"Windlass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mill down to the pond to see the great raft, and I among them. They have a string of logs fastened end to end and surrounding the great body, which keeps them from scattering, and the string is called a boom. A small, strong raft, it may be forty feet square, with an upright windlass in its centre, called a capstan, is fastened to some part of the boom. The small raft is called 'Head Works,' and from it in a yawl-boat is carried the anchor, to which is attached a strong rope half a mile long. The boat ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... more. And she, the friend they once could trust to serve their eager wish, Shall show no more the golden dust that hides in many a dish; And through the dismal mullock-heaps she threads her mournful way Where here and there some gray-beard keeps his windlass-watch to-day; Half-flood no more she looses her reins as once of old To wash the busy sluices and whisper through the gold. She sees no wild-eyed steers above stand spear-horned on the brink; The brumby mobs she used to love come down no more to ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... world, anchored in the stream, discharging and loading cargoes. There, just arrived, was an Italian emigrant ship with a thousand people on board, who had come to start life afresh. There was the large British steamer, with her clattering windlass, hoisting on board live bullocks from barges moored alongside. The animals are raised up by means of a strong rope tied around their horns, and as the ship rocks on the swell they dangle in mid-air. When a favorable moment arrives they are quickly dropped on ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... the ladders, over the windlass and anchor-chains which a native was busily painting. A school of porpoise were frolicking under the cutwater. Plop! plop! they went; and sometimes one would turn sidewise and look up roguishly with his twinkling seal-like eyes. Plop! plop! Finally ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... the workmen left the pits, with the exception of those in charge of the mines. They ascended by means of little tubs hanging by ropes, and were raised by a windlass. It is a terrible sight to see the men soaring up on the little machine, especially when two or three ascend at once; for then one man stands in the centre, while the other two ride on ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... the line along which ran the early cars on stones in which grooves were cut for the guidance of the wheels instead of the steel rail and the flange wheel of the present day. These early cars were drawn by mules, after they had been pulled by a windlass up the cliff from the boat landing at Frankfort. The mules and the rock rails were soon replaced by two locomotives and iron rails. One engine brought the train from Frankfort to a point half way, by noon, and after the passengers had eaten dinner at Midway, the other engine ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank
... muscle changes from one associated tribe to another, and that either backwards or forwards, is well observable in the muscles of the arm in moving the windlass of an air-pump; and the slowness of those muscular movements, that have not been associated by habit, may be experienced by any one, who shall attempt to saw the air quick perpendicularly with one hand, and horizontally with the other at the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... well, its windlass of hard teak charred but otherwise uninjured. It was a different case with the rope. The fibre had smouldered badly; it would be unwise to attempt to raise ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... samite, and his hat was goodly sable. His quiver was richly laced, and covered with a panther's hide for the sake of the sweet smell. He bare, also, a bow that none could draw but himself, unless with a windlass. His cloak was a lynx-skin, pied from head to foot, and embroidered over with gold on both sides. Also Balmung had he done on, whereof the edges were so sharp that it clave every helmet it touched. I ween the huntsman was berry of his cheer. Yet, to tell you ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... even the simple task of conveying the Dobbins dwelling uphill and then down again. A house-moving firm from Pentonville, however, had engaged to perform the work. They had jacked up the house on screws, chained it securely to a log frame, and, setting a portable windlass at the top of the hill, ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... was not to be seen. Neither was MacDonald. There seemed to be no one. The day shift were going back in the tunnels below. The windlass handle hung prone as a disused well. It had not flown back broken. The cable had been cut. Then, he heard a groan. It was Calamity lying on her face at the foot of the windlass, weeping and reaving her hair. Stretched on the grass a few paces back ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... elevation; raising &c. v.; erection, lift; sublevation[obs3], upheaval; sublimation, exaltation; prominence &c. (convexity) 250. lever &c. 633; crane, derrick, windlass, capstan, winch; dredge, dredger, dredging machine. dumbwaiter, elevator, escalator, lift. V. heighten, elevate, raise, lift, erect; set up, stick up, perch up, perk up, tilt up; rear, hoist, heave; uplift, upraise, uprear, upbear[obs3], upcast[obs3], uphoist[obs3], upheave; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Then, when a sudden rush of cool water poured over us, I came to my senses and started to my feet. In another moment I had passed a line around the desperado, and was dragging him under the lee of the windlass, where I finally made ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... and dashed in at the castle gate. A crowd of their assailants were close upon their heels. Walter glanced round; dashing across the courtyard he ran through some passages into an inner yard, in which, as he knew, was the well. The bucket hung at the windlass. ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... sea, which did no serious harm, frightened the men into the launch, where Hillson was already in person, and that the boat either struck adrift under the power of the roller, or that the painter was imprudently cast off in the confusion of the moment. He had got in as far as the windlass himself, when the sea came aboard; and, as soon as he recovered his sight after the ducking he received, he caught a dim view of the launch, driving off to leeward, on the top of a wave. Hailing was useless, and he stood gazing at the helpless boat until it became lost, like everything ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... exclaimed with an aggrieved air. "I'd like to see you stop them, with a rawhide lasso round your neck, and a big Korak hauling like a steam windlass on the other end of it! It's all very well to cry 'stop 'em'; but when the barbarians haul you off the rear end of your sledge as if you were a wild animal, what course would your sublime wisdom suggest? I believe I've got the mark of a lasso round my neck now," and he felt cautiously about his ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Adelaide Creek, till we come to a high range of rocks, which we cross, and then find ourselves near the head-waters of Fryer's Creek. Following that stream towards the Loddon, we pass the interesting neighbourhood of Golden Gully, Moonlight Flat, Windlass and Red Hill; this latter which covers about two acres of ground is so called from the colour of the soil, it was the first found, and is still considered as the richest auriferous spot near Mount Alexander. In the wet season, it was reckoned that on Moonlight Flat one man was daily buried alive ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... 'll be used agin' me. My wife's got brains. She ain't put it down that the trains have quit runnin'. Accordin' to her figures, Casey's lied and he's in a hole again, an' it'll be up to her an' Jack to run windlass an' pull 'im out. Don't matter what I say she won't believe me anyhow—so Casey won't say nothin'. Can't lie with ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... curiosity, but as much by a new idea that had entered my mind, I stepped upon the staging and glided cautiously aboard. I caught a glimpse of the sailors far off in the forward part of this ship—some seated upon the windlass, others squatted upon the deck itself, with their tin plates before them, and their jack-knives in their hands. Not one of them saw me—not one was looking in my direction: their eyes were too busy with the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... line, and Nelson and Bowen, with life-lines about them, bent the stubborn end of it around the windlass. It was heavy work, even for two men, on the tumbling, slippery deck, and, that done, they turned, anxiously, to see how the man in the stern of the tug was making out. He was there, back to, bending the thick stubborn bight about ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... had not been asleep for more than two hours, when they were awakened by an uproar on deck, and rousing themselves from sleep, they heard the rattle of the chains and the crank of the windlass. As their night attire was singularly simple, and consisted largely of the dress which they wore by day, being the same, in fact, with the exception of the hat, it was not long before they were up on deck, ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... the windlass raising anchor, I could catch snatches of whispered conversation just outside the port. The two men were beyond my range of vision. One seemed to be tossing in a boat, the other hung down the vessel's side by a ladder. I made ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Herschel are very fond of one another, often differing, but always agreeing to differ, like Malthus and Ricardo, who hunted together in search of Truth, and huzzaed when they found her, without caring who found her first: indeed, I have seen them both put their able hands to the windlass to drag her up from the bottom of that well in which she so ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... an hour the two boys were wandering about the dock-yards of the sea-port town, and deeply engaged in examining the complicated rigging of the ships. While thus occupied, the clanking of a windlass and the merry "Yo heave O! and away she goes," of ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... have pondered: from the sea of doubt Here drives at length the bark of thought ashore; Landward with screw and windlass haled, and firm, Clamped to her props, she lies. The need is stern; With men or gods a mighty strife we strive Perforce, and either hap in grief concludes. For, if a house be sacked, new wealth for old Not hard it is to win—if Zeus the lord Of treasure ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... found a white sailor sitting on the windlass drum. The man did not move until Lister touched ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... maps. "To-day," he said, "we will run back to Bath—from which it will be easy for you to train to Falmouth. We will go by Monmouth and then turn back through the Forest of Dean, where you will get glimpses of primitive coal mines still worked by two men and a boy with a windlass and a pail. Perhaps we will go through Cirencester. I don't know. Perhaps it is better to go straight to Bath. In the very heart of Bath you will find yourselves in just the same world you visited at Pompeii. Bath is Pompeii overlaid ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... see," cried the girl, cheerfully, and while uncle Nathan was polishing his broad face with the towel, she seized a heavy iron tea-kettle, and carried it to the well, which, surrounded by plantain and dock leaves, was near a corner of the house. She had some little difficulty in managing the windlass, and when the old mossy bucket fell with a dash into the water twenty feet below, it made her start and shiver all over as if she had ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... mirrors in the deep window-jambs, whether they are in the chimney or out of it," said Jill. "If I was obliged to live in a room where the sun never shone of its own accord, I would set a trap for it baited with large mirrors fixed on some sort of a windlass in a way to send the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... a laugh; or the hoarse rattle of chain through a hawse-pipe as one of the drifting vessels came to an anchor. Our own lads were very quiet, the watch below having turned in, while those on deck, with the exception of the lookout, had arranged themselves in a group about the windlass, and were conversing in suppressed tones well befitting the exceeding quiet of the night. Lady Desmond, well wrapped up in a fur-lined cloak, occupied a large wicker reclining chair placed close to the after skylight, where it was well ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... down the trail to 24 ELDORADO. It merely chanced that the trail led them that way. They were not looking for the claim. Nor could they see much through the driving white till they set foot upon the claim itself. And then the air lightened, and they beheld a dump, capped by a windlass that a man was turning. They saw him draw a bucket of gravel from the hole and tilt it on the edge of the dump. Likewise they saw another, man, strangely familiar, filling a pan with the fresh gravel. His hands were large; his hair ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... and way down we could hear an awful splashing. Sailor Bill yelled down, "Look out below; stand from under; bucket coming!" With that he loosed the windlass. In a few seconds a spluttering voice from the depths yelled up to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... of the Rosan stood a youth tolling the ship's bell. The windlass grunted and whined as the schooner came up on her hawser with a thump, and overhead a useless jib slatted ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... neck of the whale, or rather the part of the body next the head—for a whale, even in courtesy, cannot be said to have a neck—and the other was tied to the head of the main-mast, the fall being passed round the windlass. The neck, or rather the part which would be the neck if it had one, is called ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... any romantic speculations of the kind. The pilot at the helm quietly smoked his pipe, thinking of nothing either past, present, or to come; those of his comrades who were not industriously smoking under the hatches were listening with open mouths to Antony Van Corlear, who, seated on the windlass, was relating to them the marvelous history of those myriads of fireflies, that sparkled like gems and spangles upon the dusky robe of night. These, according to tradition, were originally a race of pestilent sempiternous beldames, who peopled these parts long before the memory ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... doing whatever odd jobs he could hit upon that would bring him in a little money. Among the many kinds of humble employment to which he bent his energies was that of working the hoist. In New York the tall warehouses, those not supplied with an elevator, have a windlass at the top, to which is attached a heavy rope, that passes down through a wide opening to the ground floor. This rope, with a large iron hook at the end, is attached to heavy cases, or whatever is to ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... The face of his friend, by torchlight above the wall, had struck him dumb. Now that he spoke, his companions saw, exposed in the field to the view of the nunnery, a white body lying on a framework as on a bier. Near the foot stood a rough sort of windlass. Above, on the crest of the field, where a band of men had begun to scramble at the sentinel's halloo, there sat on a white pony the bright-robed figure of the ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... clad in oilskins, stood by the wheel. His face was tanned and roughened by cold and stinging brine. There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-gray sea opened beyond them, beneath the dripping jibs. The Selache was carrying sail, and lurching over the steep swell at ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... preliminary of the work was to build a rude dock. A pile-driver was towed up the river, but as this particular pile-driver had not the usual stationary steam-engine accompanying it, the great iron weight which was dropped upon the piles to drive them into the river bed was elevated by means of a windlass and mule power. The weight, once lifted, was released by means of a trigger connected by a cord with a post, where a man driving the mule around could pull it. The arrangement was ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... the other with a sneer. He drew his moulinet from his girdle, and fixing it to the windlass, he drew back the powerful double cord until it had clicked into the catch. Then from his quiver he drew a short, thick quarrel, which he placed with the utmost care upon the groove. Word had spread of what was going forward, and the rivals were ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his companion to follow him down a passage which evidently led to the front. There was no more than a dim light within, but Copplestone could see that the whole place was falling to pieces. And it was all wrapped in a dead silence. Away out on the quay was the rattle of chains, the creaking of a windlass, the voices of men and shrill laughter of women, but in there no sound existed. And Spurge suddenly stopped his stealthy creeping forward and looked at ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... we also brought a great number of bolts and other iron-work, a companion ladder, windlass, pump, bowsprit bits, bell, a torn jib, a quantity of cordage, and whatever else we could lay our hands upon, that might have the most remote chance of being of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... pipes in other windows. Marine stores jostle one another, shoulder to shoulder, and there is a rich smell of tar, bilge-water, and the hold of a cargo tramp. Almost you expect to hear the rattle of the windlass, as you stand in the badly lighted establishment of Johann Dvensk, surrounded by ropes, old ship's iron, bloodthirsty blades, canvas, blocks, and pulleys. Something in this narrow space seizes you, and you feel that you must "Luff ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... wood purchased of the planters and delivered on the bank of the river. All boats plying on the Missouri River at that time were flat bottom with paddle wheel at the stern. Two long heavy poles were carried at the bow and worked with a windlass, being used to raise the bow of the boat when becoming fast on a sand bar. The pilot was obliged to keep a continuous lookout for these bars, as the channel was ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... sailor making his vessel fast to the windlass, the ring snake lashed as much of himself as was free round the branch a foot off, and so pulled and pulled till he looked in danger of severing himself in two. Meanwhile Ophio, slowly but surely advancing, caused its head and neck to disappear, grasping ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... can scarcely be indicated by any English rendering. The term rokuro is indifferently used to designate many revolving objects—objects as dissimilar as a pulley, a capstan, a windlass, a turning lathe, and a potter's wheel. Such renderings of Rokuro-Kubi as "Whirling-Neck" and "Rotating-Neck" are unsatisfactory;—for the idea which the term suggests to Japanese fancy is that of a neck which revolves, and lengthens or retracts according to the direction of ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... You're dirt. D'ye get that? You're dirt. And on this ship you'll be treated as dirt. You'll do your work like men, or I'll know the reason why. The first time one of you bats an eye, or even looks like batting an eye, he gets his. D'ye get that? Now get out. Get along for'ard to the windlass." ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... great noise and uproar and hurry in the castle court-yard below; men shouting and calling to one another, the ringing of armor, and the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the hard stone. With the creaking and groaning of the windlass the iron-pointed portcullis would be slowly raised, and with a clank and rattle and clash of iron chains the drawbridge would fall crashing. Then over it would thunder horse and man, clattering away down the winding, stony pathway, ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... gale nearly the whole length of the hempen cable, of 120 fathoms, was veered out, besides the chain-moorings, and, for its preservation, the cable was carefully "served", or wattled, with pieces of canvas round the windlass, and with leather well greased in the hawse-hole, where the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... drive me mad. He goaded me as you have goaded me; he was as merciless as you have been merciless. We were in the shrubbery at the end of the lime-walk. I was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the well. George Talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in which the rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position. I rose at last, and turned upon him to defy him, as I had determined to defy him at the worst. I told him that if he denounced me to Sir Michael, I would declare him to be a madman or a liar, and I ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... who is really a marvellous expert—when he chooses to use his skill—at conveying water where Nature has not provided it. I watched some men making one of these kanats. They had bored a vertical hole about three feet in diameter, over which a wooden windlass had been erected. One man was working at the bottom of the shaft. By means of buckets the superfluous earth was gradually raised up to the surface, and the hole bored further. The earth removed in the excavation is then embanked ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... glass chamber of which we reached, after ascending to a considerable height, by a curious spiral stone stair case. The lantern is composed, of ninety immense reflecting lamps, which are capable of being raised or depressed with great ease by means of an iron windlass. This large lustre, is surrounded with plates of the thickest french glass, fixed in squares of iron, and discharges a prodigious light, in dark nights. A furnace of coal, was formerly used, but this has been judiciously superseded by the present invention. Round the lantern, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... hay'nt going to Hell-house Yard this time of night!" said Mr Nixon. "I'd as soon think of going down the pit with the windlass ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... above the spring-tides, and rendered water-tight by pitch and oakum, was placed above the mouth of the shaft. Its sides were supported by stout props in an inclined direction. At the top of this wooden construction, which was twenty feet in height, a platform of boards was secured, on which a windlass was placed. The water was now pumped out of the mine and the machinery set to work; but the sea penetrated through the fissures of the rock, and greatly added to the labour of the workmen, while during ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... flames still fitfully play through the sable mound, And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round; All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare— Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high. A windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship's figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall. 'This time tomorrow we shall be at home, thank ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... importance, must be next the refectory. The kitchen and offices would be placed on the lowest stage, if for no other reason, because the magazines were two hundred feet below at the landing-place, and all supplies, including water, had to be hauled up an inclined plane by windlass. To administer such a society required the most efficient management. An abbot on this scale was a very great man, indeed, who enjoyed an establishment of his own, close by, with officers in no small ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell (Strange Mansion!) in the bottom of a well: Questions are then the Windlass and the rope That pull the grave ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... if she thought I might be more profitably engaged. I took hold of the handle of the windlass, swung off the great oaken bucket, and watched it descend its often-traveled course, bumping against the wet, slippery rocks with which the well ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... which had long ago fallen into disuse, was almost hidden by the thick tangle of undergrowth which ran riot at that corner of the old park. It was partly covered by the shrunken half of a lid, above which a rusty windlass creaked in company with the music of the pines when the wind blew strongly. The full light of the sun never reached it, and the ground surrounding it was moist and green when other parts of the park were ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... also laid on to a winch, aft, for handling cargo in the main hold, and to a forward steam-windlass. The latter was mainly used for raising the anchor and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... under the orders of the pilot, were assembled at the windlass, and had commenced heaving-in upon the cable. The labour was of a nature to exhibit their individual powers, as well as their collective force, to the greatest advantage. Their motion was simultaneous, quick, and ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the table; But sickerly, withouten any fable, The horse of brass, that may not be remued.* *removed It stood as it were to the ground y-glued; There may no man out of the place it drive For no engine of windlass or polive; * *pulley And cause why, for they *can not the craft;* *know not the cunning And therefore in the place they have it laft, of the mechanism* Till that the knight hath taught them the mannere To voide* him, as ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... immense quantity of heaps, and the extent of ground they cover, almost as far as the eye can reach up the lead, and imagine the busy scene which the place must have presented in the earlier days of the rush, when each of these shafts was fitted with its windlass, and each mound was covered with toiling men. In one place a couple of engine-sheds still remain, a gaunt erection supporting the water-tanks; the poppet-heads towering above all, still fitted with the wheels that helped to bring the gold ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... heard on all sides. The deep-toned chorus of the sailor, the creaking of the capstan, and the clanking of the iron cogs; the "heave-ho!" at the windlass, and the grating of the huge anchor-chain, as link after link rasped through the rusty ring—sounds that warned us to make ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... and the small bower anchor was let go. The tide was so strong that when a sufficient quantity of cable was run out, the attempt to "check her," and to "bring up," resulted in capsizing the windlass, and causing, for a few minutes, a sense of indescribable confusion. The windlass, by its violent and spasmodic motion, knocked over two of the sailors who foolishly endeavored to regain control of its ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... of women and shouts of warning. He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the chute and rush, end first, earthward. Expectant silence fell, broken only by the vicious snarl of a flying windlass crank. But in an instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that reverberated again and again from the barren hills about. A vast all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like smoke from an explosion. But there ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... and Miss Vernon started out on their final canvass of the State, "prospecting for votes" in the mines, going underground in the vast mountains by tunnel, ladder or in buckets lowered by windlass to talk to the miners who were "on shift" and could not attend the street or hall meetings. To reach less than 100 voters at Austin, the county seat of Lauder county, required a two days' journey over the desert, and many places ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... all very true, sir," said Joe; "but I can not see how we are to manage it. There's a hole in the wall, to be sure, and a new rope on the windlass of the well: but how we be going to get the rope where 'tis needed is ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... for distilling more from the sea water that surrounded the travelers. Compressed air was carried in large tanks, and oxygen could be made as needed. In short, nothing that could add to the comfort or safety of the travelers had been omitted. There was a powerful crane and windlass, which had been installed when Mr. Swift thought his boat might be bought by the Government. This was to be used for raising wrecks or recovering objects from the bottom of the ocean. Ample stores and provisions were to be ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... slip, the cab motor shivered, the metallic rattle of windlass and chain proclaimed the return to Manhattan. Up the deserted avenues the vehicle sped, while inside the white- faced bride cowered with fingers locked and heart ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... picion was aroused, but to allay his she hastened to implore him to adopt that darling also, to which, after some slight hesitation, he consented. Another twelvemonth rolled into eternity, when one evening the lady heard a noise in the back yard, and going out she saw her husband labouring at the windlass of the well with unwonted industry. As the bucket neared the top he reached down and extracted another infant, exactly like the former ones, and holding it up, explained to the astonished matron: "Look at ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... hesitation, the second mate and Jack Reeves started on this mission of mercy, and were soon followed by nearly all the crew. Upon reaching the forecastle we found the body of a man lying across the heel of the bowsprit, jammed against the windlass pawl. The insensible form was lifted from its resting place, and, by the captain's order, finally deposited in the cabin on the transom. The skipper, steward, and myself, remained below to try and resuscitate the apparently lifeless body. The means we used were effectual; and the ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... drift down the rapids, guided by a rope one hundred and fifty feet in length. If it passes through without material injury, the craft is still at command below. Another plan is to portage. At this writing there are roller-ways on the western side, over which the boats can be rolled with a windlass to help pull them to the top of the hill. In lining a craft, it must be done on the right-hand side. Three miles farther down comes the Box Canon, one hundred yards in length and fifty feet wide, with a chute of terrific velocity. Repeated attempts have been made ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... California. (See note to plate 3.) In the foreground, on the left, a miner washes dirt in a pan. Above, and to the left, a miner washes in a rocker or cradle, the pay-dirt coming in a tram-car from the tunnel, in which are drift-diggings. The men at the windlass are sinking a shaft, prospecting for drift-deposits. To the right, in the foreground, three men are working a long-tom, which, in point of time, followed the rocker. One of the miners is keeping the dirt stirred up in the tom, under ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... transfer from ship and shore amuse me. Seeing horses and cattle swimming to and from the vessel, their noses projecting over the sides of rowboats, is interesting. Even trained circus animals are subject to this moist ordeal. By crude tackle and steam-turned windlass, suspended in midair, the poor beasts find ship asylum a most welcome port of entry. One passenger is both amusing and annoying. This odd-geared Teuton hails from Hamburg. Like most stuttering unfortunates, he is a chronic talker. He stutters garrulously ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... company. With a ringing cheer from the townspeople assembled on the beach, under the shade of the big trees, we shoved off, and, manned by willing hands, the cable rattled in, in a fashion that must have astonished the old windlass, accustomed to the leisurely proceedings that usually obtained on board the 'Daylight'. The sail was soon clapped on, the little vessel heeled over to the sea-breeze now setting in pretty stiffly, and ten minutes ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... point of old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket-pocket, and got off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a short yarn?" "Can't help it, bo'," said Old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was the up-shot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... the "crow's nest," they dropped lightly down into this most novel of elevators. There was a shrill whistle from the boatswain, the waving of white handkerchiefs where Mrs. Halliday and Mr. DeWitt stood, forward of the wheel-house, to watch the start; then the big windlass began to turn, the rope was "paid out," and the slow, rather creaky journey up the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... of the running gear, and the halliards had been severed and lay on the deck, ready to be taken on shore with the other loot littered about, though the sail itself had not been damaged. The jib and staysail, also, I could not hoist: they were lying in a heap on the windlass with a dead nigger on top, and, further aft, were another two of the gentry, one dead and one with a smashed thigh bone. I slung the wounded man overboard to the sharks, and then began to consider what was best ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass and commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion with something from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an old sail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the windlass, I ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... gained the entrance to the pass and began the ascent, which was gradual, with a riotous windlass song, in which the sentiments, yo! heave! and ho! were most frequently expressed. As he drew near, the gypsy might have been observed to grin a smile that would have been quite captivating but for some obstinate peculiarity about the muscles of the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... We were at the windlass heaving up the anchor, at the time, and had just struck up a sailor's chanty, which made a good deal of noise, but nothing seemed to disturb Granfa. He slumbered peacefuly through all the rattle of chains, and shouting of commands, so, ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... led them forwards, and as they went she noted that men were hauling on a sail, while other men, who sang a strange, wild song, worked on what seemed to be a windlass. Now they reached a cabin, and entered it, the door being shut behind them. In the cabin a man sat at a table with a lamp hanging over his head. He rose and turned towards them, bowing, and Margaret saw that ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... that it sank the dinghy up to Her gunwale, and then she was rowed away to a considerable distance, a chain grinding after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of replies vibrated romantically over the surface of the water. Then a windlass was connected with the engine, and the passengers comprehended that the intention was to drag the yacht off the sand by main force. The chain clacked and strained horribly. The shouting multiplied, as though the vessel had been a great beast that could be bullied into obedience. The muscles ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... will not," answered I; and, dashing forward to the windlass bitts, I proceeded to throw off turn after turn of the stiff hempen cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... reaches a point where he wishes to bring the water out upon the surface of the plain. Here and there, at the foot of his shafts, he digs wells, from which the fluid can readily be raised by means of a bucket and a windlass; and he thus brings under cultivation a considerable belt of land along the whole line of the kanat, as well as a large tract at its termination. These conduits, on which the cultivation of the plateau depends, were established at so remote a date that they were popularly ascribed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... force to be employed, the long end of the shaft was drawn down by a windlass; the sling was laid forward in a wooden trough provided for it, and charged with the shot. The counterpoise was, of course, now aloft, and was so maintained by a detent provided with a trigger. On pulling this, the counterpoise falls and the shaft ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... are dragged in primitive fashion to the banks of the stream by elephants and buffaloes, and shipped in rafts. Arrived at Bangkok, they are hauled on rollers inch by inch, by men working with a rude windlass and levers, to the site of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... "Wilts Archaeological Magazine," vol. xvii., in a way that supports the hypothesis advanced. A somewhat important piece of circumstantial evidence came to light during the late restoration, namely a windlass close to the pier on the north side of the supposed original site of the altar, which was possibly intended to raise and lower a baldichino, or ciborium that hung originally over the altar, or still ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... an hour the struggle continued, until the turtle gave in, when, passing a rope round one of its flippers to prevent its sinking, we towed it alongside the schooner. The turtle, however, was not dead. As we hoisted it on board, by means of the windlass and a couple of tackles fastened to a rope secured round its flippers, its huge jaws, large enough to bite a man in two, opened and shut, biting furiously at everything near it. We calculated that the monster weighed fully ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... Prince but too fond of pleasure—and which I am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance. It is painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of a windlass, so that the company was served without any intervention of domestics. But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow, a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy during her son's glorious minority, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... small stool, undressed her, pulled off her shoes, tied her hands behind her back, fastened them to a rope passed over a pulley bolted into the ceiling of the aforesaid chamber, and wound up at the other end by a four lever windlass, worked ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere
... to take up the slack of the stern-line on the windlass, sir," he shouted to the skipper, who was walking around on top of the house. "That girl can't haul her ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... bows; and the ship was drifting finely towards the beach, when the cable, not being stopped abaft the bitts, began suddenly to run out with great velocity; but a bight having by accident been thrown forward of the windlass, a riding turn was the consequence, and the anchor, in its descent, was suddenly checked about fifteen fathoms from the hawse. A squall soon after coming on, the vessel drifted obliquely towards the shore, and grounded ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... a triangular frame, on which the prisoner was stretched and bound, so that he could not move. Cords were attached to his arms and legs, and then connected with a windlass, which, when turned, dislocated the joints of ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... while the men drilled a hole about two inches in diameter and one foot deep, which they afterward filled with dynamite. After sending the tools up, the other man and I went up, while the man we left in the shaft lit the fuse. We all pulled at the windlass, and he was soon at the top. After taking off the bucket we ran up the hill about a hundred yards ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... by one man in the hole, and one or two are employed at a windlass in hauling up the dirt. Mining-shafts in placer diggings are rarely over one hundred feet deep; but one was dug in Trinity county to the depth of six hundred feet, for the purpose of prospecting, but it found neither pay-dirt nor ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... declaring that man would some time be able to fly. He was even sure that with sufficient pains he could himself construct a flying machine. He did not expect to use explosives for his motor power, however, but thought that a windlass properly arranged, worked by hand, might enable a man to make sufficient movement to carry himself aloft or at least to support himself in the air, if there were enough surface to enable him to use his lifting power to advantage. He was in intimate relations ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... from a long cable, formed of two conducting wires, which winds around a windlass with metallic journals which are electrically insulated. These journals communicate, through the intermedium of two friction springs, with the conductors on the one hand and, on the other, with the poles of an automatic and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... height, Popocatepetl being the loftiest of them all. Parties ascend on horseback to the snow line, and from thence the distance to the summit is accomplished on foot. Some adventurous people make the descent into the crater by means of the bucket and windlass used by the sulphur-gatherers, but the most inquisitive can see all that they desire from the northerly edge of the cone. The expeditions for the ascent are made up at Amecameca. The time necessarily occupied is about three days, and the cost is twenty-five ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the frontal sinuses. What was the use of losing his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor lady-teacher without a friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had taken one turn ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... intended to heave overboard everything of the sort; but fortunately, without loss of time, a hatchet was found under the windlass forward, where one of the men recollected he had left it, after chopping wood for firing, and another discovered an axe in the carpenter's store-room, under a number of things which had been routed out of the chests by the pirates in their search for money. With these two tools ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... by name—a Methodist of the Lady Huntingdon connexion. The other, Jim Larkins, was Canadian born, the son of a neighbouring farmer. About four o'clock in the morning they emerged from their spruce booth and began hauling with their rude windlass upon the seine, heavily ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... and repose at 3 o'clock this morning sent me forth to see why the windlass was not being manned. A thing like a big grey bat flapping about, proved, on inspection, to be that rascal the Lord High Admiral Satarah. He said he could not start, as the hired coolies from Kunis had been so terrified ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... well had been overlooked by the invaders and the bucket was still fastened to the chain that wound around a stout wooden windlass. Inga took hold of the crank and began letting the bucket down into the well, when suddenly he was startled by a muffled ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Shadwell basin for ever so long. You may imagine her state. She was all rust, dust, grime—soot aloft, dirt on deck. To me it was like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage. She was about 400 tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden latches to the doors, not a bit of brass about her, and a big square stern. There was on it, below her name in big letters, a lot of scroll work, with the gilt off, and some sort of a coat of arms, with the motto 'Do or Die' underneath. I remember ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... for the summer and purchased some mining tools for the purpose. We camped out and dug holes around all summer, getting just about enough to pay our expenses—not a very encouraging venture, for we had lived in a tent and had picked and shoveled and blasted and twisted a windlass hard enough to have earned a good ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... there was a sudden movement and bustle around the barricade of the Rue Castiglione. The members of the Commune appeared with their inevitable red scarfs.[96] Then there was a great hush. At the same instant the windlass creaked; the ropes which hung from the summit of the column tightened; the gaping hole in the masonry below, gradually closed; the statue bent forward in the rays of the setting sun, and then suddenly describing in the air a gigantic sweep, fell among the flags with ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... silky cloth and a hat of sable: rich enow it was. Ho, what costly bands he wore upon his quiver! A panther's skin was drawn over it for its sweet fragrance' (4) sake. He bare a bow, which any but the hero must needs draw back with a windlass, and he would bend it. His vesture was befurred with otter skin (5) from head to toe. From the bright fur shone out on both sides of the bold master of the hunt many a bar of gold. Balmung (6) he also bare, a good broad sword, that was so sharp that it never ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... bundle, leads the way out of the Schachtmeister's office to another portion of the same building. Here are heaps of dark grey "macadamised" stones;—silver and lead ores just raised from the pit; over whose very mouth we are unknowingly standing. A windlass is in the centre of the chasm; and it is by means of this windlass that the metalliferous substance is raised to the surface in square wooden boxes. Here the dressing of the ores commences; boys cluster in all directions, under the wooden shed, and in oilier sheds ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... oaks furnish ample shade for the tidy yard where an old well, whose bucket hanging from a rickety windlass frame, was supplying water for two Negro women, who were leaning over washtubs. As they rubbed the clothes against the washboards, their arms kept time to the chant of Lord I'se Comin' Home. Paul and two Negro men, barefooted and dressed in overalls ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... pulled endwise over this track with the aid of rattans, perhaps a hundred or more men combining their strength. If the stem proves too heavy to be moved at any part of the journey by their direct pull and push, a rough windlass is constructed by fixing the stem of a small tree across two standing trees and winding the rattans upon this, the trimmed branches of the tree serving as the arms of the windlass. The Kayans are skilled in this kind of transport of heavy timber; for the building of their ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... would have been no more heard of Pierre Canot; as it was, I was sorely bruised by the fall, and didn't recover myself for full ten minutes after. Then I discovered that I was sitting in a large wooden trough, hooped with iron, and supported by two heavy chains that passed over a windlass, about ten feet ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Brobdingnag. It is true that neat mechanical contrivances save their muscle wherever it is possible. A great plate of iron or a bundle of deck flooring is picked up, by a hand which swings down from aloft, like a visiting-card by a lady: a single man turning a windlass, it sails into the air, gets up as high as it chooses to, and drops delicately just where it is wanted along the length of the structure. Out on the wharf a double "hoister," working by steam, and able to pick up and swing a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the shady sidewalk Rimrock Jones, the follower after big dreams, sat silent, balancing the sack of ore in a bronzed and rock-scarred hand. He was a powerful man, with the broad, square-set shoulders that come from much swinging of a double jack or cranking at a windlass. The curling beard of youth had covered his hard-bitten face and his head was unconsciously thrust forward, as if he still glimpsed his vision and was eager to follow it further. The crowd settled down and gazed at him ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... whom he had said he was going that day to the "See Saw" property, far over the Mahogany range, near the Indian reservation. He determined to go. Perhaps the shack and the shaft-house on the claim, with the windlass and tools included by Briggs in the bill of sale, might fetch a few ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... iron, which contains two symmetrical apertures. This disk is movable around a horizontal axis, and its lower part and its trunnions are protected by the sloping mass of concrete that covers the head of the casemate. A windlass and chain give the disk the motion that brings one of its apertures opposite the embrasure or that closes the latter. When this portion of the disk has suffered too much from the enemy's fire, a simple maneuver gives it a half revolution, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... stone across the court into a vault or well sunk in the ground, from whence it is dipped for the pigs. The vault is closed at the mouth by a heavy wooden lid. There is a well and pump for water here; sometimes with a windlass, when the well is deep. If the water be low or out of condition, it is fetched in yokes from the nearest running stream. The acid or "eating" power of the buttermilk, &c., may be noted in the stones, which in many places are scooped ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... silently as possible, were employed in clearing the running rigging, for every thing was in the utmost confusion. Having found one musket, three bayonets, and some whale lances, they were laid handy, to prevent the ship being boarded. A handsaw well greased was laid upon the windlass to saw off the cable, and the only remaining hatchet on board, was placed by the mizen mast, to cut the stern moorings when the ship should have sufficiently swung off. Taking one man with me, we went upon the fore-top-sail-yard, loosed the sail and turned out the reefs, ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... was not yet finished; masons and stone-cutters were engaged in covering the strong walls with dark serpentine and black marble. The huge windlass stood ready to raise a masterpiece of Alexandrian art. This was intended for the pediment, and represented Venus Victrix with helmet, shield, and lance, leading a band of winged gods of love, little archers at whose head Eros ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the beach, and attending to them; while the older part of the community are resting from their labours. We were amused at a scene we witnessed on the beach. Two old men, aided by a big girl and a boy, were engaged in hauling up a lugger by means of a windlass, which they worked round and round with wonderful energy, putting to shame a young fellow who sat on a coil of rope ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... the swift current swept them downward. After incredible labor they made the opposite bank, but far below the steamboat. Closely hugging the shore, they now crept up the stream, and fastening the line to a tree, rigged a windlass, and finally warped the vessel again into ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... begins to diminish, and scarcely have you had time to notice the change than it is altogether gone! The women must go back to the well and let the bucket down, and laboriously turn and turn the handle of the windlass till it mounts to the top again. The pretty moist, green herbage, the graceful grasses, quickly wither away; dust and straws and rubbish from the road lie in the dry channel, and by and by it is filled with a summer growth of dock and loveless nettles which ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... the windlass, he has loaded in the drift, He has pounded at the face of oozy clay; He has taxed himself to sickness, dark and damp and double shift, He has labored like a demon night and day. And now, praise God, it's over, and he seems to breathe again ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... orders boomed back and forth; there was running and racing and hauling and swarming up the rigging; and from the windlass came the chanteyman's solo with ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... most astonishing part of the vessel, the colossal rudder, not hung with pintles and gudgeons, the vessel having no stern-post, but suspended to two windlasses by three large ropes made of cane and hemp; one round a windlass on the next deck, and two round a windlass on the upper deck of all, so that it could be raised or lowered according to the depth of water. When lowered to its full extent it drew about twenty-four feet, being twelve feet more than the draught of the vessel. It was steered on this berth-deck ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... not go on shore to see his sick mother. He heard the order of Captain Fairfield to man the windlass and stand by the head sails; then he pulled for the Caribbee, to which his boat belonged. Everything had worked to his entire satisfaction. Levi had been as credulous as he desired him to be, and The Starry Flag was standing out of the bay ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... 25, 1805] 25th of February Monday 1805 we fixed a Windlass and Drew up the two Perogues on the upper bank and attempted the Boat, but the Roap which we bade made of Elk Skins proved too weak & broke Several times night Comeing on obliged us to leave her in a Situation but little advanced- we were Visited by the Black mockerson Chief of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... nephew to visit him on board of the ship. The young gentleman went on board, and was highly pleased with everything he saw. Wishing to give his uncle an idea of his superior knowledge, he tapped him on the shoulder, and pointing to the windlass, asked, "Quid est hoc?" His uncle, being a man who despised such vanity, took a chew of tobacco from his mouth, and throwing it in his nephew's face, replied, "Hoc ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... coiling away the ropes, harpoons, lances, &c., all were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice. The man in the "crow's-nest", as they call the cask fixed up at the masthead, was looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the deck. Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was sitting beside him on an empty ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... The windlass creaked protestingly and the heavy chain dropped slowly into the river. The barge steered to the center of the channel, gathering speed as it ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... be any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano, be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now he fouls it in the pitch. I don't like to accost him. I will speak to this other, this old Jack here on the windlass. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... as wages and profits are. They are like two buckets in a well: when one rises, the other descends, but neither of the two motions is the cause of the other; both are simultaneous effects of the same cause, the turning of the windlass. ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... distinctly hear the creaking of the windlass. The "Speedy" was at first held by her anchor; then, when that had been raised, she began to drift towards the shore. The wind was blowing from the sea; the jib and the foretopsail were hoisted, and the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... deep Through the noisome and smoke-grimed city, Turning the wheels and the spindles, And the great looms that have no pity,— Weight, and pulley, and windlass, And steel that flashes and kindles, And hears no forest-learnt ditty, Not ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... each stand was a boy about nine years old, well secured by an iron soldered on to the upper part of the arm, but loosely enough to allow him to turn in every direction. These eight angels, supported by the said iron, were lowered from the space within the half-globe by means of a small windlass that was unwound little by little, to a depth of eight braccia below the level of the square beams that support the roof, in such a manner that they were seen without concealing the view of the angels who were round the inner edge of the half-globe. In the midst of this cluster of eight ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... long was the discussion they had that evening around the windlass on this subject. Some held that it was absurd to blame men for not being able, "when p'raps they couldn't if they wor to try." Others thought that they might have tried first before saying that "p'raps they couldn't." One admitted that it ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... the town. Crowds came from Coketown. Rope and windlass were brought and two men were lowered into the pit. The poor fellow was there, alive but terribly injured. A rough bed was made, and so at last the crushed and broken form was brought up to the light ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... may, in the New World, or the Old, she meets this old, old tale everywhere. It is the one bond of sympathy which I have found existing in three quarters of the world alike. So on, until the cable rattles over the windlass, as the good ship's anchor plunges down fathoms deep into the blue waters ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... Uncle Billy's house, he had just gone out to draw a pitcher of water. Mammy stopped to get a drink, and John Jay leaned up against the well-shed. The rumbling of the windlass and the fall of the bucket against the water below aroused him somewhat, and by the time he had swallowed half a gourdful of the cold ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the dyke in the new shaft at a shallower depth than Dick's Mount of Gold drive, and here Harry expended those turbulent emotions that welled within him, working furiously. Whether handling pick or shovel, toiling at the windlass, or ringing the heavy hammer on the drill, he wrought with a feverish energy that amazed his mates, who ascribed it all to an excusable but rather insane anxiety to test the value of their mine in the mill. For their part they were very well satisfied with the golden ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... would take too much space here to enumerate. With the exception of the few modern installations most of the mines are worked by the primitive Mexican system of winding up the ore in raw-hide sacks, hauled by means of cables made from maguey fibre, upon a mule-actuated windlass—the malacate. In some cases the miners carry huge pieces of ore on their backs, from 100 lbs. to 200 lbs. in weight, along the galleries to the shaft. Interior transport ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... astern, and swung to its chain as to a tow line. We were not so much as bidden to strike sail now, and the Vikings began to crowd forward in order to board us by the stern, as the grappling chain was hove short by their windlass. ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... comes a storm, and so, after weeks of listless waiting, doing nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, a very gale of bustle comes on. 'Sail ho!' comes from the lookout aloft. 'One point off our starboard bow!' 'Man the windlass and up anchor!' shouts the officer of the deck, as the strange sail bears down steadily toward us, finally showing signals which tell us she's a friend and brings a mail. The Iroquois steams out to meet her; their anchors drop, and they hold friendly confab. We, too, soon come up, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... restless, and rose, making his way forward about the narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough and ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... appear to him to be more terrible than he had before conceived. He was invited to get into a rough square bucket, in which there was just room for himself and another to stand; he was specially cautioned to keep his head straight, and his hands and elbows from protruding, and then the windlass began to turn, and the upper world, the sunlight, and all ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... alongside the barque as you can go, Sir Reginald, and give me a chance to get our heaving line on board. Then, as soon as I wave my hand, go ahead gently until you have brought a strain upon the hawser, when you may increase the speed to about twelve knots—not more, or you will tear the windlass out of the barque. Steer straight out between those two bergs, and remember that moments are ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of a plank supported by two logs which stood upright in the centre of the circus. In the centre of the plank was a windlass, from which hung an iron chain with a ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... beer against the walls, and five or six mice that suddenly pitched screaming through the opening which I made, greatly startling me, there being of dead mice an extraordinary number in all this mine-region. I went back to the standing, and at one point in the ground, where there was a windlass and chain, lowered myself down a 'cut'—a small pit sunk perpendicularly to a lower coal-stratum, and here, almost thinking I could hear the perpetual rat-tat of notice once exchanged between the putt-boys below and the windlass-boys above, I proceeded down a dipple ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... lost!" the man replied. "I was at the windlass when they shouted up to me to go up and fetch them a bottle of rum. They had just struck it rich, and wanted a drink on the strength ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... summary. A fire was kindled in the little caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber, breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook's ax would have struck the blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo was assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above the elbow, was no longer Samoa's; and he saw his own ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the life of the seas no more. The gloom of the forest fell on her, mournful like a winding sheet. The bushes of the bank tapped their twigs on the bluff of her bows, and a pendent spike of tiny brown blossoms swung to and fro over the ruins of her windlass. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad |
