"Raft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficult to cross. The brooks he could wade or sometimes could fell a tree across them, but the rivers were too wide to bridge, too cold and dangerous to swim. In nearly every case he had to make a raft. A good scout takes no chances. A slight raft means a risky passage; a good one, a safe crossing but loss of time in preparations. Fifteen good rafts did Rolf make in that cross-country journey of three days: dry spruce logs he found ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... arrived. The transfer of the men from the boats and rafts to the destroyers was effected as quickly as possible and the destroyers remained in the vicinity until after daylight the following morning, when a further search was made for survivors who might have drifted in a boat or on a raft, but none were found, and at about 6 a.m. the return trip ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... I can, and I'll take care of you; but there is plenty of wood and we can make a raft. That reminds me that there was a raft here last week, when Sam Harper and I had a swim: I wonder where it can be. Help ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... determined to make another trial but, for a long time, no one was able to suggest where a crossing of the swollen river might be effected. It was clearly impossible to build a bridge but, after much discussion, it was agreed to make a raft. It consisted of a platform of planks, built across empty barrels; and was lashed together by the only rope at the station. A couple of natives took their places upon it, with long poles; but their efforts to push against the strong currents were quite ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... that I know of. I think they all came away and made a raft and floated across the mouth of the creek and got ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... waters might have regained their tranquillity and rolled along in peace, but for the presence of an island, which, growing up in the centre of the expanse, consolidated by the roots of a thousand willows and other trees that delight in such humid soils, and, in times of flood, covered by a raft of drift timber entangled among its trees, presented a barrier, on either side of which the current swept with speed and fury, though, as it seemed, entirely unopposed by rocks. In such a current, as Roland thought, there was nothing unusually formidable; a ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... toward the Winkie Country," said he; "and so, if we had a boat, or a raft, the river would float us there more quickly and more easily ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... his rote for the diffusion of popular literature, a wide suffrage, a mild penal code, he yet endorsed the saying of an old American author, "A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft that will never sink, but then your ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... officer in the United States Navy, was another leader. He was crossing the Atlantic in the big American transport, President Lincoln, when it was torpedoed by the submarine U-90, on May 31, 1918. He went down with the ship, but came to the surface again and crawled up on a raft where he stayed until one of the lifeboats came by and the men took him off. But the boat had gone but a short distance, when the guilty submarine pushed its nose up through the surface of the water near by. Its commander ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... fells at home. Russian fairyland is quite different. Under my windows the wavelets of the Volkhov (which has its part in one of the stories) are beating quietly in the dusk. A gold light burns on a timber raft floating down the river. Beyond the river in the blue midsummer twilight are the broad Russian plain and the distant forest. Somewhere in that forest of great trees—a forest so big that the forests of England are little woods beside it—is the hut where old Peter sits at night ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... a moment. Try to think of those ten patients as ten shipwrecked men on a raft—a raft that is barely large enough to save them—that will not support one more. Another head bobs up through the waves at the side. Another man begs to be taken aboard. He implores the captain of the raft to save him. But the captain can only do that ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... so still... The fountain slobbering its stone basin Is louder than They— Flotsam of the five oceans Here on this raft ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... in my labouring chest to destroy vitality. The black fragment of the wreck rose with the waters, and raised obliquely the side of the bell, which may have been an additional cause for the rising of the sea within. Through my glazed eye I saw, lying in a hollow of the broken raft, a white figure—probably that seen by Vanderhoek when he fell into the sea. By and by, it became more visible as the waters rose, and I saw that it was the body of a female who had perished in the vessel. The image of the apparition has haunted me to this hour, and shall do till I die. A ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... rigorous boundary line can be drawn. We read that at Mathura on the Jumna doles of food are provided by the piety of pilgrims for the sacred river-tortoises, which are so crowded when there is food going that their smooth carapaces form a more or less continuous raft across the river. On that unsteady slippery bridge the Langur monkeys (Semnopithecus entellus) venture out and in spite of vicious snaps secure a share of the booty. This picture of the monkeys securing a footing on the moving mass of turtle-backs is almost a diagram of sheer dexterity. It ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... Plaice side by side, and it is plain that they live in very different ways. One is made to dart like an arrow, the other to lie flat. One is the shape of a torpedo, the other is flat like a raft. The shape and colour of the Plaice tell their own story of a life on the sandy, pebbly bed of the sea. And look at the eyes! Both are on the upper side of the head! What could be better for a fish that lies ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... and gathering wood and planks from the wrecks, wrought of them the semblance of a boat [to wit, a raft,] and bound it fast with ropes, saying, 'I will embark thereon and fare with this water into the inward of the mountain. If it bring me to the mainland or to a place where I may find relief and safety, [well and good]; else I shall [but] perish, even ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... a battle royal. Whatever the thing was that had felt the spears, it certainly lost no time in showing its resentment. It thrashed the water into furious waves until I momentarily expected the raft to be swamped. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... was some provision made for escape in case any of them survived the blowing up of their ship. They carried one small dingy along, and an old life-raft was left on board. A steam-launch from the New York was to follow them close in under the batteries, and lie there so long as there was a chance of picking any of them up, or until driven off. Cadets Palmer and Powell, each eager to go on this service, drew lots to ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... often had the traveller seen such a sunset behind the blue summits of those hills before! Flowing yet nearer to him was the noble river Rhine, winding onward to the north, and bearing on its bosom many a little skiff which scudded quickly before the evening breeze, or raft of timber which floated slowly down its stream. How often had the stranger sailed in such little barks upon its surface, or bathed and fished in its waters! At his feet lay the little cluster of cottages which formed the village ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... Sinhalese and attributed to Mahinda, but it is in any case clear that the works which he consulted were considered old in the fifth century A.D. Some of their names are preserved in the Samanta-pasadika where he mentions the great commentary (Maha-Atthakatha), the Raft commentary (Paccari, so called because written on a raft), the Kurundi commentary composed at Kurunda-Velu and others.[79] All this literature has disappeared and we can only judge of it by Buddhaghosa's reproduction ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... way of getting to this island, for the sea-maiden would sink each boat and raft that would go on the loch. He thought he would try to leap the strait with the black horse, and even so he did. The black horse leaped the strait. He saw the hind; and he let the black dog after her, but when he was on one side of the island, the hind would be on ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... had done the others. The birds, now well trained to indifference, scarcely moved till he was in the midst of them, when, making rapid snaps right and left, he secured two fine young ducks as his prey, and floated forward triumphantly on his raft; while the surviving fowls, clamouring in terror, took to flight, and returned no more to ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... all their business with these people was to be transacted, and that the management of the Indian affairs was left solely to Monsieur Joncaire. As I was desirous of knowing the issue of this, I agreed to stay; but sent our horses a little way up French creek, to raft over and encamp; which I knew would make it ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... the lake to Northwest River, and besides no mountains to go over. I went about 2 miles and came to a river, which made me feel very bad about it, and I did not know how I could ever get across, and could not make a raft without an axe. I thought I would try any way to make a raft, if I could only get wood to make a raft with. I followed the river up. The banks were so high, and the swift current run so swift along the steep banks, and the river very deep. I could not ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... hung out breathlessly. Presently a beam of light from the lower depths of the house shot out into the darkness. It was her father with a bull's-eye lantern. As he held it up and clambered cautiously down the bank, its rays fell upon the turbid rushing stream, and what appeared to be a rough raft of logs held with difficulty against the bank by two men with long poles. In its centre was a roll of blankets, a valise and saddle-bags, and the shining ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... The different species are described in "Palm Land" and "Western Africa" (pp. 369-373), from which even the account of the "tubular bridge" is taken—Mr. Wilson less sensationally calls it what it is, a "live raft." The most common are the Nkazeze, a large reddish and fetid ant, which is harmless to man; the Njenge, a smaller red species, and the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... a woman's voice. He began to reason with himself. What was there strange in this? He was told, or had inferred, that a woman had been left upon a ship. Doubtless this was she, upon some rock or raft, perhaps. Only then she would have been crying for help, and this voice was singing, and in a strange tongue, more sweetly than he had heard ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... had been foolin' around on a raft there, an' first thing you know Dick fell in, right into deep water, over by the dam. Couldn't swim a stroke, neither. And the Perfessor, who jest happened to be comin' along in that 'bus of his, heard the boys yell. Didn't ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... smoothly adjusted; notes are given and paid with smiling faces; one would think that honor and manliness were the commonest of qualities. Now, every man was put to the severest proof, and showed the inborn and essential traits of his nature. Like a ship's crew on a raft, alone on the ocean without provisions, they looked at each other as they were. There, in their extremity, were to be seen calm resignation, unmanly terror, moody despair, turbulent passion, and stealthy, fiendish glances that blinked ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... it she drew in her breath sharply and brushed a hand across her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming. On the thing that was not a piece of driftwood at all, but looked like a sort of crudely and hastily constructed raft, were lashed three small, unconscious ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... Truxill had brought down to their hut many scores of tortoises, and tried out the oil, when, elated with their good success, and to reward themselves for such hard work, they, too hastily, made a catamaran, or Indian raft, much used on the Spanish main, and merrily started on a fishing trip, just without a long reef with many jagged gaps, running parallel with the shore, about half a mile from it. By some bad tide or hap, or natural negligence of joyfulness (for though they ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the water, he plunged in, and is seen mid-stream, astride upon an inflated skin, quietly pursuing his avocation. [PLATE CXXVI., Fig. 1.] Occasionally he improved his position by amounting upon a raft, and, seated at the stern, with his back to the rower, threw out his line and drew the fish from the water. Now and then the fisherman was provided with a plaited basket, made of rushes or flags, which was fastened round ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Calvinism. Fisher Ames expressed the popular security more wisely, when he compared a monarchy and a republic, saying that a monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in water. No forms can have any dangerous importance whilst we are befriended by the laws of things. It makes no difference how many tons weight of atmosphere presses on our heads, so long as the same pressure ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... once the foreman found he was beginning to feel faint, so he told the labourer they would go up to the top for fresh air. But he had not the strength to carry out his purpose. The raft was pulled to the ladder by which they were to get out; but he was unable to ascend, and fell down in ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... seated himself tiredly on the wet sand and was digging his stockinged heels into it, sneered at Mr. Crusoe. "He'd have made a trip on his raft," he said, "and fetched ashore a bundle of kindling. If it hadn't been for that wreck to draw on Robinson Crusoe would have starved to death in ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... answered Tom, softly. "I'll do all I can to get us off this island. Perhaps we can build a raft, and set out. If we stay here there is no telling what will happen, if that scientist's theory is correct. But there is our camp, just ahead. You will be more comfortable, at least for ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... the Hudson Bay Store yesterday and found it much more metropolitan than I had expected. And I find I am three whole laps behind in that steeplechase known as Style. But I got a raft of things for Pauline Augusta, and a Boy ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... is getting awfully hot, I vote we get into the shade of those stunted trees, and have a nap till the afternoon. It won't do to begin even to make the raft till the sun ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... and one of the two cabins was quite dry. Timar installed himself here, and then began the hard work. He tore up the deck, and with the help of a crane drew up one sack after the other. They were first piled near the cabin, that the water might drain away; then they were transferred to a raft, and taken ashore: there straw mats were laid, on which the grain was shaken and spread out. Timar bargained meanwhile with the millers for immediate grinding of the corn. The weather was favorable, there was a strong wind, and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... said, "but I can't get back. I've got the cramps. Can't you make some sort of a raft, and come over to me! The water's ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Henceforth, though the law of the fairy world would not allow her to touch again the realm of earth, she, having once been wife and parent, could not forget the babies born of her body. So, making a sod raft, a floating island, she came up at night, and often, while these three mortals lived, this fairy mother would spend hours tenderly talking to her husband and her two children, who were now big boy and girl, as they ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... enough, might as well stay ashore, Mr. Dodge, and publish an hebdomadal. And so, my dear young lady, by looking along the land, the day after to-morrow, in the northern board here, you may expect to see a raft booming down upon you that will cheer your heart, and once more raise the hope of a Christmas dinner in New York, in all lovers ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... it half in flood and fording out of the question. We were on the upstream side of a huge dome of rock, rising from the river itself, the only way around which was to cross twice. The rest of the party coming up with the cargadores, we had to wait until bamboo rafts could be built, the raft really being nothing but a flat bundle lashed together with bejuco. In this case our rafts were so small that under the weight of only one man and his kit they immediately became submarines, so that one got partially wet crossing. Our horses and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... increasing till they arrive hereabouts, they make platforms of from four hundred to seven hundred feet long, and one hundred and forty feet in breadth. When in motion, a dozen boats and more precede them, carrying anchors and cables to guide and arrest their course. The navigation of a raft down the Rhine to Dort, in Holland, which is the place of their destination,[4] is a work of great difficulty. The skill of the German and Dutch pilots who navigate them, in spite of the abrupt turnings, the eddies, the currents, rocks and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... evidently astonished, the Misses J. not a little vexed at the "raft" of elegant ladies present, and the independent manner in which they monopolized attention ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... earthen basin. When they had all finished, she whistled again, and bade two or three coil themselves round her arms and neck, while she turned one into a cane and another into a whip. Then she took a stick, and on the river bank changed it into a raft, and seating herself comfortably, she pushed off into the centre ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... compassion on me, and put it in my mind to go to the bank of the river which ran into the great cave; where, considering the river with great attention, I said to myself, 'This river, which runs thus under ground, must come out somewhere or other. If I make a raft, and leave myself to the current, it will bring me to some inhabited country, or drown me. If I be drowned I lose nothing, but only change one kind of death for another; and if I get out of this fatal place, I ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... forces. . . . I come back to what I said just now; we have found our poor reasonable minds, our wills to live well, ourselves, adrift on a wash of instincts, passions, instinctive prejudices, half animal stupidities. . . . Here we are like people clinging to something—like people awakening—upon a raft." ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... life was marked by a sort of patriarchal simplicity. Manual labor was not yet thought to be degrading. Ulysses constructs his own house and raft, and boasts of his skill in swinging the scythe and guiding the plow. Spinning and weaving were the chief occupations of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... rear controlled horizontal steering, while rise and fall was controlled by horizontal planes arranged in box form. Accident attended the first trial of this second airship, which took place over the Bodensee on November 30th, 1905, 'It had been intended to tow the raft, to which it was anchored, further from the shore against the wind. But the water was too low to allow the use of the raft. The balloon was therefore mounted on pontoons, pulled out into the lake, and taken in tow by a motor-boat. It was caught ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... upper countries. For this trade he contracts with the natives inhabiting the lands lying near the shores of the rivers, and the wood is floated down on rafts to Tombo, where ships come to take in their cargoes. The African oak is so heavy that the natives are obliged to raft it on wood of a much lighter specific gravity. This trade is of considerable benefit both to our colonists and the native tribes. It not only promotes a friendly intercourse between them, but affords constant employment to great numbers of the latter, by which they are enabled to secure many of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... a raft coming down the lake, manned with a rugged set of half-breeds, who had a cask of whiskey on board, and were very drunk ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... everything not actually bolted down, except the wreckage of the mainmast, which we had lashed firmly to ring bolts in the deck before the gale arose. There was that wreckage, it is true, and also the wreckage of the foremast under the bows; if it could possibly be got alongside, a raft of sorts might perhaps be constructed out of that, and there our resources would end. But there was no time for pondering and consideration, whatever was done would have to be done at once; I therefore called the gunner, the carpenter, and the boatswain to me, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... usual that night, reckoning stores, tidying lockers, and securing movables. 'We must economize,' said Davies, for all the world as though we were castaways on a raft. 'It's a wretched thing to have to land somewhere to buy oil,' was ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... and see what Christian countries are now doing, and how they are governed, and what is the general condition of society, without seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the world sails, and not the rudder that steers its course? No, Sir! There was a great raft built about two thousand years ago,—call it an ark, rather,—the world's great ark! big enough to hold all mankind, and made to be launched right out into the open waves of life,—and here it has been lying, one end on the shore and one end bobbing up and down in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... and frail, As I cherish thy light in each draught, His lamp is not more to the miner - their sail Is not more to the crew on the raft. For Hope can make feeble ones earnest and brave, And, as forth thro' the years I look on, Believe me, my friend, between this and the grave, I see ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the enterprising Mahmat on a large raft, and he had securely moored it just inside the muddy point of land at the junction of the two branches of the Pantai so as to be out of the way of drifting logs that would no doubt strand on the point during the freshet. Mahmat walked through the wet grass saying ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... pilot, "when the brave Scot was put on the raft, which carried him through the Traitor's Gate into the Tower. His hands and feet were bound with iron; but his head, owing to faintness from the wounds he had received at Lumloch, was so bent down on his breast as he reclined on the float, that I could ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and longest nails in the tool-chest. Be quick now." Kittie was off like a flash, and when she came back, there were three or four logs lying ready for use, with some planks and a long pole, and Mr. Bering with coat off, fell to work with a will and such speed, that in ten minutes, a small raft lay in the water, and Mr. Dering was making preparations for his voyage, by pulling off his boots and tucking his ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... elder of the Indians; "without doubt the canoe is dashed to pieces, and our comrades are even now with their forefathers. We shall see them no more; and my advice is that we construct a raft and try to return on it to the lands whence ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Lewis and Clark men, were attacked by the Blackfeet, and Potts killed and Colter forced to run naked, six miles over the stones and cactus—till at last he killed his nearest pursuer with his own spear, and hid under a raft of driftwood in ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... Know don't go on lake, cause wind blow. Know don't go up river, cause dat hard work; know come here, cause dat easy. Injin like to do what easy, and pale-face do just what Injin do. Crowsfeather make raft, pretty soon; den ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... sound, not more than the sigh of a stray breeze, came from a point far up the stream. He listened and the sound pleased him. The lone, weird note was in full accord with the night and his mood, and presently he knew it. It was some mountaineer on a raft singing a plaintive song of his own distant hills. Huge rafts launched on the headwaters of the stream in the mountains in the eastern part of the state came in great numbers down the river, but oftenest at this time of the year. Some stopped at Frankfort, and others went into ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had passed a place called Murdering town, ... we fell in with a party of French Indians, who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but fortunately missed." The next day they came to a river. "There was no way of getting over but on a raft, ... but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice.... I put out my setting pole to try and stop the raft that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with such force against the pole, that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, but I fortunately saved myself ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... way of hiding our trail," he mused. "If we could come upon some river or large stream of water, where there was a boat, or we could make a raft, we should be safe. A big rainstorm would do as well, for it would wash out all ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... it was all frozen up solid, some men with two yoke of oxen came up to cut and put logs in the river to raft down when the ice went out. With them came a shingle weaver, with a pony and a small sled, and some Indians also. We now had to take up all of our steel traps, and rob all our dead-falls and quit business generally—even then they ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... this planet had been doomed by the approach of an alien star. Their great scientist, Ravv, had met the emergency by inventing the disc, into whose construction they had poured all their resources. The pick of their populace had been salvaged on this giant life-raft. The rest had perished when that destroying star had crashed down ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... wipe the ground up with him," sniffed Jerry. "She can swim overhand to the raft and get back almost before her brother has started. By Guy! I never saw a woman swim as she does! Dick gets kinder peeved with her sometimes when she jollies him. But let her car play a prank and he has her, for she's no more idea what to do with an engine than ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... came, the dams and booms were opened above, and forests of logs came riding down to Bamber's Boom. The current was strong, and the logs came on swiftly. As Brydon's gang worked, they saw a man out upon a small raft of driftwood, which had been suddenly caught in the drive of logs, and was carried out towards the middle channel. The river-drivers laughed, for they failed to see that the man was old, and that he could not run across the rolling logs to the shore. The old man, evidently ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... intelligence came to him. "Hold on!" he cried, as St. Vincent started to speak, "I got my finger on you. You were smooth-faced then. Let's see,—'86, fall of '87, summer of '88,—yep, that's when. Summer of '88 I come floatin' a raft out of Stewart River, loaded down with quarters of moose an' strainin' to make the Lower Country 'fore they went bad. Yep, an' down the Yukon you come, in a Linderman boat. An' I was holdin' strong, ez it was ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... at eight went on; at ten reached the first portage, passed it in an hour; went on till one o'clock; afterwards passed two other portages of about three hundred yards each; and went on to the great raft of flood wood, being the fourth portage, where we encamped at three o'clock, at its head. Mosquitoes very annoying. Estimate ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... floating upon his frail raft, or some spar of his shattered vessel, could not be more at the mercy of wave and wind, than were the two men astride of the capsized canoe. Their situation was indeed desperate. The stroke of a strong sea would be sufficient to swamp their frail embarkation; ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... a perfect trap," said Meta, trying to squeeze the muddy water from her own dress and Monica's. "I believe it's nothing but a kind of raft, made out of all the dead wood and rubbish that have accumulated in the lake. I expect seeds have blown on to it, and then trees and bushes have sprung up. Now I think of it, I don't believe it was in the same place last year, so it must ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... kinder mortified to think that I didn't pay no attention to Mr. and Miss Parmer; I didn't see 'em at all whilst I wuz there. But I spoze she wuz busy helpin' her hired girls, it must take a sight of work to cook for such a raft of folks, and it took the most of his time ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... I heard it rippling in my dream, against some obstruction near at hand. Looking out attentively, I saw, through the gloom, a something black and massive—like a shore, but lying close and flat upon the water, like a raft—which we were gliding past. The chief of the two rowers said it ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... every way, took from them their churches, banished their bishops, tortured and put to death many. Some bishops he made slaves. He exposed Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage, with a number of clergy, to the mercy of the waves on a wretched raft. Yet they reached Naples. The Arian clergy encouraged the king in all his cruelties. It was only in private houses or in suburbs that the Catholics could celebrate their worship. The violence of his tyranny, which led many to doubt even the providence of God, brought the ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... planetary foundlings, they have known hard treatment at the hands of the brute forces of nature, from the control of which they are soon to be set free. There are some old pessimists, it is true, who believe that they and a few others are on a raft, and that the ship which they have quitted, holding the rest of mankind, is going down with all on board. It is no wonder that there should be such when we remember what have been the teachings of the priesthood through long series of ignorant ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the boat appeared. It came from down the river, propelled close inshore by two members of their own party who had gone to fetch it. At first the travelers thought it a long, oblong raft. Then as it came closer they could see it was constructed of three canoes, each about thirty feet long, hollowed out of tree-trunks. Over these was laid a platform of small trees hewn roughly into boards. The boat was propelled by long, slender poles in the hands of the two ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Lionel, as I clambered on to the box (which was fastened by a rope to the side of the yacht) and began to cut a hole in the middle. "You're going to make a raft." ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... the Minnesota now lay a peculiar vessel. No one had ever seen anything like her. She seemed nothing but a flat raft with a big round cistern—such as are seen in the South and West—amidships, and a very big box or barrel ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... enters Free Frisia at Stavoren, once the home of kings and now a mere haven. A little steamer carries the passengers from Enkhuisen, while the cattle trucks and vans of merchandise cross the Zuyder Zee in a huge railway raft. The steamer takes an hour or a little longer—time enough to have lunch on deck if it is fine, and watch Enkhuisen fading into nothingness and ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... of the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles! She eats not a half, hardly a third of it. The rest remains as it was, untouched. We see here, in the destruction of the Mason's egg, a flagrant waste which aggravates the crime. Hunger excuses many things; for lack of food, the survivors on the raft of the Medusa indulged in a little cannibalism; but here there is enough food and to spare. When there is more than she needs, what earthly motive impels the Dioxys to destroy a rival in the germ stage? Why cannot she allow the larva, her mess-mate, to take advantage ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... hour, without seeming to take any farther notice of us. We were more curious than they, and observing them with our glasses from on board the ship, we saw some of them cross the river upon a kind of raft, or catamarine, and four of them carry off the dead body which had been covered by the boy, and over which his uncle had performed the ceremony of the branch, upon a kind of bier, between four men: The other body was still suffered to remain where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... following in a general way the course of the mighty stream. With their horses, and without large boats, they could not utilize the current, unless perhaps after descending a long distance they were able to construct a large raft. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... they came up, stopped for a moment around the body of their slain comrade, and then, with hideous yells, resumed the pursuit. The stream was fringed with a dense growth of cotton-wood trees. Colter rushed through them, thus concealed from observation, and seeing near by a large raft of drift timber, he plunged into the water, dived under the raft and fortunately succeeded in getting his head above the water between the logs, where smaller wood covered him to the depth ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... the deck, the blades of the propellers, the compartments of the cabins, all formed a sort of raft. When a wounded bird falls on the waves its wings keep it afloat. For several hours Robur and his men remained unhelped, at first on the wreck, and afterwards in the india-rubber boat that had fallen uninjured. A few hours after sunrise they were sighted ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... boys was a balsa, or raft, made by the Mojaves, of the cane-grass which grew in the river-bottoms to the height of fifteen feet. A large bundle bound at the ends with grass ropes would sustain two men. The boys borrowed one of an ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... subject. The idea of making old Joannes a temporibus, the 'Wandering,' or as Schubart's countrymen denominate him the 'Eternal Jew,' into a novel hero, was a mighty favourite with him. In this antique cordwainer, as on a raft at anchor in the stream of time, he would survey the changes and wonders of two thousand years: the Roman and the Arab were to figure there; the Crusader and the Circumnavigator, the Eremite of the Thebaid and the Pope of Rome. Joannes himself, the Man existing out of Time and Space, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... out of danger before we could have got ashore. But they did not entertain any such idea. Some of us requested that the lifeboats of the sailing ship might be sent over to our ship, as we had only two lifeboats, a couple of small dinghies, and an improvised raft made of barrels and planks lashed together and surrounded by iron uprights and ropes—not sufficient for sixty-five people; but the Germans would not send us these lifeboats, as they ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... rode the logs, and when the tide began to come in, they had the best time of all. It picked up the little raft and floated the children, screaming with joy, far up the beach on a ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... little fun from their immersion. Here and there the bathing ghaut is diversified by a burning ghaut, and one may catch a glimpse of the extremities of the corpse twisting among the faggots. Here and there is a boat or raft in which a priest is seated under his umbrella, fishing for souls as men in punts on the Thames fish for roach. And over all is the pitiless sun, hot even now, before breakfast, but soon ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... bridge was pulled down, and a new one begun. To aid in this task, a raft was used by the workmen ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... comparatively quiet sea, water and an emergency ration-cask put aboard each, and Mr. MacMasters brought his instruments and papers, taking his place in the stern of the boat. The latter had a small engine, and there was a hawser with which she might tow the raft. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... with Frederick William, by the terms of which he temporarily kept his strong places in Silesia and Pomerania; but his propositions for an alliance were incontinently rejected. Next day there was another meeting on the same raft, but this was tripartite, for the King of Prussia was present. Napoleon was blunt and imperious, reproaching Frederick William with the duplicity of his policy, vindictively (the descriptive word he used himself), and with emphasis, demanding Hardenberg's ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... much given to fishing, for which purpose they venture out to sea in bark-logs.[162] These are constructed of several round logs of wood, forming a raft, but different according to the uses they are intended for, or the customs of those that make them. Those meant for fishing consist only of three or five logs of wood about eight feet long, the middle one longer than the rest, especially forewards, and the others ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... until at last they reached the bleak shores of the North Pacific. Even there something—perhaps sheer curiosity—still urged them on. The green island across the bay may have been so enticing that at last a raft of logs was knotted together with stout withes. Perhaps at first the men paddled themselves across alone, but the hunting and fishing proved so good that at length they took the women and children with them, and so advanced another step along the route toward America. At other times distress, strife, ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... found too many sandbars, and most of its cargo had to be jettisoned, lost in a time when rations had been reduced to a few ounces a day per man. January 9 the Colorado River was reached, and the command and its impedimenta were ferried over on the same raft contrivance that had ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... length his promises of promotion and reward moved the man. "Come" he said "I will do my best," and, rising, led the way to his own house. Here in the inner room was a high machan—a huge bamboo shelf made like a raft and suspended from the roof and reached by a moveable ladder, used for ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... animal is much more uniform than in the great raft of "domestic" mongrel specimens which make night hideous with their discordant yowls, although we sometimes see a high bred individual which, if his tail was cut off at half its length, might easily pass as an example of the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... anything of our friends; to which they replied in the negative, and told us that we were still nearly a day's journey from the river. One of them undertook to guide us to a part where he thought we might possibly find a canoe. If not, he advised that we should descend the stream on a raft, until we reached some settlers' huts, which he told us we should come to in a few hours. He begged us, however, not to mention, on any account, having met with him and his companions. This we willingly promised. The ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... Cretan pirate, and had been taken prisoner by the Egyptians when he was robbing there, and how he had worked for many years in their stone quarries, where the sun had burned him brown, and had escaped by hiding among the great stones, carried down the Nile in a raft, for building a temple on the seashore. The raft arrived at night, and the beggar said that he stole out from it in the dark and found a Phoenician ship in the harbour, and the Phoenicians took him on board, meaning to sell him somewhere ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... that are selling rum and running bars just as though there wasn't any prohibitory law in our constitution." He had turned from the window. "You're looking at that map, eh? You think I've stolen land, do you? Look here! I came down that river out there on a raft—just married—my wife and a few poor little housekeeping traps on it. We never had a comfort till we got to the age where most folks die. I've had to live to be eighty-five to get a little something out of life. And she worked herself to death in ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Well, an egg famine came along. There was only nine hundred samples of hen fruit in town, and one store had a corner on them. I went down to buy some. Lord! how I wanted them eggs. I kept thinking how I'd have them done, shipwrecked, two on a raft or sunny side up, when who should come along but Bill. He sees what I want, and quick as a flash what does he do but buy up the whole bunch at a dollar apiece! 'Now,' says he to me, 'if you want eggs for breakfast just come ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... as many of them overboard as I could manage for their weight, tying every one with a rope, that they might not drive away. When this was done I went down the ship's side, and pulling them to me I tied four of them together at both ends, as well as I could, in the form of a raft, and laying two or three short pieces of plank upon them, crossways, I found I could walk upon it very well, but that it was not able to bear any great weight, the pieces being too light. So I went ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... word will be photographed on our brains from this time on. Didn't old Jesse say that Martin Mabie was a big stockman now, and had really quit being a guide and hunter? Then it's mighty kind of him to undertake to convoy a raft of tenderfeet into the wilderness. Money didn't enter into ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... the Indians of Terra Firma believe, that when the great deluge took place, one man, with his wife and children, escaped in a canoe; and the Indians of the North American lakes hold, that the father of all their tribes being warned in a dream that a flood was coming, built a raft, on which he preserved his family, and pairs of all the animals, and which drifted about for many months, until at length a new earth was made for their reception ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... reach the Tinguians, it is necessary to have recourse to a slight skiff, that can easily pass through the current and the most shallow parts. My guide and my lieutenant soon contrived to make a small raft of bamboos; when it was finished we embarked, Alila and myself, our guide refusing to accompany us. After much trouble and fatigue, casting ourselves often into the water to draw our raft along, we at length got clear of ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... Emperor Napoleon, whose courtesy was manifest in all his actions, ordered a large raft to be floated in the middle of the river, upon which was constructed a room well covered in and elegantly decorated having two doors on opposite aides, each of which opened into an antechamber. The work ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... our thanks to the Rev. E. Warre, of Eton College, for certain corrections on nautical points. In particular, he has convinced us that the raft of Odysseus in B. v. is a raft strictly so called, and that it is not, under the poet's description, elaborated into a ship, as has been commonly supposed. The translation of the passage (B. v.246-261) ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... blackest you can imagine; from the moment the ship foundered I saw nothing either of the boat's crew or of the men who had been left with me. For what seemed an endless time I clung to my raft, and I imagine that the tide must have carried me some distance from the scene of the wreck. As the night wore on—it seemed as if it would never pass—I grew weaker and weaker, but presently the sky became lighter, and just as I was telling myself that I might as well let go of the raft and bring ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... especially when we considered that we had so often unwittingly incurred the same danger before while bathing. We were now forced to take to fishing again in the shallow water, until we should succeed in constructing a raft. What troubled us most, however, was, that we were compelled to forego our morning swimming excursions. We did, indeed, continue to enjoy our bathe in the shallow water, but Jack and I found that one great source of our enjoyment was gone, when we could no longer dive down ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... right towards the Circassian coast, at a rate perhaps of from four to five knots. The gale, too, now gradually subsided, and enabled the half-wrecked people to take more comfortable positions, and Aphiz and Selim to prepare a raft with the assistance of the crew, for it was but too apparent that the schooner must go down before long. Hollow groaning sounds issued from the hatches as she settled lower and lower, and it really seemed as though the fabric was uttering exclamations ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... Glide, or for a town, like the Mobile Mop-Up, and the Far Rockaway Rock and the South Bend Bend. His friends would interfere—or the authorities would. He can go in swimming, it is true; but if he turns over and floats, people yell out that somebody has set the life raft adrift; and if he basks at the water's edge, boats will come in and try to dock alongside him; and if he takes a sun bath on the beach and sunburns, there's so everlasting much of him to be sunburned that he practically amounts to a conflagration. He can't shoot rapids, craps or big game ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... on my life-preserver for several hours," he said, "then I came across a big oak dresser with two men clinging to it. I hung on to this till daybreak and the two men dropped off. When the sun came up I saw the collapsible raft in the distance, just black with men. They were all standing up, and I swam to it—almost a mile, it seemed to me—and they would not let me aboard. Mr. Lightoller, the second officer, was one ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... she was directed, and very soon they were standing on the little raft a few yards from shore. Then her companion put down his stick, and took the coil ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... the lake bottom selected for a feeding-ground lies at a depth of fifteen or twenty feet below the surface, and is covered with a short growth of algae and other aquatic plants,—facts I had previously determined while sailing over it on a raft. After alighting on the glassy surface, they occasionally indulged in a little play, chasing one another round about in small circles; then all three would suddenly dive together, and then come ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... I have! Let me recall one of the boyhood pictures that has never faded. It was just after school, one hot day, in the Illinois September. Our crowd had gone down to the pond back of the school-house, and two of us were paddling around on a raft made of sawmill slabs. One of the two—who always had more dare-deviltry than sense under his skull thatch—was silly enough to 'rock the boat,' and it went to pieces. You couldn't swim, Howard, but if you hadn't forgotten that trifling handicap and wallowed ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... they are laid all night before the idols, either to help their sickness or make an end of them. If they do not mend that night, the friends come and sit up with them, and cry for some time, after which they take them to the side of the river, laying them on a raft of reeds, and so let them float ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... it, which says that I am the duly authorized representative of the Panhandle Cattle Association. I also have a book in my pocket showing every brand and the names of its owners, and there is a whole raft of them. I may go to St. Louis to act as inspector for my people when the ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... the glowing, glancing, glittering, golden-oak center-table. Miss Proudfoot shuffled sternly. Mr. Wrenn sat still and frightened, like a shipwrecked professor on a raft with two gamblers and a press-agent, though Nelly was smiling encouragingly at him from the couch where she had started her embroidery—a large Christmas lamp mat for the wife of the Presbyterian pastor at ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... had begun upon the construction of a raft, and was not in a home-going mood. Thus encouraged by his young friend the man who mended the boats sat down ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... that old raft up here and we'll hold it up. We'll just say 'hello' to be sociable, show the town ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... boats reached the flood-wood, where, to Joel's great amusement, Mike and the negroes, the latter having little more calculation than the former, had commenced their operations on the upper side of the raft, piling the logs on one another, with a view to make a passage through the centre. Of course, there was a halt, the females landing. Captain Willoughby now cast an eye round him in hesitation, when a knowing look from ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... so, as our memory gazes on the past, the light spreads not over all the breadth of the waste where nations have battled and argosies gone down,—it falls narrow and confined along the single course we have taken; we lean over the small raft on which we float, and see the sparkles but reflected from the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... need a steamer above the fleet; a raft would do just as well. I think I shall go up the river, and see what can be done. Well, boys," added Somers to the men in the boat, "there will be no fun to-night, and you may as well ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... was finished. My next work was to look for the ship's boats, but they were gone, as I expected. I could not bear to remain in the ship; it seemed a vast tomb for me. I resolved to make some sort of raft, and depart in it. This occupied two or three days; at length it was completed, and I succeeded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... finding them, Frank Hatch became discouraged at seeing us lay around the levee, so he tied the oars on with tarred rope and we got off, three of us besides the other dogs. The water was so high that we crossed Barron's island, only having to get out and pull the boat over two or three sand-bars and a raft or two. Every time we got out to pull the boat, the dogs would get out to look for woodcock, around the stumps, and when they got in the boat would be full of water and mud, and of course we had our best clothes on. Did it ever occur ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... rose and warmed the air, the boys strength and spirits revived, and in a few hours they were so refreshed that they determined to set about their raft. The wind had now entirely dropped, the waves were still very high, but they came in long, smooth, regular swells, over which they ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... of the Medusa is already known to the public, as one of the most awful and appalling that ever befel any class of human beings. The Shipwreck, and the dreadful scenes on the Raft, have been recorded in the Narrative of Messrs Savigny and Correard. But the adventures of the party who were cast ashore, and forced to find their way through the African Desert, could be reported only imperfectly by those gentlemen who were not eye-witnesses. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... himself, he smells again a stinking odor. He looks around, and, as he does not see any one, he thinks that he himself is dead. There is nobody to bury him. So he goes to the river, takes five or six banana-trunks, and makes a raft of them. He lies down on the raft, and lets the current of the river carry him away. In three hours the current has carried him into the woods. While he is floating through the forest, all of a sudden he is called in a fierce voice by some one on shore. This man was the captain of a band ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... all was in readiness for a new start, and luckily provisions from the reductions on the Parana arrived. So they embarked again, and on the journey a raft in which a woman and two children were sitting upset, to Montoya's agony, as he knew that 'in that river there are fish that the people call culebras,* which have been seen to swallow men entire, and throw ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... be entitled to the afternoon off to spend with Beth. At noon we built a fire and cooked a sumptuous dinner. Beth baked up some things to keep them supplied a couple of days longer. After dinner I asked her to go for a row. She insisted on taking Diogenes along, and the others all followed us on a raft. So I decided to cut the water sports short, and Beth and I started for a walk in the woods. Three or more were constantly right on our trail. I begged and bribed, but to no avail. They were sticktights all right, and," he added morosely, "she seemed covertly to aid and abet them. When we ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the month of May. Far down the Beautiful River, Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash, Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen. It was a band of exiles: a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together, Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune; Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay, Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers On the Acadian ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the middle of August that the carpenter received instructions from the landowner to make some wooden steps and a small raft and to fix them up on the banks of the river for the convenience of bathers. It did not take the carpenter and Petrushka long to make these things, and one afternoon Petrushka drove down to the river to fix them in their ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... right here, Colonel. We ain't got what I wished; but we've taken 'em from friend and foe, and here comes the last of my boys with Major Skeene's big raft and, if I ain't mighty mistaken, with a bag o' charcoal aboard that must ha' ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... first settlers to dwell on the island were traders in the Archipelago, and they lived in raft houses, so called, or more probably in huts, erected on poles in the Malay style, and these were located on the site of the present "Commercial Square," which was then little more than a mud flat covered by the sea at high water. One of the first steps taken ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... necessary, in the present time and society. Madge Wildfire, who, among other indications of insanity, had a most overweening opinion of those charms, to which, in fact, she had owed her misery, and whose mind, like a raft upon a lake, was agitated and driven about at random by each fresh impulse, no sooner beheld Jeanie begin to arrange her hair, place her bonnet in order, rub the dust from her shoes and clothes, adjust her neck-handkerchief and mittans, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... from many a craft Goes drifting by on a broken raft Pieced from a vessel that clove the brine Taller and prouder ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "Northwest Fur Company." With this band he trapped to the head of Salmon River. Thence they went to Malade River, trapping down it to where it empties into the Big Snake River. They continued on up this latter river, and then, after trapping on Goose Creek and Raft River, returned to Fort Hall. Their stock of fur was quite extensive on their arrival here and, an opportunity offering to dispose of it, they sold out at a fair valuation. After recruiting their strength at the Fort for one month, Kit Carson, accompanied by most of the trappers, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... by raft and on foot along the banks of the raging Conemaugh and in the refugee trains between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Such was the trip, fraught with great danger, but prolific of results, which the writer has just completed. All along the line events of thrilling interest ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the problem might not seem so hard, for there are not so many islands shown. The difficulty is that few maps show all of them, and even on the best of navigating maps there may be one or two that are not charted. The shipwrecked ones, providing they lived to get off on a life raft, or in a boat, might as likely have been driven to one of these little islands, as to ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... "Oh, the lake is your highway," replied the would-be seller, airily; "you have nothing to do but lash your felled trees together, as they do in the mahogany-growing countries, and set them afloat on the lake, they will thus form a natural raft, and cost you little or nothing to get down to a good market. You know the Dunstan diggings are just at the foot of the lake, and they haven't a stick there; timber is very badly wanted in those ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker |
