"Becalmed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chiefs come and invite Captain Fuller to help them, but he replies, that if they wish to fight, they must fight among themselves. I would rather he had tried to dissuade them not to fight at all. We make sail out of the harbour, and are becalmed not far off a fortress on the summit of a high cliff which is to ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... short interval of peace into which the country was now lulled,—like a ship becalmed for a moment in the valley between two vast waves,—such a change took place in the relative positions and bearings of the parties that had been so long arrayed against each other, and such new boundaries and divisions of opinion were formed, as considerably ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... was the shore of Spain. Since we got into the Mediterranean, we have been becalmed for some days within easy view of it. All along are fine mountains, brown all day, and with a bloom on them at sunset like that of a ripe plum. Here and there at their feet little white towns are sprinkled ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... me you have a good deal of energy for such a warm day," he commented, running his fingers through his thick dark hair. "Doesn't that breeze feel good, though! Eastshore has been becalmed this week and the dust from the plastering has settled on everything in the house—I'm glad Mother can't see it. And where ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... the sharp sting of cold, but elastic and pure as on a mountain peak. Being becalmed for a day or two off a wooded point, the skipper sent a boat ashore for fuel and water. Arthur eagerly volunteered to help; and after half an hour's rowing through the calm blue bay, he had the satisfaction to press his foot on the soil of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... with their convoy under Dominique, while their men-of-war seemed much scattered: fourteen of the latter were between Dominique and the Saints, with a breeze from east-north-east; but the rest were becalmed under the land about St. Rupert's Bay, and one ship was observed at some ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... out and ran on deck. "Here, boys!" he cried, "we didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on the evening of the sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as you've done with these chests," he added, "you can turn to and roll out beef and water-breakers; it'll look more ship-shape—like as if we were getting ready for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Moneth of Aprill 1699 being becalmed to the N.N.E. of the Island Mona the Men belonging to the Sloop discovered a Sail E. and B.S.[4] from Mona which the Pilote of the Sloope supposed to be a Guarda Costa, a small vessell fitted out by the Spanish Governors to clear the Coast of Foreign Traders. A few houres after Wee discovered ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... easier in body, and embarked on the sea of patience in which he was to float becalmed until his time was up. In reply to his inquiries as to our plans, we told him we were resting a few days, which was the truth. Then we went up to town and made two purchases; a small tent, and a derringer pistol. They cost us three hundred and fifty dollars. It was the quiet time of day; ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... he alone expected to hear more of those villagers; and the oxen were drinking up the water every day, he alone feared that there was no more to be had, and a very unpleasant fear that is when your ship is becalmed in a desert. For over a week they went on like this doing ten knots a day and the music and singing got on the captain's nerves, but he dared not tell his men what the trouble was. And then one day the oxen drank up the last of the water. And Lieutenant Smerdrak ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... at all they lay there becalmed, and Halvor asked the skipper to give him leave to go on shore to look about him, for he would much rather do that ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... render our situation more disastrous, the weather became intensely hot, and the people, in spite of all my remonstrances, contrived every night to steal a part of the water which was not yet expended, so that at last we found ourselves becalmed, without a drop ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... said the captain awkwardly. "We found the gig o' the Lady Jermyn the week arter we found you, bein' becalmed like; there wasn't no lady aboard ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... time to see the boat go alongside the brigantine, which was under a close reefed lower topsail and a bit of her mainsail only—for Guest knew what was coming, and had prepared to meet it; the cutter, too, was reefed down, and had taken her dingy on deck. At that moment, however, both vessels were becalmed; but scarcely had the whale boat been hoisted up to the starboard davits of the Fray Bentos and secured, when the hurricane struck both vessels. I thought at first that our poor old brigantine was going to turn turtle, for she ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... calms around the equator in July, he conducted his three ships into such a strong northern ocean current that he had to change his course before ever they reached the equator. Next they lay becalmed for eight days in the most cruel heat imaginable. The provisions were spoiling; the men's tempers were spoiling, too; and so, on the last day of July, judging that they must be south of the Caribbean Islands, Columbus gave up all thought of new investigations ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... say, 'what an everlastin' heavy thing an empty cart is, isnt it?' An Owl should be their emblem, and the motto, 'He sleeps all the days of his life.' The whole country is like this night; beautiful to look at, but silent as the grave—still as death, asleep, becalmed. ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... endeavour to get some water, of which, by this time, we were in great want. At length, as we advanced, the existence of the inlet was no longer doubtful. At five o'clock we reached the west point of it, where we were becalmed for some time. While in this situation, I ordered all the boats to be hoisted out to tow the ships in. But this was hardly done, before a fresh breeze sprung up again at N.W. with which we were enabled to stretch up into an arm of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... yards! Sailors, do you hear?" A hearty "Aye, Sir!" was the loud response, And she had glided into sea at once! With haste they for the Northern passage make, But that good breeze did them too soon forsake. Awhile they lay becalmed, and then return, And reach the Southern passage just at morn. Soon, soon they lose the truly precious sight Of English shores, bathed in the morning light! A few more hours, and land has disappeared; They see no more Old Albion's cliffs upreared. Let us ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... know, set their broad white sails like wings to catch the favouring winds, and then they go scudding across the seas like birds to their distant harbours. But when there is no wind these vessels must sometimes lie becalmed, and do not move for days or sometimes weeks. The steamships, on the other hand, do not depend upon the wind to drive them ahead. Their power comes from great engines away down in the heart of the vessel. ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... not much movement any way, and for several hours before and after noon they lay almost becalmed upon the ocean. This period was passed in silence and inaction. There was nothing for them to talk about but their forlorn situation, and this topic had been exhausted. There was nothing for them to do. Their only occupation was to watch ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... on dry ground and was not an English sailor, I did not jump after him, but left him to his own ease, and we saw no more of him, for we were going ten knots, while he lay becalmed without a breath of wind. This was one of the most successful acts of usurpation recorded in modern history. It has its parallels, I know; but I cannot now stop to comment on them, or on my own folly ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... harbor, she steamed into a bank of solid fog, and only got out of it the next morning, just before passing Hellgate, at the head of East River, New York. On the passage down Long Island Sound she met with an accident. She ran into the schooner Resurrection, which was lying becalmed across her course, carrying away most of the schooner's bowsprit, but doing no serious damage. This, however, was not the worst. On arriving in New York, it was found that one of the passengers was missing! He had fallen overboard during the night, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the villas inside, white and remote; now and then we saw the pillared end of a verandah or a plaster Neptune ruling a restricted fountain area. Out of the other window stretched the blue Gulf of Genoa all becalmed and smiling, with freakish little points and headlines, and here and there the white blossom of a sail. The Senator counted eighty tunnels—he wants that fact mentioned too—some of them so short that it was like shutting one's ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... ship becalmed in the doldrums" Frontispiece. 18 "Harry had obtained a map of Australia" 56 A visit to the Zoological Garden 147 "There they go!" shouted Mr. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet; And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 110 As if the silent shadow of a cloud Hung there becalmed, with the next ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... be very suitable for the purpose.[4] The projection of each day's observations would occupy but a short time; and should circumstances on any occasion prevent the execution of it, when the ship was becalmed or leisure otherwise afforded, it would form an interesting and useful occupation, and serve to beguile some of the tedium often experienced at ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt
... prepared,—a duty, Helen, to become worthy of you! Will you smile? No, you will not smile if I say I have had my brief moments of ambition. Sometimes as a boy, with Plutarch in my hand, stretched idly under the old cedar-trees at Laughton; sometimes as a sailor, when, becalmed on the Atlantic, and my ears freshly filled with tales of Collingwood and Nelson, I stole from my comrades and leaned musingly over the boundless sea. But when this ample heritage passed to me, when I had no more my own fortunes to make, my own rank to build up, such dreams became less and less ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... But the last word is of more concern. Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. They have been so tried among the inconstant squalls and currents, so often sailed for islands in the air or lain becalmed with burning heart, that they will risk all for solid ground below their feet. Desperate pilots, they run their sea-sick, weary bark upon the dashing rocks. It seems as if marriage were the royal road through life, and realised, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on summer Sundays when ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this object, she was cruizing on the 27th of August, off the Colorados Roads, at the western extremity of the Island. The day had been extremely sultry, and towards the evening the schooner lay becalmed, awaiting the springing up of the land breeze, a blessing which only those can appreciate who have enjoyed its refreshing coolness after passing many hours beneath the burning rays of ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... the Racehorse and the Carcass until they neared the Polar regions. Then they were becalmed, surrounded with ice, and wedged in so that ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... boat blew along with such prodigious speed, running to the height of a sea as though she meant to dart from that eminence into the air, that the slope of each following surge swung like a pendulum under her, and though her sail was becalmed in the trough, her momentum was so great that she was speeding up the acclivity and catching the whole weight of the wind afresh before there was time for ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... calm, when the sails literally fell to pieces with rain-rot in the fog; and on the evening of September 8 the becalmed crew were suddenly aroused by the tide-rip of roaring breakers. Heaving out all anchors at once, Chirikoff with difficulty made fast to rocky bottom. In the morning, when the fog lifted, he found himself ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... later however the fleet was becalmed, and Cecil took the opportunity of calling a council to consider a wholly new set of 'Fighting Instructions' which had been drafted by Sir Thomas Love. This step we are told was taken because Cecil considered the original articles ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... was rough the "Flycatcher" was sick, much to the delight of Wickham; but if the ship was becalmed, Darwin came out and gloried in the sunshine, and in his work of dissecting, labeling, and writing memoranda and data. The sailors might curse the weather—he did not. Thus passed the days. At each stop many specimens were secured, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... for the breeze will come up before long and save you the trouble. But the sea is white and motionless. Far in the offing a Sicilian schooner and a couple of clumsy "martinganes"—there is no proper English name for the craft—are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting, we set sail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints, in the Brasils, in about twenty-two days; meeting nothing remarkable in our passage but this, that about three days after we sailed, being becalmed, and the current setting strong to the N.N.E. running, as it were, into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something out of our course; and once or twice our men cried Land, to the westward; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Ormond, Devonshire, Dorset, Portland, Monmouth, Zulestein, and the Bishop of London. Two distinguished admirals, Cloudesley Shovel and George Rooke, commanded the men of war which formed the convoy. The passage was tedious and disagreeable. During many hours the fleet was becalmed off the Godwin Sands; and it was not till the fifth day that the soundings proved the coast of Holland to be near. The sea fog was so thick that no land could be seen; and it was not thought safe for the ships to proceed further in the darkness. William, tired ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lay the van ships under De Bougainville becalmed, with no enemy in range of them. The "Ville de Paris," with several of her consorts of the French centre, formed another group, with the whole of the rearward English division exchanging fire with them at long range. The rear of the French, under Vaudreuil, and the ships of the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... The captain informed us, he had named his ship the Bonnetta, out of gratitude to Providence; for once, when he was sailing to America with a good number of passengers, the ship in which he then sailed was becalmed for five weeks, and during all that time, numbers of the fish bonnetta swam close to her, and were caught for food; he resolved therefore, that the ship he should next get, should ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... cape, we felt no other desire but to get away from them as soon as possible, so little agreeable were those rocks to the view, even in the case of people who had been some months at sea! And by the help of a land breeze we succeeded in gaining an offing. While becalmed here, we measured the velocity of the current setting east, which we found to be about three miles ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... like some crazy machine that is always going either too slow or too fast. From the cradle to the grave we alternate between the Sargasso Sea and the rapids—forever either becalmed or storm-tossed. It seemed to Maud, as she looked across the dinner-table in order to make sure for the twentieth time that it really was George Bevan who sat opposite her, that, after months in which nothing whatever had happened, she was now living through a period when everything ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... following is the account of the voyage, "big with adventures," as given by the latter in a letter to his friend Illingworth:—"At first we had very little foul weather, and indeed were for several days becalmed amongst the islands, which was so far fortunate, for a few degrees further north the most tremendous gales were blowing, and they appear (from our future information) to have wrecked every vessel exposed to their violence. We had two examples of the effects of the hurricane; ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... oars, and wings. The car consisted simply of a wooden platform surrounded by a breast high railing, and the oars and wings were intended, the one to check, by a vertical motion, the rapidity of descent, and the other to act as sails when becalmed in the upper regions of cloudland. He requested permission to make Chelsea Hospital the scene of his first aerial exploit, and the Governor, Sir George Howard, with the full approval of His Majesty King George the Third, gave his consent. He accordingly made all necessary arrangements ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... through the Highlands the "Half Moon" was becalmed near Stony Point and the "people of the Mountains" came on board and marvelled at the ship and its equipment. One canoe kept hanging under the stern and an Indian pilfered a pillow and two shirts from the cabin windows. ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... a time, I made a voyage in a merchant barque. We were becalmed in the South Seas. And weary work it wur, a doin' of nothin' from day to day. But when the water began to come up thick from the bottom of the water-casks, it was wearier a deal. Then a thick fog came on, as ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... twelve we were steering out of the bay of Gibraltar; the wind was in the right quarter, but for some time we did not make much progress, lying almost becalmed beneath the lee of the hill; by degrees, however, our progress became brisker, and in about an hour we found ourselves careering smartly ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... letting the delicious moisture penetrate to their innermost down. The smoke from the flues of Sandbourne had barely strength enough to emerge into the drizzling rain, and hung down the sides of each chimney-pot like the streamer of a becalmed ship; and a troop of rats might have rattled down the pipes from roof to basement with less noise than ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... degrees, steaming in the teeth of the wind, heaving her long gleaming sides through the roll of the South Atlantic. The Royal Charter passing us like a phantom ship through the hot haze, when we were becalmed on the line, waking the silence of the heaving glassy sea with her throbbing propeller. A valiant vainglorious little gun-boat going out all the way to China by herself, giving herself the airs of a seventy-four, requiring ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... at several islands, where we sold or exchanged our goods. One day, while under sail, we were becalmed near a small island, but little elevated above the level of the water, and resembling a green meadow. The captain ordered his sails to be furled, and permitted such persons as were so inclined to land; of this number I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... where we had intended to stop and dine and meet some friends; but, unfortunately the weather was not sufficiently favourable for us to land; so we made a long tack out to sea, and, in the evening, found ourselves once more near the land, off Beachy Head. While becalmed off Brighton, we all—children included—availed ourselves of the opportunity to go overboard and have our first swim, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We had steam up before ten, and again proceeded on our course. It was very hot, and sitting under the awning turned out to be the pleasantest occupation. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... their silks and spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine, which have trickled through the roof. The scene paints itself upon our eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought. The brain is a becalmed sea, without a ripple on its shores. Mind and body are drowned in delicious rest; and we no longer remember what we are. We only know that there is an Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it may be, it ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... storm begins to slake, The sullen clouds to melt away, The moon becalmed in a blue lake Looks ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... sink her. It does not signify whether the enemy clambers in by the window, or whether all at once he shakes the foundation, if at last he destroys the house. In this life we sail, as it were, in all unknown sea. We meet with rocks, shelves, and sands; sometimes we are becalmed, and at other times we find ourselves tossed and buffeted by a storm. Thus we are never secure, never out of danger; and, if we fall asleep, are sure to perish. We have a most intelligent and experienced pilot at the helm of our vessel, even Jesus Christ himself, who will conduct us ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Uncle Tom took me on shore, but we remained only a very short time, so that I cannot give you a more particular account of the place. Leaving the coast of Africa, we stood across the Atlantic towards that of America. We had left the land some four or five days when the wind fell, and we lay becalmed, one side and then the other dipping provokingly into the smooth, glassy, and shining water, and very nearly rolling our masts out. It was so hot, too, that the pitch bubbled up through the seams in the deck, and Dickey Snookes declared we could have roasted our dinners on the ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... a fleet of five vessels, and on September 20, 1519, he set sail for the Canary Islands. Continuing the voyage toward Sierra Leone, the vessels were becalmed, and for a period of three weeks they advanced only nine miles. Then a terrific storm arose, and the sailors, who had grumbled and found fault with everything during the entire voyage, broke into open mutiny. This mutiny Magellan quickly quelled by causing the principal ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... then the second in the world, literally whitened every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. They needed no protection then, and none foresaw that within a decade, by the operations ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... lee of an iceberg ain't a place one would choose, if one could help it. There you are becalmed under it, and the berg drifting down upon you, going perhaps four knots an hour. No, the farther you keep away from icebergs the better. But if you have got to be near one, keep to windward of it. At least, ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... East the same cause produced the same effect; the evolution of ascertained truth in medicine, begun by Hippocrates and continued by Herophilus, seemed lost forever. Medical science, trying to advance, was like a ship becalmed in the Sargasso Sea: both the atmosphere about it and the medium through which it must move resisted all progress. Instead of reliance upon observation, experience, experiment, and thought, attention was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the hill, knit shad nets all winter. Now one can buy the net already knit practically as cheaply as one can buy the twine. Sail boats dotted the Hudson—sloops and schooners loitering up and down the river or tacking noisily back and forth. I know they used to get becalmed and tide-bound out here and the sailors would come ashore and raid fruit orchards. Once some of them stole a sheep and took it out to the schooner. The owner of the sheep came after the sailors with a search warrant but the mischievous sailors pulled the anchor chain ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... Black Galley of Zeeland. And it might have gone hard with that devoted ship, already crippled in the previous encounter, had not Captain Logier fortunately drifted with the current near enough to give her assistance, while the other sailing ships lay becalmed and idle spectators. At last Spinola, conspicuous by his armour, and by magnificent recklessness of danger, fell upon the deck of his galley, torn to pieces with twenty-four wounds from a stone gun of the Black Galley, while at nearly the same, moment a gentle breeze began ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... seemed hung in air. They were reflected to a preternatural length in the glassy floor. Our boat appeared to leave no wake; those strange waters closed up foamlessly behind her. But our black smoke hung, away back on the trail, in a thick, clearly-bounded cloud, becalmed in the hot, windless air, very close over the water, like an evil soul after death that cannot win dissolution. Behind us and to the right lay the low, woody shores of Southern Ontario and Prince Edward Peninsula, long dark lines of green, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... knew, they might have missed her on the seas. On the afternoon of the fourth day, when they were off the Lizard, and creeping along very slowly under a light breeze, the look-out man reported a ship lying becalmed ahead. Peter, who had the eyes of a hawk, climbed up the mast to look at her, and presently called down that he believed from her shape and rig she must be the caravel, though of this he could not be ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... my hearty. Why, look here, Jem, it's solemn truth I'm tellin' you," and the boatswain looked as grave as a judge when speaking, as if to substantiate his words—"only t'other day there was a fine clipper tea-ship, just like ourn, that got becalmed off Hainan island in the Gulf of Tonquin, when, in less nor half an hour arter the wind failed, a lot o' junks sculled up to her and opened fire on the crew with their cussed jinghals and matchlocks; and, if it hadn't a' been fur a breeze a springin' up as let 'em make sail and get away ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... consisted principally of sayings of Daggett, uttered during his homeward-bound passage, and transmitted by the master of the brig to him of the sloop in the course of conferences that wore away a long summer's afternoon, as the two vessels lay becalmed within a hundred fathoms of each other. These sayings, however, had been frequent and intelligible. All men like to deal in that which makes them of importance; and the possession of his secrets had just the effect on Daggett's ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... without which, as I take it, no mortal can have aught of valour or worth in himself; and if you have been or are enamoured, it will be an easy thing to you to understand my desire. I love and love hath moved me to give you this present pains; and she whom I love is in the ship which you see becalmed yonder and which, beside that thing which I most desire, is full of very great riches. These latter, an ye be men of valour, we may with little difficulty acquire, fighting manfully; of which victory I desire nothing to my share save one sole lady, for whose love I have taken up arms; everything ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and made signal. At seven o'clock, another gun was fired, but the vessel still stood off, and was seen to make sail to the westward without paying any regard whatever to either, and being favored by a breeze while the Vincennes was becalmed, she stole off and was soon ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... away on their right, And made Clapham Common the following night, Then lay on their oars for a fortnight or two, Becalmed ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out of their ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... soon gained a high reputation for seamanship, and his genius for handling a ship under all conditions was one of the most important factors in his success. He saved his ship on one occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by "kedging"—in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windlass. As soon ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... away, I think five sometimes, and sometimes a hundred—lie the islands of Coronado, named, I suppose, from the old Spanish adventurer Vasques de Coronado, huge bulks of beautiful red sandstone, uninhabited and barren, becalmed there in the changing blue of sky and sea, like enormous mastless galleons, like degraded icebergs, like Capri and Ischia. They say that they are stationary. I only know that when I walk along the ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... three boats. Beyond thinking that he saw pitchforks on all of them, however, he did not give us much information. The wind continued to fail, and it got hotter and hotter. In ten minutes we were sailing at a very slow rate,— hardly more than moving. The yacht was becalmed, its sail flapping. The little boat from Rogers's Island, however, still had a breeze; it was about half a mile distant ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... forward . . . what pitiful delusions! . . . There was nothing that swept forward. There were only futile storms of froth and excitement that whirled you about to no end, one after another. One died down and left you becalmed and stagnant, and another rose. And that would die down in its turn. Until at the end, shipwreck, and a sinking ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... as his own. Panting, struggling, drenched with a cold perspiration, he would struggle back into a brief and miserable consciousness. With scarcely any respite his diseased imagination would seize him again, and now the ship, with tattered sails and broken masts, would be becalmed in the centre of a cyclone. All around him was the whirling tornado from which the vessel had passed into awful silence and deceptive peace. Although viewless, a resistless volume was circling round him, a revolving torrent of air that might at any second make its existence known by wrenching ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the Greenland village was indeed interesting. There was the blue sea before it, dotted with "pond-lilies." Off the mouth of the harbor, the icebergs went sailing by, so white, so stately, so slow, like a fleet almost becalmed. Back of the village swelled the rocky cliffs bare of snow now, and many rivulets went flashing down their sides from ponds and pools nestling in granite recesses. Away off, towered the mountains, their still snowy tops suggesting the powdered heads of grand old ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... countenance, like that cast by some summer cloud long becalmed, which sets sail before a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... hear was a faint murmur of voices, and the ripple of the water against the side of the boat. These sounds gradually ceased, and the frightened child realized that the wind had died away, and that the boats were becalmed. She peered out of the little cabin window and saw that the English boat was very near. The tide sent the sloop close to the schooner, and now Anne could ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... No. 1125. Stedman was later in the year, after the outbreak of war with France, captured by a French frigate off Guadeloupe. With a small vessel and only 100 men he found himself becalmed and unable to escape, so he boldly boarded the Frenchman in buccaneer fashion and fought for two hours, but was finally overcome. (Ibid., ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... twenty miles or so astern of us; after all, that is only half a day's run. I think they are pretty sure to follow us for a bit, for they will know that, in light winds, they travel faster than we do; and if we get becalmed, while they still hold the breeze, they will come up hand over hand. It is likely enough that, in another three days or so, we may get a sight of ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... consequent susceptibility, of the hearing organs had rendered them liable to tingle under the passing touch of some mere memory that must have swept across my brain in a moment of sleep. Since my return to England it has been told me that like sounds have been heard at sea, and that the sailor becalmed under a vertical sun in the midst of the wide ocean has listened in trembling wonder to the chime of his ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... eyes and looked aft at the two boats, which the men were tugging along with all their might, taking advantage of our being becalmed to try and overtake ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... through my mind as I stood peering through the tube at the becalmed barque; it did not need a very prolonged scrutiny to enable me to learn all that was possible of her at that distance, and presently I replaced the glass in its beckets, and proceeded to saunter fore and aft the deck, from the wake of the main rigging to ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... voyage from Boston to Philadelphia, being becalmed off Block Island, our crew employed themselves in catching cod, and hauled up a great number. Till then, I had stuck to my resolution to eat nothing that had had life; and on this occasion I considered, according to my master Tryon, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... they be going? Suddenly the answer came to us. Beyond them in the farthest offing were the tiny sails of the almost becalmed junk. They were rowing toward it. Eight mariners from a ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... that year a ship sailed from the South Isles to traffic, and fell becalmed inside Snowfellness. The winds had speeded her; she was the first comer of the year; and the fishers drew alongside to hear the news of the south, and eager folk put out in boats to see the merchandise and make prices. ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... told himself, and Gilbert had just said, things seemed to be coming to a head. At that moment Tootles was strung up to play her last card, Joan was being driven back by Harry from the cottage of "Mrs. Gray" and Martin, becalmed on the water, with an empty pipe between his teeth, was ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... therefore had, perforce, to pursue a policy of "watchful waiting," irksome as it was to all concerned, and "the tireless vigil in the North Sea," as it was termed by Mr. Asquith, was maintained day and night. No sea captain becalmed in the doldrums ever whistled for a wind more earnestly than the British Jack tars prayed for a chance at the enemy during those three months of playing the cat to Germany's mouse; and on the other hand, the German sailors were, no doubt, equally desirious of a chance to demonstrate the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... marten-cat. At nightfall, especially in Asia Minor, the lonely horseman will often meet the jackals on their evening prowl. Their moaning is often heard during the night. I remember, when becalmed off Troy, the most singular screams were heard at intervals throughout the night, from a forest on the opposite shore, which a Greek sailor assured me proceeded from a marten-cat, which had probably found the carcass of ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... (on the 2d) and some odd days, I am approaching your country. The day of our arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter. At present, we are becalmed comfortably, close to Brest Harbour;—I have never been so near it since I left Duck Puddle. We left Malta thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious passage of it. You will either see or hear from or of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... from under an old straw hat, as its owner trod, barefooted, the deck of his craft. He had started, with the raft in tow, from his mill at the head of Choctawhatchee Bay, bound for the great lumber port of Pensacola, but being several times becalmed, was now out of provisions. We gave him and his men all we could spare from our store, and then inquired whether it would be possible for us to find a team and driver to haul our boats from the end of the watercourse we were then traversing, across the woods to the tributary waters ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... an opportunity offered itself to us which opened to submarines a new field of activity in the commercial war. It was a gray, misty morning, the sea was becalmed, and over the still waters a heavy vapor hung low like a veil before the rising sun. But little could be seen, and we had to keep a sharper lookout than usual to avoid running unawares into a hostile ship, and we also had to be ready for ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... his father stricken to the earth before him, and he could not bear to hear any temporizing with his murderers. But all this tempest of the soul the wisdom-inspired arguments of the earl at last becalmed, but could not subdue. He convinced his son's reason by showing him that caution would insure the blow, and that his aim could only be effected by remaining silent till he could publish his father's honor, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... the company breaking up, they depart; and the Nereids swim in the becalmed waves. Scylla returns, (for, in truth, she does not trust herself in the midst of the ocean) and either wanders about without garments on the thirsty sand, or, when she is tired, having lighted upon some lonely recess of the sea, cools her limbs in the enclosed waves. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... fast time passes under those conditions. The two clergymen busied themselves with teaching the sailors, and several of them presented themselves at Holy Communion in consequence, the last Sunday before we landed. The most trying time we passed was on the coast of Java, becalmed under a broiling sun, the very sea dead and slimy with all sorts of creatures creeping over it. As for ourselves, we were gasping with thirst, for we had already been on short rations of water for six weeks, one of the tanks having leaked out. One quart of water a day for each adult, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... snore! And all because a similar trick turned out successfully before! Think the matter over! Being tied up could be endured for one day, but suppose it might have to be for longer? What if we should be becalmed? What if we were struck by a storm from the wrong quarter of the heavens? What could we do then? Even clothes will cut through at the wrinkles when they are tied up too long, and paper in bundles will lose its shape. Do you imagine that we, who are young and unused to hardship, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... still shrouded, while around me only breaths of the white flecked the water and the spatter-docks. The breeze had not stirred a ripple; the current here in the broad of the pond was imperceptible; and I lay becalmed on the edge of the open channel, among the rank leaves and ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... them, and it became necessary to take to the oars, as must in any case have happened once they were through the coves narrow neck in the becalmed lagoon beyond. So Sakr-el-Bahr, in his turn, lifted up his voice, and in answer to his ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... detached patches; our soundings, as we stood on, shoaled to fifteen fathoms; and we were shortly within half a mile of an appearance of shoal-water, in thirteen fathoms on a rocky bottom. The wind now began to lessen; and, for fear of being becalmed, I was anxious to get an offing. By our observations, we found the breakers this morning were connected with those passed yesterday, and are a part of Baudin's Holothurie Banks. The French charts of this part are very vague and incorrect; for our situation at noon upon their ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... calls, the whole attention of the animal, with all its powers, is bound to answer. Hence arise those dreadful contests in the brute creation, from the lion in the woods, to the dog, who seizes the bone. Hence the ship, when her provisions are spent, and she becalmed, casts a savage eye, upon human sacrifices; and hence, the attention of the lower ranks of men, are too far engrossed for mental pursuit. They see, like Esau, the honours of their family devoured with a ravenous appetite. A man with an empty cupboard would make but a wretched philosopher. But ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... water-lilies, the fairy bark of a spiritual life. Each lake hath its hanging terraces of immortal green, that along her shores run glimmering far down beneath the superficial sunshine, where the poet in his becalmed canoe, among the lustre, could fondly swear by all that is most beautiful on earth, and air, and water, that these three are one, blended as they are by the interfusing spirit ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the ice, northward and westward, till the 24th; he then tried to the eastward. On the 30th he was in latitude 80d 13m; longitude 18d 48m E. among the islands and in the ice, with no appearance of an opening for the ships. The weather was exceedingly fine, mild, and unusually clear. Here they were becalmed in a large bay, with three apparent openings between the islands which formed it; but everywhere, as far as they could see, surrounded with ice. There was not a breath of air, the water was perfectly smooth, the ice covered with snow, low and even, except a few broken ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... of adventure in the Eastern seas, where a lad shares the perils of his father, the captain of the merchant ship The Petrel. After touching at Singapore, they are becalmed off one of the tropic isles, where the ship is attacked and, after a desperate fight, set on fire by Malay pirates. They escape in a boat and drift ashore upon a beautiful volcanic island, where, after sundry adventures, they come upon ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... the wind continued to abate, and when morning broke, the broad breast of the Mediterranean undulated like a sheet of clear glass, on which was gradually revealed the form of a strange vessel becalmed not ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... late you are," said my pretty mother, looking up from the lacework in her lap. Her fingers were always busy. "Were you becalmed outside? You must be awfully hungry. Ring for James, Clinton, and he will fix you up something nice in the pantry." Then she saw Paul's bound wrists, his bruised face, and our disarranged clothing. "What is the matter?" she cried, starting to ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... becalmed. The ebbing tide carried her slowly past Inishbawn towards the deep passage between the end of the breakwater of boulders and the point on which the lighthouse stands. The air was extraordinarily close and oppressive. Even Priscilla ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... as if they were a part of the mid-ocean depths. About a mile from us, at one o'clock, a long row of porpoises appeared, showing themselves in graceful curves for half-an-hour or so, till they went out farther to sea off Fairlight. Some fishing- boats were becalmed just in front of us. Their shadows slept, or almost slept, upon the water, a gentle quivering alone showing that it was not complete sleep, or if sleep, that it was sleep with dreams. The intensity of the sunlight sharpened the outlines of every little piece of rock, and of the pebbles, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... Lord and Lady Byron astonished the world, which believed him a reformed man as to his habits, and a becalmed man as to his remorses. He had written nothing that appeared after his marriage till the famous "Fare thee well," which had the power of compelling those to pity the writer who were not well aware that he was not the unhappy ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had a hand in the matter. So said the priests of the Church; and on examining her clothes, they were found to be perfectly wet with salt water. The sailors, too—so it was said— confirmed this statement by asserting that, while their vessel lay becalmed, a white figure had risen suddenly out of the ocean, and towed them into the roads. Of course, the truth of the miracle being thus satisfactorily established, the Church gained immensely by it; and no one thought of asking the sailors whether they really had seen the figure towing ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... were nearly becalmed, and witnessed some magnificent eruptions of Mount Erebus, the flame and smoke being projected to a great height; but we could not, as on a former occasion, discover any lava issuing from the crater; although the exhibitions of to-day were upon a ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the intelligence of father Gilbert—the name by which the priest, who succeeded Father Ambrose, had announced himself at the fort. They had eluded the enemy by night, and reported that several vessels lay becalmed in the Bay of Fundy; and, though they had not been near enough to ascertain with certainty, no doubt was entertained, that it was the little fleet of M. la Tour, returning with the ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... upon them with peculiar relish, heightening the frightful particulars in proportion to their effect on his peaceful auditors. He gave a long swaggering detail of the capture of a Spanish merchantman. She was laying becalmed during a long summer's day, just off from an island which was one of the lurking places of the pirates. They had reconnoitred her with their spy-glasses from the shore, and ascertained her character and force. At night a picked ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... poop, surveying the horizon for their companion, and discovered her six or seven miles astern, lying alongside of the strange vessel which they had seen the day before. Both vessels, as well as the Windsor Castle, were becalmed. He immediately went down to Newton, acquainting him with the circumstance, which bore a very suspicious appearance. Newton hastened on deck; with his glass he could plainly distinguish that the stranger was a vessel of a low, raking description, evidently no merchantman, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland, was lying becalmed in his yacht one day in sight of Cape Breton Island, and began to dream of a plan for uniting his savage diocese to the mainland by a line of telegraph through the forest from St. John's to Cape Ray, and cables across the mouth of the St. Lawrence from Cape Ray to Nova Scotia. St. John's was ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... water. At four we brought-to, close under the lee of the island, where we did not find what we wanted, but saw upon it eighty-six penguins. This piece of ice was about half a mile in circuit, and one hundred feet high and upwards, for we lay for some minutes with every sail becalmed under it. The side on which the penguins were, rose sloping from the sea, so as to admit ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the voyage, we had the misfortune to be becalmed for three days and nights, off the coast of India. I have not got the ship's journal to refer to, and I cannot now call to mind the latitude and longitude. As to our position, therefore, I am only able ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins |
