"Raft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time, 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 them out again with ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... cry from the clash of armies to the romance of a honeymoon spent on a raft de luxe drifting lazily down a river of Burma. That is the theme of Love's Legend (CONSTABLE), by Mr. FIELDING HALL, author of The Soul of a People. But there may be a war of sex with sex scarcely less tragic than the wars of men with men (or brutes). The author shows us an oldish husband—a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... arrived at Mosul on the 20th of March, 1850, going by way of Beirut, Aleppo, Aintab, Oorfa, and Diarbekir; from this last place he floated down the Tigris on a raft supported by inflated goat-skins, in less than four days to his new home. He describes the river as breaking through between bold precipices, and scenery delightfully and unexpectedly romantic. Mr. Schneider was his travelling companion ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... who sped the woodman's team, And deepest sunk the ploughman's share, And pushed the laden raft astream, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... 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 ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... widened out into a broad pool, with sandy shores. In one of these we encountered a raft of lumber, on its way to Jacksonville. The men on it were wiry, hatchet-faced fellows, good-natured and easy-going. Just before sunset we came to Silver Spring Run, into which the pilot turned the boat. If the water had been clear before, it was perfectly transparent in this run, or stream flowing ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Yankee. This uncomfortable voyage was undertaken partly to promote the sale in England of these rafts, and partly to pay the three men by fees from visitors, while they could see Europe themselves at a cheap rate. One of Mr. White's steamers towed the raft in front of the Castle, where the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron Club have their spacious house, with a sea wall ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... I have left a bit of a will addressed to you, and recommending to your kindness my mother, and the boy and the girl—in short, the whole raft." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... At last my horrible task 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 in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... were soon in a position to see for themselves, and what they beheld was a curious sort of raft, with torn sails, or so at least it seemed, floating down with the current. Then, as the waters swirled about the odd craft, a piece, like the tail of some great fish, arose ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... rockets; but, in consequence of the treacherous handling of the Spanish soldiers who had filled them, they proved worse than useless, doing nearly as much injury to the men who fired them as to the enemy. Only one gunboat was sunk by the shells from a raft commanded by Major Miller, who also did some damage to the forts and shipping. On the night of the 4th, Lord Cochrane amused himself, while a fireship was being prepared, by causing a burning tar-barrel to be drifted with the tide towards the enemy's shipping. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... painting—quadrigae, warriors, arms, armor, vases, streams, all lifelike. Ascending to the hall of French paintings I spent an hour in studying one picture—La Meduse, by Gericault. It is a shipwrecked crew upon a raft in mid ocean. I gazed until all surrounding objects disappeared, and I was alone upon the wide Atlantic. Those transparent emerald waves are no fiction; they leap madly, hungering for their prey. That ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... troops of players and musicians, come out to meet him, and conduct him with all the honors to his stable-palace. A great number of cords and ropes of all qualities and lengths are attached to the raft, those in the centre being of fine silk (figuratively, "spun from a spider's web"). These are for the king and his noble retinue, who with their own hands make them fast to their gilded barges; ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... "We made a raft and crossed the river, but the enemy's matchlock men peppered us so severely that we lost thirty English and fifty Sepoys in getting over. The enemy's entrenchment was not finished, but in front of it was a deep rivulet, which had ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... the ringing of bells and firing of pistols, unheeded. By the time the signal came to clear the course for the crews, the pleasure-craft pushed within the barriers formed a vast, softly undulating raft covering the whole surface of the water, so that you could have walked from the barrier to the shore without dipping foot in the flood. I have suggested that the situation might have had its perils. Any panic must have caused a commotion that would have ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the extreme link of the raft, extending far into the smooth expanse of the river. Boards were spread out on the raft and in the centre stood a crudely constructed table; empty bottles, provision baskets, candy-wrappers and orange peels were scattered about everywhere. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... to produce eggs for her. He gathered barks and sluiced roots on the raft in the lake, for her. He grubbed the spice thicket before the door and moved it into the woods to make space for a lawn, for her. His eyes were wide open for every woven case and dangling cocoon of the big night moths that propagated around him, for her. Every ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... each, fearful of the depth. But there is more reason to believe that they were conveyed across on rafts; which plan, as it must have appeared the safer before execution, is after it the more entitled to credit. They extended from the bank into the river one raft two hundred feet long and fifty broad, which, fastened higher up by several strong cables to the bank, that it might not be carried down by the stream they covered, like a bridge, with earth thrown upon it, so that the beasts might tread upon it without ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... were said to be between the Tallahatchie and Yazoo, though the stream is one. The fort, which was called Pemberton, was built of cotton and earth; in front of it was a deep slough, and on its right flank the river was barricaded by a raft and the hull of the ocean steamer Star of the West, which, after drawing the first shots fired in the war, when the batteries in Charleston stopped her from reinforcing Fort Sumter in January, 1861, had passed by some chance to New Orleans, where she was seized by the Government of Louisiana ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... of Raft River, which is tributary to the Snake River, and finally empties into the Columbia, we came to a deep, ditch-like crack in the earth, partly filled with water and soft mud. It was about a rod in width, but so long that we could not see ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... the arrival of Kant, Raff had already come from Hayti (United States) and was able to pry in upon our political friends and enemies. When they met each other they continued the voyage incognito, as Raft had done previously, making themselves known to a very few people; but later on, and according to the instructions carried by Caney, they made themselves known to a greater number of people, and have succeeded in interviewing Bryan who happened to be ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... the sand, while the tide fell and the wind changed. Next day the cyclone had passed, but the swell was still very heavy. Equipped with everything necessary to float the launch, we marched along the beach, which was beaten hard by the waves. We had to cross a swollen river on an improvised raft; to our satisfaction we found the boat quite unhurt, not even the cargo being damaged; only a few copper plates were torn. Next day Mr. W. arrived, lamenting his loss; for his beautiful schooner was pierced in the middle by a sharp rock, and she hung, shaken by the waves that broke ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... 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, ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... 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
... are getting on too fast. When the good ship crashed upon the rock and split in twain, it seemed like that all aboard must perish. Fortunately OLIVER was made of stern mettle. Hastily constructing a raft and placing the now unconscious JILL upon it, he launched it into the seething maelstrom of waters and pushed off. Tossed like a cockle-shell upon the mountainous waves, the tiny craft with its precious freight was in imminent danger of foundering. But OLIVER was made ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Laurance outlined the facts of his escape upon a raft, which was hastily constructed by several of the crew when the boats were beyond their reach. Upon this he had placed Maud, and on the morning after the wreck of the vessel they succeeded in getting into one of the boats which was floating bottom upward, and providentially ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... vessel, little craft consisting of no more than the trunk of a tree hollowed out, seldom more than a foot broad, and perhaps eighteen inches deep, all with outriggers—namely, a slight wooden frame or raft to balance them, and for the most part containing two men, or sometimes three or four. Before long, not less than fifteen or twenty had come on board, with woolly hair and mahogany skins, generally wearing a small strip of ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Running to the water to pick them up," he says, "God only knows the inexpressible joy that filled my heart, at beholding the water move, and finding that we were on the banks of a large river." They all set to work actively the next day, and had soon completed a raft on which they embarked, and trusted themselves to the current to reach the ocean, so long and ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... were then to save themselves by swimming ashore, or to another boat. Sometimes, also, the "wreck" was loaded with broken spars, pieces of board, and bits of rope; and the problem was for the crew to construct a raft in the water, often in a rough sea. All these exercises, and many others, were heartily enjoyed by the boys, and a ringing cheer always announced the safety of a crew, either on the shore, in a boat, or on ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... six inches high and proportionably broad and deep; and I remember how people would turn round to look after him, as he came pounding along Notre-Dame Street, in Montreal, in his red shirt and tan-colored shupac boots, all dripping wet after mooring an acre or two of raft, and now bent for his ashore-haunts in the Ste.-Marie suburb, to indemnify himself with bacchanalian and other consolations for long-endured hardship. Among other feats of strength attributed to him, I remember the following, which has an old, familiar taste, but was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... him, at midnight and in midwinter, thrown from a frail raft into the deep and angry waters of a wide and rushing Western river, thus separated from his only companion through the wilderness with no aid for miles and leagues about him, buffeting the rapid current and struggling through ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... forward to offer congratulations to the newly-wedded pair," she would say as she sharpened her pencil-point: "There's nothing like a wedding to reveal what a raft of common kin people have," and we knew that it was all over and that she was closing the article with: "A dazzling array of costly and beautiful presents was exhibited in the library," for then she would pick up her copy, dog-ear the sheets, and jab them on the hook as she sighed: "Another ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... understand? Wery well, then; you stay in here until that there clock have marked off a good half-hour; arter that you may come out and do the best you can for yourself; there's plenty o' spars knockin' about the decks here, which you can lash together, and make a tip-top raft out of 'em, upon which you can go for a cruise on your own account; but if you shows your ugly head outside this here cabin before the half-hour's out, damn me if I won't lash your neck and heels together, and heave you into the middle of ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... day we built its shrine for each, A shrine of rock for every one, Nor paused till in the westering sun We sat together on the beach To sing because our task was done. When lo! what shouts and merry songs! What laughter all the distance stirs! A loaded raft with happy throngs Of gentle islanders! "Our isles are just at hand," they cried, "Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping: Our temple-gates are opened wide, Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping For these majestic forms"—they cried. Oh, then we awoke with sudden start From our deep dream, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... 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
... the river with at least part of his force. For this purpose he had brought on the train a boat, which was promptly launched. As, however, the boat was small, and hardly capable of holding more than four men, the General gave orders for the construction of a raft. After some trouble this was ready by 4 p.m., and some two hours later about seven companies of the Connaught Rangers had succeeded ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... thirst. Moreover, the waters thereabouts are full of sharks, and the evening was so squally that our stranded boat was raised and banged with every wave. We could scarcely move, and the other boat was nowhere in sight. And now it grew dark. At this stage I began to build a raft of spars and old pieces of wood, that might at all events ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... awake, and far from paralyzed by the danger. He was not the sort to give up while there was any hope left. Surely the guard in the cabin would have departed with the others, leaving him free to act. He could smash his way out through that door, and find something on deck to construct a raft from. This was Lake Michigan, not the ocean, and not many hours would pass before he was picked up. Vessels were constantly passing, and ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... lighting three fires, which, however, were not seen nor taken notice of by those under the command of Cornelis, because they were busy in butchering their companions, of whom they had murdered between thirty and forty; but some few, however, got off upon a raft of planks tied together, and went to the island where Mr. Weybhays was, in order to acquaint him with the dreadful accident that had happened. Mr. Weybhays having with him forty- five men, they all resolved to stand ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... and the sun stole in through the window. Then, the wiggler grew tired, and came, like many tired beings, to the top. For a time he was quiescent, but soon the sun's rays gave force to the inner impulse which "rent the veil of his old husk," and transformed it into a canoe or raft, containing a draggle-tailed-looking creature with a big head and six staggery legs. Poising itself upon the raft, the outcome of the wiggler sunned its crumplety wings, till "like gauze they grew," and then all ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... gangrene of the penis, caused by a prostatic abscess following gonorrhea. In this case there was thrombosis of the pelvic veins. Hutchinson mentions a man who, thirty years before, after six days' exposure on a raft, had lost both legs by gangrene. At the age of sixty-six he was confined to bed by subacute bronchitis, and during this period his whole penis became gangrenous and sloughed off. This is quite unusual, as gangrene is usually associated with fever; it is more than likely that the gangrene ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... was, that such a road might be made to float upon the bog, simply by means of a sufficient extension of the bearing surface. As a ship, or a raft, capable of sustaining heavy loads floated in water, so in his opinion, might a light road be floated upon a bog, which was of considerably greater consistency than water. Long before the railway was thought of, Mr. Roscoe had adopted the remarkable expedient of fitting his plough-horses with ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... 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, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... that moment. A lieutenant, who had accompanied him, then took the command, and continued to fight the ship. A youth of seventeen, by name Villemoes, particularly distinguished himself on this memorable day. He had volunteered to take the command of a floating battery, which was a raft, consisting merely of a number of beams nailed together, with a flooring to support the guns: it was square, with a breast-work full of port-holes, and without masts—carrying twenty-four guns, and one hundred and twenty men. With this he got under the stern ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... have no trouble going up the Miwasa or Musquasepi or across Caribou Lake, because Martin Sellers has steamboats there, and he is independent and friendly to us. They can't stop me on the Spirit River either, because I can build a raft ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... first deemed totally uninhabited, and filled with the hope that the stranger might be able to give him some information relative to the geographical position of the isle, and even perhaps aid him in forming a raft by which they might together escape from the oasis of the Mediterranean, Wagner proceeded toward the mountains. By degrees the wondrous beauty of the scene became wilder, more imposing, but less bewitching, and when he reached ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... Millionaires in legend-wealth, though no bank would back 'em, But old Benny Havens by the West Point Shore. Off with lazy vagabonds, social ghosts that shiver, Give to worthy road-men the great green way, And we'll hear a song again up the Hudson river, Ringing from a drifting raft, set ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... Hovey went on: "Lads, I've bad news, bad and good news together. The boats are gone—though who the devil destroyed them we don't know—and now the wireless is destroyed. The boats are a big loss, for now we'll have to rig up some sort of a raft to make shore when we beach the Heron. The busting of the wireless almost balances that loss. Now we're sure they can't slip out any quick wireless call that would bring a dozen ships after us. Bad news and good news together; and here's some more ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Tourneville, attended by Hannah Macaulay, walked shorewards from Dunseveric House. It appeared that they were going to bathe, for they carried bundles of white sheets and coloured garments, large bundles well wrapped together and strapped. Hannah Macaulay had, besides, a little raft made of the flat corks which fishermen use to mark the places where their lobster pots are sunk and to float the tops of salmon nets. It seemed as if one of the party were no great swimmer, and ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... abbreviated bathing suit, with water wings fastened to her back. She walked rapidly into the sea, and, perforce, he followed. Miss Wilder shouted orders in vain from the shore. The tide was running in, and nearly high, so she was over her depth in a second, but she paddled out toward the distant raft, her head well out of the water, thanks to her wings. Much amused, Wally swam beside her into ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... Interesting Narrative without being deeply affected by the perils and misfortunes to which the small remnant of persons, who were saved from this deplorable Shipwreck, were exposed. Of one hundred and fifty persons embarked upon the raft, and left to their fate, only fifteen remained alive thirteen days afterwards; but of these fifteen, so miraculously saved, life constituted the sole possession, being literally stripped of every thing. At Paris, some benevolent individuals ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... told me of how the poor people went down to a dirty inland river and had killed a hog, taken its heart; killed a dog, taken its heart; and then after putting them on a little raft, floated them off down the river to drive the cholera away. Then he told me of how the natives had, in their desperation, tied tight bands about their ankles to keep the evil spirits from coming up out of ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... shore of Seriphus. No emblem of our human state and lot, with their mysteries, perils, threats, and promises, could be either more natural or more impressive than that of a vessel launched on the deep. The dying Socrates said "that he should trust his soul on the hope of a future life as upon a raft, and launch away into the unknown." Thus the imagination broods over and explores the shows and secrets, presageful warnings ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Haltren, reflectively, closing the breech of his gun. He had hauled his boat up an alligator-slide; now he shoved it off the same way, and pulling up his hip-boots, waded out, laid his gun in the stern, threw cartridge-sack and a dozen dead ducks after it, and embarked among the raft of wind-tossed ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... light, raft after raft of wild ducks rose and whirled into the east; blue herons flopped across the water; a silver-headed eagle, low over the waves, winged his way heavily toward some goal, doggedly intent upon ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... that day; and the news spread consternation in every Northern port. On the very next morning there came into the mouth of the James the rival product of the Northern Navy Department and of the Swedish engineer Ericsson's invention. She was compared to a "cheesebox on a raft"; she was named the Monitor, and was the parent of a type of vessel so called which has been heard of much more recently. The Merrimac and the Monitor forthwith fought a three hours' duel; then each retired into harbour without fatal ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... mistress to give me one spoonful of the meal, but she would not give me a taste. They quickly fell to cutting dry trees, to make rafts to carry them over the river: and soon my turn came to go over. By the advantage of some brush which they had laid upon the raft to sit upon, I did not wet my foot (which many of themselves at the other end were mid-leg deep) which cannot but be acknowledged as a favor of God to my weakened body, it being a very cold time. I was not before acquainted with such kind ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
... to the two soldiers. On the way, most of the goods were lost. The paint melted, and the horse's back was all red. The Indians on the bank across the river saw what the soldiers wanted. They loaded some roots and bread on a raft. They tried to cross to the soldiers. A high wind sent the raft on a rock. The raft turned over. The roots and bread were lost. Then the captains and men felt unhappy. They cut the buttons from ...
— The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition • Katherine Chandler
... this month, who arrived at the moment the first boatload from the camp reached the opposite bank of the Murray. By means of casks we floated the drays over the three rivers and, after two experiments with a raft, both partial failures, and while a third raft was in progress, of a more solid and better construction, we discovered that a canoe, of very large dimensions and paddled by the native boy Tommy, would prove the most expeditious ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... further solemnity being impossible, a signal was given, and from a barge far out on the water a score of rockets shot hissing into the air, announcing the beginning of fireworks. A brilliant display of these followed, closing the evening's entertainment, and immediately afterward a large raft was towed up to the landing, and the whole merry party embarked and returned to Joppa together, the band following on another boat and treating them to music all the way. Halloway stood near Gerald in the crowd, but he did not attempt ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... in getting clear and when I came to the surface I swam a few yards to a life raft, to which were clinging three men. We climbed on board this raft and upon looking around observed Doyle, chief boatswain's mate, and one other man in the whale boat. We paddled to the whale boat and embarked from the life raft. The whale boat was about half full of water ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... sir," was the reply. "A number of logs broke loose from the raft and I had a hard time to collect them. There's a heavy sea ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... on his raft now signed to Chebron to take up one of the spears; but the lad shook his head and motioned to him to undertake the attack, for he felt that, ignorant as he was of the habits of the animal, it would be folly for him to engage in such an adventure. The man nodded, ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... expanse, though it seems to gild but one broken line into each eye, 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
... channel and we wade perforce. In many places the bottom is a quicksand, into which we sink, and it is with great difficulty that we make progress. In some places the holes are so deep that we have to swim, and our little bundles of blankets and rations are fixed to a raft made of driftwood and pushed before us. Now and then there is a little flood-plain, on which we can walk, and we cross and recross the stream and wade along the channel where the water is so swift as almost to carry us off our feet and we are in danger every moment of being swept down, until night ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... were the jackal to him. But this sounds rather absurd. It looks as if man had already acquired enough seamanship to ferry himself across the zoological divide, and to take his faithful dog with him on board his raft or dug-out. Until we have facts whereon to build, however, it would be as unpardonable to lay down the law on these matters as it is permissible to fill up ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... Shi-Seneferu, and rested on the open field. In the morning I went on and overtook a man, who passed by the edge of the road. He asked of me mercy, for he feared me. By the evening I drew near to Kher-ahau (? old Cairo), and I crossed the river on a raft without a rudder. Carried over by the west wind, I passed over to the east to the quarries of Aku and the land of the goddess Herit, mistress of the red mountain (Gebel Ahmar). Then I fled on foot, northward, and reached the walls of the prince, built to repel the Sati. ...
— Egyptian Literature
... terrestrial dawn into the whole of night. With its heart aflame Earth seemed to become transparent as glass along that crevasse; and amid the lake of fire heaps of living beings floated on some raft, and writhed like the spirits of damnation. The other men fled upwards, and piled themselves in clusters on the straight-lined borders of the valley of filth and tears. I saw those swarming shadows huddled on ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... bring them to me," said he, and they brought him pieces of wood, large and small, and he chose the largest, and having torn the lining of his jacket into strips, he spliced them into a rope and with this he tied the wood together until he had made a very good raft indeed. ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... 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 in to pull poor ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... with heavy rain. As he stayed longer than usual, Hector began to feel uneasy lest some accident had befallen him, knowing his adventurous spirit, and that he had for some days previous been busy constructing a raft of cedar logs, which he had fastened together with wooden pins. This raft he had nearly finished, and was even talking of adventuring over to the nearest island to explore it, and see what game and ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... fight. On Sunday morning, March 9, the Merrimac renewed her attack upon the Minnesota, and was completely surprised by the appearance of a small vessel which, in the expressive description of the day, resembled a cheese- box on a raft. She had arrived from New York at the close of the first day's fight. From her turret began a furious cannonade which not only diverted the attack from the Minnesota but after a ferocious contest of many hours practically destroyed the Merrimac, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... feet, he took steady aim at the beast's wild and bloodshot eye. It was a perfect shot. The walrus, crumpling, began to sink into the water. Seeing this, Bruce clung to the cake until the tusk slipped off. In another moment the uncertain raft was ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... river near the village which it was necessary for the Spaniards to cross in their advance. De Soto, accompanied by Ocali and several of his subjects, was walking on the banks of this stream to select a spot for crossing, by means of a bridge or raft, when a large number of Indians sprang up from the bushes on the opposite side, and assailing them with insulting and reproachful language, discharged a volley of arrows upon them, by which one of ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... arrival we set out on our journey through the great desert of Tartary, and came to the Boristhenes, which separates Tartary from Russia, and which is some miles broad[9]. As it was necessary to pass the river, our Tartars cut down some trees, the stems of which they fastened together into a raft, which was covered over by the branches, and upon which the whole of our baggage was placed. They fastened their horses by the tails to this raft, by which means it was dragged across the river, they themselves swimming along-side of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the sea was green once more, the sky blue, and beautiful with the young, fresh light. He was lying on an old raft of black, water-logged spars and planks lashed together with chains and rotting ropes. But alas! there was no shore in sight, for all night long he had been drifting, drifting further and ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... into Appalachicola Bay, where, some of us remembered, a newspaper item had said that we had gunboats stationed. The creek that ran through the stockade flowed to the east, and we reasoned that if we followed its course we would be led to the Flint, down which we could float on a log or raft to the Appalachicola. This was the favorite scheme of the party with which I sided. Another party believed the most feasible plan was to go northward, and endeavor to gain the mountains, and ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... once, and have a quarrel over the honor; but looks now like I might have to do the grand wading act myself, holding up my clothes-bag and blanket, to keep from getting the same more soaked than they are now. If we could only make a raft like old Robinson Crusoe did, it would be fine. Can we get this cabin roof off, and would it float, ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... leave them a living, and, for this reason, he had his life insured today while in town for $5,000. Heavy rains were falling up the Cumberland and John Ramon was working hard, he and his hired hands, to get the log raft ready to go down the river and carry his logs to Nashville when the river got ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the river invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he could only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower. He ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The immense raft, sheltered by a tarpaulin roof, is attached to the charming island of Croissy by two narrow foot bridges, one of which leads into the center of this aquatic establishment, while the other unites its end with a tiny ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... river of the obstruction placed below the forts. Farragut ordered two gunboats to steal through the darkness without lights and clear this raft. The work was swiftly done. The task was rendered unexpectedly easy by a break caused by ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... W.W. Jacobs' cottages at Dunton Green told me, with a guarded significance of manner not uncommon in those parts, who would "get washed up anyhow," and as regards the devouring element was "fit to put a fire out." He considered that Skinner would be as safe on a raft as anywhere. The retired seafaring man added that he wished to say nothing whatever against Skinner; facts were facts. And rather than have his clothes made by Skinner, the retired seafaring man remarked he would take ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... it drawn in again, and stepped upon the raft, which, although it sank down lower in the water and was all awash, still seemed buoyant. He also took Puck with him, and tried to incite some others of the boys to venture out in ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... simpler; as for instance in his taking it from her that Miss Theale then could do nothing for them. He frankly brought out what he had ventured to think possible. "If we can't meet here and we've really exhausted the charms of the open air and the crowd, some such little raft in the wreck, some occasional opportunity like that of Tuesday, has been present to me these two days as better than nothing. But if our friends are so accountable to this house of course there's no more to be said. And it's ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... wages. "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 parts, not only for fuel and building, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... two poor comrades, were helplessly contending with the tumbling waves, almost within reach of them, but without their being able to afford them the slightest assistance. After a minute or two, and when one more would have been their last, a long oar or sweep, belonging to the wretched raft, came floating by. They instantly seized it, and held on till they were carried down more than a mile, loudly calling for help as they went along; but what aid could we render them? No craft, none, at least, which were on the banks of the river, could ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... shipwrecked, and as a rule there is little that is interesting about them—most of them are the type of ordinary seamen. Our latest case, however, was entered by the captain of a sailing vessel, who reported that they had picked the man up from a raft. That he was delirious then, and had never been able to tell them who he was or whence he came. He is still very ill and unconscious, and there is not a paper about him of identification. He is a gentlemen—I am sure of ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... are hell on corns While tramping through the sands, And driving jackass by the tail,— Damn the overland! I would as leaf be on a raft at sea And there at once be lost. John, let's leave the poor old mule, ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... and sugar form an occasional luxury. Up to their waists in snow in winter, and up to their waists in summer and autumn in water, with all the moving accidents by flood and field; the occasional breaking-up of the raft in a rapid, the difficulty of the winter and spring transport of the heavy logs of squared timber out of the deep and trackless woods, combine to form a portion of the hard and reckless life of a lumberer, whose morale is not much better than ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... all that, 'n' made me say arter her the things I wisht 'd strike me daid if I didn't git the fellers what had got him. Then one day, from up in the rocks, she p'inted 'em out, so'd I know 'em. One got drowned takin' a raft down ter Frankfo't—he fell off jest arter I shot. 'N' t'other-un I didn't git fer a long time. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... out to buy the turkey—the biggest gobbler he can get, he told me—for Mrs. Judy has a raft of young ones, 'all av thim wid appetites like a famine in ould Ireland,' he ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... us," said Wayland. "They'll camp in the timber over there for the night and wait. All right, my friends! You'll not have to wait long; no longer than it takes you, sir, to find our pack mule and the stray bronchs, while I build a raft. We can't cross the lower end for the moraine; and we can't cross the upper end for the ice; and it's too ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... caught them. At the beer garden a student seated himself near me. He said to me, "We are going to war with you. We shall take Alsace and Lorraine." That night I could see from my window, looking out on the Neckar, the students clad in their club costumes floating down the river on an illuminated raft singing the famous song in honor of Bluecher, who "taught the Welches the way of the Germans." And at the university itself the lectures of Treitschke, attended by excited crowds, were heated harangues against the French, inciting ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... thousand pounds. At the rapids the large rafts are, as it were, unyoked, and divided into small portions, which go down separately. The excitement and motion of such transit must, I should say, be very joyous. I was told that the Prince of Wales desired to go down a rapid on a raft, but that the men in charge would not undertake to say that there was no possible danger; whereupon those who accompanied the prince requested his Royal Highness to forbear. I fear that, in these careful days, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... and trying to find out what he might get out of the business if he helped to save the brig, the captain and I, with a few men, quietly let down into the water the aft hatch, one of those big doors they cover the hatchways with, and when that was resting on the water it made a very good raft for one man. And I got down on it, with my ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... favor, was dead low, and would turn before I could round the northern point of the city. After all my traps had been put on board, seating myself carefully, the oars were handed in, and a few strokes sent me ahead of the raft. The tide was low, dead low, in the fullest meaning of the word; the sea-weed slowly circled and eddied round, floating neither up nor down; while the unrippled surface of the Back Bay reflected the city and bridges ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... a Musket in her hand, Raft from a dying Souldiour newlie slaine, And ayming where th' vnconquered Knight did stand, Dischargd it through his bodie, and in twaine Deuids the euer holie nuptiall band, Which twixt his soule, and worlds part shold remaine, Had not his hart, stronger then Fortunes will, Held life perforce ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... had of it at the start. First I tried a pontoon bridge, but the stones for the bottom course were so heavy that they sank the pontoons, and I lost a couple of hundred niggers before I saw that it couldn't be done. Then I tried a big raft, but in order to get her to float with the stones I had to use such big logs that she was unwieldy, and before I knew what had struck me I had lost six big dressed stones and another hundred niggers. I got the laugh, of course. Every numskull in Egypt wagged his beard over it; ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... dad, servin' on the Roanoke, was lucky enough to see both them craft:—-the big, clumsy Merrimac, all covered with railroad iron and smeared with grease, and the nifty little Monitor, that they said looked like 'a cheese box on a raft'! ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... 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 the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the galleon from Filipinas in this Nueva Espana has been unladen a raft [flota] of news, which other pens, less awkward than mine, will relate; I can only tell what I have known. In the year 1687 the examiner [pesquisidor]—as the Chinese say, the fisherman [pescador]—Don Francisco ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... whole island would soon be submerged; and logs, driftwood, green trees, etc., were sweeping down the river at a tremendous speed. To rescue the wounded, sick, and attendants at the hospital seemed impossible. Various suggestions were made; a raft was proposed, but this was decided impracticable as, if made and launched, it would in ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... to question one man who looked like a waterman, concerning the falls. The fellow said he had gone over once on a raft, when the water was much higher. "An' would yeou b'lieve it," he added, "one o' them 'ere wimmen were boun' an' determined ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Kirby commented. "Splashin' 'round some in a little-bitty wadin' pool, an' gittin' out in this, don't balance none. Ain't every hoss takes kindly to water, neither. I'd say we'd better see what's the chances of knockin' together a raft or somethin'. 'Less we can ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... the eye, and be calm. I found out, over there, that a kazark is exactly the bulk of a HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE WORLDS LIKE OURS! They hove all that load overboard. When it fell it wiped out a considerable raft of stars just as clean as if they'd been candles and somebody blowed them out. As for the race, that was at an end. The minute she was lightened the comet swung along by me the same as if I was anchored. The captain stood on the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... morning, in the rains, he came to the bank of this river, on his way to Lucknow from Jeytpoor, a town which we passed yesterday, and found it so swollen that he was obliged to purchase some large earthen jars, and form a raft upon them to take over himself and followers. While preparing his raft, which took a whole day, he heard that from five to ten persons were drowned, in attempting to cross this little river, every year, and ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... Merrimac's hull, and she sank; but, the rudder being shot away, went down lengthwise of the channel. When the firing ceased, the little crew, exhausted, but not one of the eight missing, clustered, only heads out of water, around their raft. A launch drew near. In charge was the Spanish admiral, who took them aboard with admiring kindness, and despatched a boat to notify the American fleet ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... were prepared to start, with the horses only, we received a senseless refusal; and like Sekomi, who had thrown obstacles in our way, he sent men to the Bayeiye with orders to refuse us a passage across the river. Trying hard to form a raft at a narrow part, I worked many hours in the water; but the dry wood was so worm-eaten it would not bear the weight of a single person. I was not then aware of the number of alligators which exist in the Zouga, and never think of my labor in the water ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... squall on the lake and an encounter with a log raft had placed all of the young people in great peril, from which Slugger Brown and Nappy Martell had refused to ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... us to the Cumberland, tawny and swollen from the rains, and here we had to stop to fell trees to make a raft on which to ferry over our packs. We bound the logs together with grapevines, and as we worked my imagination painted for me many a red face peering from the bushes on the farther shore. And when we ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... float on real water. Have the slender sticks for the raft all of the same length, and use about sixteen or eighteen sticks for each raft. Weave them together with a string. Begin by tying the centre of a long string around each end of a stick, which should be about eight inches in length ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... paused, the air quivered with a hoarse moo! as of a gigantic cow bellowing for her lost calf. It was really a steamboat whistling for the bridge to open the draw and let her through to the south with her raft of logs. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Salmon and a 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 flat on ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... American life-raft was in Cowes after her Atlantic voyage of forty-three days at sea. Two of her three adventurous crew were Germans, who could speak English only imperfectly, and the third was a Yankee. This uncomfortable voyage was undertaken partly to promote ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... water transportation is the giant raft, Fig. 30. When such a raft is made up, logs of uniform length are placed together, the width of the raft being from sixty to one hundred feet and its length, one thousand feet or more. It may contain a million board feet of timber. The different ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... reason to believe that it is part of the Divine element in our nature. This conviction, like other mystical intuitions, is formless: the forms or symbols under which we represent it are the best that we can get. They are, as Plato says, "a raft" on which we may navigate strange seas of thought far out of our depth. We may use them freely, as if they were literally true, only remembering their symbolical character when they bring us into conflict with natural science, or when they tempt us to ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... or slouch, or throw his arms and legs about as if they were timber logs. Many is the time I have said to my scholars, when I was teaching dancing-school,—great lumbering fellows, hulking through a quadrille as if they were pacing a raft in log-running,—"Don't insult your Creator by making a scarecrow of the body He has seen fit to give you. With reverence, He might have given it to one of better understanding; but since you have it, for piety's sake hold up your head, square your shoulders, and ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... nothing for it but a raft," said Washington. "And we have but one hatchet to aid us in making it. Let us ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 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 he hop out o' the wagon as spry as a chimpanzee, skin over the ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... 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 shoals that oppose their progress, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... Sigurd sat heedless of the hurricane without and feasted with his lords and ladies, they came and told him that a raft had been driven ashore at the foot of the castle, with a man upon it half dead. Sigurd bade them instantly bring him to the castle, and give him fire and clothing and food, to revive him in his ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... negociation: They immediately gathered round him, and continued in a body above an 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... 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 feet are always ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... When the raft was floating quietly alongside I felt better. It looked then as if we were to have a little more run ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the slow weedy waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a lady's. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... wind for his pilot, our argonaut seeks no improvement upon his aerial raft. Like the bow and arrow, it long ago reached perfection, and, though he may cherish some choice and secret recipe for varnish or be the inventor of an improved valve, he generally builds with a birdlike reliance on instinct and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... canoes laden with his goods, they would sail homeward. One day they had tarried to raft redwood planks of California from the schooner in the bay to the site of Kivi's new house. So that night in gratitude he would make merry for them. There would be much to eat, and there would be kava in plenty. He prayed that I would join ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... destruction. The telegraph carried the news everywhere, and in dread and anxiety the people awaited the fate of another day. When morning came at Hampton Roads a small nondescript vessel, looking like an oval raft with a turret, interposed between the Merrimac and its prey. It was the Monitor, the invention of Captain John Ericsson, and it had arrived during the night of March 8. The Monitor had been constructed at Greenpoint, Long Island, and was towed to Hampton Roads by steamers. Her turret was a revolving, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... the unexpected production of a large tin of Devonshire cream, contributed by Captain Bobby Little, relieved the canned peaches of their customary monotony. Last of all came a savoury—usually described as the savoury—consisting of a raft of toast per person, each raft carrying an abundant cargo of fried potted meat, and provided with a passenger in the shape of a ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... brilliant butterflies, among them a very large metallic green and black species (Ornithoptera priamus) and a large one of a bright blue (Papilio ulyses). The same afternoon we three went out shooting on the lake. Two of the Agai Ambu canoes were lashed together and a raft of split bamboo put across them, and two Agai Ambu men punted and paddled us about. Before starting we had first educated them up to the report of our guns, and after a few shots they soon got ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... "I desire to tell you everything! I will tell you all, Euan! I ran back along the trail, meeting the boat-guard, batt-men, and the sick horses all along the way to Tioga, where they took me over on a raft of logs.... I paid them three hard shillings. Then Colonel Shreve heard of what I had been about, and sent a soldier after me, but I avoided the fort, Euan, and went boldly up through the deserted camps until I came to where the army had crossed. Some teamsters mending transport wagons ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... hear Stallo. They had betrayed little interest in Crookes. At last their universe had been wrecked by rays, and Karl Pearson undertook to cut the wreck loose with an axe, leaving science adrift on a sensual raft in the midst of a supersensual chaos. The confusion seemed, to a mere passenger, worse than that of 1600 when the astronomers upset the world; it resembled rather the convulsion of 310 when the Civitas Dei cut itself loose from the Civitas Romae, and ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... them overboard as I could manage, tying every one of them with a rope, that they might not drive away. This done, I went down to the ship's side, and tyed four of them fast together at both ends, in form of a raft, and laying two or three short pieces of plank upon them crosswise, I found it would bear me, but not any considerable weight. Upon which I went to work again, cutting a spare topmast into three lengths, adding them to my raft with a great deal of labour and pains. I then considered what ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... from many a craft Goes drifting by on a broken raft Pieced from a vessel that clove the brine ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had not deceived her. The oars were dashing in the wave's below, and dark and rapid the boat bounded on towards the rocky shore. She gazed long and steadfastly on the dim and shadowy forms which that slender raft contained, and her eye detected amongst the three the loftier form of her haughty wooer. Presently the thick foliage that clothed the descent shut the boat, nearing the strand, from her view; but she now heard below, mellowed and softened in the ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... it on the beach, and hoisted to the top of it the tattered flag of the English vessel, which chanced to be flung up by the waves. For weeks and months his signal passed unnoticed; and meanwhile the sailor made a raft, and at low water reached the hulk of the Spanish ship several times, from which by degrees he carried away the treasure. This he hid in the cave which he occupied, hoping that one day he would be rescued. He found arms and ammunition in the galleon in abundance, and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the buggy was by no means limited to potatoes for his conversation. He was learned in the geography of the valley and told us how once the Cohocton River, now merely a decorative stream among willows, was once a serviceable waterway, how it was once busy with mills, and how men used to raft down ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... reinforcing steel used varies from 50 lbs. to 275 lbs. per cu. yd. of concrete; the highest figure will be had only in very heavy work and where very heavily reinforced raft foundations are employed, and the lowest only in one-story buildings consisting of walls and roof. A fair average is perhaps 150 lbs. per cu. yd. The cost of fabricating and placing reinforcement will run from 1/3 ct. to 1 cts. per pound, but the last ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... tinged yellow about two feet across alone combated the white fields and the black trees .... At six o'clock a man's figure carrying a lantern crossed the field .... A raft of twig stayed upon a stone, suddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert .... A load of snow slipped and fell from a fir branch .... Later there was a mournful cry .... A motor car came along the road shoving ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... a raft as we proposed," said Arthur. "If we do not return to-night, we shall alarm your sister and John. The current is in our favour, and we shall have no difficulty in descending ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... other. "Why, you must have read of it dozens of times in those novels you're always poring over. The hero and heroine on a raft—she looks up into his eyes and sighs. 'Have another morsel of boot soup, darling!' Why, the time dad had to use the money he had half promised me for that charmeuse, and we bought the supper at the delicatessen—you ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... 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, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... done. "Seignior," says the Spaniard, "had we poor Spaniards been in your case, we should never have got half those things out of the ship, as you did: nay," says he, "we should never have found means to have got a raft to carry them, or to have got the raft on shore without boat or sail: and how much less should we have done if any of us had been alone!" Well, I desired him to abate his compliments, and go on with the history of their coming ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... bordering the river, dashed through it, and plunged into the stream. He swam to a neighboring island, against the upper end of which the driftwood had lodged in such quantities as to form a natural raft; under this he dived, and swam below water until he succeeded in getting a breathing place between the floating trunks of trees, whose branches and bushes formed a covert several feet above the level of the water. He had scarcely drawn breath after all his toils, when he ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... was met, that funeral of the sea: the prone, tearing steamers, the reluctant bulk. Sometimes a captain's glass might make out a few men lost on the roof like men on a raft, smoking, seated, leaning over ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... 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 ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior) |
