"Squatting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bulging brow and stripped not only of his gown but everything else this side of his skin—well, draw your own conclusion. For after performing certain additional exercises—one hundred times up on your toes, one hundred times (if you could) squatting to your knees, one hundred times throwing your arms out straight before you from your chest or up from your shoulders or out at right angles, right and left from your body and back to your hips until your fingers touched and the sweat once more ran—you were ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... a strange thing to see in so sordid a setting; a great gilded joss, more than life-size, squatting, hideous, upon a massive pedestal; a figure fit for some native temple but strangely out of place in ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... squatter is to be found in Australia as well as the "struggling farmer". The Australian squatter is not always the mighty wool king that English and American authors and other uninformed people apparently imagine him to be. Squatting, at the best, is but a game of chance. It depends mainly on the weather, and that, in New South Wales at ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... echoed the hoot. She passed through a thicket of sumac into a clearing where a number of sheep were huddled together in the cold night air. An answer came back almost instantly from the ragged rocks, and, squatting in a hollow, Flea sat patiently until the branches broke below her. A woman with tangled hair came ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... on as she had bidden, and seated myself before an old, white, many-windowed house, squatting, like an owl at noon, beneath its green covert. In a few minutes the great dog with dripping jowl passed almost like reality, and after him his mistress, and on her arm her master, ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... cleared away from my camping-place and taken to the prahus, the kapala and three women, one of them his wife, came and seated themselves in a row close together in a squatting position. With the few words of Malay he knew he explained that the women wanted to say good-bye. No doubt it was their way, otherwise they have no greetings. At the landing float the "onder" and his Kahayan assistant were ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... will use? Where is their yardstick? Where is the concept? Why, out there, for all you know, Huckleberry Finn is still floating down the river, and Macbeth walks through the halls of Dunsinane. And the last man, in the year one-million AD, may be squatting over a fire, watching his last stick of wood ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... journey that, missing him thus, I turned to wait for him to come up and found him nowhere in sight. Hereupon I hasted back the way I had come and after some while beheld him prone in the dust; he lay outstretched upon his face in the hot glare of the sun, the dog Pluto squatting beside him, and as I approached the desolate figure I knew that he was weeping. So came I running to fall beside him on my knees and lifting that abased head, saw indeed the agony of ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... may acquire rights of emfiteuse directly from the owner of the land, like an ordinary lease; or he may acquire them by settlement—"squatting," as the popular term is. Wherever land is lying waste, any one may establish himself upon it and cultivate it, on condition of paying to the owner a certain proportion of the yield of the land—generally one quarter—either ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... abstinence from liquor with keen participation in all its other diversions. One departure from total abstinence stands alleged among the feats of strength for which he became noted. He hoisted a whisky barrel, of unspecified but evidently considerable content, on to his knees in a squatting posture and drank from the bunghole. But this very arduous potation stood alone. Offutt was some time before he arrived with his goods, and Lincoln lived by odd jobs. At the very beginning one Mentor Graham, a schoolmaster ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the centre. Round it were heaps of dry grass, on which apparently they slept; while bunches of grass were hung to the roof, probably to dry. The smoke found its way out of the doorway, and through a small aperture, where the poles at the apex joined. There we all sat round the fire, squatting on our heels, and talking away as fast as our tongues could move, as if we were keeping up a very interesting conversation. The smoke and heat, not to mention the want of cleanliness in our hosts, made us very glad to get out again into the fresh air. Besides the fungi I have spoken of, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... run for the door furthest from the cow stall and appeared almost immediately with a large silver mug and a huge piece torn from a loaf. Squatting beside the cow he balanced the mug between his knees and deftly milked it full. She seized it, drained it thirstily and began munching her bread, holding the mug out to him again to be filled a second time. She bit great mouthfuls from the loaf, like ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the tobacco smoke until that great world-state seemed imminent—and Part Two in the Tripos a thing relatively remote. He would talk until the dimly-lit room about him became impalpable, and the young men squatting about it in elaborately careless attitudes caught glimpses of cities that are still to be, bridges in wild places, deserts tamed and oceans conquered, mankind no longer wasted by bickerings, going forward to the ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... travel by daylight, was a corn shock, but a few hundred yards from the road, and here I must pass my first day out. The day was an unhappy one; my hiding-place was extremely precarious. I had to sit in a squatting position the whole day, without the least chance to rest. But, besides this, my scanty pittance did not afford me that nourishment which my hard night's travel needed. Night came again to my relief, and I sallied ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... I found him in, and after we had looked for about a minute at each other, I squatting before the kennel, he with chin on paws pretending to be looking through me at something beyond, I addressed a few kind words to him, which he received with the before-mentioned growl. I pronounced him a surly brute and went away. It was growl for growl. Nevertheless I was well pleased at having ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... they had been fighting half an hour, though from what Joe had told her she knew it had been only three minutes. With the crash of the gong Joe's seconds were through the ropes and running him into his corner for the blessed minute of rest. One man, squatting on the floor between his outstretched feet and elevating them by resting them on his knees, was violently chafing his legs. Joe sat on the stool, leaning far back into the corner, head thrown back and arms outstretched on the ropes to ...
— The Game • Jack London
... and when I went in to see that everything was in order, she asked me in a supplicating voice, to give her a wardrobe with a looking-glass in the doors. I promised her one, and then I left her squatting on the carpet from Djebel-Amour, with a cigarette in her mouth, and gossiping with the old Arab woman I had sent for, as if they had known ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... to have grounded in the channel, trying to get in quick at low tide. But there were two harpoons, more than the bamboo, sticking in her very deep, and the lines were hitched to a longboat, the longboat coming inshore now full of men. Veronica squatting on the thwart of the ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... dovey, look at ooself in the glass; we could beat oo, and pinch oo, and stick pins into oo, dovey, but we won't. Dovey will be good, I know;" and a great patch of rouge came on the child's pale cheeks. The clown therewith, squatting before her with his hands on his knees, grinned lustily, and shrieked out, "My ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dotted with little black holes. A few dovecotes, the cupolas of which are whitewashed, and one or two minarets striped with red and white, alone impart to the antique appearance of that city the modern aspect of Islamism. On the top of the terraces women, squatting on mats or standing in their long robes of brilliant colours, are looking at us, no doubt attracted by the passing of the train. As they show against the sky, they are wondrously elegant and graceful. They look like statues ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... to the comb's unkind divorce, Their long-contracted amity forget, And spring asunder with elastic force; Nay, e'en the very cap, of texture coarse, Whose ruby cincture crown'd that brow of jet, Uprose in agony—the Gorgon's head Was but a type of Nick's up-squatting in the bed. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... sheltered hollow some hundred feet below the level at which they were, a hooded figure in pure white was startlingly splashed upon the grey-brown of the dry hills. The peak of a cowl shot straight above his head, and the curtains of it covered his face. He sat, squatting upon the turf, with a lifted hand admonishing. About him, with cocked ears, and quick side- glances, were some six or seven hares, some reared upon their haunches, some, with sleek heads, intent upon the herbage, one lopping here and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the dogs were disputing over the bones tossed to them after the evening meal, while the squaws and braves, gathered in separate groups, were squatting about, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... yet, I grieve to say, the worthy government of the New Netherlands was not suffered to enjoy this grand acquisition unmolested; for, in the year 1654, the local Yankees of Connecticut—those swapping, bargaining, squatting enemies of the Manhattoes—made a daring inroad into this neighborhood and founded a colony called Westchester, or, as the ancient Dutch records term it, Vest Dorp, in the right of one Thomas Pell, who pretended to have purchased the whole surrounding ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... "do shut it! I can see Miss Warrington and Miss Allan and Mrs. Elliot and the rest squatting on the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... of their short wings and heavy bodies, they never fly from one country to another. But they increase very rapidly in number, a single pair having been known to produce as many as 183 eggs in a season. The sportsman, however, takes care to keep their numbers within due limits. Their habit of squatting or sitting so close to the earth, has been supposed to be an instinctive act to save themselves from the attacks of the hawk, who is unable to master his prey, if large and strong, near the ground, where it could offer resistance. I have met with a story of a pheasant which ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... Danny Randall," he began at once, squatting near by: "Origin lost in mists of obscurity. First known in this country as guide to a party of overland immigrants before the gold discovery. One of the original Bear Flag revolutionists. Member of Fremont's raiders in the south. Showed up ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... into his rags in a minute, and the next instant he was squatting back on his haunches in the corner of the hut, like a wildcat about to spring. In his hand there glistened, in the yellow rays of ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... existed merely by title of tolerance. I speak of the indefinite possessio which was nothing but an occupation on the part of the patricians[19] of the land belonging to the state and was in nature quite similar to the so-called "squatting" commonly practiced in some of our western states and territories. The title to the enjoyment of the public lands was at first clearly vested in the patricians nor was this right extended to the plebeians until after they had been admitted ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... deep metallic voice sounded in anger above that of the provost-marshal, {179} as the latter gave the words "Ready! present!" But at this instant his vociferous daring forsook him. As the men levelled their muskets at him, with inconceivable rapidity he sprang bodily round, still preserving his squatting posture, and received the fire from behind; while the less noisy, but more brave, Ogston looked the firing-party full in the face as they discharged ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... northern dome is a blush of rose deepening to a warm terra-cotta along the horizon, and the water reflects it upward to the gaze. Tiny Wilson petrels flit by like swallows; seals shove their dark forms above the placid surface; the shore is lined with penguins squatting in grotesque repose. The south is pallid with light—the circling sun. Adelie Land is ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... stone dead and as black as charcoal. That's what they really were, you see—charcoal. They fell to bits when we tried to shift 'em. The man who was standin' up had the false teeth. I saw 'em shinin' against the black. Fell to bits he did too, like his mate squatting down an' watchin' him, both of 'em all wet in the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And—that's what made me ask about marks just now—the false-toother was tattooed on the arms and chest—a crown and foul anchor ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... of belief, all gloating over inexhaustible tides of blood. And it seemed to him that he was not in England any longer. It seemed to him that in the dim cellars under the shambles behind the Town Hall, where he had once been, there dwelt, squatting, a strange and savage god who would blast all those who did not enter his presence dripping with gore, be they child or grandfather. It seemed to him that the drums were tom-toms, and Baines's a bazaar. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... around on railings and steps and squatting on the grass. There was a little ripple of murmuring as he passed through the sprawling throng, but no one spoke to him. That was not because they did not appreciate, but because he was different and a stranger. Perhaps it was because they ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years old—the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of old linen—were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses had been thrown. The ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... saw Rat, his pet and companion, squatting near Judy and flicking his beady little red eyes mischievously in the direction of the girl's ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... Falatas turned King's evidence against his other companions on the charge of war treason. Squatting on the floor of the courthouse, their rosaries interlaced with their handcuffs, they assumed the air of innocence, but were convicted and condemned to terms of imprisonment. Two were called Isa (Jesus) and one was Adam. Arab life has more than ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... it, was filled with a contingent of all classes of people, Egyptians predominating. The majority were squatting on their haunches on the floor, regardless of those who wished to move about, in an attitude reminding one for all the world of the "Dusky Red Man" of ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... of emancipation be considered doubtful or disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance, there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,—and "there is not a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English laborer, earn ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... with his vile "Donation," and poisoned all the springs of her life. If the Emperor, said Peter, wanted to be a Christian, he ought first to have laid down his crown. He was a ravenous beast; he was a wolf in the fold; he was a lion squatting at the table; and at that fatal moment in history, when he gave his "Donation" to the Pope, an angel in heaven had spoken the words: "This day has poison entered the blood of ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... time has been, when I have had more than one pacha strangled. Yes," continued she squatting down on the floor, and muttering, "the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... uncle, and now blinked up at him from the floor, where he was squatting, rather ashamed of his swollen eyes ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... blanket that they wear, rolled up or folded into convenient form. Small stools are sometimes seen, but the need of such appliances does not seem to be keenly felt by these Indians, who can, for hours, sit in a peculiar squatting position on their haunches, without any apparent discomfort. Though moveable chairs or stools are rare, nearly all of the dwellings are provided with the low ledge or bench around the rooms, which in earlier times seems to have been confined to the kivas. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... besides hammocks and cooking utensils; yet we were every where asked to go in and sit down: all the floors were cleanly swept, and a log of wood or a rude stool was generally to be found for a seat for the stranger, the people themselves squatting on ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... hanging to his sleeve he went back to the house, and there caught sight of the other four Rokuro-Kubi squatting together, with their bruised and bleeding heads reunited to their bodies. But when they perceived him at the back-door all screamed, "The priest! the priest!"—and fled, through the other doorway, out into ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... his shoulders on either side. His costume was that of ordinary civilization, save for a pair of new, tight moccasins. Having apparently all the time there was, he had been a frequent spectator of operations, squatting by the hour watching the work. Occasionally his interest had been rewarded by a meal or a plug of tobacco. These things he had accepted without comment and without thanks. His taciturnity ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... are bent to squatting position, hands on the ground between knees; at two the legs are extended backward to the leaning rest; at three the first position is resumed, and at four the position of attention; hands should be directly under shoulders; back arched; knees straight; ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... out," said a third, squatting as close on the bank as the men would let him; "it's Mr. Larry 'll win, God bless him!—and none but him—and he the weight all wid him, and why not? There's none of 'em in the counthry so good as the Kellys. Hoorroo for the Kellys! ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... weapons of the adversaries were not of a nature to spill blood upon the turf, there was something warlike about their countenances which would have done honor to ancient paladins. Lambernier squatting upon his legs, according to the rules of pugilism, and with his fists on a level with his shoulders, resembled, somewhat, a cat ready to bound upon its prey. The artist stood with his body thrown backward, his legs on a tension, his chin buried up to his moustache ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Hopi Indians of Arizona is the Tao or Singer Society. Such altars are erected in connection with the sacred and secret ceremonies in underground rooms or kivas in the different Hopi villages. Around these altars the priests arrange themselves, squatting on the floor, during their ceremonies, and engage in singing, sprinkling of sacred meal, smoking, asperging of sacred water, etc. Here they prepare their prayer offerings, utter their prayers, and practise numerous other religious rites. Of the slabs and sticks in the ridge of the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... criticism of religion is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion indeed is man's self-consciousness and self-estimation while he has not found his feet in the universe. But Man is no abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the world of men, the State, society. This State, this society produces religion, which is an inverted world-consciousness, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... be good to her, never you fear," assured Jimmy, squatting comfortably down on the little fur rug before the stove—the skin of the coyote his father had killed four years ago. "I believe in being good to your mother when you've only got the one. Now tell us a story, Theodora—a real jolly story, you know, with ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... my telling them. You jump into minds and hearts, and poor little I remain outside, squatting like a hungry child." ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... when he saw that Angria was in company with Diggle. Both were squatting on the carpeted dais; no other person was in the room. Having ushered him in, the peon withdrew, and Desmond was alone with the two men he had most cause to fear. Diggle was smiling, Angria's eyes were gleaming, his mobile lips working as with impatience, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... buried; furthermore that children, born on Sunday, can see this flame, and if they remain calm and unmoved, they can secure the treasure. One would never have thought that such a treasure was hidden in old Farmer Landfried, and that squatting over it was black obstinacy and contempt for humankind. But Amrei saw the little blue flame hovering above him, and knew how to conduct herself in such a way as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... guarded by soldiers, and as soon as we were inside the heavy iron-studded doors closed with an ominous clang. I glanced round at the thick impregnable walls and knew that we were in the Kasbah, or citadel. Gaily-dressed soldiers were leaning or squatting everywhere as we crossed the several court-yards, one after the other, until, by the direction of one of the officials who had joined us on entering, we were led through a low arched door, and thence a dozen soldiers who had come forward hurried us down a flight of dark damp steps ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... order drill and attack practice).—Just sit down. Close in a bit. Light your pipes if you wish. Let me tell you that the sort of work we've been doing this afternoon is the only way we're ever going to finish off the Hun—absolutely. You can never win a war by squatting down in a hole and lookin' at the other fellow. No, open fighting—that's what the new armies have got to learn. I fear it's been badly neglected; but not in this battalion. Now, with regard to the screen of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... smell of petrol smoke to the mingled odours that assailed his nose. At length they discovered a light amid the gloom, and hastening towards it, discovered that it proceeded from an oil-lamp within one of the huts, the door of which was open. Here they saw a group of Chinamen squatting on the floor, engaged in playing a game with small figures ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... them tailoring and repairing garments, others burnishing their weapons or their armour, and one swarthy youth there was who thrummed a gimri and sang a melancholy Shilha love-song to the delight of a score or so of bloodthirsty ruffians squatting about him in ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... up to the cracked front door. She did not seem conscious that time and poverty had wasted the beauties of that place; that shingles were gone from the outreaching eaves, torn away by March winds; that stones had fallen from the chimney, squatting broad-shouldered at the weathered gable; that panes were missing from the windows, their places supplied by boards and tacked-on cloth, or that pillows crowded into them, making it seem a house that stopped its ears ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... suggested to the midshipmen that it would be prudent to pull back, as without torches they could not see where they were going. There might be, for what they could tell to the contrary, some big sea monster squatting up at the further end, who might crunch them up ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Sigi mi Querida Bondia—maldito." Then springing to his feet, and stretching himself to his full height, with his arms extended towards heaven, while a strong shiver shook him like an ague fit, he yelled forth the last words he ever uttered, "Venga la suerte, ya soi listo," and resumed his squatting position on the ground. Half-a-dozen musket balls were now fired at random through the wattles, while the lieutenant, who spoke Spanish well, sung out lustily, that we were English officers who had been shipwrecked. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... scene. A swirling torrent with a roar like thunder was frothing down the cataract. Above, barriers of rocks athwart the stream stretched like a weir across the river, damming the deep still water behind it. The shore was strewn with boulders. Groups of trackers were on the bank squatting on the rocks to see the foreign devil and his cockleshell. Other Chinese were standing where the side-stream is split by the boulders into narrow races, catching fish with great dexterity, dipping them out of ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the gait of a funeral procession. After an hour or two of hard work, we got them all up, and found the carts standing full of hides, which we had to unload, and to load the carts again with our own goods; the lazy Indians, who came down with them, squatting on their hams, looking on, doing nothing, and when we asked them to help us, only shaking their heads, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... ignorant deny'—a thick, heavy voice boomed through the darkness, as a figure came to rest squatting—'None but the ignorant deny the value of charms. None but the ignorant deny the value ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... and children-standing, walking, or sitting in the sun, under the shadowing of the palms. Men squatting, with hands clasped over their black knees, are watching us from under their white turbans-very steadily, with a slight scowl. All these Indian faces have the same set, stern expression, the same knitting of the brows; and the keen gaze is not altogether pleasant. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the fire. Then, his heart failing him, he asked for brandy, and swallowed about five small glassfuls. After an internal struggle of ten minutes (the time it must have taken to cook the ham and eggs as much as they are), the young man arose and approached the widow, who was squatting down and leaning forward over her cooking. He stabbed her twice on the back; but she was not killed instantly. She half arose seizing the assassin by the hands; while he drew back, lifting her suddenly, and then hurling her down ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... help them identify all they now saw. Notes were taken, however, to help them look up and catalogue the varieties, later, in camp. There were many other interesting living creatures, also; some half-hid under leaves or twigs, others squatting daringly in the open, with questioning eyes ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... making a blanket the operator sits on the ground with her legs folded under her. The warp hangs vertically before her, and (excepting in a case to be mentioned) she weaves from below upwards. As she never rises from this squatting posture when at work, it is evident that when she has woven the web to a certain height further work must become inconvenient or impossible unless by some arrangement the finished web is drawn downwards. Her cloth-beam does not revolve ...
— Navajo weavers • Washington Matthews
... declaimer, shouting forth praises of his master, with his pedigree; and near him one who bore the long wooden "frum-frum," on which he ever and anon blew a blast, loud and unmusical,' The major says, the appearance of these courtiers was ridiculous in the extreme, squatting down in their places, or tottering under the weight and magnitude of their turbans and their stomachs, while their thin legs, that appeared underneath, but ill accorded with the bulk of the other parts. I see George ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... his schooling, helped to give a mystic tinge to his mind. The peasants who dwelt around his father's house always possessed a peculiar fascination for him; he would watch them as they sat by their doorway, squatting on their heels, as their custom is—grave, monotonous, motionless, the smoke from their pipes almost the sole sign of life. For the Flemish peasant is a strangely inert creature, his work once done—as languid and lethargic ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... resides mostly amid the boughs of great trees, during the daytime, he is very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The Orang, on the contrary, confines himself to the slender leafy branches, so that he is seen right at the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely related to the constitution of his hinder limbs, ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... self-denial, are glad to return to their native land and live upon its income. Interest is very high in China, and money is scarce. It is curious to watch these second-class passengers. In fine weather they crowd the forward deck, squatting upon their hams in picturesque groups, and playing cards or dominos for small stakes of money. The Chinese are inveterate gamblers, but are satisfied generally to play for very small stakes. When the ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... and, with a nod of recognition, conducted me some paces to the right where a euphorbia tree grew among the rank herbage. Here I found a stool placed ready on which I sat down, Goza, who of course was not of the Council, squatting at my side in ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... gentle eye, hawk nose, mobile mouth and small-boned oval face" would doubtlessly have been the flippant comment of any occidental passer-by; "meet 'em everywhere, gambling at the street corner, or squatting in the bazaar, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... door was floated on the water alongside, Eph stepped out onto it, squatting. He had with him a lantern, three rockets and a box of ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... well-known roosts. They stood two and two, closely crowded together on the perches or huddled in the holes. They drew their heads into their feathered throats and slept. The rumour diminished to just a soft mumbling; and then nothing more. The pigeon that sat over there, squatting low on her eggs, faded from sight in her dark corner; and the whole upper row vanished in ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... church of St. Gumpertus. The market, which spread pretty well over the square, seemed to be also a fair, with peasants' clothes and local pottery for sale, as well as fruits and vegetables, and large baskets of flowers, with old women squatting before them. It was all as picturesque as the markets used to be in Montreal and Quebec, and in a cloudy memory of his wedding journey long before, he bought so lavishly of the flowers to carry back to his wife that a little girl, who saw his arm-load from her window as he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a little while about the grounds they began to enquire for Burton. But no Burton was to be seen. At last someone happened to look up the highest tree in the compound and there was the guest of the day high among the branches squatting like a monkey. He had got up there, he said, to have a little peace, and to keep on with the book he was writing about Brazil. He came down, however, when the lunch bell rang, for though he grumbled at all other noises, he maintained that, somehow that sound always ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Indians. But he found them no longer willing to barter their corn for a little copper or a handful of beads. They now wanted swords and guns. The Powhatan too grew weary of seeing the Pale-faces squatting on the land of which he was crowned king. He forgot his vows of friendship With Smith. All he wanted was to see the Palefaces leave his country. And the best way to get rid of them ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... corpulent. He agreed to my proposal. A hundred paces from the mill there was a little outhouse open to the air on all sides. They carried straw and hay there for us; the workman set a samovar down on the grass near the river, and, squatting on his heels, began to blow vigorously into the pipe of it. The embers glowed, and threw a bright light on his young face. The miller ran to wake his wife, and suggested at last that I myself should sleep in the cottage; but I preferred to remain in the open air. The miller's wife brought us milk, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... highway roofed over with mats or leafy boughs. On a handy bench was placed a basin of steaming water for the visitor to bathe hands and face before drawing up to the table. It gave me a pleasant surprise to see the Chinese making of the daily repast a jolly social function, instead of each squatting on the ground in a corner, devouring his solitary bowl of rice as is the ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... going in the dim light of the cavernous spaces; others were squatting on the ground before their morning meal. An endearing smoke-browned wooden gallery went round three sides of the patio overhead; half-way to this at one side rose an immense earthen water jar, dim red; piles ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... eighth of April Claude came downstairs early and began to clean his boots, which were caked with dry mud. Mahailey was squatting down beside her stove, blowing and puffing into it. The fire was always slow to start in heavy weather. Claude got an old knife and a brush, and putting his foot on a chair over by the west window, began to scrape his shoe. He had said good-morning ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... woman lay. He stopped short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have been his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as though someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for a minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited holding his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... were to give those Masai villains the slip. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, and the great risk we were running from fever from sleeping in such a spot, and forgetting that I had the cramp very badly in my right leg from squatting in a constrained position in the canoe, and that the Wakwafi who was sleeping beside me smelt horribly, I really began to enjoy myself. The moonbeams played upon the surface of the running water that speeded unceasingly ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... man in his upward climb through creation were lost. Only the electric light remained, a milestone on the path of the great human adventure. Martin and Cheese- Face were two savages, of the stone age, of the squatting place and the tree refuge. They sank lower and lower into the muddy abyss, back into the dregs of the raw beginnings of life, striving blindly and chemically, as atoms strive, as the star-dust if the heavens strives, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... white sari, with demure, sly eyes and teeth stained red with chewing betel-nut, looking through the mosquito-curtains to see if the Miss Sahib was awake and would like chota-hazri. She embarrasses me greatly slipping about with her bare feet, appearing when I least expect her or squatting on the floor staring at me fixedly. I know no Hindustani and she knows perhaps three English words, so our conversation is limited. The silence gets so on my nerves that I drop hairbrushes and things to make a little disturbance, and it gives ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... bed, when the unusual sound and savor awoke me. I rolled out in a twinkling, and squatting on the floor, watched the culinary ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... their tangled hair, were rolling and wrestling upon the floor, occasionally causing the lodge to re-echo with their childish glee." Mr. im Thurn, while among the Indians of Guiana, had his attention "especially attracted by one merry little fellow of about five years old, whom I first saw squatting, as on the top of a hill, on top of a turtle-shell twice as big as himself, with his knees drawn up to his chin, and solemnly smoking a long bark cigarette" (477. 39). Of the wild Indians of the West, Colonel Dodge tells us: "The little children are much ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... have a coast," he said to Bud. A smooth board which he found near the woodpile furnished him with a fine toboggan. By the help of an overturned chicken-coop, which he dragged across the yard, he managed to climb to the top of the shed. Squatting down on the board, he gave himself a starting push with one hand. The downward progress was not so smooth or so rapid ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... seen one of these Ground-squirrels kill some young Bluebirds; and adds another instance of flesh-eating observed in the Yellowstone Park, where he and two friends, riding along one of the roads, saw a Say Ground-squirrel demurely squatting on a log, holding in its arms a tiny young Meadow Mouse, from which it picked the flesh as one might pick corn from a cob. Meadow Mice are generally considered a nuisance, and the one devoured probably was of a cantankerous disposition; but just the same it gives one an unpleasant ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the Afghan border. Colonel Stewart, reporting in 1884 on the northern frontier of Afghanistan, and alluding to Penjdeh, said that it was inhabited by Turcomans, and he thus described the position: 'The state of affairs seems to have been that the Turcomans acknowledged that they were squatting on Afghan land, and were liable to pay taxes, and each year they paid something as an acknowledgment of Afghan rights; but so long as this was done, the Afghans looked upon them as a protection against the Tekke further north, and left them very ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde
... nostrils drank in the smell of fresh blood—sprang into their collars as if they would bolt in fright. The two syces, squatting on their heels at the horses' heads, had sprung to their feet, and now were caressing the necks of the Arabs as they held them each with a ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... McCager himself, did not bear the name of South, and Samson was the eldest son of the eldest son. They sat on meal-whitened bins and dusty timbers and piled-up sacks. Several crouched on the ground, squatting on their heels, and, as the conference proceeded, they drank moonshine whiskey, and spat solemnly at ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... had been rendered too thoroughly a desert for the comfort of the tenant; and on the occasion of a clearing which took place in a district of Skye, and deprived of their homes many of the old inhabitants, some ten or twelve families of the number were invited to Rum, and may now be found squatting on the shores of the only bay of the island, on a strip of unprofitable morass. But the whole of the once peopled interior remains a desert, all the more lonely in its aspect from the circumstance that the solitary ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... he squatting on his heels, the pair of us looked full at one another. I was not frightened, no more was he. I was excited, and full of interest; so, I think, was he. My heart beat double time. Then I saw, with a curious excitement, that between his knees he ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... break of the poop, looking along the port side of the main deck. Lingard on his own side stopped in his walk and also gazed absentmindedly before him. In the waist of the brig, in the narrow spars that were lashed on each side of the hatchway, he could see a group of men squatting in a circle around a wooden tray piled up with rice, which stood on the just swept deck. The dark-faced, soft-eyed silent men, squatting on their hams, fed decorously with an earnestness that did not ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... early morning reflected on the flesh tones—upon nearly three thousand girls and students in costumes one might expect to see in a bacchanalian feast, just before the fall of Rome. Now they form a huge circle, the front row sitting on the floor, the second row squatting, the third seated in chairs, the fourth standing, so that all can see the dancing that begins in the morning hours—the wild impromptu dancing of the moment. A famous beauty, her black hair bound in a golden fillet with a circle wrought in silver and studded with Oriental turquoises ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... of value when I came to be pursued by mounted military police, who suspected me of being a spy at some manoeuvres abroad. After a rare chase I scrambled over a wall and dropped into an orchard of low fruit trees. Here squatting in a ditch, I watched the legs of the gendarmes' horses while they quartered the plantation, and when they drew away from me I crept to the bank of a deep water channel which formed one of the boundaries of the enclosure. Here I found a small plank ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... empty, and pungent with the smell of chloride of lime. In the dining-hall, where fine old wines had circulated, were a hundred weary, dirty men. In the kitchen, where the fat cuisiniere had prepared her dinners, were now a dozen officers, some sprawling asleep on the floor, some squatting ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... and pushes, while he hangs on to the nut with a grip that will not be denied. If he doesn't get it all, he succeeds in snapping off a piece and then, either darting off, with a quick whisk of his tail, to enjoy it in his chosen seclusion, or, squatting down on his hind legs, he holds the delicious morsel between his fore-paws and chews away with a rapidity as astonishing as ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... after Frank had sailed for home, and a sea got up which threatened to shake the spars out of our smack. Half a gale blew; then a whole gale; then a semi-hurricane, and at last all the ships had to take in the fourth reef in the mainsail. The two Samaritans were squatting on the floor in the cabin (after they had nailed canvas strips across the sides of the berths to prevent the patients from falling out), for no muscular power on earth could have enabled its possessor to keep his place on ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... helplessly by the table; the general turned and looked down upon the face of the man who had dared to violate the sanctity of his harem and attempt to steal his bride; beyond the man's head Yussuf, the black, was squatting ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... words from her, sent the whole gang back to their idling and working; while Baltic, quite undisturbed, dropped on all fours and crawled into the black tent, at the tail of the hag. She croaked out a welcome to her visitor, and squatting on a tumbled mattress, leered at him like a foul old toad. Baltic sat down near the opening of the tent, so as to get as much fresh air as possible, and also to watch Mother Jael's face by the glimmer of light ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... beginning. No; he paid Iosefo ten dollars a week, for what do you think? To sit on one of his trunks (the trunk, I reckon) from seven in the morning till six at night, barring service time Sundays. Yes, sir; nothing else than a squatting sentry, mounting guard over the boodle inside the trunk and protecting it from me! I wonder what the home missionary society would have said to see Brother Iosefo yawning all day on the top of a trunk, or writing his ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... hurried back to the main route through the larger arcades. Once there, she went leisurely, eagerly looking into shop doors, watching the brass-beating, the hand-loom weaving, and dashing off little pencil sketches of the children squatting at their tasks, or walking to or fro as they performed some winding operations for an older person seated ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... as he had released Ware's fingers, dropped to his hands and knees on the mat, squatting far back on his haunches, and manifested a cheerful willingness to go almost anywhere except on the back of ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... pious murmuring rise the harsh voices of those who have come to sell, and who, putting no restraint upon their eagerness to get money, thrust their rosaries and medals almost in the pilgrims' faces. Beggars squatting or lying against the wall on either side of the steps exhibit the bare stump of a leg that wofully needs washing, a withered arm, or the ravages of some incurable and gnawing disease. Yet are they all terribly ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... 'Kleenboy' has again, like Jeshurun, 'waxed fat and kicked', as soon as he had eaten enough to be once more plump and shiny. After his hungry period, he took to squatting on the stoep, just in front of the hall-door, and altogether declining to do anything; so he is superseded by an equally ugly little red- headed Englishman. The Irish housemaid has married the German ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... and coatless were the oafs who surrounded the object of his speculations, some lying flat, with elbows forward and chins to fist; some creeping and scrambling about her to get her notice, or fire her into a rage; some squatting at an easy distance with ribaldries to exchange. But there was one, sitting a little above her on the mound, who seemed to consider himself, in a sort, her proprietor. He was master of the pack, warily on the watch, able by position and strength to ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... those who were in haste, and could afford it (such as take cabs in London), there were wheelbarrows, coster carts, and what not, pulled about by men for hire; and it was a sight to remember all one's life to see the rich men of Como squatting on these carts and barrows, and being pulled about over the water by the poor men of Como, being, indeed, an epitome of all modern sociology and economics and religion and organized charity and strenuousness and ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... brass or iron wire ornaments that most of the natives of the land affect, but possessed of a Harris tweed shooting jacket and, of all unexpected things, boots that he carried slung by the laces from his neck-waited for us, squatting with a note addressed to Fred tied in ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the trick which I had designed, and huffed him. He made excuses, and looked pitifully; bringing in his soul, to testify that he knew not how it could be. How it could be! Wretch! When you are always squatting upon one's clothes, in defiance of ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... The old man, squatting by his cooking-fire, gave him a civil nod, and he responded with a flourish of his quirt. The reek of sage smoke, the smell of dust and cattle rose rank on the cooling air. It was good to Boniface, son of the desert; it meant supper and bed, or supper and talk, for "Bonny" Maupin ("Bonny ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... 'He cultivates himself so as to give rest to all the people. He cultivates himself so as to give rest to all the people:— even Yao and Shun were still solicitous about this.' CHAP. XLVI. Yuan Zang was squatting on ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... studied the river and its banks. The beasts there were quiet, blue-green lumps, standing down on the river bank or squatting ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... once more the terrible hours of anxiety, during which he paced up and down his prison like some wild beast, his guards squatting outside, and watching him in the most imperturbable manner, as they chewed their betel, or varied ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... over the edge of the verandah and saw Batouch and Hadj squatting together in the shadow of the trees below. They were smoking cigarettes and talking eagerly. Their conversation, which was in Arabic, sounded violent. The accented words were like blows. Domini had not looked over the parapet for more than a minute before ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... shifted to a dandy wind-jammer of sorts that can run rings round the old barky. I surmise I'm off for the South Seas, pearl-fishing, in three months. I'll take that Kanaka along with me, if y'like, Professor," and he cast a side glance at Cockatoo, who was squatting on his hams as usual, polishing a blue enameled jar from ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... into Quasimodo's hump. Again, a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the priest's black robe, singing in his face the sardonic ditty, "niche, niche, the devil is caught." Sometimes a group of squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with a curse: "Hum! there's a fellow whose soul is made like the other one's ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... No, because God would not allow him to do so; it had suited God's purpose to paralyze the outlet of all natural thought in that direction. So she grew tall and strong under his eyes—the dreaded imp of the wood eating his food, squatting at his own fireside; changing into the imagined nymph of the wood that he had seen only in dreams; becoming the very spirit of the wood—yes, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the other in a squatting attitude, were lean and hairy, and covered with open sores which were kept open by the swarm of insects that infested him. His loin-cloth was rotting from him. His emaciated body—powdered and smeared with ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... stair, Ruth Fielding let herself down until she could see into the open doorway of the dining room. Two men were squatting on the hearth, both ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... pushed on, therefore; when, surmounting a rocky height and looking over the ridge, we saw down below us a party of dark-skinned natives, collected at a short distance from the shore, while three or four other prows were at anchor a little further on. Some of the people were squatting round a fire cooking, others were repairing a boat, and others lying on the ground. An old man with silvery beard, whom we took to be a chief, was seated on a carpet, under the shade of a tree, smoking his long pipe, while two or three men squatted ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... chairman, standing up on his dais, announced, "Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer." Lloyd George rose to the table. He seemed almost an insignificant figure in the midst of the crowded assembly. Members were filling all the seats, some squatting on the steps of the Speaker's chair, others standing together in the space below the bar at the farther end of the House. The galleries banked overhead were occupied by distinguished visitors, foreign ambassadors, members of the House of Lords, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... lazily, some stretched at full length sleeping, others gathered in little companies, squatting on the ground as they smoked and talked, and not a few moving slowly to and fro; but never one who appeared to have ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... Joyce, squatting in her place, blinked a little breathlessly to shift from her senses an oppression of alarm, and settled down to wait for her. At least it was true that nothing ever happened to Joan; even when she fell into a water-butt she suffered no damage; and the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts. Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... camp a surprise awaited the two boys. The captain was stumping back and forth near the fire, his usually good-natured face nearly purple with suppressed anger, while, squatting on his heels before the fire, sat Indian Charley, his face impassive but his keen beady eyes watching ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely |
