"Flat-bottomed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cornwall Canal was also undertaken, but work was stopped when it was certain that Lower Canada would not respond to the aspirations of the West and improve that portion of the St. Lawrence within its direct control. Flat-bottomed bateaux and Durham boats were generally in use for the carriage of goods on the inland waters, and it was not until the completion of a canal system between the lakes and Montreal, after the Union, ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... appearance of a child's boat with paper sails; but I could plainly perceive something that had motion in it; and, after firing on and destroying the chasse-maree, I stood towards the object which had engaged my attention, and found it to be a small punt, about eight feet long, flat-bottomed, and shaped more like a butcher's tray than a boat. In it were a young man about eighteen years of age, and a boy about twelve, who had got into the punt to amuse themselves, and, happening to lose one of their oars, were drifted to sea. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... which our tourists found absolutely novel; they could clearly or dimly recall from the past every other feature but the houseboats, which they instantly and gladly naturalized to their memories of it. The houses had in common the form of a freight-car set in a flat-bottomed boat; the car would be shorter or longer, with one, or two, or three windows in its sides, and a section of stovepipe softly smoking from its roof. The windows might be curtained or they might be bare, but apparently ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... New Haven sharpie, a flat-bottomed sailing skiff, was originally developed for oyster fishing, about the middle of the ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... week thereafter she kept her house and brooded. Then one day she sallied forth all dressed in deepest mourning and attended by a train of servants, and, embarking upon a flat-bottomed barge, was borne up the river Scheldt towards Antwerp. Bruges was her ultimate destination, of which she left no word behind her, and took the longest way round to reach it. From Antwerp her barge voyaged on to Ghent, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... had we entered the latter than we were observed by the natives, and could distinguish them, through our glasses, shoving off from the bank in four or five large canoes, and paddling towards us. Their boats are all built flat-bottomed for greater facility in shooting rapids, and were each manned by a crew of ten or twelve men, who presented a curious spectacle—their faces and bodies completely covered with tattooing, their long black ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... reindeer, cave-bears, and mammoths, whose joints had doubtless been duly boiled, a hundred thousand years ago, by the intelligent producer of those identical sun-dried fleshpots; and M. Joly, of Toulouse, has in his possession portions of an irregularly circular, flat-bottomed vessel, from the cave of Nabrigas, on which the finger-marks of the hand that moulded the clay are still clearly distinguishable on the baked earthenware. That is the great merit of pottery, viewed as an historical document; it retains its shape and peculiarities unaltered through countless ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... coast, declared himself willing to guide us. The water in these fiord channels is generally deep and safe, and though at wide intervals rocks rise abruptly here and there, lacking only a few feet in height to enable them to take rank as islands, the flat-bottomed Cassiar drew but little more water than a duck, so that even the most timid raised no objection on this score. The cylinder-heads of our engines were the main source of anxiety; provided they could be kept on all might yet be well. But ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... disappeared into the huddle of boat-houses and beached and careened boats. A moment later, Iff and Staff, picking their way through the tangle, heard the scrape of a flat-bottomed boat on the beach and, subsequently, ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... their shoulders to the bows of the old, flat-bottomed rowboat, with incredible exertions uprooting it from its ancient bed, and ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... been, as usual, very industrious and having erected the iron magazines, they were now engaged in building a flat-bottomed barge to assist in transporting corn from the islands south of Regiaf. They had not been in the best health, but they nevertheless continued to work with an energy and spirit that were a delightful contrast to the sluggishness and ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... bottom of our orchard. Neither is it without a degree and kind of picturesqueness, both in its nearness and in the distance, when a blue gleam from its surface, among the green meadows and woods, seems like an open eye in Earth's countenance. Pleasant it is, too, to behold a little flat-bottomed skiff gliding over its bosom, which yields lazily to the stroke of the paddle, and allows the boat to go against its current almost as freely as with it. Pleasant, too, to watch an angler, as he strays along the brink, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... he dealt, and he expected to be cheated in making his bargain for a boat and a supply of provisions. As it was, he was skilfully skinned by the rascal with whom he finally ventured to open negotiations, and Constans thought himself lucky to exchange it for a leaky, flat-bottomed tub and fifty pounds weight of absolute necessaries, chiefly sun-dried strips of beef ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... hiring a boat for the modest consideration of ten pounds, to carry me and my fortunes to Cruces. My boat was far from uncomfortable. Large and flat-bottomed, with an awning, dirty it must be confessed, beneath which swung a hammock, of which I took immediate possession. By the way, the Central Americans should adopt the hammock as their national badge; but for sheer necessity they would never leave ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... grade, whar the wind is strong enough to blow you through the windy, and jist peart enough to pack away over them cliffs every inch of snow that falls. I'll jist skirmish round in and out o' them drifts on these four wheels whar ye can't drag one o' them flat-bottomed dry-goods boxes through a drift." Bill had a California whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was warmly seconded by Thatcher, who had the next best thing to experience, the instinct that taught him to read character, and take advantage of another man's experience. "Them that wants to stop kin do ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... him to the party of castaways. They passed through the garden gate, and crossing the road walked through the pasture, down the path that led to the shore of Clearwater. There, tied to a stake, was their father's flat-bottomed boat, with keel-boats near by. Yulee chose the flat-bottomed boat, and they proceeded to put on board ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... all spread, and looking very strange and startling, darting out so lifelike from the black water, throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight and to pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river, with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were of curious construction: a long mast, with two sails below, one on each side of the boat, and a broader one surmounting ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is that of a series of elevated flat-bottomed valleys, in the vicinity of the streams, somewhat under cultivation. The scenery is often wild and beautiful, and some of the defiles to the north of the Hindu Kush are said to be of appalling grandeur, while the soft, still loveliness of the sheltered ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... Commodore Preble's plan to make a carefully concerted attack upon this stronghold as soon as summer weather conditions permitted. For this purpose he had strengthened his squadron at Syracuse by purchasing a number of flat-bottomed gunboats with which he hoped to engage the enemy in the shallow waters about Tripoli while his larger vessels shelled the town and batteries. He arrived off the African coast about the middle of July but encountered ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... same as the first, except that it righted the craft. We were buried, choked, and half drowned; but when the wave had passed on, the main and mizzenmasts, unsupported by the rigging that I had cut away, snapped cleanly about three feet above the deck, and the broad, flat-bottomed craft straightened up, lifting the weight of the foremast and its gear, and lay on an even keel, with foresail, staysail, and jib set, the fore gaff-topsail, flying jib, and jib-topsail clewed down and the wreck of the masts bumping against ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... of the long war with France there was here, as well as everywhere else around the coast, fear of a landing of the French. The flat-bottomed boats to bring the French over were actually ready at Boulogne, and the troops mustered to come across in them. On our side, volunteers were in training in case of need, and preparations were made for sending off the women and children inland on the first news of the enemy landing. ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... depression in the ground which forms a natural reservoir for rainwater. Ghilgais vary from 20 to 100 yards in diameter, and are from five to ten feet deep. They differ from Claypans (q.v.), in being more regular in outline and deeper towards the centre, whereas Claypans are generally flat-bottomed. Their formation ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... flat-bottomed boat in which he went fishing some distance down the shore, and in the neighborhood of the old wreck that had been sunk on the Shoals. This was the usual fishing ground of the settlers, and here old Matt's boat generally lay drawn up on ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... yet slept, but their sister called them, and after the accustomed cup of coffee and rusks they went out to fish on the Gudenaa. Of late Hardy had hired a flat-bottomed boat, and a man called Nils Nilsen rowed or punted it with a pole, as on the Thames, or he went ashore on the towing-path and pulled it up the river with a towing rope, while a minnow was cast ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... speed. A large, flat-bottomed boat, the Willing, was fitted out with four guns and was sent down the Mississippi with forty men to ascend the Ohio and the Wabash to a place of rendezvous not far from the coveted post. By early February ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... is lacking," interrupted the Jew; "Memphis trades only with Egypt, and we with the whole world. The merchant who sends his goods here only load camels, and wretched asses, and flat-bottomed Nile-boats, while we in our harbors freight fine seagoing vessels. When the winter-storms are past our house alone sends twenty triremes with Egyptian wheat to Ostia and to Pontus; and your Indian and Arabian ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the Dunkeld, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was, she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... Patowmack Company, incorporated for this purpose, intend to extend their navigation, and have already perfected it within the distant of six or seven miles. The work is going forward, and I believe will be completed next summer. This being perfected, there will be a good navigation for large flat-bottomed boats, within one mile of the coal-bank, to which a good road may be had on ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... bathed and gossiped while the little people played in the sand or paddled in the sea. Several were splashing about, and one German governess was scolding violently because while she was in the bath-house her charge, a little girl of six, had rashly ventured out in a flat-bottomed tub, as they called the small boats used by the gentlemen to reach the ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... she was practically non-existent. She should have had considerable draft; but, as the enemy couldn't have seen it, Perry decided to do away with it, and so made her flat-bottomed. It was this that caused my ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... peacocks. There they were in the road before me, three of them, and tailless, brown, speckled birds, with dark-blue necks and ragged crests. They stepped archly over the filigree snow, and their bodies moved with slow motion, like small, light, flat-bottomed boats. I admired them, they were curious. Then a gust of wind caught them, heeled them over as if they were three frail boats, opening their feathers like ragged sails. They hopped and skipped with discomfort, to get out of the draught of the wind. And then, in the lee of ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... of a noble harvest. The water also teemed with life and a shiftless out-at-elbow energy. Shabby looking fishing smacks, with dirty white wings, like birds too indolent to plume themselves, passed constantly, and flat-bottomed canoes, manned by good-humored negro oystermen, plied a lazy, thievish ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... been in the country where the tree producing the gum-Arabic grows, and can assist the English in that trade. He further says, that he has been up in the country, as far as the mountains from whence the gold-dust is wafted down; and that if the English would build flat-bottomed boats to go up the river, and send persons well skilled in separating the gold from the ore, they might gain vastly more than at present they do by the dust trade; and that he should be always ready and willing to use the utmost ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... cattle strained in the yokes; the drivers wading alongside cracked their whips and uttered strange cries; the carts rocked and swayed as the huge wheels churned through the mud and water. As the last light faded we reached the small patches of dry land at the landing, where the flat-bottomed side-wheel steamboat was moored to the bank. The tired horses and oxen were turned loose to graze. Water stood in the corrals, but the open shed was on dry ground. Under it the half-clad, wild-looking ox-drivers and horse- herders ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... armada was making ready in the southern ports of the Spanish dominions, the Prince of Parma, with almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron of war-ships at Dunkirk, and his flotilla of other ships and of flat-bottomed boats for the transport to England of the picked troops, which were designed to be the main instruments in subduing England. Thousands of workmen were employed, night and day, in the construction of these vessels, in the ports of Flanders ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... were Jim, the head carpenter, Austin, and Bill, who were all good workmen. Frank, "Boat Frank," as he was called, from having formerly served as captain of the old flat-bottomed scow which carried the sale crop to Plymouth, was also in the shop and did beautiful work. I was fond of visiting Jim's shop and ordering all sorts of wooden ware, pails, piggins, trays, etc.; these last, dug out of bowl-gum, were so white that ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... river, with the water broken into foaming wavelets by rocks which were everywhere showing their vicious heads above the surface; a string of nuggars, or half-decked boats, fifteen feet broad, forty-five feet long, flat-bottomed, each with a thick rope attached to the bows, and a string of men on the bank towing ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... at Courbevoie from a flat-bottomed barge that had been constructed to bring it up the Seine. Courbevoie is about two miles from the Arch of Triumph, which is again nearly the same distance from ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... down the sluggish river to the seaboard in the flat-bottomed, stern-wheel steamer lasted all day and most of the night. During the first half-day, the boat grounded now and then upon a sand-bank, and the half-naked negro deck-hands toiled with ropes and poles to release it. Several times before Rena fell asleep that night, the ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... enough place now, and the yellow-hammers sing sweetly and sharply in the thick thorn hedges. The Normans made a causeway of faggots and earth across the fen, but came at last to the old channel of the Ouse, which they could not bridge; and here they attempted to cross in great flat-bottomed boats, but were foiled by Hereward and his men, their boats sunk, and hundreds of stout warriors drowned in the oozy river-bed. There still broods for me a certain horror over the place, where the ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... have recourse to Gisco, and the Barbarians accepted his intervention. One morning they saw the chains of the harbour lowered, and three flat-bottomed boats passing through the canal of ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... lighter green contrasting beautifully with the dark motsouri, or moyela, now covered with pink plums as large as cherries. The rapids, having comparatively little water in them, rendered our passage difficult. The canoes must never be allowed to come broadside on to the stream, for, being flat-bottomed, they would, in that case, be at once capsized, and every thing in them be lost. The men work admirably, and are always in good humor; they leap into the water without the least hesitation, to save the canoe ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and perpetual ice. Fortunately, it was now frozen hard, and the surface was fit to bear the horses. But for this the party must have halted and waited for a severe frost. The rivers were not frozen when large in volume, and the Aldana had to be crossed in the usual flat-bottomed boat kept for travelers. At night they halted, and with a bush and some deer-skins made a tent. Kolina cooked the supper, and the men searched for some fields of stunted half-frozen grass to let ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... runs generally east and west, and consists of a flat-bottomed depression of width varying from half a mile to two miles, down which the river follows a winding course to the west, at some points near the southern slopes of the valley and at others near the northern. The high ground ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... children recently dead. In other spaces close by were similar heaps, but these were of bleached bones on which the moonlight shone brightly—mementoes of former sacrifices. Quite close to the first pile of dead was a mooring-place where at least a dozen flat-bottomed boats had been secured, for their impress could yet be seen in the sand. Now they were gone with the exception of the canoe, which was kept there, evidently to facilitate the loading and launching of ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... have, and a dandy one to shoot out of, being flat-bottomed and steady as a church floor. But I only use it to retrieve the game generally; because you see, we can shoot from the land as the ducks fly ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... that point had been kept between banks, expanded into a vast marsh. That marsh was the best shooting ground I ever saw. It was my cousin's chief care, and he kept it as a preserve. Through the rushes that covered it, and made it rustling and rough, narrow passages had been cut, through which the flat-bottomed boats, impelled and steered by poles, passed along silently over dead water, brushing up against the reeds and making the swift fish take refuge in the weeds, and the wild fowl, with their pointed, ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... provisions, and could not encumber his vessel with enemies who required to be guarded, he resolved to release them immediately. He therefore informed the Turkish commandant that he would send him to Missolonghi in a monoxylon, or canoe used in the lagoons, in order to procure two large flat-bottomed boats to take away the prisoners. The Turk, who considered this was only a polite way of letting him know that he was to be drowned or suffocated in the mud, showed, nevertheless, no signs of fear or anger. He thanked Captain Hastings for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... yes. I believe I am a little bit homesick. I wish I could go back behind my teens again. Do you remember the summer that I was twelve—that summer up by the lake? I wish you and I could paddle around in one of the old flat-bottomed tubs once more, don't you, Eric? We'd go for lilies and fish for minnows—that is, we'd fish for perch and catch the minnows—and talk about when you should go to college and pull in the race, and I should wear a long dress and learn all the college tunes to sing with you ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... brilliantly nine months before, he was not the man to spend time in unavailing regrets. His quick eye instantly, detected the flaw which might soon be fatal. In the very same night of the loss of Liefkenshoek, he sent as strong a party as could be spared, with plenty of sappers and miners, in flat-bottomed boats across from Kalloo. As the morning dawned, an improvised fortress, with the Spanish flag waving above its bulwarks, stood on the broken end of the dyke. That done, he ordered one of the two captains ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... once," said the priest, "that if the play were a great success a line of flat-bottomed steamers ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... of people," he said, in allusion to the disproportion between the population of England and France, "must give way to forty millions"; and the invasion was planned on a gigantic scale. A camp of one hundred thousand men was formed at Boulogne, and a host of flat-bottomed boats gathered for their conveyance across the Channel. The peril of the nation forced Addington from office and recalled Pitt to power. His health was broken, and as the days went by his appearance became so haggard ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... insides; and I presume that they have been washed by alluvial action out of thin sandy layers, traces of which may sometimes be seen covering the gravel. The several plains have very level surfaces; but all are scooped out by numerous broad, winding, flat-bottomed valleys, in which, judging from the bushes, streams never flow. These remarks on the state of the shells, and on the nature of the plains, apply to the following cases, ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... relief burst from the men, as they saw the forest open before them, and a minute later they were running along in the open, near the shore of the lake, at the extremity of the promontory, where, hauled up upon the shore, lay a number of canoes and flat-bottomed boats, used for the conveyance of troops. A number of boatmen were standing near, evidently alarmed by the war cries in the woods. When they saw the party approaching they at once made for the fort, a quarter of a mile away on the high ground, and, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... rowing cautiously with muffled oars, but with loud shouts and fairly churning the surface of the water into foam, they made the boat—a large flat-bottomed barge—bound through the waves. Another and another emerged rapidly from the darkness, and their prows successively grated upon the shingle as they were forced upon the beach. The invading troops leaped lightly out with ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... not a river boat, and she is not a flat-bottomed craft," I tried to explain. "Her keel does not take kindly to the levee. I must stay here and look out for her; but I will call at your ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... but rendered nearly safe from the waves, which rise with incredible celerity before the gales. The slow ships of commerce, indeed, are often days in traversing the distance between one port and another, for they wait for the wind to blow abaft, and being heavy, deeply laden, built broad and flat-bottomed for shallows, and bluff at the bows, they drift like logs of timber. In canoes the hunters, indeed, sometimes pass swiftly from one place to another, venturing farther out to sea than the ships. They ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... of twenty elephants, three thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, with two thousand archers, and twenty thousand slingers. When all was ready, Pyrrhus put these troops on board a large fleet of galleys, transports, and flat-bottomed boats, which had been sent over to him from Tarentum by Cineas for the purpose, and at length set sail. He left Ptolemy, his eldest son, then about fifteen years old, regent of the kingdom, and took two younger sons, Alexander and Helenus, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the Seneca made their way across the island to the side facing the American shore. Creeping cautiously along, they found a large number of flat-bottomed boats, in which the Americans had crossed from the mainland, and which were, Peter thought, capable of carrying 2000 men. They now made their way toward the spot where the forces were encamped. The fires ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... livid with rage—"latitude and season! Why, you junk-rigged, flat-bottomed, meadow lugger, don't you know any better than that? Didn't yer little baby brother ever tell ye that southern latitudes is colder than northern, and that July is the middle o' winter here? Go below, you son of a scullion, or I'll break ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... work and made a flat-bottomed vessel, which was 120 cubits wide and 120 cubits in height. He smeared it with bitumen inside and pitch outside; and on the seventh day it was ready. Then he carried out Ea's further instructions. Continuing his ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... river "Sutlej," and exchanged our horse for four fat and humpy bullocks, who managed, with very great labour and difficulty, to drag us through the heavy sands of the river-bed down to the edge of the water. Here we were shipped on board a flat-bottomed boat, with a high peaked bow; and, after an immensity of hauling and grunting, we were fairly launched into the stream, and poled across to the opposite shore. The water appeared quite shallow, and the coolies were most of the time in the water; but its width, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Maisonneuve embarked from St. Michael, and on the 17th his little flotilla, a pinnace, a flat-bottomed craft moved by sails, and two row-boats, approached Montreal, and all on board raised in unison a hymn of praise. Montmagny was there to deliver the island, on behalf of the Company of One Hundred Associates; while here, too, was Father Vimont, superior of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... fire had to be put out before she was allowed to come into the Mole. All cooking was done ashore at a cookhouse that was loathsomely dirty. A heavy charge was made for the use of the place, and also for the hire of the cook's lurky, a flat-bottomed kind of boat constructed of rough planks. These boats were invariably so leaky that on the passage to and from the shore they became half-foil of water, and the food was frequently spoiled in consequence. But, even if all went right, the crews often had to partake of badly cooked, cold rations. ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... was heard among the rushes, and they started up as from sleep. The next moment a flat-bottomed boat appeared, heavy, hollowed out with no skill and with oars as small as sticks. A young girl, who had been picking water-lilies, rowed it. She had dark-brown hair, gathered in great braids, and big dark eyes; otherwise she was strangely pale. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... and hoofs passed down to its verge, then vanished, and appeared on the other side, indicating a ford. We saw one house, pretty, small, with green blinds, and much quietness in its environments, on the other side of the river, with a flat-bottomed boat for communication. It was a pleasant idea that the world was kept ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the morning the first rays of the sun lighted up Sego, the capital of Bambarra, which could be recognized at once by the four towns that compose it, by its Saracenic mosques, and by the incessant going and coming of the flat-bottomed boats that convey its inhabitants from one quarter to the other. But the travellers were not more seen than they saw. They sped rapidly and directly to the northwest, and ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... settlement much frequented by shipping, which thus escaped harbour dues. The mosquito-haunted stream, clear in the dries, and, as usual, muddy during the rains, supports wild duck, and, carried some ten miles in "dongos" or flat-bottomed boats, supplies the capital of Angola with drinking water ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... and army, and have conquered our island. All over England people got ready. All the men learnt something of how to be soldiers, and made themselves into regiments of volunteers; and careful watch was kept against the quantities of flat-bottomed boats that Bonaparte had made ready to bring his troops across the English Channel. But no one had ships and sailors like the English; and, besides, they had the greatest sea-captain who ever lived, whose name was Horatio Nelson. When the French went under Napoleon to try ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... between Maros and the falls, and thence had a good bridle-road to our destination, which we reached. in another hour. The hills had closed in around us as we advanced; and when we reached a ruinous shed which had been erected for the accommodation of visitors, we found ourselves in a flat-bottomed valley about a quarter of a mile wide, bounded by precipitous and often overhanging limestone rocks. So far the ground had been cultivated, but it now became covered with ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Johnson continued, resenting the interruption. "It was during a boat race on Point Judith Pond in Rhode Island. My pal, who was a surfman, had been assigned to duty there. Naturally, he was watching the races. On the other side of the pond a small flat-bottomed skiff, carrying one sail, capsized. There were three men in her. Streeter, that's the fellow I know, saw the boat capsize, but he knew that the water was shallow and noted that it was near shore. Just ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... respects the shape is of the common form. The idea is, that such coffins resist much longer the weight of the superincumbent earth; but there can be no doubt that it is a very ancient shape. Many years ago I heard that in some parish in this county the coffin was shaped like a flat-bottomed boat; the boat shape is known to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... warship of the period of the Persian War was probably not more than eighty or a hundred feet long, narrow, and nearly flat-bottomed. At the bow and stern there was a strongly built deck. Between this poop and forecastle a lighter deck ran fore and aft, and under this were the stations of the rowers. The bow was strengthened with plates of iron or brass, and beams of oak, to enable it to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... ahead again, and the result was that she pulled the sampan upon the point; and as she was flat-bottomed, there was no difficulty in doing so. The Blanchita continued on her course, and the two crocodiles were landed after her. One of the Malays then produced a parong latok; and even more skilfully than Achang had done the job, he cut off the heads of both reptiles. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... ground by thorough plowing, making it decidedly mellow. Mark it out four feet apart each way, if to be planted in hills, by plowing broad, flat-bottomed furrows about three inches deep. At the crossings drop three pieces of potato, cut, as directed, in sections of two or three eyes each. Place the pieces so as to represent the points of a triangle, each piece being about a foot distant from each of the other ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... American" with the cheery welcome of friends who knew and spanked him with hearty good will when as "a kid" he absconded with their boats for a surreptitious expedition up to the lake. Those boats! heavy, flat-bottomed, propelled with a pole that stuck in the mud and pulled them back half the time farther than they had gone. But what fun it was! In after years a steam whistle woke the echoes of these quiet waters. It was the first one, and the last. The railroad, indeed, came to town, long ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... warm, form a ball of paste into a cone; then with the fist work inside it, till it forms an oval cup; continue to knead till you have the walls of an even thickness, then pinch a fold all around the bottom. If properly done, you have an oval, flat-bottomed crust, with sides about two inches high; fill this with pork, fat and lean together, well peppered and salted; then work an oval cover, as near the size of the bottom cover as you can, and wet the ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... was a flat-bottomed dingy, unpainted and foul with dirt. But all around the house the sand had been scooped and piled to form a low barricade, and behind this barricade Wilbur saw the beach-combers. There were eight of ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... authorized to raise a body of volunteers in Tennessee and to report with them at New Orleans. He found no difficulty in collecting about sixteen hundred men, and in January, 1813, took them down the Cumberland, the Ohio, and Mississippi to Natchez, in such flat-bottomed boats as he could collect; another body of mounted men crossed the country five hundred miles to the rendezvous, and went into camp at ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... Temisquata and one at the head of Madawaska river. The Marquis de la Jonquiere anticipated great advantages from the overland route of communication. He says in a letter to France, dated May 1, 1751: "We have made a road and are going to make some flat-bottomed conveyances so that in winter we will be able to transport by hauling over the snow the things most needed for the River St. John, and in summer we shall be able to make the transport by means of carts and flat-bottomed batteaux. These ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... playhouses, and there were more fascinating sports to be found about the pond. It was splendid to fish for trout over the bridge and the two girls learned to row themselves about in the little flat-bottomed dory Mr. Barry kept for ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... advanced, that it would have been a creditable service only to complete the preparations for the next campaign; but the zeal and exertions of the officers and men surpassed all calculation. They got across to the Lake thirty long-boats, many large flat-bottomed boats, a vast number of bateaux, and a gondola of thirty tons, carrying them over land, or dragging them up the rapids. The keel and floor-timbers of the Inflexible, a ship of three hundred tons, which had been laid at Quebec, were taken to pieces, and carried ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... consigned to the muleteers again. In six days they reach Honda, on the Magdalena River, where, until lately, they were embarked on rafts for a voyage of fourteen days to Savanilla. At the present time, an American company has established a service of flat-bottomed steamers which cover the distance in seven days, thus reducing the risks of the journey by one-half. But they are still terrible. Not a breath of wind stirs the air at that season, for the collector cannot choose ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... woman gets nearly the same personal note in the pattern of her baskets. Not that she does not make all kinds, carriers, water-bottles, and cradles,—these are kitchen ware,—but her works of art are all of the same piece. Seyavi made flaring, flat-bottomed bowls, cooking pots really, when cooking was done by dropping hot stones into water-tight food baskets, and for decoration a design in colored bark of the procession of plumed crests of the valley quail. In this pattern she had made cooking pots in the golden spring of her wedding ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... the northern bank, is occupied by great bare piles and bosses of granite and granitoidal gneiss, separated by rocky defiles and narrow rugged valleys encumbered by precipitated masses of rock. Some of the larger flat-bottomed valleys are irrigated by aqueducts from the river.... The peaks, tors, and logging-stones of Bijanugger and Annegundi indent the horizon in picturesque confusion, and are scarcely to be distinguished ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... not unlike the holy-water basins of modern churches. Several specimens have been found in situ, in the cemeteries of Saturninus, Alexander, Agnes, and Callixtus. They are of the same make, cut in marble so delicately as to be translucent, flat-bottomed, and very low. For what were they used? We cannot think of "holy water" in the modern sense, because in those days the faithful were wont to purify their hands, not in receptacles of stagnant water, but in springs ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... steamer was not uncomfortable. She was a flat-bottomed river-boat, and carried cargoes of hides and other Saladero produce. There were some live pigs with immense tusks, and some tasajo in the hold, and a raft of pipes of tallow which a hawser towed behind. The boat was ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... moment the negro was placing in the water a curious-looking little raft that he had brought on one shoulder from its place of concealment. It was something like a flat-bottomed scow, the sides being just high enough to prevent whatever cargo it carried, from rolling off into ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... brought home with them from the other side of the world, from Africa and China. They spent nights on the sea on an open boat, and when they played truant it was always to go fishing. The cleverest of them had their own fishing-tackle and little flat-bottomed prams, that they had built themselves and caulked with oakum. They fished on their own account and caught pike, eels, and tench, which they sold to the wealthier people ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Fort Washington. The entire defense numbered only about 2000 men, mostly militia, with hardly a coat, to quote an English writer, "that was not out at the elbows." "On the night of the 14th thirty flat-bottomed boats stole quietly up the Hudson, passed the American forts undiscovered, and made their way through Spuyten Duyvil Creek into Harlem River. The means were thus provided for crossing that river, and landing before unprotected parts ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... over the Roman frontier more than once, and taken cities. They had compelled the Emperor Gratian to buy them off. They had built themselves flat-bottomed boats without iron in them and sailed from the Crimea round the shores of the Black Sea, once and again, plundering Trebizond, and at last the temple itself of Diana at Ephesus. They had even penetrated into Greece and Athens, plundered the ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... drowned in the roar of the passing train. When it subsided a confused struggle between a dark mass and a number of dimly seen white forms was going on in the shallow water. Several sailors were lifting Senorita bodily into a little flat-bottomed boat, and two young men in soaked uniforms were aiding them. Then, as two boats, one in tow of the other, began to move away, a squad of soldiers with muskets in their hands came running down ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... around a corner and make a short cut through a whole plantation of lily-pads and spatterdocks,—or things like them,—and she would scrape over a sunken log as easily as a wagon-wheel rolls over a stone. She drew only two feet of water, and was flat-bottomed. When she made a very short turn, the men had to push her stern around with poles. Indeed, there was a man with a pole at the bow a good deal of the time, and sometimes he had more pushing off to do than ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... that matter, with your friends in England and Scotland. He assured me that the intentions of the King and his Ministers were unalterable as to their fixed resolution to serve you, but that they met with difficulties in regard to the transports and flat-bottomed boats which retarded the affair longer than they imagined, and that though they had already spent twenty four million every thing was not ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... elephant does water in his trunk; it, therefore, should be in a liquid form. Boil good sugar for ten minutes in ale or beer, leaving it about as thick as honey. Put it in a feed trough; which should be flat-bottomed. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... men. As the whole population of Denmark, in the reign of Canute who died in 1035, is estimated at 800,000 souls, we may judge from their fleets how large a portion of the men were engaged in these piratical pursuits. The ships on which they prided themselves so highly were flat-bottomed craft, with little or no keel, the sides of wicker work, covered with strong hides. They were impelled either by sails or oars as the changes of the weather allowed; with favourable winds they often made the voyage in three days. As if to favour their designs, the north and north-west blast blows ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... remote countries. There they found the conveniencies of seeing many countries on all hands, for no ship went any voyage into which he and his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels that they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds and wicker, woven close together, only some were of leather; but, afterwards, they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails, and in all respects like our ships, and the seamen understood both astronomy and ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... authors; and I am persuaded if one were to live here (which could not be long I think) he should forget the use of sleep; for what with the market folks bringing up the boats from Terra Firma loaded with every produce of nature, neatly arranged in these flat-bottomed conveyances, the coming up of which begins about three o'clock in a morning and ends about six;—the Gondoliers rowing home their masters and ladies about that hour, and so on till eight;—the common business of the town, which it is then ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Mr. Emerson. We gave up half the day (except in hay-time, when we gave the whole day) to sharing the farm-work indiscriminately with the farm-laborers. The rest of the day we devoted to other pursuits, or to social intercourse or correspondence; and we had a flat-bottomed rowing-boat built for us, in which we spent very many afternoons on the pretty little river. For our second season we removed to another farm and farmer's house, near Mr. Emerson and Walden Pond, where we occupied only a single room, making our own beds, and living in the very simplest and most ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... a coolie, both of whom looked exactly like any other guide and coolie, and having much to think out, and sure thinking being anything but a rapid process with him, also because he did not wish to draw too much attention to his movements, he chose as a means of conveyance the ugly flat-bottomed public paddle-boat which floats unconcernedly down the Hoogli from Calcutta, through the bigger creeks of the Sunderbunds, and up the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... that O'Shea's boat, a heavy flat-bottomed thing, was already half launched upon the beach, furnished with stout boat-hooks for pushing among the ice, as well as her oars and sailing gear. He was glad to find that such speedy departure was to be his. He had no thought ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... for La Crosse on the Mississippi on Tuesday evening at eight o'clock. At La Crosse we embarked on the steamer Milwaukee for St. Paul's. These large flat-bottomed steamers are quite an institution on these western rivers. Drawing but a few inches of water, they glide over sandbars where the water is very shallow, and, swinging in against the shore, land and receive passengers and freight where wharves are unknown, or where, if they ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... down the Napo to the Maranon after salt and poison. The salt comes from near Chasuta, on the Huallaga;[119] the urari from the Ticuna Indians. It takes about twenty days to paddle down to the Maranon, and three months to pole up. The Napo is navigable for a flat-bottomed steamer as far as Santa Rosa,[120] and it is a wonder that Anglo-Saxon enterprise has not put one upon these waters. The profits would be great, as soon as commercial relations with the various tribes were established.[121] Four yards ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... fleet awaited the party at the water's edge,—square-ended, flat-bottomed punts, sharp-bowed bateaux, long, graceful, dug-out canoes, and a commodious push-boat, with cabin and awning, whose motive power was poles. Elk River craft are as abundant as the log cabins on its banks, and their pilots are as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... fifth was found in 1760 floating in the stream four miles lower down. One was a silver 'basin', of which no more is recorded. Another was a small two-handled cup with figures of men and beasts round it. A third was a round flat-bottomed bowl, with a decorated rim bearing the Chi-Rho amidst its other ornament. A fourth was a small ovoid cup, 4 inches high, with the inscription Desideri vivas. Last, not least, is the Corbridge Lanx, the only surviving piece of the five, and probably ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... words required of him. And then, at the last moment, just as he was on the point of going down the steps leading to the flat-bottomed boat in which they were to be rowed to the pontoon, there arose an angry discussion. The harbour-master had, it seemed, promised the representatives of two Paris newspapers that they should be present when the submarine ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... landing we discovered a grave on a little knoll some distance back from the water, with a pine board stuck up at its head bearing the name of Hook. The rapid that had apparently caused the disaster told by these objects we easily ran. The unfortunates had attempted the descent in flat-bottomed boats, that shipped much water and toppled over with the slightest provocation. They had followed Powell on his former trip, declaring that if he could go down the river so could they, but they learned their mistake and paid dearly for the experience. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... which itself came from the Latin word parare, "to prepare." Another of these words which has been much used in descriptions of the battles of the Great War, and especially in the "Battle of the Rivers" in the autumn of 1914, is pontoon. Pontoons are flat-bottomed boats by means of which soldiers make a temporary bridge across rivers, generally when the permanent bridges have been destroyed by the enemy. The word is ponton in French, and comes from the Latin pons, ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... father's old "slicker." Henry cut it into suitable shape and nailed and lashed it securely to the runners and to the table top. Now he had a flat-bottomed sled with a rising front to it that would serve. He smiled as he looked at the queer contrivance and said aloud: "I wish Mr. ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... in the world has been so often painted as that of Scheveningen—ever since the painting of landscape seemed a worthy pursuit. James Maris' pictures of Scheveningen's wet sand, grey sea, and huge flat-bottomed ships must run into scores; Mesdag's too. Perhaps it was the artists that prevailed on the fishermen to wear crimson knickerbockers—the note of warm colour ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... was out fishing in the fjord with some friends; of course they all enjoyed themselves—and I pretended that I did. No, I did not enjoy myself! We sat in a flat-bottomed, broad, ugly boat, that they called a "pram," a contrivance resembling a washtub, and fished the whole afternoon in muddy water a few feet deep, with a fine line, catching altogether seven whiting—and ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... the Seine is always laden with queer, picturesque craft, and just below the window by which she sat was moored a flat-bottomed barge which evidently served as dwelling place for a very happy little family. One end of the barge had been turned into a kind of garden, there was even a vine-covered arbour, under which two tiny children were now ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... miniature proa, on the model given in the print, and succeeded in fabricating a very extraordinary proa indeed. While its lee side was perpendicular as a wall, its windward one, to which there was an outrigger attached, resembled that of a flat-bottomed boat; head and stern were exactly alike, so as to fit each for performing in turn the part of either; a moveable yard, which supported the sail, had to be shifted towards the end converted into the stern for the time, at each tack; while the sail itself—a most ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... all parts, and were drilling every day. Bonaparte had been three years a-making his preparations; and to ferry these soldiers and cannon and horses across he had contrived a couple of thousand flat-bottomed boats. These boats were small things, but wonderfully built. A good few of 'em were so made as to have a little stable on board each for the two horses that were to haul the cannon carried at the stern. To get in order all these, and other things required, he had assembled ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... roar of guns and shells. It was that brief space of time in which even Nature seems to hold her breath and make ready for the coming storm. The only movement other than the continued circling of destroyers was towards the shallow water close inshore, where powerful tugs were towing large barges—flat-bottomed craft carrying gigantic tripods made of railway metals. At predetermined places these were dropped overboard into the shallow sea and, with their legs embedded in the sandy bottom and their apices towering high above the surface, they formed observation platforms ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... hotel, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop and several dwelling houses. Possibly notable was the launching at that time of the barge "Arizona," fifty feet long and ten feet wide, sharp at both ends and flat-bottomed. ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, not content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gun and ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... we went to dry-dock, an' in the next dock lay the Grotkau, their big freighter that was the Dolabella o' Piegan, Piegan & Walsh's line in '84—a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon-breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed bitch of a five thousand ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor steam, nor stop when ye asked her. Whiles she'd attend to her helm, whiles she'd take charge, whiles she'd wait to scratch ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... The swelling tide had circled round through some unseen channel, and was creeping now into the land by many creeks and narrow ways. She herself was upon an island, cut off from the dry land by a smoothly flowing tidal way more than twenty yards across. Along it a man in a flat-bottomed boat was punting his way towards her. She stood and waited for him, admiring his height, and the long powerful strokes with which he propelled his clumsy craft. He was very tall, and against the flat background his height seemed almost abnormal. As soon as he had attracted ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Fourth. It was not, however, till the victory of Tewkesbury placed the crown securely on his brows that Edward was able to turn his attention to naval affairs. In the year 1475, having resolved to make war on France, he collected at Sandwich five hundred flat-bottomed vessels, in which he purposed to carry his army across the channel. He succeeded, indeed, in transporting them to the French coast, but the King of France suing for peace, and undertaking to pay a large tribute to England, he returned ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... a time; and this I determined to do. As to material, there was plenty of such as I required to be obtained from the wreck, for I meant the boat to be of the simplest construction, being, in fact, nothing more than a miniature flat-bottomed Thames punt, to be propelled by ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... hard pull across the rough lake against the wind (a dangerous sheet of water for flat-bottomed rowboats, I was told afterward), but the boy was equal to it, protesting that he didn't feel tired a bit, now we had got the "purples;" and if he did not catch the fever from drinking some quarts of river water ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... Albert. The expedition should, as I have before remarked, go to Investigator Road, fulfilling my prediction of the ultimate importance of that port, which lies only twenty-seven miles North-North-West from the entrance. Here the flat-bottomed boats, taken out in frame, for the purpose of carrying up the camels, should be put together, and towed from thence ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... had another face, and on other shoulders too. The sea-gulls and the loons, and I, had now all one trade; we skimmed the crested waves and sought our prey beneath them, the man with as keen enjoyment as the birds. Always, when the east grew purple, I launched my dory, my little flat-bottomed skiff, and rowed cross-handed to Point Ledge, the Middle Ledge, or, perhaps, beyond Egg Rock; often, too, did I anchor off Dread Ledge, a spot of peril to ships unpiloted; and sometimes spread an adventurous sail and tracked ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with his wife and children at his side, on an old flat-bottomed boat moored to a willow branch alongside of a green islet, where the wagtails were chirping themselves hoarse. The boats drew quickly up beside him, any novelty being a break to the everlasting tedium of fashionable society: and while the Duchess greeted with her sweetest ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... But on Philip's side at least these negotiations were simply delusive. The Spanish pride had been touched to the quick. Amidst the exchange of protocols Parma gathered seventeen thousand men for the coming invasion, collected a fleet of flat-bottomed transports at Dunkirk, and waited impatiently for the Armada to protect his crossing. The attack of Drake however, the death of its first admiral, and the winter storms delayed the fleet from sailing. ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... of wood and hill, the winding Neckar, and the blue, distant valley of the Rhine. Then, presently, they came to Switzerland, to Ouchy-Lausanne, by lovely Lake Geneva, and here Clemens left the family and, with a guide and a boatman, went drifting down the Rhone in a curious, flat-bottomed craft, thinking to find material for one or more articles, possibly for a book. But drifting down that fair river through still September days, past ancient, drowsy villages, among sloping vineyards, where grapes were ripening ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... his Grace of Marlborough and the Commodore in the cutter. By two o'clock the whole British fleet was at anchor, and signal was made for all the grenadier companies of eleven regiments to embark on board flat-bottomed boats and assemble round the Commodore's ship, the Essex. Meanwhile, Mr. Howe, hoisting his broad pennant on board the Success frigate, went in as near as possible to shore, followed by the other frigates, to protect the landing of the troops; and, now, with Lord ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... manufacture I may mention large baked earthen pots* used in cooking, also very neatly made round flat-bottomed baskets in sets of four, partially fitting into each other, with a woven belt to suspend them from the shoulders by—in these various small articles are carried, among them the spatula and calabash, with lime to be used in betel chewing—and a netted bag, a foot and a half ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... 63068. Large flat-bottomed bowl, 6 inches in height, 11 inches in diameter at the top, and 8 at the base. Although made without a wheel, this vessel is quite symmetrical. The thickness is from one-fourth to one-half of an inch. The material has been a dark clay paste ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... attention was momentarily distracted from them by the sight of eight full-sized bronze pails, finer than those at any public well in Reate or Consentia, which hung on pegs by the door, four on each side of it. They were flat-bottomed, bulged, but narrowed at the rim so that no water would splash out in carrying. The rims were ornamented with chased or cast patterns, scallops, leaves, egg and dart and wall of Troy: four patterns, showing that they were pairs. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... is to be turned to the left, the forward impulse is given without the return stroke; if it is to be turned to the right, the plunged oar is brought forcibly up to the surface; in either case a single strong stroke being enough to turn the light and flat-bottomed boat. But as it has no keel, when the turn is made sharply, as out of one canal into another very narrow one, the impetus of the boat in its former direction gives it an enormous lee-way, and it drifts laterally up against the wall ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... "Yes," said he, "when I was a young man I used to go to Battersea on holidays, I and some others, and nothing would suit us but outrigged gigs, randans, and such like; but now I'm growing old, and a flat-bottomed tub suits us better, my missus and me. Shall we get in, do you ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... April, 1784, one Mr. Rowan, with his own and five other families, set out from Louisville, in two flat-bottomed boats, for the Long Falls of Green River. Their intention was to descend the Ohio to the mouth of Green River, then ascend that stream to their place of destination. At that time there were no settlements in Kentucky within one hundred miles of Long ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... shines hotly. Some of its branches should trail over an old, lichened and weather-stained stone wall, dropping their fruit into the highway for thirsty pedestrians. There should be a little path running athwart it, down toward the lake and the old flat-bottomed boat, whose bilge is scattered with the black and shriveled remains of angleworms used for bait. In warm August afternoons the sweet savor of ripening drifts warmly on the air, and there rises the drowsy hum of wasps exploring the windfalls that are already ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... debouching from three separate gorges, after duly crowning the heights above, were to converge from the centre, left, and right upon what we will call the Afghan army, then stationed towards the lower extremity of a flat-bottomed valley. Thus it will be seen that three sides of the valley practically belonged to the English, while the fourth was strictly Afghan property. In the event of defeat the Afghans had the rocky hills to fly to, where the fire from the guerrilla tribes in aid would cover their retreat. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... historic names of towns and streets. The Yaque del Sur, or Neiba River, receives several copious affluents, the largest one being the San Juan River. Much of the lumber exported at Barahona is floated down the Yaque and the river is navigable about 20 miles for flat-bottomed boats, though rapids and ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... voyage of thirteen days, we came to anchor a mile or so off Port Isabel, at the mouth of the Colorado River. A narrow but deep slue runs up into the desert land, on the east side of the river's mouth, and provides a harbor of refuge for the flat-bottomed stern-wheelers which meet the ocean steamers at this point. Hurricanes are prevalent at this season in the Gulf of California, but we had been fortunate in not meeting with any on the voyage. The wind now freshened, however, and beat the waves into angry foam, and there we lay for ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... the sample in a 200-cc. flask, add water to the mark, and allow the mass to infuse for eight hours, with occasional shaking; let stand 16 hours longer without shaking, filter, evaporate 50 cc. of filtrate to dryness in a flat-bottomed dish, dry at 100 deg. C., ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... had to content himself with gondolas and galleys, for the force he was to command as well as to build. The precise difference between the two kinds of rowing vessels thus distinguished by name, the writer has not been able to ascertain. The gondola was a flat-bottomed boat, and inferior in nautical qualities—speed, handiness, and seaworthiness—to the galleys, which probably were keeled. The latter certainly carried sails, and may have been capable of beating to windward. Arnold preferred ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... commenced. Da Souza and Trent took their places side by side on the broad, flat-bottomed boat, and soon they were off shorewards and the familiar song of the Kru boys as they bent over their oars greeted their ears. The excitement of the last few strokes was barely over before they sprang upon the ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the now famous Story farm, on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, where a well had been bored and natural-oil struck the year before. This proved a very profitable investment. When I first visited this famous well, the oil was running into the creek where a few flat-bottomed scows lay filled with it, ready to be floated down the Allegheny River on an agreed upon day each week, when the creek was flooded by means of a temporary dam. This was the beginning of the natural-oil business. We purchased the farm for forty thousand dollars, and so small ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... Bruges, and Utrecht; while smaller camps were formed at Ghent, Compiegne, and St. Malo. The banks of the Elbe, Weser, Scheldt, Somme, and Seine—even as far up as Paris itself—rang with the blows of shipwrights labouring to strengthen the flotilla of flat-bottomed vessels designed for the invasion of England. Troops, to the number of 50,000 at Boulogne under Soult, 30,000 at Etaples, and as many at Bruges, commanded by Ney and Davoust respectively, were organized ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... upon the low grounds, they persevered in the blockade. But there was another purpose to be served by the inundation of the country beside that of washing away the Spaniards, and the Prince of Orange made preparations for effecting it. He had caused two hundred flat-bottomed boats to be built, and loaded with provisions; these now began to row toward the famished city. The inhabitants saw them coming; they watched them eagerly advancing across the waters, fighting their way past the Spanish forts, and bringing ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... one, though of course new scenes proved ever interesting to Yung Pak. During this day the party had to cross a river which was too deep to ford, and over which there was no sort of bridge. For the assistance of travellers a ferry-boat had been provided. This boat was a broad, flat-bottomed, clumsy affair. It could carry but three ponies at a time, with several men. The men in charge of the boat were slow and obstinate, and consequently it took a long time for all to ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... State-Government was compelled to conclude with France, led to heavy demands. The Republic was required to provide for the quartering and support of 18,000 French troops and 16,000 Batavians under a French general. Further, a fleet of ten ships of war was to be maintained, and 350 flat-bottomed transports built for the conveyance of an invading army to England. These demands were perforce complied with. Nevertheless Napoleon was far from satisfied with the State-Government, which he regarded as ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... of the Euphrates [41] was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and provisions. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... craft, unpainted, flat-bottomed, but light enough, and not badly formed for speed. Susannah stepped into it without much hope, scarcely caring what she did, but still provoking the young boatman ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... finest little hospitals that you could desire. They are the ordinary flat-bottomed square-ended Dutch barges, roofed in, and when the interior has been cleared out they form elongated covered floating boxes. Skylights in the roof give a splendid light, and the barges are wide enough to allow of two ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... the temperatures of 15 C. and 20 C. Evaporation to dryness shall take place between 98.5 C. and 100 C. in shallow, flat-bottomed basins, which shall afterwards be dried until constant at the same temperature, and cooled before weighing for not less than twenty minutes in air-tight desiccators over ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... is used for short excursions to sea, and is wall-sided and flat-bottomed; the Pahie for longer voyages, and is bow-sided and sharp-bottomed. The Ivahahs are all of the same figure, but of different sizes, and used for different purposes: Their length is from seventy-two feet to ten, but the breadth is by no means in proportion; for those ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... companies or associations, according to the quantities of merchandise they possess, and either build or buy a boat to carry themselves and their goods down the Euphrates to Babylon[121], under the care of a master and mariners hired to conduct the boat. These boats are almost flat-bottomed and very strong, yet serve only for one voyage, as it is impossible to navigate them upwards. They are fitted for the shallowness of the river, which in many places is full of great stones which greatly obstruct the navigation. At Feluchia a small city on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... morning to the harbour, and seeing some flat-bottomed boats constructing, asked a French gentleman who accompanied me, perhaps a little triumphantly, if they were intended for a descent on the English coast. He replied, with great composure, that government might deem it ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... great rivers, etc. in short, when we expect an invasion, you would chide, or be disposed to chide me, if I were quite silent-and yet, what can I tell you more than that an invasion is threatened? that sixteen thousand men are about Dunkirk, and that they are assembling great quantities of flat-bottomed boats! Perhaps they will attempt some landing; they are certainly full of resentment; they broke the peace, took our forts and built others on our boundaries; we did not bear it patiently; we retook two forts, attacked ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole |
