"Piece of ground" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was found to be of material assistance. The snow was deep and rather soft, which made the travelling heavy; and as the wind produced a good deal of snowdrift, most of the bare patches of ground became covered up, so that, when our time for halting had arrived, not a piece of ground could be seen on which to pitch the tents. Captain Sabine and myself went forward to look out for a spot, and at length were fortunate to meet with one, on which there was just room for our little encampment. It was with some difficulty, by building a ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... and followed the way Kenric had gone. Soon she found herself under a high piece of ground that obscured the firelight. Then nearer to the fire she heard the cry repeated, and she replied with the same call. She went towards the fire until she saw Kenric standing on the top of a high rock, outlined against the glow of light. She knew him by his ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... The piece of ground for planting is regarded as the personal property of the head of the family which cleared it, and he can sell it or otherwise dispose of it at his pleasure. No one else would think of planting on it even though the owner has abandoned ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... forth now from each canoe a light frame-work of three bamboo poles, standards and cross-piece, and a thin, unbleached cotton "A" tent, and quickly pitched the four tents on a level piece of ground, in a semi-circle. The tents were flimsy affairs, light to carry, and would not do in rainy weather; but they had picked their day, and it was clear and no danger of ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... move over the surface, in a jerky, lurching fashion which indicated a very rough piece of ground. At the same time a queer, leathery squeaking came to the engineer's borrowed ears; he concluded that the machine was being sorely strained by the motion. At the time he was puzzled to account for the motion itself. Either there was another occupant of ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... gallons were lost, though on its course down the valley the oil completely filled another reservoir, which had been prepared for the oil of a rival company, but which never came from their own wells. Eventually the main flow of oil found its own level in a low-lying piece of ground, about four miles below ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... behind his head. "There's a very pretty piece of ground behind your orchard, sir," he said, dreamily regarding the ceiling. "I noticed it the other day, and sink me! if I did not wish for Harry Bellasses with whom I have fought three times. 'Tis ever a word and ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope, I fancy, must have been about 65 .) This crater enclosed a level piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part, with a rude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater, about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of eighty-three semi-circular, ovoid, square, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Year—time runs so fast! Presently yonder was 'Mian himself, spading a piece of ground to sow his tobacco-seed in; then Catou and his little boy of twenty-five doing likewise; and then others all about the scattered village. Then there was a general spreading of dry brush over the spaded ground, then the sweet, clean smell of its burning, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was stationed there. All the forces seemed directed upon the north of Perpignan, upon the most difficult side, against a brick fort called the Castillet, which surmounted the gate of Notre-Dame. He discovered that a piece of ground, apparently marshy, but in reality very solid, led up to the very foot of the Spanish bastion; that this post was guarded with true Castilian negligence, although its sole strength lay entirely in its defenders; for its battlements, almost ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... streets, where, in some instances, the house-tops were thronged with people desirous of looking at our procession, we emerged on a small, flat piece of ground which was not built over, and which formed a sort of open square. Here a deep hole was pointed out to me as the spot where criminals who have been found guilty of murder had their throats cut ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... somewhere—she had begun to mend—and then he would have it out with Marion and his mother. But there was no hurry. The war would last a long time. And so it was that Graham Spencer joined the long line of those others who had bought a piece of ground, or five yoke of oxen, or ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme became famous the world over. But their advances were slight and their losses were tremendous. French tactics were now disclosed. It was the purpose of the French to exact the very heaviest price for each piece of ground that they defended, but they held their lines with very small contingents, and, save in the case of a few vital points, surrendered the positions whenever the cost of holding them was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... I felt inclined to cry, but the Mother Superior took me by the hand and, leading me to the Middle Wood, showed me where my garden would be. That was quite enough to distract my thoughts, for we found Pere Larcher there marking out my piece of ground in a corner of the wood. There was a young birch tree against the wall. The corner was formed by the joining of two walls, one of which bounded the railway line on the left bank of the river which cuts the Satory woods in two. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... perfectly level piece of ground a circle of seven feet radius was clearly defined. This circle was cut into seven sectors; and an inner circle from the same centre and with a radius of six feet was next drawn. In each part of the sectors, between the circumferences of the first and second circle, were inscribed, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... afternoon something was noticed that enabled us to get a little further with our studies. The rain water ran down a sloping piece of ground in a tiny channel it had made; the streamlet was very muddy, and at first it was thought that all the soil was washed away. But we soon saw that the channel was lined {6} with grit, some of which was moving slowly down and some not at all. Grit can therefore ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... Col. Garrard ordered the regiment to form in close column of squadrons in a low piece of ground to get out of their range, but the first being on very high ground, our position was a ...
— History of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry • R. C. Rankin
... improbable that these circles were once numerous, and that many of them may yet endure in a perfect state, under no very deep covering of soil. A friend of the Author, while making a trench in a level piece of ground, not far from the banks of the Emont, but in no connection with that river, met with some stones which seemed to him formally arranged; this excited his curiosity, and proceeding, he uncovered a perfect circle of stones, from two to three or four feet high, with a sanctum sanctorum,—the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... followed the chiefs of the Greeks, as many as had been summoned to the council. Along with these went Meriones, and the illustrious son of Nestor; for they had invited them, that they might consult with them. Having therefore passed over the dug trench, they sat down in a clear space, where a piece of ground appeared free from fallen dead bodies, whence impetuous Hector had turned back, having destroyed the Greeks, when night at length enveloped them. There sitting down, they addressed words to each other, and to them the Gerenian knight Nestor ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... the Hammersmith cemetery, an extensive piece of ground of some twenty acres. There is a broad gravel walk down the centre, and two small chapels, round which the graves are thickly clustered, spreading gradually westward as space is required. The first burial took place ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... specially excellent—wheat-bread, wholesome and palatable; but, alas, sometimes barley-bread, washed down with beer too sour to drink undiluted with water. Alexander, the master of the Priest's House at Canterbury, soon after gave them a piece of ground and built them a temporary chapel, but when he was for presenting them with the building, he was told that they might not possess houses and lands, and the property was thereupon made over to the corporation of Canterbury to hold in honourable trust for their use, the friars borrowing it of the ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... offended if you called him a sheep-farmer. The squatting class in Australia correspond to the landed gentry of England. The farmer is usually legally known as a 'selector,' because under the Land Act he selects a piece of ground perhaps in the middle of the squatter's leasehold and purchases it on credit for agriculture. A 'cockatoo' is a selector who works his piece of land out in two or three years, and having done nothing to improve it, decamps ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called the Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... wife, was blithe and gay. The brave desert wanderer and bird of passage has now built himself a little wigwam or nest near the railway-station: the grand duke of Weimar gave him for the purpose a charming piece of ground with a delightful view. On the 25th of March a light veil of snow still rested on the ground, but two days later we were listening to the notes of the lark and gathering violets to take to Schiller's house and adorn the table ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... the earth as with other creatures that through continual labour grow faint and feeble-hearted, and therefore, if it be so far driven as to be out of breath, we may now by this law resort to a more lusty and proud piece of ground while the first gathers strength, which will be a means that the earth yearly shall be surcharged with burden of her own excess. And this did the former lawmakers overslip, tyeing the land once tilled to a perpetual bondage and servitude of being ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... quite alone." "And have you always lived alone?" The old man emptied his cup, and his heart being warmed with the mead, he told his history, which was simplicity itself. His father was a small yeoman, who, at his death, had left him, his only child, the cottage, with a small piece of ground behind it, and on this little property he had lived ever since. About the age of twenty- five he had married an industrious young woman, by whom he had one daughter, who died before reaching years of womanhood. His wife, however, had survived ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... fifteen. I lost three babies in Milwaukee—hot weather, bad air, bad milk, bad everything, unless you have plenty of money. Many a time I've sat and cried, just from thinkin' how bad I wanted a little place of our own, where there was grass and trees and a piece of ground for a garden. And I knew we'd never be able to buy it. We couldn't get ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he may be seen dressed in his velvet suit and low-buckled shoes, engaged in these outdoor sports. About a century ago a game called 'Malien' was universally played in South Holland and Utrecht. For this it was necessary to have a large piece of ground, at one end of which poles were erected, joined together by a porch. The bail was driven by a 'Mahen kolf,' a long stick with an iron head and a leather grip, and it had to touch both poles and roll through the porch. The 'Maheveld' at The Hague and the 'Mahebaan' at Utrecht remind one of the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... Bon., 28; A. SS., p. 580. It is evident that the tradition has been worked over here: it soon came to be desired to find a miracle in the manner in which Francis found the passage for reading. The St. Nicholas Church is no longer in existence; it stood upon the piece of ground now occupied by the barracks of the gendarmerie ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... camp ready in a piece of ground sheltered by a row of lordly poplars; and to-morrow morning we start by road ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is good soil ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... rare that the people of any town show a just appreciation of the value of such an area for ornamental use. Such a piece of ground as you describe in the very business center of a town must of course possess great pecuniary value, and the fact that it has been voluntarily given up and devoted for all time to purposes of recreation and ornament ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... craziest performance. He went hell-for-leather over a piece of ground which was being watered with H.E., but by the mercy of heaven nothing hit him. He took some fearsome tosses in shell-holes, but partly erect and partly on all fours he did the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish trench right on top of a ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... circus was an open piece of ground lying between Silverton and Silverfold, and thither they betook themselves-Miss Hackett in an old bonnet and waterproof that might have belonged to any woman, and Dolores wearing a certain crimson ulster, which she had bought in Auckland for her homeward voyage, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... destruction of seeds, but, from some observations which I have made, I believe that it is the seedlings which suffer most from germinating in ground already thickly stocked with other plants. Seedlings, also, are destroyed in vast numbers by various enemies; for instance, on a piece of ground three feet long and two wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking from other plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up, and out of the 357 no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and insects. If turf which has long been mown, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs. It is made from fine threads taken from the flax plant. On a piece of ground as large as a schoolroom enough flax can be raised to make a half dozen collars. Garments to be worn in warm weather are sometimes made ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... George is in Hart Street. St. George's parish was formed from St. Giles's on account of the great increase of buildings in this district. In 1710 the proposal for a new church was first mooted, and in 1724 the parishes were officially separated. The church stands on a piece of ground formerly known as Plough Yard. It is the work of Hawkesmoor, Wren's pupil, and was consecrated in 1730. It cannot be better described than in the words of Noorthouck: "This is an irregular and oddly constructed church; the portico stands on the south side, of the ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... map plan of a very rough piece of ground is shown in Fig. 3. The sides of the place are high, and it becomes necessary to carry a walk through the middle area; and on either side of the front, it skirts the banks. Such a plan is usually unsightly on paper, but may nevertheless ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... A piece of ground twenty yards long by the same in breadth is not easy to dig over in a day, even to the most industrious toiler, and so Fritz found it; for, in spite of the interruption his brother had suffered from on his first start after the manure from the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... are not right. I'm only a gardener, but I've noticed these things a great deal. Nature is not a bungler. She gives us apple and plum trees, and they grow and bear fruit in a natural and sufficient way. It is because man wants them to bear more and bigger fruit, and for more to grow on a small piece of ground than Nature would plant, that man has to ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... have returned, it would be well, Edgar, that you and my son should practise with the lance. 'Tis a knightly weapon, and a knight should at least know how to use it well. There is a piece of ground but a quarter of a mile away that I have been looking at, and find that it will make a good tilting-ground, and I will teach you all that I know ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... site for the danger area requires some attention. The purpose for which it is required, that is, the kind of explosive that it is intended to manufacture, must be taken into consideration. A perfectly level piece of ground might probably be quite suitable for the purpose of erecting a factory for the manufacture of gun-cotton or gunpowder, and such materials, but would be more or less unsuitable for the manufacture of nitro-glycerine, where a number of buildings are ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... writing. In forming this Establishment for their religious education, it is of the greatest importance that they should be gradually inured to the cultivation of the soil, and instructed in the knowledge of agriculture. For this purpose I have allotted a small piece of ground for each child, and divided the different compartments with a wicker frame. We often dig and hoe with our little charge in the sweat of our brow as an example and encouragement for them to labour; and promising them the produce of their own industry, we find that they take great ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... had allotted him and his brother Arthur a convenient piece of ground, in order that each might be possessed of a little garden, and display his knowledge and industry in the cultivation of it. They had also leave to sow whatever seed they should think proper, and to transplant any tree they liked out of their ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... all kinds had an honoured place. We read of excursions for all kinds of purposes, of Indian games out of Fenimore Cooper, and of "Homeric battles." It was "part of Froebel's plan to have us work with spade and pick-axe," and every boy had his own piece of ground where he might do what he pleased. Ebers, being literary, constructed in his plot a bed of heather on which he lay and read or made verses. The boys built their own stage, painted their own scenery, and in winter once ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... a man of monstrous size was seen to cross the foot-bridge of the brook, and disappear in the hut; then, in the darkness, various shapes were observed, moving like shadows round an open fire. This piece of ground, the firs, and the ruined hut, formed in truth a strange contrast with the bright green landscape, the white houses of the hamlet, and the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... customers for his woollen cloth; for your buyer and seller never lacks a reason either for his selling or buying. Presently he is buying again; this time, still with striking of legal attitudes, calling together of relations, and accompaniments of crabbed Latin notarial documents, a piece of ground in the suburbs of Genoa, consisting of scrub and undergrowth, which cannot have been of any earthly use to him. But also, according to the documents, there went some old wine-vats with the land. Domenico, taking a walk after Mass on some feast-day, sees the land and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... by the defence, said he had received from the senator himself, as he was passing the chateau of Gondreville on his way to the masquerade at Arcis, an order to dig over that particular piece of ground which the senator ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... its vegetable functions. Now, both these may be remedy'd, in a great measure, by one and the same physick.... The watering of soils with cold hungray springs doth little good; whereas muddy saline waters brought to overflow a piece of ground enrich it much. But above all, well-digested dew makes all plants luxuriate and prosper most. Now what may it be that endues these liquors with such prolifick virtue? The meer water which is common to them all, cannot be it; there ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... delivering 5,000 indicated horse-power in compressed air, and to acquire for the works sufficient land to permit of their dimensions being doubled when extension shall become necessary. The site which has been chosen is a piece of ground belonging to the Birmingham and Warwick Canal Company, and situated by the canal, and bounded on both sides by Sampson Road North and Henley Street. Here the promoters are putting down four air-compressing engines, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... brothers, the late Judge J. M. Thompson of Lane County, and Senator S. C. Thompson, Jr., of Wasco, then boys of 12 and 14 years, went back and cared for the grain. The wheat was cut with a cradle, bound into bundles and stacked. A piece of ground was then cleared, the grain laid down on the "tramping floor" and oxen driven around until the grain was all tramped out. After the grain was all "threshed out," it was carried on top of a platform built of rails and poured out on a wagon sheet, trusting to the wind to separate the ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... raining for some hours, and in addition to the darkness of a rainy night in a swamp, Sam found the soft alluvial soil so saturated with water that he sank almost to his knees at every step. Finding it impossible to go on he stopped again on the highest and dryest piece of ground he could find, and prepared to spend the night there. Cutting down a number of thick-leaved bushes he arranged them against a fallen ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... various questions about her history. She was married to a man much older than herself, with whom she lived very happily; and her brother, a youth of eighteen, dwelt with them. They had a good boat and a little piece of ground, and she was skilful at the loom; so they managed to live well. In summer the fishermen fish at night: when all the fleet is out, it is pretty to see the line of torch-fires in the offing, two or ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... reckon the income that is to be gotten from each part of the series according to the old-time formula that is familiarly used in the case of land, "What labor and capital create by the use of this piece of ground in excess of what they would create if they were applied to the poorest land in use." For a grade of land read a grade of the self-perpetuating series of artificial instruments, and it will appear that each grade above the poorest yields, with the labor and capital that are combined with ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... sore iourneys of the legates in returning.] Then taking our iourney to returne, we trauailed all Winter long, lying in the deserts oftentimes vpon the snow, except with our feete wee made a piece of ground bare to lye vpon. For there were no trees, but the plaine champion [Footnote: Champagne (Fr.) Open] field. And oftentimes in the morning, we found our selues all couered with snow driuen ouer vs by the winde. [Sidenote: Bathy.] ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... "Go," says He, "go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Shall we say to Him, "No, it is not convenient"? shall we tell Him that we are busy fishing and cannot go? that we have bought a piece of ground and cannot go? that we have purchased five yoke of oxen, or have married, or are engaged in other and more interesting pursuits, and cannot go? Ere long "we must all appear before the judgment seat of CHRIST; that every one may receive the things done in his body." Let us remember, let ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... she was drawing him to land the boggy piece of ground on which she was standing gave way, and she, too, ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... arrived at a fort called Thilutha, situated in the middle of the river on a very high piece of ground, and fortified by nature as if by the art of man. The inhabitants were invited gently, as was best, to surrender, since the height of their fort made it impregnable; but they refused all terms as yet, though they answered that ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... box of Chapter X was arranged so that the light at the entrance to each electric-box had a value of 20 candle meters, less the diminution caused by a piece of ground glass which was placed over the end of the electric-boxes to diffuse the light. The windows through which the light entered the electric-boxes were covered with pieces of black cardboard; in one of these cardboards I had ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... called upon all the warriors to join him. When they were organized, he ordered them to assemble on a certain day, at a place that he named, each one provided with a woodman's ax. When they were thus mustered, he marched them into a forest, and set them at work to clear a piece of ground. The army toiled all day, felling the trees, and piling them up to be burned. They cleared in this way, as Herodotus states, a piece of ground eighteen or twenty furlongs in extent. Cyrus kept them thus engaged in severe and incessant toil ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of one spot at this present moment which was enclosed by an agricultural labourer fully sixty years ago. It is an oval piece of ground of considerable size, situated almost exactly in the centre of a very valuable estate. He and his descendants continued to crop this garden of theirs entirely unmolested for the whole of that time, paying no rent whatever. It soon, however, became necessary ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... common that a boy was all work, and had no ambition,—whatever work was in him must be got out of him, just as if he had been a horse or an ox. It was known that at some time he must take care of himself, yet he was not properly taught how to do so. The stimulant of letting him have a small piece of ground for his own profit was too rarely held out to him. No one knew what such a privilege might do for an energetic boy. If he failed the first year, he would be likely to know the cause of failure, and avoid it in the future. If he succeeded, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... heart can think. They appear to have been originally called the Long Fields, and afterwards (about Strype's time) the Southampton Fields. These fields remained waste and useless, with the exception of some nursery grounds near the New Road to the north, and a piece of ground enclosed for the Toxophilite Society, towards the northwest, near the back of Gower Street. The remainder was the resort of depraved wretches, whose amusements consisted chiefly in fighting pitched battles, and other disorderly sport, especially ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... process a small piece of ground is longer in filling, no room being lost, and the danger and disagreeable necessity of opening graves before the bodies in ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... muster, greater this day than the last, Left some hands free to clear a piece of ground; And these, with brush-hooks, o'er two acres passed, Making good riddance of what brush they found. They then cut down some poles and fenced it round. The family, too, were busy all this while, For they were moved with gratitude profound To show their ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... well dressed, and the babies in the finest white muslin and embroidery. A very large proportion of the artisans here are Catholics, and as one instance among others of the liberality prevailing here, I mention that one of the latest donations of M. Dollfus is the piece of ground, close to the cite ouvriere, on which now stands the new, florid ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... which the Highlanders moved from Tranent to Seaton was Robert Anderson, junior, of Whitburgh, a gentleman of property in East Lothian. He had been interrogated by the Lord George Murray concerning the possibility of crossing the uncouth and marshy piece of ground which divided the armies, and which he described as impracticable. When dismissed, he recollected that there was a circuitous path leading eastward through the marsh into the plain, by which the Highlanders might turn the flank of Sir John ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to perfection had better take a drive from Stirling, crossing the Forth, when, if he select his road happily, he may have the satisfaction of paying half-a-dozen tolls in nearly as many minutes, on the plea that this piece of ground, the size of a cocked-hat-box,—and that piece, the size of a cabbage-garden,—and so on, belong to different counties; and his amusement may derive additional zest if he be fortunate enough to find the same tollman there whom I met some years ago. When passing his toll ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... it. But 'that's a detail.' She is the owner of something else we do want—this piece of ground,"—he looked about him and waved his hand,—"and all this above us, where our power-plant must stand. And our business is to persuade her to sign the lease, or, if she won't lease, to sell it when we are ready to buy. We have to make sure of that piece of ground. This place is so confoundedly cut ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... pretty sure I saw a black fellow's head, over that rock, sir. It's a nasty piece of ground. I noticed it yesterday, as I came along. It would be the worst place to be attacked in of any we have passed. If the blacks are here in force, they know what ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... Narragansett Bay; and thither he proceeded with Seaton, and commenced building and planting. From this place, he found means to convey intelligence, both to Salem and Plymouth, of the safe termination of his perilous journey, and his intention to fix his settlement on the piece of ground that he had purchased. His messengers returned, after a considerable interval, and brought him a letter from his now joyful wife, which gladdened his heart with the welcome news of her health and safety; and that also of his little daughter Edith. This name, she told him, had been given to ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... said coolly,'I do not know what to do. Certainly it is a fine day, and a fair piece of ground. And the sun stands well. But I have not much to gain by killing you, M. le Capitaine, and it might get me into an awkward fix. On the other hand, it would not hurt me to ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... from its idyllic flight, and the clean, smooth, shining wood, with its fresh smell, attracted him. It suddenly occurred to him that he would pick out several articles for his wife, such as she might need or might like to have. At his suggestion, Constanze had, a long time ago, rented a little piece of ground outside the Kaernthner Thor, and had raised a few vegetables; so now it seemed quite fitting to invest in a long rake and a small rake and a spade. Then, as he looked further, he did honor to his principles of economy by denying himself, with an effort and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the plains with grass for the animals to feed on. He marked off a piece of ground, and in it he made to grow all kinds of roots and berries,—camas, wild carrots, wild turnips, sweet-root, bitter-root, sarvis berries, bull berries, cherries, plums, and rosebuds. He put trees in the ground. He put ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... approximate cost, urging that instructions be sent as to his wishes. Later he wrote that the company had decided not to wait for Nitschmann's reply, but to clear the garden on the terms usual in Georgia, e.g., that the man who cleared a piece of ground held it rent free for seven years, when it reverted to the owner. This had been done, and the garden was ready to plant and fence, and if Nitschmann approved they intended to clear the farm, and would build a small house on the town lot. Zinzendorf had suggested that ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... There was a piece of ground surrounding the flower-garden, which was not shrubbery, nor wood, nor kitchen garden—only a grassy bit, out of which a group of old forest trees sprang. Their roots were heaved above ground; their leaves fell ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... enclosed by King Charles II., who planted the avenues, made the Canal and the Aviary adjacent to the Bird-cage Walk, which took its name from the cages hung in the trees; but the present fine effect of the piece of ground within the railing, is the fruit of the genius of the celebrated ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... out the prisoners but are fain to go by artifice to deal with him. He tells me also, speaking of the new street that is to be made from Guild Hall down to Cheapside, that the ground is already most of it bought. And tells me of one particular, of a man that hath a piece of ground lying in the very middle of the street that must be; which, when the street is cut out of it, there will remain ground enough, of each side, to build a house to front the street. He demanded 700l. for the ground, and to be excused paying any thing ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... his church than this at Wilton," was the reply of the Abbess to his demand. During his period of indecision the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and commanded him to build his new church in a place called Myr-field, or, as some accounts have it, Maer-field. He searched vainly for a piece of ground by that name, that he might obey the supernatural edict, until by chance he overheard a labourer (or a soldier, the legends vary,) talking of the Maer-field, and then having, as he thought, identified the place, which appears to have been within his ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... detail, Spartacus fell upon a Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters, and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when, one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... length, and as by accident, upon a lawn, sparse planted like an orchard, but with forest instead of fruit trees. That was the site of Silverado mining town. A piece of ground was levelled up, where Kelmar's store had been; and facing that we saw Rufe Hanson's house, still bearing on its front the legend Silverado Hotel. Not another sign of habitation. Silverado town had all been carted from the scene; one of the houses was now the school-house ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lie between 40 degrees and 20 degrees, some seven hundred miles further south. This difference of position, giving them longer seasons, has made it possible for them to devise systems of agriculture whereby they grow two, three and even four crops on the same piece of ground each year. In southern China, in Formosa and in parts of Japan two crops of rice are grown; in the Chekiang province there may be a crop of rape, of wheat or barley or of windsor beans or clover which is followed in midsummer by another of cotton or of rice. ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... was fortified and manned. It was named Fort Pemberton after the commander at Vicksburg. No land approach was accessible. The troops, therefore, could render no assistance towards an assault further than to establish a battery on a little piece of ground which was discovered above water. The gunboats, however, attacked on the 11th and again on the 13th of March. Both efforts were failures and were not renewed. One gunboat was disabled and we lost ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Inscriptions. This cippus supported a statue raised in honor of Titus Sennius Sollemnis, a Viducassian by birth, and one of the high priests of the town. The statue was erected to him after his death, in the Viducassian capital, upon a piece of ground granted by the senate for the purpose, in pursuance of a general decree passed by the province of Gaul. The inscriptions set forth the motives that induced the nation to bestow so marked a distinction upon ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... of a rough piece of ground near the "Vaughan" was situated what was known as the old shaft. It had been made many years before, with a view to working coal there. The owners of the Vaughan, which at the time was just commencing work, had, however, bought up the ground, and as it adjoined their own and could ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... all day in our front, but thought this the effects of the enemy's sullen withdrawal. While resting by the road side, the enemy made a spirited attack upon the troops in front. We were hurriedly rushed forward, put in line of battle, advanced through an uneven piece of ground, and met the enemy posted behind a hill in front. They opened upon us at close range, killing and wounding quite a number, but as soon as our brigade made the first fire, they fled to a brick wall, running at an angle from the turn-pike. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... had just erected; but it was of brick, and the walls still so damp that they did not dare occupy it. She says, "We had but one alternative, and that was to remain in the boat till they could build a small house on the piece of ground which the king gave to Mr. J. last year. And you will hardly believe it possible, for I almost doubt my senses, that in just a fortnight from our arrival, we moved into a house built in that time, which is large enough ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... towns, and tennis-courts were built in all parts, of such spacious proportions and so well adapted for spectators, that they were often converted into theatres. Their game of billiards resembled the modern one only in name, for it was played on a level piece of ground with wooden balls which were struck with hooked sticks and mallets. It was in great repute in the fourteenth century, for in 1396 Marshal de Boucicault, who was considered one of the best players of his time, won at it six hundred ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... was a large piece of ground nearly as wild in appearance as it was a hundred years ago. Many trees and ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... he sat was an oblong piece of ground, with a central grass plat and some starved and meagre borders on either hand. The gravel in the paths had blackened, so had the leaves of the privets and the lilacs, so also had the red-brick walls of the low homely house closing up ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is nothing nearer than my cottage half a mile away; and this short grass and flat piece of ground are entirely natural. Nothing has been touched, except here and there a tree cut out to keep the borders straight. The late Lady Ashiel, the wife of my unfortunate cousin, was very fond of this place. Although it is farther, she always ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... or five and twenty miles (for he had made another mid day halt), he reached the place, which he easily recognised, as that where he had camped before crossing to the pass that led into Erewhon. It was the last piece of ground that could be called a flat (though it was in reality only the sloping delta of a stream that descended from the pass) before reaching a large glacier that had encroached on the river-bed, which it traversed at right angles ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... on the hither side by a row of fine apple-trees. The smooth green flat tempted Ellen to a run, but first she looked to the left. There was the garden, she guessed, for there was a paling fence which enclosed a pretty large piece of ground; and between the garden and the house a green slope ran down to the spout. That reminded her that she intended making a journey of discovery up the course of the long trough. No time could be better than now; and she ran ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The piece of ground in Athens purchased by Dr. King in 1829, was at that time little prized by Turks or Greeks. But after the capital became permanently fixed there, the land had become a most desirable part of the city, as it commanded an unobstructed view of many of the finest ancient monuments ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... force, however, was unable successfully to defend the hospital, which, after desperate fighting, was carried by the Zulus and burnt, the garrison then being concentrated in the storehouse and a small piece of ground enclosed by meal-bags in front. For twelve hours the fight continued, and then the Zulus, after suffering a loss which they themselves admit to exceed 1000, fell back, and ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... intended to prepare a large piece of ground for summer-fallow, it was necessary to get rid of those stumps of the trees, which, according to the practice of chopping them two or three feet from the ground, present a continual obstacle to the advance of the plough. We, however, succeeded ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... common dust. To the lovers of genius, this little garden-house might have been a place to visit as a chosen shrine; nor will they learn without regret that the walls of it, yielding to the hand of time, have already crumbled into ruin, and are now no longer to be traced. The piece of ground that it stood on is itself hallowed with a glory that is bright, pure and abiding; but the literary pilgrim could not have surveyed, without peculiar emotion, the simple chamber, in which Schiller wrote the Reich ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... life has left that region; why the Vauquer houses, the Phellion and the Thuillier houses now swarm with tenants and boarders, on the site of so many noble and religious buildings, and why such mud and dirty trades and poverty should have fastened on a hilly piece of ground, instead of spreading out upon the flat land beyond the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... full century, preferred to hold their Court at Agra. This dynasty, however, re-transferred the metropolis to the older situation; but, instead of attempting to revive any of the pristine localities, fixed their palace and its environs upon a new—and a preferablepiece of ground. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... the rest the man got. In the first place, he had the right to get up very early in the morning, in the gloom and drizzle, and to trudge through the slop and the heather until he got far away from the neighborhood of any human being, and then he could go up on some high piece of ground and take a spyglass and search the whole country round for a stag. When he saw one way off in the distance snuffing the morning air, or hunting for his breakfast among the heather, he had the privilege of walking two or three miles over the moor ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... be gardening. He means to buy a piece of ground in the neighbourhood, and surround it with a wall, and build a gardener's house upon it, and have fruit, and be happy. Much happiness it will not bring him; but what can he do better? If I had money enough, what ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... who understand. The traps are made to stop any enemies who try to sneak up on the malocas and catch these people unawares. Another kind of trap is a spring bow or a blowgun shot by a vine stretched across the path. Still another is a piece of ground studded with poisoned araya bones which pierce the bare feet of anyone walking on them. It is well for us that ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... used to walk up the hill to see how the building was getting on, all the children with us; then, as we sat on the timber, I used to draw the letters of the alphabet on the white sand, and the little ones learnt them. We went home through a piece of ground we called our garden. In it grew plenty of pine-apples and sugar-cane, and the gardener always supplied us with pieces of the latter to eat—very refreshing and nice, but the juice ran all over your hands. As for pine-apples, we soon got tired of them; but they made good tarts, and, mixed with ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... raising the productions of other parts of the world. But these are partial and insufficient proofs of fertility. Every person who has attempted to make a garden of any kind nor Fort Marlborough must well know how ineffectual a labour it would prove to turn up with the spade a piece of ground adopted at random. It becomes necessary for this purpose to form an artificial soil of dung, ashes, rubbish, and such other materials as can be procured. From these alone he can expect to raise the smallest supply of vegetables for the table. I have seen many extensive plantations ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... crude, and unfermented, are newly sown in the beginning of the spring; especially, in hot and loose grounds; being already in so fair a progress by this artificial preparation; and which, (if the provision to be made be very great) may be thus manag'd. Chuse a fit piece of ground, and with boards (if it have not that position of it self) design it three foot high; lay the first foot in fine earth, another of seeds, acorns, mast, keys, nuts, haws, holly-berries, &c. promiscuously, or separate, with (now and then) ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the morning the boys met on the level piece of ground that had been selected for the game. At each end of the field two upright poles, a little distance apart, were erected for ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... road, where they were now approaching it through the fields, a rail-fence had just been put up, inclosing a piece of ground which the owner wished to let for building. That the fact might be known, he was about to erect a post with a great board announcing it. For this post a man had dug the hole, and then gone to his dinner. The inclosure lay between Faber and the road, in the direct line he was taking. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... the village there was a hedge that enclosed what seemed to be a piece of ground about as big as their own garden ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... at Rome for the first time he does not realize that there have been several cities on the same piece of ground, and that the churches and palaces and other great buildings he sees to-day rest on an earlier and invisible city buried in dust beneath the foundations of the Rome of the Twentieth Century. In like manner, and because all visible things on ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... to dig a piece of ground or to wheel a barrow, will find himself making irregular ditches and traveling in zigzags, and all this at the expense of a hundred times the energy put forth by the workman who is accustomed to ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... around the Lake of Four Cantons, and I saw Rutli and Altorf. Rutli is a remote little patch of meadow, but I do not know how any piece of ground could be holier or better worth crossing oceans and continents to see, since it was there that the great trinity of Switzerland joined hands six centuries ago and swore the oath which set their enslaved and insulted country forever free; and Altorf is also honorable ground and worshipful, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bystanders and those who were sitting around that the Earl heard these clamours as far off as the castle, and he enquired of some how it was there was such a clamour, and answer was made to him that two kinsmen were fighting about a certain piece of ground, and that one had fled till he reached a certain little pit, and that as he stood over the pit and was about to fall into it the other warned him. Then the townsmen being moved with pity, made a covenant with the Earl that they should give him threepence yearly for each house in the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... the ground. It looks as if each patch had sprung from a great fall of acorns from one tree, or perhaps were shoots from the roots of a perished tree. The clumps are more or less irregularly round, set down in a barren piece of ground, or among the sage bushes. At a distance, on the side of a mountain, they resemble patches of moss of varying shape. When two or three feet high, one is a thick, solid mat; when it reaches an altitude of six to eight feet, it is an impenetrable thicket; except, that is, when it happens ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... appears in the difference of understanding between the savages (who, except in treachery, cunning and shape, scarce seem to differ from the apes which inhabit their forests) and the most elegant and civilized nations. A piece of ground left wild produces nothing but weeds and briers, which by culture would be covered with corn, flowers and fruit. The difference is not less between a rough mind and ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... omit here a small adventure which was very surprising to me on this journey; passing this plain country, we came to an open piece of ground where a neighbouring gentleman had at a great expense laid out a proper piece of land for a decoy, or duck-coy, as some call it. The works were but newly done, the planting young, the ponds very ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... inevitable. In this I think that I—or as I believe I may say we, we Englishmen—were wrong. I do not see how the North, treated as it was and had been, could have submitted to secession without resistance. We all remember what Shakspeare says of the great armies which were led out to fight for a piece of ground not large enough to cover the bodies of those who would be slain in the battle; but I do not remember that Shakspeare says that the battle was on this account necessarily unreasonable. It is the old point of honor which, till it had been made absurd by certain changes of circumstances, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... in the second place; unsatisfactory and annoying altogether. Such things about a farm establishment are neither dignified nor useful, and should be left to town's-people, having but a stinted appreciation of what constitutes natural beauty, and wanting to make the most of the limited piece of ground of ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... information concerning the state of his village, and the losses of the peasants by fire, or by epidemics among their cattle. His sympathy with his fellow-villagers was the warmer, that like them he had a piece of ground to till, were it only a garden, an orchard, or a bit of vineyard. Round his door, as round theirs, a few hens were scratching; perhaps a cow lowed from her shed, or followed the village herd to the common. The priest's servant, a stout lass, did the milking and the weeding. In 1788, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... get down there right now because I want to get a grip on trade conditions. I can do better after the war if I do. It won't last long, and we are sure to take over a big piece of ground there when it is over. And when that is settled commerce must do the real building-up of the country. I want to be a part of that thing and grow with it. Why do you ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... know that I ever saw more sign on one piece of ground," admitted Alex. He spoke in a low tone of voice and motioned for the others to be very quiet. "The trouble is, they seem to be feeding at night and working back toward the hills in the daytime. On this country here there have been six black ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... pipe, in which the smoke passes through water.] and a cup of coffee, but went to supper with his household, without inviting me to join them. This being considered an insult, I left his house and went to sup with the muleteers, with whom I slept upon an open piece of ground before a ruined bath, in the midst of the village. The inhabitants of Zebdeni are three-fourths Turks, and the remainder Greek Catholics; it is a place much frequented by those passing from ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... and his master were engaged in surveying a piece of ground he fell and broke his knee pan, with the result that he was crippled ever after. When Washington started to New York in 1789 to be inaugurated Billy insisted upon accompanying him, but gave out on the way and was left at Philadelphia. A little later, by the ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... here," said Servadac, with as much calmness as he could command; "it will be advisable, I think, for this discussion to be carried on in the open air." And hurriedly he left the room. Followed immediately by the others, he led the way to a level piece of ground, which he considered he might fairly claim ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... are wide-spreading, and hence injurious to the land about them. Two or three trees on some corner not desired for cultivation, or in the street, will be sufficient. A rough piece of ground, not suitable for cultivation, might be occupied by an orchard of butternut-trees, and be profitable for market and as a family luxury. The bark is often ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... than a biscuit manufactory. A lot of red brick pill-box looking buildings scattered over a flat piece of ground. We shan't see the town. It is a mile from here. ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... to raise. What is the use of criticism? What is the use of all this investigating? Why indulge in all this doubt? And now let me give you an illustration which will lead me to answering this question and enforcing the point I have in mind. A farmer, if he selects a favorable piece of ground, plants good seed, cultivates it properly, if the rain falls and the sun shines, and the weather is propitious, will have a successful crop. Does it make any difference now whether the farmer has correct ideas about soil and seed and cultivation? Does it make ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... a piece of ground which had been dug up to be newly turfed, and which I had chosen on that account, as the traces of my spade were less likely to attract attention. The men who laid down the grass must have thought me mad. I called to them continually to expedite ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... oak, and mortar. It was a beautiful little spot, situated upon the flat top of a swelling hill, which comprised the ten acres of grazing ground originally granted, and was, strange to say, still the most magnificently-timbered piece of ground in the country side. For on the ten acres of grass land there stood over fifty great oaks, some of them pollards of the most enormous antiquity, and others which had, no doubt, originally grown very close together, fine upstanding trees with a wonderful length and girth of bole. This place, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... side was not so steep, and before the rock sank into the alluvial soil of the valley, it became for a few yards nearly level—sufficiently so, with a little smoothing and raising, to serve for a foundation; while in front was a narrow but rich piece of ground, the bank of the little brook. Before many days were over, men were at work there, in full sight of the upper windows of the New House. It was not at first clear what they were about; but soon began to rise, plain enough, the walls of cottages, some of stone, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... admirably adapted to the climate and soil. The lowest average produce of wheat, as far as we can at present know, is thirty-five fanegas for one sown; but, as an instance of its fertility, it may be mentioned that Senor Valejo obtained, on a piece of ground where sheep had been pastured, 800 fanegas for eight sown. The produce being different in various places, a very correct idea ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... And the king, accompanied by his four kinds of forces, proceeded towards his city, his heart rent in grief and filled with thoughts of his defeat along the way in a region that abounded in grass and water. The king encamped on a delightful piece of ground as pleased him best, with his elephants and cars and cavalry and infantry stationed all around. And as the king Duryodhana was seated on an elevated bedstead endued with the effulgence of fire, himself looking like the moon under an eclipse, towards ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Chinese might claim a considerable share of merit as horticulturists, I meant to confine the observation to their skill and industry of raising the greatest possible quantity of vegetables from a given piece of ground. Of the modes practised in Europe of improving the quality of fruit, they seem to have no just notion. Their oranges are naturally good and require no artificial means of improvement, but the European fruits, as apples, pears, plums, peaches and apricots are of indifferent ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... fresh shock as I neared Clochegourde. Jacques, Madeleine, and the Abbe Dominis were kneeling at the foot of a wooden cross placed on a piece of ground that was taken into the enclosure when the iron gate was put up, which the count and countess had never been willing to remove. I sprang from the carriage and went towards them, my heart aching at the sight of these children and that grave old man imploring the mercy of God. The old huntsman ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... of the soldiers were left behind, who, seeing a piece of ground of a black appearance, from the snow having disappeared there, conjectured that it must have melted; and it had, in fact, melted in the spot from the effect of a fountain, which was sending up a vapor in a woody hollow ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... and the play continued as if no interruption had taken place. They were accustomed to such occurrences in Pine Tree Gulch, and the piece of ground at the top of the hill, that had been set aside as a burial place, was already dotted thickly with graves, filled in almost every instance by men who had died, in the local phraseology, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... made a dam to a hollow piece of ground near the house, which soon became full of water, and is surrounded by beautiful willow trees. There all the thirsty creatures come to drink in safety. And very pretty it is, to sit on the verandah of that happy home, and see Dot playing near the water surrounded ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... just started they happened to select a piece of ground I own an interest in for a county hospital. On that are some good hickory nut trees. I told them they'd never get the land until they made some arrangements in regard to those nut trees. The engineer that designed that hospital must have had some ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... on a solid, dry piece of ground beyond the range of the Southern works, and the men, veterans now, prepared for their comfort. The comrades ate supper to the slow booming of great guns, where the advanced cannon of either side engaged ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the day, while the battle was in progress, I sat in an exposed place on a piece of ground sloping down toward the enemy, and being the only horseman on that part of the field, soon became a target for the balls that whistled and sang their threatening songs as they hurried by. At length ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... business. May we not expect in the near future to see one portion of our cities devoted entirely to business, with the homes of the people so separated as to give light, sunshine, and air to all, besides a piece of ground for a garden sufficient to supply the ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... quantity of loaves of cassava bread, carefully prepared. She pointed out, that the pigeons had built in the tree, and were sitting on their eggs. We then looked over the young fruit-trees brought from Europe, and my sons and I immediately laid out a piece of ground, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... pleasure; still less did they attempt to annoy us with either mockery or outrage. After we had passed through the town gates, and a long and very narrow street, we turned into a by-lane, and saw on a high piece of ground before us, which was surrounded by an earthen wall and thick-set hedge, and guarded by armed soldiers, a building which was, perhaps, to ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... covered with shrubs and plants. They generally bring some part of the materials with them; the rest they find upon the premises. I was present when a number of people landed, and built one of these villages. The moment the canoes reached the shore, the men leaped out, and at once took possession of a piece of ground, by tearing up the plants and shrubs, or sticking up some part of the framing of a hut. They then returned to their canoes, and secured their weapons, by setting them up against a tree, or placing them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Brother Brannum, taking this as a neighbourly hint, "mount up here and rest yourself, whilst I stretch my legs along this level piece of ground." ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... of purification they fasted that evening and slept on the bare ground. Then at dawn they made ready everything wanted for the sacrifice and went to the jungle with the bullock that was to be the victim. There at the foot of a sal tree they scraped a piece of ground bare and smeared it with cow dung; then they put little heaps of rice at the four corners of a square and marked the place with vermilion; then they sprinkled water over the bullock and led it up to ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas |
