"Nautical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was not absolutely ignorant of nautical phraseology, promptly ported his helm and at the same moment stopped the engines, by which manoeuvre the Flying Fish glided close past the object so slowly that it was easily distinguishable as a huge pinnacle ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of books in this journey more than anything else. A Sichuana Pentateuch, a lined journal, Thomson's Tables, a Nautical Almanac, and a Bible, constitute my stock. The last constitutes my chief resource; but the want of other mental pabulum is felt severely. There is little to interest in the conversation of the people. Loud disputes often about the women, and angry altercations in which ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... have had my fears, that you might faint in the apparently unequal conflict. Thank God, he has delivered you—he has enabled you to stand at the helm, and to steer the Old Ship into smoother water. But we may rest assured that our foes are not dead. I only wish you may manifest as much nautical skill in a calm, as you have in the long storm, and I doubt not ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... conflict in the effort to open out new avenues of commercial enterprise for the mutual benefit of themselves and the thrifty lady who sat upon the throne, and who showed no disinclination to receive her share of the booty valiantly acquired by her nautical partners. ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... lull of the blast, the young commander overhauled the sail, and corrected the non-nautical reefing ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... sure it is enchantingly spirited, I am quite as sure that the persons it describes were far from being unspotted by the world. The scenes at night in the streets of Spanish Town surpassed not merely my experience, but, thank goodness, my imagination. The nautical personages used, in their conversations, what is called 'a class of language', and there ran, if I am not mistaken, a glow and gust of life through the romance from beginning to end which was nothing if ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... None of the household had seen him for an hour. Each supposed that someone else had taken charge of him. After a twenty minutes' search in all directions by the whole establishment, he was discovered at the window of a nautical instrument maker's shop, eight or ten doors below the inn, on the same side of the street, within the recess of the door-way, gazing in riveted attention on the attractive display before him. The owner told me that he had noticed him for more than an hour in the same ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... tall flagstaffs. They were reared on artificial mounds of earth that were ten feet high. The base of each staff was surrounded by short posts, painted white and connected by heavy chains. The staffs themselves were like ships' masts, with topmasts spliced on in true nautical fashion, with shrouds, ratlines, gaffs, and flag-halyards. From the gaff of one, two gay flags hung limply, one a checkerboard of blue and white squares, the other a white pennant centred with a red disc. It was the ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... have gone; but the widow could stand no more: this nautical phrase, familiar to the streets of Bristol, allowed her no longer to misunderstand his meaning; and she quitted the room in a tumult of laughter, sending a servant to show her unfortunate suitor out of the house, with his ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... has proved that the Planetary System, on this scheme, will endure forever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could not have been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nautical Logbooks can be better kept; and water-transport of all kinds has grown more commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough: what with the labours of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent genius of their disciples, it has come ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... of the United States Naval Academy is an imitation of a nautical syren. The Amherst ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Brock, being acquainted with the intricate course, was on the fore yard looking out, when he suddenly espied some rocks towards which the frigate was steering. There was no time for communication, and, without hesitating an instant, he cried out in true nautical style: "H-a-r-d up, h-a-r-d up." "H-a-r-d up it is," replied the helmsman. "H-a-r-d up," repeated Savery in a louder key. "Gently, young man," said the captain, who was standing forward. The ship fortunately bore away just in time to clear the rocks, and was thus saved by the prompt interference ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... in the classic style, with pillars and porticos, which (to my own taste, and, I fancy, to that of the old sailors) produce but a cold and shivery-effect in the English climate. Had I been the architect, I would have studied the characters, habits, and predilections of nautical people in Wapping, Rotherhithe, and the neighborhood of the Tower, (places which I visited in affectionate remembrance of Captain Lemuel Gulliver, and other actual or mythological navigators,) and would have built the hospital in a kind of ethereal similitude to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... man, who gave one the impression of being a great deal in the open air, and mixing much with the "sailoring." Indeed, he was rather nautical in his dress ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... cared nothing about the matter—seeing that, insensible as he might have been to its beauties, he makes constant reference to the sea, and even in language implying that his familiarity with it was not inferior to that of any yachtsman who has ever sailed out of Cowes Harbour. He uses nautical terms frequently and appropriately. Romeo's rope-ladder is 'the high top-gallant of his joy;' King John, dying of poison, declares 'the tackle of his heart is cracked,' and 'all the shrouds wherewith his life should sail' wasted 'to a thread.' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... Island—a tale of the mutiny of the "Bounty"—he reverts to the manner and theme of his old romances, finding a new scene in the Pacific for the exercise of his fancy. In this piece his love of nautical adventure reappears, and his idealization of primitive life, caught from Rousseau and Chateaubriand. There is more repose about this poem than in any of the author's other compositions. In its pages the sea seems to plash about rocks and caves that bask under a southern ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... cheeks of the survivors from the wreck of a Charles Eaton (in August 1834) were eaten by their murderers—a party consisting of different tribes from the eastern part of Torres Strait. See Nautical Magazine ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... words. If the words be two, there is a stronger accent on mast. If the accent on mast be stronger, the rhyme with fast is more complete; in other words, the metre favours the notion of the words being considered as two. Gallant-mast, however, is a compound word, with an especial nautical meaning. In this case the accent is stronger on gal- and weaker on -mast. This, however, is not the state of things that the metre favours. The same applies to mountain wave. The same person who ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... it was still clear, and the temperature was down to minus 45 deg.. Again we made a fair march of not less than twelve nautical miles, crossing in the first half many cracks and narrow leads, and in the latter half traversing an unbroken series of old floes. I felt confident that this zone of numerous leads which we had crossed in the last two marches was the "Big Lead," and was of ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... 18, 1914) the German nautical newspaper Hansa on Sept. 12 admitted that England had captured many millions of marks worth of German shipping, and that "the cessation of business will cost our shipowners many millions more." "It will hold up the development of our shipping trade for years." The Neue ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... have played some part in the misunderstanding, for it was undeniable that there was a sprightliness, a joyant brightness, in the flowing red scarf on Ignatius Aloysius's nautical breast, which was nowhere paralleled in Patrick's more subdued array. And the tenth commandment seemed very arbitrary to Patrick, the star of St. Mary's Sunday-school, when he saw that the red silk ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... the night on board Blakely's ship, a prisoner under strict guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in all the sea-captains in the harbor and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be present on board his ship at nine o'clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conditions the range of the more powerful light-sources used in lighthouses is greater than the range as limited by the curvature of the earth. For the uncolored illuminants the range in nautical miles appears to be at least equal to the square root of the candle-power. A real practical limitation which still exists is the curvature of the earth, and the distance an object may be seen by the eye at sea-level depends upon the ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... De Mannevillette published his "Neptune Oriental," in which he rectified the charts of the African, Chinese, and Indian coasts. He added to it a nautical guide, which was the more precious at this period, as it was the first of the kind. Up to the close of his life he amended his manual, which served as a guide for all French naval officers during the latter part of the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... court the sun blazed—within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and they were fiercely distinct in the half-light of the big court-room where the audience seemed composed of staring shadows. They wanted facts. Facts! They ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... with some embarrassment, as became a "paid hand," but a bottle of Bass soon put him at his ease. We began by discussing various nautical topics, such as the relative merits of a centre-board or a keel for small boats, and whether whisky or beer was really the better drink when one was tired and wet through. It was not until we had finished our meal ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... given me some nautical details, which, in spite of Plutarch's fine narration, have ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... fullest speed, and play what he called flood in it, with a shingle or a chip, or if he could not find either of these, with a floating leaf. Many a time I have found him long after he was supposed to have gone to bed sitting on the bath-room floor singing a roysterous nautical song like "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," or "A Life On the Ocean Wave," while he pushed a floating soap dish filled with ants, spiders and lady-bugs up and down that overflowing tub; and later in his life, when more manly sports would seem ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... had not passed a house, nor had any vehicles come by. But a second glance at the man who was coming toward him made him by no means so pleased at his appearance. The other foot passenger was a heavily built man with a lowering brow. He wore clothes that savored of a nautical character. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... about forty feet deep, with a powerful current, he made up his mind to bolt with the valuables; therefore while Mahomet, in a nervous state in the ferry-bath, was being towed towards the east, Achmet turned in another direction and fled towards the west. Mahomet having been much frightened by the nautical effort he had been forced to make, was in an exceedingly bad temper upon the arrival on the opposite bank, and having at length succeeded in climbing up the steep ascent, in shoes that were about ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... did all I possibly could to impress upon him the responsibility Germany was taking for herself and for us by her decision in this question, pointing out very particularly that before any decision was arrived at our opinion from a nautical-technical standpoint must also be heard, in which the Secretary ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... to deny this fact. As far as the nautical and other instruments were concerned, nothing was wanting. Then on further examination, I found ladders, cords, pickaxes, crowbars, and shovels, all scattered ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah Jane", or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Halifax;[see Note 6] and, if I am not mistaken, Fairbanks and Howe proceeded first to Liverpool to make some inquiries about expense, &c. &c. Be this however as it may, it is all now matter of no consequence—the great nautical high road between England and her North American Colonies has long been established beyond a question, and the enterprising Cunard has shown by his splendid steam vessels, that it may be depended upon beyond a doubt, as a regular, a safe ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... a considerable distance into the sea, and another ledge of the same aspect, lies still farther seaward; consequently the course of a careful pilot, is to hold his way free through the channel between them. If a lands-*man may be permitted to make an observation on a nautical point, I would say that our steersman kept the peak of the Corbiere exactly on a level with the adjacent precipices, till we were directly abreast of the headland, and then stood abruptly in-shore till within a few fathoms of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... hand before the black board, and who heard M. Lefebure de Fourcy's voice saying calmly, "Waiter, just bring a bundle of hay for this pupil's breakfast." To which the indignant pupil promptly added, "Waiter, bring two: the examiner will breakfast with me." At length, crammed to the muzzle with nautical and astronomical calculations, and all the other sciences the official programme demanded, I started for Brest, kept up even as I drove along, in the highest state of preparation. There were a few interludes during ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... reminds me that only six years before, I innocently committed a serious breach of nautical faith for which I was roundly reprimanded by a kindly sailor. It was my first voyage at sea. I had not seen thirteen summers by many months. I heard two sailors who were standing by the lee side of the windlass end conversing about the seriousness of the vessel's position. One ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... abandoned. There is no doubt, however, that everything superfluous had been dropped from time to time, until nothing remained that could possibly be dispensed with, and such books as they had, besides the Nautical Almanac and Ephemeris, if indeed under the circumstances they would even carry them, were probably the most important records ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... first three or four hours' sail Geoffrey and Lionel acquired much nautical knowledge. They learned the difference between the mainmast and the mizzen, found that all the strong ropes that kept the masts erect and stiff were called stays, that the ropes that hoist sails are called halliards, and ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... having located it as the spot where that ingenious pirate and empire-maker had once landed his vessels and scraped the barnacles from his adventurous keels. But of this Edgar Pomfrey—or "Captain Pomfrey," as he was called by virtue of his half-nautical office—had ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... "Some nautical instruments, which, although they are French, I dare say you know how to use," said Dick. "And,—how stupid I was not to think of it before!—some shirts and waistcoats and other articles of dress. I must ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... observe how the old barky jumped out of the way of those rovers in the cutter?" said the captain complacently to the quarter-deck group, when his survey aloft had taken sufficient heed that his own nautical skill should correct the instinct of the ship. "A skittish horse, or a whale with the irons in him, or, for that matter, one of the funniest of your theatricals, would not have given a prettier aside than this poor ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... A nautical devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... number), in white aprons, were sent to search for Khir-Om, in the Legend of the Master's Degree; or, in this Rite, the Nine Knights Elu. Along the path that the Moon travels are nine conspicuous Stars, by which nautical men determine their longitude at Sea;—Arietis, Aldebaran, Pollux, Regulus, Spica Virginis, Antares, Altair, Fomalhaut, and Markab. These might well be said to accompany ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... him, though he was undeniably the pioneer who set out with a plan to discover, and did discover by design, what others found only by accident. His geographical ideas were derived, they say, from Behaim and Toscanelli; his nautical skill from Pinzon; his certainty of finding new lands from Alonzo Sanchez; his courage and daring from ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... was what nautical men would call a magnificent craft, and landsmen would naturally dub her a "daisy." She had been built as a sea-going boat, in the most substantial manner, and was indeed a stanch little mistress of ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... daughter and younger son in the new country; that was after the Loyalists and their Indian allies had destroyed the Farmer's house at Pine Hill, after his wife had fled to Westchester with her two children, and had died there soon after, leaving them unprotected. But all this must, in nautical phrase, "go by the board," including the novel founded upon the episode. Nor can we linger over Crevecoeur's entry into polite society, both in the Norman capital and at Paris. Fancy the returned prodigal—if ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... corner away from the others, where he might read and write in peace. That he worked hard to improve himself is evident from the fact that Mr. Walker pushed him on at every opportunity, and gave him as varied an experience of things nautical as ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... from Charleston, bound to Havre-de-Grace. All the letters we could find on board were very unceremoniously broken open, and nothing having transpired that could identify the cargo as enemy's property, we were bundling over the side, when a nautical-looking subject, who had attracted my attention from the first, put ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... experiences of foreigners between Calais and Dover have always an agreeable side to English prepossessions. A man from Bedfordshire, who does not know one end of the ship from the other until she begins to move, swaggers among such persons with a sense of hereditary nautical experience. To suppose yourself endowed with natural parts for the sea because you are the countryman of Blake and mighty Nelson, is perhaps just as unwarrantable as to imagine Scotch extraction a sufficient ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no reply, until the captain put both hands to his mouth, and gave utterance to the nautical halloo with which, in days gone by, he was wont to hail the look-out ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... alongside, the greater portion of the men went ashore and, in the evening, the boatswain landed with Terence and Ryan, and proceeded with them to a slop shop, where he bought them clothes similar to those worn by the crew. Beyond the fact that these were of nautical appearance, there was no distinctive dress. They then returned to the lugger and changed their clothes at once, the boatswain telling them to stow away their boots and other things, as these would be useful to them in ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... neighbourhood of Wapping, observing that most part of his audience were in the seafaring way, very naturally embellished his discourse with several nautical tropes and figures. Amongst other things, he advised them "to be ever on the watch, so that on whatsoever tack the evil one should bear down on them, he might be crippled in action." "Ay, master," said a son of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... of Breton nautical traditions tells of the chivalry displayed by a Breton crew toward the men of a British warship. During the American War of Independence much enthusiasm was excited in France in connexion with the valiant struggle for liberty in which the American colonies ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... shell was all covered with ships: fair vessels, with sails all set, and smooth seas rippling beneath them,—the ships that were even then on their way to rescue the two castaways. And the second was carved with anchors, the sign of hope, and with coils of rope, and nautical instruments, and things familiar to seamen's eyes. But the third was carved with stars, and sickle-curved moons, and broad-rayed suns, "Because, ye see, Peach Blossom, arthly hope bein' as ye might say foundered, them things, and what was above 'em, stayed where they was; and ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... a whole gale (in nautical language, sixty-five miles or more an hour) and as the submarine chaser was meeting the seas on a slant, it might almost as well have been a hurricane. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... their habits, and very competent practical sailors and boat-builders; but though for centuries they divided with the Arabs the carrying trade between Eastern and Western Asia, and though a mongrel Malay is the nautical language of nearly all the peoples from New Guinea to the Tenasserim coast, the Malays knew little of the science of navigation. They timed their voyages by the constant monsoons, and in sailing from island to island coasted the Asiatic shores, trusting, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... priest or sailor had ever been known to enter the house; and so I concluded the many apparitions were but phantasms of the same person—phantasms of his several, separate, and distinct personalities. He had brutal tendencies, sacerdotal (not spiritual) tendencies, gluttonous, and nautical tendencies, and his whole character being dominated by carnal cravings, on the dissolution of his material body each separate tendency would remain earth-bound, represented by the phantasm most closely resembling it. I believe this theory may explain many dual hauntings, and it ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... friends; he heard miraculous stories about pirates and shipwrecks and desert islands; he learned to splice ropes and rig toy ships, and gained an amount of information concerning "tops'ls" and "mains'ls," quite surprising. His conversation had, indeed, quite a nautical flavor at times, and on one occasion he raised a shout of laughter in a group of ladies and gentlemen who were sitting on deck, wrapped in shawls and overcoats, by saying sweetly, and with ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Samoa. The peninsula, besides, was scant of food and destitute of water. Pressed by these considerations, Brandeis extended his lines till he had occupied the whole foreshore of Apia bay and the opposite point, Matautu. His men were thus drawn out along some three nautical miles of irregular beach, everywhere with their backs to the sea, and without means of communication or mutual support except by water. The extension led to fresh sorrows. The Tamasese men quartered themselves ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of sight of land: about thirty nautical miles in the hold; the wind rising a little; experiments being made for a fault, while the engine slowly revolves to keep us hanging at the same spot: depth supposed about a mile. The machinery has behaved ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lent out money in small sums, charging a real for every dollar by the week—in other words, a simple interest of twenty per cent, by the month, or two hundred and fifty per cent, per annum! His clients being all fishermen, will account for the nautical character of the "pledges" that filled ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... latitude or longitude of the matrimonial ocean, there appears a slight chronic, intermittent affection, not unlike the toothache. Here, I see, you stop me to ask, "How are we to find the longitude in this sea? When can a husband be sure he has attained this nautical point? And can the danger ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... yards apart, the two great rivals began taking observations. Carefully they spread lines of mercury for an artificial horizon, and painstakingly adjusting their instruments, began to take readings. Then, turning to their nautical almanacs, they figured. For some time an awed silence fell on the little group. Presently the two men rose, facing one another. Smiles played about their lips. For a second they stood thus, then starting toward each other, ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... when he saw us, and his instructions to the driver were purely nautical. "Hard astern!" he yelled, going down a hill, and instead of "Gee" or "Haw" he ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bowed to his companions, and left the cabin, retiring to his state room and closing the door. He had on board a full supply of charts and nautical instruments of his own, in addition to those belonging to the ship. Spreading out the chart of the South Atlantic on the desk, he went to work with his dividers and parallel rule. He made his figures on a piece of paper, and then laid ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... word "Khanah" also appears in our balcony, origin. "balcony," through the South-European tongues, the Persian being "Bala-khanah" high room. From "Kadah" also we derive "cuddy," now confined to nautical language. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... speed of some sharpies, as does certain correspondence in Forest and Stream. A large sharpie was reported to have run 11 nautical miles in 34 minutes, and a big sharpie schooner is said to have averaged 16 knots in 3 consecutive hours of sailing. Tonging sharpies with racing rigs were said to have sailed in smooth water at speeds of 15 and 16 knots. ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... Brother Charles, now regarded as sufficiently sentimental for a safe bureau agent of nautical information, all Esther's puzzling queries ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... a Jesuit, born at Caen in 1569, was the author of several nautical works. His chief one, "L'Hydrographie," was published at Paris in folio in 1663. A second edition ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... began to be taken in things nautical. The sextant, compass, and log were the cause of much discussion, and the usual bets were made on the daily run, the stakes being ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... Harry on nautical matters, and Norman tried to discover how Meta liked the yachting project, and found her prepared to think it charming. Hopes were expressed that Harry might be at Portsmouth, and a quantity of gay scheming ensued, with reiterations of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... by Australian artillery. The opportunity was given me during my tour to witness the wonderful diving feats of the coloured crews. Pearl fishing is a paying business, especially since the great advance in the price of the mother-of-pearl shells, but one which demands much nautical skill and the surmounting ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... piteous than any moans. The seamen, if they happened to come near, looked at her with a sort of awe, mingled with that compassionate gentleness which sailors almost always show towards women. More than once, great rough hands brought her food, or put to use half-a-dozen clever nautical contrivances for the sheltering ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... nautical area, and could imagine the excitement that would be caused amongst the natives when the beacon fires warned them of the approach of the Spanish Armada, for Dartmouth was then regarded as a creek of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... departing officer warned the lieutenant of the danger that threatened from the advancing tide. The rock on which two hundred human beings were now crowded, hoping to escape or gain a respite from death, was one which in nautical phrase is called a sunken reef, that is only above water at ebb tide, while at flood, except when swayed by a sweeping north wind, the sea buries it in a depth of ten ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... unintermittent surges; and being not far from the island of Majorca, as the third night began to close in, wrapt in clouds and mist and thick darkness, so that they saw neither the sky nor aught else, nor by any nautical skill might conjecture where they were, they felt the ship's timbers part. Wherefore, seeing no way to save the ship, each thought only how best to save himself, and, a boat being thrown out, the masters first, and then the men, one by one, though the first-comers sought with knives ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... quoted in "The Hammers" are taken from 'Songs: Naval and Nautical, of the late Charles Dibdin', London, John Murray, 1841. The "Hanging Johnny" refrain, in "The Cremona Violin", is borrowed from the old, well-known chanty of ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... is in, and will cut his cable and run before the wind as soon as he can get off,' called Demi, with 'a nice derangement of nautical epitaphs', as he came up ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... armed vessels, extemporized in eighteen months, and maintaining what, considering the extent of coast to be watched, must be called a most efficient blockade, will stand as an impressive evidence that capacity to produce is one of the best of nautical gifts. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... our speech smacked less of nautical and piratical phrase, at times, indeed, halted. It is difficult for a twelve-year-old pirate, exceeding hungry, to ask for a third helping of grilled chicken in a voice at once stern and ingratiating. Moreover, it is difficult for a discreet and law-abiding citizen, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Seamanship, like nautical etiquette, is international, and though he understood not one word of what was said to him, and though not a man aboard understood him, yet he knew what to do without orders, and soon proved himself superior to any of the officers. The rather impulsive, but ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... the atmosphere in some parts of the village where the herring—humorously known as "Digby Chickens"—are spread on racks to dry; but this odor, the odd little shops and restaurants, the clumsy and queer lumber boats, the groups of tars gossiping about doorways and wharves, only add to the nautical character of the place, and suggest reminiscences of "Peggoty", "Ham", and others ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... The New York Nautical School on board the ship St. Mary's must not be confounded with the school-ship Mercury, which formerly existed at this port; the latter was a floating reformatory, while the former was established for the purpose ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... into the detail of the following coast-directions, in which it has been attempted, for the sake of a more easy reference, to collect all the nautical information under one general head, it may be proper to premise that Captain Flinders, in the account of his voyage,* has given two very useful chapters upon the winds and weather that may be experienced upon the various coasts of this continent; as well ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... his descendants, Bertheville ceased to be known under any other denomination than that of Dyppe, a Norman word, expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told that Dieppe became the principal port in the duchy. That politic sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the improving of it. It was at Dieppe that he embarked the troops, which he dispatched, in 913, for the assistance of his ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... occupying the front seat: and the Master Crummleses and Smike being packed together behind, in company with a wicker basket defended from wet by a stout oilskin, in which were the broad-swords, pistols, pigtails, nautical costumes, and other professional necessaries ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... something more nautical, Captain? Something yachty, if I may suggest. . . . I've a neat thing here in yachting caps." Mr Benny selected and displayed one, turning it briskly in his hands. "The Commodore. There's a something about that cap, sir,—a what shall I say?—a distinction. Or, if you prefer a straight up-and-down ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... at hand, and one that it was too late to prevent. About half-past eleven, John Mangles and Wilson, who stayed on deck throughout the gale, were suddenly struck by an unusual noise. Their nautical instincts awoke. John seized the sailor's hand. "The reef!" ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... lines down the rigging, imparting a gala aspect to the scene and perhaps thrilling one with patriotic or historic memories. Perhaps we are crossing at the moment when the great Sound-steamers are pushing out from their piers. We feel quite humiliated on our lonely ferry-boat as these leviathans of nautical architecture sweep past us with an imperious curve far out into the stream, and then move steadily and statelily down the middle of the river, like an "ugly duckling" of mammoth proportions. One never gets over the sensation of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... will be my helmswoman, I can imagine nothing more delightful than the excursion you propose. But I am inland bred, and must place myself at the mercy of your nautical experience." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... erre, "quickly", and the whole line reads: "Let it (my body) be delivered to it (luyla terre) quickly," the "erre" here is from the popular late Latin "iterare""iter facere". It survives in the nautical idiom "reprendre son erre""to get ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... much died as "slipped his wind"—a nautical expression that conveys the idea of an easy exit. He went off, quiet and genteel. He was past eighty, and had lived fast. His servant called him at seven in the morning. "I will shave at eight," said ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... that ever jibbed a gangway. Not that I do any sailin' exactly; but I guess Sadie and me each paid good money for our shares of club stock, and if that ain't as foolish an act as you can find in the nautical calendar, then I'll ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... my imagination's too vivid power of portrayal. A figure did certainly present itself, but one of sufficient bulk to convince me of its substantiality. This was the captain of the 'Diana,' a cheery-looking personage of a thoroughly nautical type, who, approaching me, lifted his cap ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... anxious to test the quality of his ships and sailors, made proclamation for a grand sailing match, in which all who liked might contend. Each contingent probably—at any rate, all that prided themselves on their nautical skill—selected its best vessel, and entered it for the coming race; the king himself, and his grandees and officers, and all the army, stood or sat along the shore to see: the race took place, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... The nautical phrases, unintelligible to ears unused to the sound of the sea, seemed to put fresh energy into the oars; they kept time together, the rhythm of the movement was still even and steady, but quite unlike the previous manner of rowing; it was as if ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... are the fields embraced in the wide range of these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical, philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural, bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical, military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting, economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Code of Justinian. Persons of illustrious rank were confined to the moderate profit of four per cent.; six was pronounced to be the ordinary and legal standard of interest; eight was allowed for the convenience of manufactures and merchants; twelve was granted to nautical insurance, which the wiser ancients had not attempted to define; but, except in this perilous adventure, the practice of exorbitant usury was severely restrained. [165] The most simple interest was condemned by the clergy of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... pipe, followed by a hulking nautical form, hove slowly in sight as he spoke, and never did a sail cheer the eyes of shipwrecked mariners as did this apparition bring comfort to ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... novels. His first book was "John Holdsworth," but it was his second story, "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," which he wrote in little more than two months and sold to a publisher for fifty pounds, which marked a new era in the evolution of the nautical novel. Since that time Mr. Clark Russell has had the sea to himself, and his descriptions of sea-scenery, and his pictures of real-life sailors, are not likely soon to find a rival. Mr. Clark Russell's latest story, "List, Ye Landsmen"—one ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... down under the lee of the companion, an' tell Kathy how this all came about," said the captain, promptly, as if issuing nautical orders. "I want you here, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... it must be admitted that maritime expeditions are less fitted to advance the progress of geology and other parts of physical science, than travels into the interior of a continent. The advancement of the natural sciences has been subordinate to that of geography and nautical astronomy. During a voyage of several years, the land but seldom presents itself to the observation of the mariner, and when, after lengthened expectation, it is descried, he often finds it stripped of its most beautiful productions. Sometimes, beyond a barren coast, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... finished speaking, Burke thrust his hands into his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling of the room, the walls, and the floor. He wanted to say something, but he was not prepared to do so. His mind, still nautical, desired to take an observation and determine the latitude and longitude of Mrs. Cliff, but the skies were very ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... at ropes and with many strange nautical cries the father and the son, aided by their passengers, succeeded in raising the great brown sail. The little vessel lay over under the pressure of the wind until her lee bulwark was flush with the water, and the deck lay at such an angle that it was only by holding ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the nautical slip knot. First make the loop as in the ordinary bowline but allow a good length of end (A). Pass it round the standing part and up through the loop, and continue as ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... was aware that he was off the coast of Peru, but that was all he certainly knew of his position. The storm had struck the ship in the morning, before he had taken his daily observation, and his room, which was on deck, had been carried away, as well as every nautical instrument on board. He did not believe that the storm had taken him far out of his course, but of this he could not be sure. All that he knew with certainty was that to the eastward lay the land, and eastward, therefore, they pulled, a little compass ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... notices of domestic manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the advantage which will accrue, if our little craft, cymbula sutilis, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing specimens, preserved in my own cabinet of natural ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... gathered enough from the people to know that we were somewhere south of San Francisco (the Lively Polly had no chart or nautical instruments on board of course), and so he determined to coast cautiously along northward, marking the shore line in order to be able to guide other navigators to the harbor. But a light mist crept down the coast, ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... calculation, and determination to give each man only that equal portion they had agreed to accept, made it last for fifty days, during which time they had come three thousand six hundred and eighteen nautical miles. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... ran in his veins, and that he was of kin with the mighty Duc de Mirapoix. Had the mighty Duke, however, at that moment seen his Canadian cousin steering the four-oared boat, loaded with wheat, he might have felt but a very qualified admiration for the majesty of his stately demeanor and his nautical savoir faire. Stobo took possession of the Chevalier's pinnace, and made the haughty laird, nolens volens, row him with the rest of the crew, telling him to row away, and that, had the Great Louis himself been in the boat at that moment, it would be his fate to row a British subject thus. "At these ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Benjamin Stimson, did the same; he is the S. often mentioned in Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast." Dana and Stimson were friends, and ran away together. It was quite the rule for all my Yankee cousins to do this, and they all benefited by it. In consequence of his nautical experience Sam was soon at home among all sailors, and not having my scruples as to knowing who was who or their affairs, soon knew everything that was going on. Our captain was a handsome, dissipated, and "loud" young man, with rather more sail than ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and when Mrs. Ashe awhile later was helped up the stairs, she was amazed to find them eating cold beef and roasted potatoes, with the finest appetites in the world. "They had served out their apprenticeships," the kindly old captain told them, "and were made free of the nautical guild from that time on." So it proved; for after these two bad days none of the party were sick again ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... by singing songs, those of a nautical flavor, such as "Larboard Watch" and "A Life on the Ocean ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... part of Europe, except Switzerland. The taxes payable to the central government, including the haratsch or poll-tax levied on all Christians, had often been commuted for a fixed sum, which was raised without the interposition of the Turkish tax-gatherer. In Hydra, Spetza, and Psara, the so-called nautical islands, the supremacy of the Turk was felt only in the obligation to furnish sailors to the Ottoman navy, and in the payment of a tribute of about L100 per annum. The government of these three islands was entirely in the hands of the inhabitants. In Chios, though a considerable ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Baptiste, the expressive sneer with which he criticised his decisions, and a few biting remarks which had escaped him in the course of the day, and which had conveyed any thing but compliments to the nautical skill of the patron and his fresh-water followers. Still there were signs of better stuff in this suspicious-looking person than are usually seen about men, whose attire, pursuits and situation, are so indicative of the world's ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Chaldean version describes the building and furnishing of a ship, with all the accuracy of much seafaring knowledge, and does not forget even to name the pilot, the Hebrew writer, with the clumsiness and ignorance of nautical matters natural to an inland people unfamiliar with the sea or the appearance of ships, speaks only of an ark or chest. The greatest discrepancy is in the duration of the flood, which is much shorter in the Chaldean text than in the Hebrew. On the seventh day already, Hasisadra sends out the ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... Organization NC Nordic Council NEA Nuclear Energy Agency NEGL negligible NIB Nordic Investment Bank NIC newly industrializing country; see newly industrializing economy (NIE) NIE newly industrializing economy nm nautical mile NMT Nordic Mobile Telephone NSG Nuclear Suppliers Group Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water NZ New Zealand O OAPEC Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries OAS Organization of American States OAU Organization ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... over, the ladies helped Primmie clear the table while the men sat in the sitting room and smoked. The sitting room of the light keeper's home was even more nautical than that at the Phipps' place. There was no less than six framed paintings of ships and schooners on the walls, and mantel and what-not bore salt-water curios of many kinds handed down by generations of seafaring Halletts—whales' ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Scotch engineer who might have been the original of Kipling's McFee. I spoke to him about the rumor as he leaned over the side staring at the lorcha, and he gave vent to his feelings in a description of the general appearance of the lorcha in language too technically nautical for me to transcribe. At the end he waxed mildly profane, and threatened to "pull the dom nose out of her" when once he got her outside ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... library of books on nautical and other subjects, take the newspapers and magazines, and hang up pictures of yachts and other vessels on the walls. I hope, when you get the Maud done, you will not be so busy, Don John, for you don't attend many of our ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... and Tommy Sly having wormed their way among the boats, were at length brought up within one of the vessels, and after lying on their oars a few seconds, they were attracted by, "Now, sir, are you going to sleep there?" addressed to a rival nautical whose boat obstructed the way, and on looking up on deck what a sight burst upon the Yorkshireman's astonished vision!—Mr. Jorrocks, with his coat off, and a fine green velvet cap or turban, with a broad gold ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... nautical incidents of this book, we have endeavoured to be as exact as our authorities will allow. We are fully aware of the importance of writing what the world thinks, rather than what is true, and are not conscious of any very palpable ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... which we have records of their voyages, although the Dutch navigators' work, compared with that done by Cook and his successors, was of small account; yet, considering the state of nautical science, and that the ships were for the most part Dutch East Indiamen, the Dutch names which still sprinkle the north and the west coasts of the continent show that from Cape York in the extreme north, westward of the Great Australian Bight ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... or more after the events last chronicled, the steam yacht Streak was two days out on the Atlantic, with a goodly party on board. There were three ladies—the Duke's sister, the Countess, and Miss Skeat, the latter looking very nautical in blue serge, which sat tightly over her, like the canvas cover sewn round a bicycle when it is sent by rail. Of men there were also three—to wit, the owner of the yacht, Mr. Barker, and ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford |
