds them for the first time in his life. Many an hour of ennui occurring to the ship-traveller, as he sits upon the poop, restlessly scanning the monotonous surface of the sea, has been brought to a cheerful termination by the appearance of a shoal of flying-fish suddenly sparkling up out of the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... sight that I think we should have given the job up if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired on us through the slit. We got on them before they could load, and they stood to it like men; but we had the upper hand of them, ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... oars were small, being not more than twelve feet in length, but made of very light, tough material, with very broad blades. The galley was steered with broad-bladed paddles at both ends. There was no mast or sail. Astern was a light poop, surrounded by a pavilion, and forward there was another. At the bow there was a projecting platform, used chiefly in fighting the thannin, or sea-monsters, and also in war. There were no masts or flags or gay streamers; no brilliant ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... others as fast as possible. The cabin doors were fastened, and the Spanish officers fired their pistols at them through the window; the doors were soon forced, and the Spanish brigadier fell while retreating to the quarter-deck. Nelson pushed on, and found Berry in possession of the poop, and the Spanish ensign hauling down. He passed on to the forecastle, where he met two or three Spanish officers, and received their swords. The English were now in full possession of every part of the ship, when a fire of pistols and musketry opened upon them from the admiral's stern-gallery of ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... away at last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck was unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon as old as I have stated; for you saw her shape when you stood on her deck, and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her poop and poop-royal, as it was called, proved her age as convincingly as if the date of her launch had been scored ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... large vessel. On the left is its helm, with the pilot's box; at the prow are pleasure-houses, an immense organ, and a cannon to call the attention of the inhabitants of the earth or the moon; above the poop there are the observatory and the balloon long-boat; in the equatorial circle, the army barrack; on the left, the funnel; then the upper galleries for promenading, sails, pinions; below, the cafes and general ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... glass, his eyes seemed to have catched FIRE! and his whole countenance lighted up; a new spirit seemed to possess him, while he preserved the utmost coolness: advancing deliberately to what is called the poop railing, and steadily looking forward—"Boatswain! Pipe to quarters." Muster roll called.—"Now, my men, we shall FIGHT! I know you will do it well!—Clear ship for action!" I have certainly but my brother's word and judgment upon the fact, who had never been UNDER FIRE; ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the heart of every wanderer—lying as they do in the very heart of the rolling Pacific. Was it two or three hundred years ago that brave Joshua Mortlake discovered and christened them? History has it that he was standing on the poop deck of his schooner the "Whoops-a-Daisy" when he first beheld those pocket Paradises of the Pacific. He shaded his eyes with his hand and turned to ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... of Ireland, where the arsenal is, amongst a perfect labyrinth of shoals, through which the Mudian pilot conned the ship with great skill, taking his stand, to our no small wonderment, not at the gangway or poop, as usual, but on the bowsprit end, so that he might see the rocks under foot, and shun them accordingly, for they are so steep and numerous, (they look like large fish in the clear water,) and the channel is so intricate, that ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... had been fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The seas had rolled her farther over by this time, and given her decks a pretty sharp slope; but a dozen men still held on, seven by the ropes near the ship's waist, a couple near the break of the poop, and three on the quarter-deck. Of these three my father made out one to be the skipper; close by him clung an officer in full regimentals—his name, they heard after, was Captain Duncanfield; and last came the tall trumpeter; and if you'll believe me, the fellow was making ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... reader, leaving the battlements of St. Elmo, you alight upon the deck of our ship, which you find to be white and clean, and, as seamen say, sheer—that is to say, without break, poop, or hurricane-house—forming on each side of the line of masts a smooth, unencumbered plane the entire length of the deck, inclining with a gentle curve from the bow and stern toward the waist. The bulwarks are high, and are ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the enemy hove in sight. Then oars out, and a quick stroke for a few minutes, and they are alongside their unsuspecting prey, and pouring in their first volley. Then a scramble on board, a hand-to-hand scuffle, a last desperate resistance on the poop, under the captain's canopy, and the prize is taken, the prisoners ironed, a jury crew sent on board, and all return in triumph to Algiers, where they are received ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... ship was enjoying the weather, and pleasing himself with the prospect of going North in a day or two at farthest, and being relieved from the monotony of a blockade at anchor. Some of us were pacing the poop, basking in the sun, and watching the gulls, which here, as all over the world, wherever a man-of-war is anchored, manage to find out when it is dinnertime, appearing regularly when the mess-tins are being washed, and the cooks are taking the buckets ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... people were cheering loudly, and joyous hails floated shoreward over the water. Nobly the Good Hope came in, her bulwarks and poop-deck crowded with figures, the breeze bellying her canvas and fluttering the flag of England at the masthead. I was fairly carried away by the novel excitement, and I only came to my sober senses when the vessel was at last moored ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... mate of the ship Narcissus, stepped in one stride out of his lighted cabin into the darkness of the quarter-deck. Above his head, on the break of the poop, the night-watchman rang a double stroke. It was nine o'clock. Mr. Baker, speaking up to the man above him, asked:—"Are all the hands ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of my father's finest models. Pitch pine he made her of, and she's beautiful yet, for all her disgrace. I climbed aboard of her while the Corcubion women were trotting to and fro with the coal baskets, and looked round the poop. There was the cuddy as good as ever, teak frames, maple panels, pine flooring. That old hulk brought my old father before me as no daguerreotype could do. There was his name cut on the beam, John Carville. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... gaining upon them, they all at once dropped their oars and seized their captain who stood on the stage at the end of the gangway shouting to them to row lustily; and passing him on from bench to bench, from the poop to the prow, they so bit him that before he had got much past the mast his soul had already got to hell; so great, as I said, was the cruelty with which he treated them, and the hatred ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... melancholic as a cat. Friar John, who soon perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come this unusual sadness; when the master, whose watch it was, observing the fluttering of the ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began to overcast, judged that we should have wind; therefore he bid the boatswain call all hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, and cabin-boys, and even the passengers; made them ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... anchoring ground. These were particularized in a general order issued by the admiral, and to them he added special instructions, rendered necessary by the force of the current and its constancy in the same direction. "Mount one or two guns on the poop and top-gallant forecastle," he said; "in other words, be prepared to use as many guns as possible ahead and astern to protect yourself against the enemy's gunboats and batteries, bearing in mind that you ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the poop, and he overlooked the length of the ship. The brig Cohasset was before his eyes, as much of her as was above water. But, as a matter of fact, and as he was later informed, he did not look upon a brig at all; the Cohasset was a brig only by virtue of sailors' loose habits of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... share of its beak, while from the bows some gorgon or chimaera, elephant or boar, stared out with brazen eyes toward the coast of Africa, as if it, too, like the human beings which it carried, was dead to every care but that of dastard flight. Past they rushed, one after another; and off the poop some shouting voice chilled all hearts for a moment, with the fearful news that the Emperor's Neapolitan fleet was in full chase.... And the soldiers on board that little vessel looked silently and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... stern-post to the taffrel. Like the beauteous model, who was declared to be the greatest belle of Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a copper-bottom, and withal a prodigious poop." ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... army beyond the Save, he sent back the boats, with an order under pain of death, to their commander, that he should leave him to conquer or die on that hostile land. In the siege of Corfu, towing after him a captive galley, the emperor stood aloft on the poop, opposing against the volleys of darts and stones, a large buckler and a flowing sail; nor could he have escaped inevitable death, had not the Sicilian admiral enjoined his archers to respect the person of a hero. In one day, he is said to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... canal. And it chanced that just then Gerardo, on his way to Dulcinea, went by; and Elena looked down at him, as she had seen those sisters look at passers-by. Gerardo caught her eye, and glances passed between them, and Gerardo's gondolier, bending from the poop, said to his master, 'O master! methinks that gentle maiden is better worth your wooing than Dulcinea.' Gerardo pretended to pay no heed to these words; but after rowing a little way, he bade the man turn, and they went slowly back beneath the window. This time Elena, thinking to play the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... been ahead, and very light. This evening, a dead calm is upon the sea; but the sky is cloudless, and the air pure and soft. All the well are enjoying the fine weather. The commodore and captain walk the poop-deck; the other officers, except the lieutenant and young gentlemen of the watch, are smoking on the forecastle, or promenading the quarter-deck. A dozen steady old salts are rolling along the gangways; and the men are clustered in knots between the guns, talking, laughing, or listening to the yarns ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... man of spirit, made quick dispatch, and steered for the straits. Our sails had not been half an hour abroad for this purpose when the foot-rope of the fore-sail broke, so nothing held save the oilet-holes. The sea continually broke over our poop, and dashed with such violence against our sails, that we every moment looked to have them torn to pieces, or that the ship would overset. To our utter discomfort also, we perceived that she fell still more and more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Provision is made for a bunker coal capacity of 400 tons, and this is calculated to give a radius of action of 8,000 knots at a reduced speed of 10 knots. The armament of the ship will consist of two 6 in. breech-loading guns on central pivot stands, one mounted on the poop and another on the forecastle; six quick-firing 4.7 in. guns, mounted three on each broadside; eight quick-firing 6-pounder guns, four on each broadside; besides one 3-pounder Hotchkiss and four 5-barrel Nordenfeldt guns. In addition four torpedo tubes are fitted, one forward, one aft, and one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... stowed away, and she sailed under canvas) carried the little craft in an incredibly short time a thousand miles to the southward of the Cape, when one day, as she was running before the gale, the man at the wheel—startled at a sea which he thought was going to poop her—let go the helm; the vessel broached to, and tons of water tumbled in on the top of the deck. As soon as the confusion of the moment had subsided, it became evident that the shock had broken some of the iron plates, and that the ship ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Nuestra well off the breakwater, her brown, bare masts rising like spires from her black hull, and the morning sun glinting from a strip of brass on her taffrail. They could see busy figures aboard, and as they drew nearer Captain Jarrow appeared on the poop-deck smoking a cigar. He was all in white, his queer cockle-shell straw hat fastened to a button of his coat by ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... where life becomes pain, and advanced into those in which it is a living death, making himself familiar, on the long way, with the heavenly miracles in the wild path of sailors who make for no port! Seated on a poop without a helm, his eye had ranged from the two Bears majestically overhanging the North, to the brilliant Southern Cross, through the blank Antarctic deserts extending through the empty space of the heavens overhead, as well as over the dreary waves below, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... And her second is not far-off; he is the generous youth who was the means of getting him the berth. Also grown to manhood, he, too, is aft, lending a hand at the helm, the strength of one man being insufficient to keep it steady in that heavily rolling sea. On the poop-deck is Captain Gancy himself, consulting a small chart, and filled with anxiety as at intervals looking towards the companion-ladder he there sees his wife and daughter, for he knows his vessel to be in danger and his dear ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... close to the lighthouse of Tarifa, and turning the head of the bark towards the west, we made directly for the coast of Africa. The wind was now blowing very fresh, and as we had it almost in our poop, we sprang along at a tremendous rate, the huge lateen sails threatening every moment to drive us beneath the billows, which an adverse tide raised up against us. Whilst scudding along in this manner, we passed close under the stern ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... My common sense told me I must have fancied it all. I walked over to the mainmast, and looked behind the pinrail that partly surrounded it, and down into the shadow of the pumps; but here again was nothing. Then I went in under the break of the poop. It was darker under there than out on deck. I looked up both sides of the deck, and saw that they were bare of anything such as I looked for. The assurance was comforting. I glanced at the poop ladders, and remembered that nothing could have gone up there, without the Second Mate or the Time-keeper ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... it was done the second mate, who had been working forward, looked to the captain for further orders. The latter had again gone below, but was now standing on the poop, talking earnestly with ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... himself, whose cool heroism must have been singularly conspicuous, from the notice it attracted in a service where such bearing was not rare. At one time when the quarter-deck was cleared and he stood alone upon the poop-ladder, Saumarez suggested to him to come down; but he replied, smiling, "You want to get rid of me, do you?" and refused to move. The captain of the ship, John Morris, was mortally wounded. With commendable modesty Parker only reported himself as slightly bruised; but deserters stated ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... eight up to ten tons, with three masts rigged with red sails, and which in calm weather were rowed by four long paddles not at all easy to work against the stream; or "cobertas," of twenty tons burden, a kind of junk with a poop behind and a cabin down below, with two masts and square sails of unequal size, and propelled, when the wind fell, by six long sweeps which Indians ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... Shortly afterwards the order was piped, "Up all hammocks!" The men quickly stowed their bedding, secured it with lashings, and carried it to the appointed places on the quarterdeck, poop, or forecastle. Meanwhile the boatswain and his mates secured the yards; the ship's carpenter brought up shot plugs for repairing any breeches made under the waterline; and the gunners looked to the cannon and prepared charges for them ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... waters that the Kansas was not under control. It was a wild, sinister appeal for help, the voice of the disabled vessel proclaiming her need; and the answer seemed to come in a fiercer shriek of the gale, while the added fury of the blast brought a curling sea over the poop. The Kansas staggered and shook herself clear. The wave smashed its way onward; several iron stanchions snapped with reports like pistol-shots, and there was an intolerable rending of woodwork. But, whatever ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... in a poor little chamber in a house in Boca, beside a harbor porter, after having passed nearly the whole of that day seated on a pile of beams, and, as in delirium, in sight of thousands of ships and boats and tugs, he found himself on the poop of a large sailing vessel, loaded with fruit, which was setting out for the town of Rosario, managed by three robust Genoese, who were bronzed by the sun; and their voices and the dialect which they spoke put a little comfort into ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... good deal of argument, our hero was constrained to go; nor did he even have an opportunity to bid adieu to his inamorata. Nor did he see her any more, except from a distance, she standing on the poop-deck as he was rowed away from her, her face all stained with crying. For himself, he felt that there was no more joy in life; nevertheless, standing up in the stern of the boat, he made shift, though with an aching heart, to deliver her a fine bow with the hat he had borrowed ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... bark, by my faith! a gallant bark, Kenric!" said Sir Piers as he stepped on board and walked towards the high poop. "Would that we had a dozen such vessels, and manned by as brave a set of islanders as you have here. Then might we hope to make a bold stand against any ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... the king of all minstrels, 'Let them match their song against mine. I have charmed stones, and trees, and dragons, how much more the hearts of men!' So he caught up his lyre, and stood upon the poop, and began his ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... They are painted in various colors like toy boats. The planks of the hull are generally of a bright grass green, ornamented at the edge by a white or bright-red stripe, or by several stripes which look like broad bands of different colored ribbons. The poop is usually gilded. The decks and the masts are varnished and polished like the daintiest drawing-room floor. The hatches, the buckets, the barrels, the sailyards and the small planks are all painted red, and striped with white or blue. The cabin in which the families of the sailors ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... of shell-fish, (see the cut,) is named from Argonautes, the companions of Jason, in the celebrated ship, Argo, and from the Latin naus, a ship; the shells of all the Nautili having the appearance of a ship with a very high poop. The shell of this interesting creature is no thicker than paper, and divided into forty compartments or chambers, through every one of which a portion of its body passes, connected as it were, by a thread. In the cut it is represented as sailing, when it expands two of its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... keeps them in any position in which they are placed, and thus perhaps facilitates steering. The tillers were not on deck, but entered the vessel through two square openings into a lower or half deck about three feet high, in which sit the two steersmen. In the after part of the vessel was a low poop, about three and a half feet high, which forms the captain's cabin, its furniture consisting of boxes, mats, and pillows. In front of the poop and mainmast was a little thatched house on deck, about four feet high to the ridge; ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... polones -a Polish. polvo dust. ponderacion f. laudation. ponedora (f. adj.)laying eggs. poner to put, set, place; vr. to become, begin. pontifice pontiff. pontificio pontifical. popa poop, stern. por for, by, through, on account of; por que why; por... que however. pormenor m. detail. porque because; porque, why. portal m. porch, entry. porte m. bearing, demeanor. portezuela (dim).See puerta. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... limited number to one for every two tons, and provided that each passenger on main and poop decks should have sixteen feet of floor space, and ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... pirates to try and ransom themselves, and were accompanied by half the lascars who deserted their commander; only the Europeans and seventeen lascars remained to fight the ship. She caught fire in three places, the poop and half-deck being burned through. The two pirate ships likewise caught fire, which caused them to slacken their efforts. In the confusion Hamilton managed to disengage his ship, and made sail; the five pirate ships being so ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... so," the skipper answered, and turning on his heel, he went to the poop. Thither Colin followed him and told him all the story of the whale. The captain, who was an old friend of Colin's father when they both lived in a lumbering town in northern Michigan, was greatly taken aback when he found how dangerous the boat-trip had been, but he did not want to spoil the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... liquid surges of Neptune Far as the Phasis-flood and frontier-land AEetean; Whenas the youths elect, of Argive vigour the oak-heart, Longing the Golden Fleece of the Colchis-region to harry, 5 Dared in a poop swift-paced to span salt seas and their shallows, Sweeping the deep blue seas with sweeps a-carven of fir-wood. She, that governing Goddess of citadels crowning the cities, Builded herself their car fast-flitting with lightest of breezes, Weaving plants of the pine ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... I had a clipper ship with carvings on her counter, With lanterns on her poop-rail of beaten copper wrought; I would dress her like a lady in the whitest cloth and mount her With a long bow-chasing swivel and a gun ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... harbor of Monterey till July 26th, during which time he unloaded his cargo, took ballast, water, and fuel, mended sails and repaired the ship, which needed it badly, the sixth board under water at the poop having to be replaced for a length of one and ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... from the rack, and assured himself that it was loaded and primed. Nothing more was needed to accomplish the work of destruction. He then glided towards the stern, so as to arrive under the brig's poop ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... of the stern with the quarter galleries. She then in the most gallant manner locked her bowsprit in our starboard main shrouds, and attempted to board us with the greater part of her officers and ship's company. She had rifle-men in her tops who did great execution. Our poop was soon cleared, and our gallant captain shot through the left thigh and obliged to be carried below. During this time we were not idle. We gave it to her most gloriously with the starboard lower and main-deckers, and turned the forecastle guns loaded with ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted "is further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed, who commanded the Alligator, next him in the line. Such was his anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when he thought the Alligator was approaching too near he used to run out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so as to be noticed." From Gardner's rank at the time, the conversation narrated ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... back, posteriority; rear rank, rear guard; background, hinterland. occiput[Anat], nape, chine; heels; tail, rump, croup, buttock, posteriors, backside scut[obs3], breech, dorsum, loin; dorsal region, lumbar region; hind quarters; aitchbone[obs3]; natch, natch bone. stern, poop, afterpart[obs3], heelpiece[obs3], crupper. wake; train &c. (sequence) 281. reverse; other side of the shield. V. be behind &c. adv.; fall astern; bend backwards; bring up the rear. Adj. back, rear; hind, hinder, hindmost, hindermost[obs3]; postern, posterior; dorsal, after; caudal, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ship sailing on the sea: Before the north 'twas driven like a cloud; High on the poop a man sat mournfully: The wind was whistling through mast and shroud, And to the whistling wind thus did ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... cleaner or dirtier at one time than another; or whether it is towed or sailing alone; or whether it carries new or old sails and whether they are of good or ill pattern, and wet or dry; whether the day's run is estimated from the poop, prow, or amidships; and other special considerations that I pass by, such as the heaviness or lightness of the winds, the differences in compasses, etc. From the above then, I infer that it is difficult ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... I remain here," he cried aloud, "to be disregarded, when there is many an English ship that would be fain to have me stand on her poop, many a company of yeomen that would be main glad to have me command them? I am not of those men who are wont always to follow orders. I am made to give them. The world's wide and this island need not be my prison. I will sail back on the Discovery ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... very difficult to be made out. The following anecdote will illustrate the difficulty of detecting the mouths of rivers in Australia. Soon after we anchored in Hobson's Bay, a small schooner passed, going to Melbourne. Several of the officers were at the time standing on the poop, and each selected a spot at which the schooner was to enter the river; and although, as I have before stated, we were only one mile and a half from it, none of us was right. A single tall bushy-topped tree, about a mile inland, rose over the schooner as she left the waters ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... thus employed until daylight, when Tom, who had sprung up to the poop to look out, exclaimed—"A ship in sight! a ship in sight! ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... slightly wounded; and as the ship had received various shots under water, and one of the pumps being shot away, the carpenter expressed his fear that she would sink, and the other two concluded that she was sinking, which occasioned the gunner to run aft on the poop, without my knowledge, to strike the colors. Fortunately for me a cannon-ball had done that before by carrying away the ensign staff: he was, therefore, reduced to the necessity of sinking—as he supposed—or of calling for quarter; and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... 5 and went up on the poop deck. Took a grown person's dose of licker with a member of the Injianny legislater, which he urbanely insisted on allowin me to pay for. Bote tearin threu the briny waters at the rate of 2 Nots a hour, when the boy on ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... and was very serviceable in hunting, gathering fuel, etc. In the "forecastle"—the bows of the large canoes which projected beyond our cabin—sat three Indians to paddle. The fourth, who was the governor of Santa Rosa, we honored with the post of steersman; and he was always to be seen on the poop behind the kitchen, standing bolt upright, on the alert and on the lookout. On approaching any human habitation, the Indians blew horns to indicate that they came as friends. These horns must have come from Brazil, as there are no bovines ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... containing Gilpin's deposition, the fourth mate. From this, it appears that every thing was done that could be done, under the circumstances, for the safety of the lives and the ship. My poor brother was standing on the hen-coop (which is placed upon the poop, and is the most commanding situation in the vessel) when she went down, and he was thence washed overboard by a large sea, which sank the ship. He was seen struggling with the waves some time afterwards, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... but even during the few seconds of Smith's hesitation the others gained the deck of the junk forward of the mast, and with fierce yells and sweeping strokes of their krises began to drive the Chinamen towards the poop. In a few minutes the whole crew would be butchered and ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... touched in their passage sent chaplets to adorn the urn, and deputed certain of their citizens to follow in mourning, to assist at the funeral solemnity. When the fleet approached the harbor of Corinth, the urn, covered with purple, and a royal diadem upon it, was visible upon the poop, and a troop of young men attended in arms to receive it at landing Xenophantus, the most famous musician of the day, played on the flute his most solemn measure, to which the rowers, as the ship came in, made loud response, their oars, like the funeral beating of the breast, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... life, even the Governor and Admiral took their turns, and gentlemen who had never had an hour's hard work in their life toiled with the rest. The water continued to gain on them, and when about to give up in despair, Sir George Somers, who had been watching at the poop deck day and night, cried out land, and there in the early dawn of morning could be seen the welcome sight of land. Fortunately they lighted on the only secure entrance through the reefs. The vessel was run ashore and wedged between two rocks, and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... break of day, they raised anchor as ordered by the pilot, as the rising of the tide began to be felt. When it was fully light they saw astern of them, at the poop of the vessel, two French ships which during the night had been in search of them. The enemy arrived with the intention of making an attack upon them. The French made all haste in their movements, for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... tall ship so doth a galley fight, When the still winds stir not the unstable main; Where this in nimbleness as that in might Excels; that stands, this goes and comes again, And shifts from prow to poop with turnings light; Meanwhile the other doth unmoved remain, And on her nimble foe approaching nigh, Her weighty engines tumbleth down ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... left hand every morning a blazing ball, to move slowly through the unbearable blue, until he sank fiery red in mingling glories of sky and ocean on the right hand—had just got low enough to peep beneath the awning that covered the poop-deck, and awaken a young man, in an undress military uniform, who was dozing on a ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... see it pass before you. From my windows on the Riva there was always the same silhouette—the long, black, slender skiff, lifting its head and throwing it back a little, moving yet seeming not to move, with the grotesquely- graceful figure on the poop. This figure inclines, as may be, more to the graceful or to the grotesque—standing in the "second position" of the dancing-master, but indulging from the waist upward in a freedom of movement which that ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... upon the poop, in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. To do him justice, he was no Craven, though his white hat, his short grey trousers, and his long snuff-coloured surtout reaching to his heels—the self-same ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... the great weights which they let down from on high upon them; others they lifted up into the air by an iron hand or beak like a crane's beak, and, when they had drawn them up by the prow, and set them on end upon the poop, they plunged them to the bottom of the sea; or else the ships, drawn by engines within, and whirled about, were dashed against steep rocks that stood jutting out under the walls, with great destruction of the soldiers that were aboard them. A ship was frequently lifted up to a great ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign— (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... lay in its harbour, painted like toys and with pots of flowers and cages of song-birds in the cabin windows, and for one particular Dutch skipper who would sit all day in slippers on the break of the poop, smoking a long German pipe; Wemyss (pronounce Weems) with its bat-haunted caves, where the Chevalier Johnstone, on his flight from Culloden, passed a night of superstitious terrors; Leven, a bald, quite modern place, sacred to summer ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Christopher bearing Christ upon his shoulder in the centre of it. The breeze blew, the sail bellied, over heeled the portly vessel, and away she plunged through the smooth blue rollers, amid the clang of the minstrels on her poop and the shouting of the black crowd who fringed the yellow beach. To the left lay the green Island of Wight, with its long, low, curving hills peeping over each other's shoulders to the sky-line; to the right the wooded Hampshire coast as far as eye could reach; above a steel-blue heaven, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle |
