"Shoal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so Lilliputian, and in such a disproportionate expansion of confused sceneries, that the elopement produced but a very paltry impression. The slipshod carelessness of this painter may be realised from the fact that in a composition styled "Blue Lights to Warn Steamboats off Shoal Water," the blue lights are conspicuous by their total absence, and the mistiness of the atmospherical conditions renders it difficult to distinguish either the steamers or the shoals with even ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... acquired; and as national prejudices are kept up at a small expense, they have eagerly raised their unworthy countrymen by their acclamations to a level with these great men. Besides, I have had the good fortune to avoid the shoal which is the most dangerous in this country. A historian is always to a certain degree a political character, and every reader according to his private opinion seeks in the most remote ages the sentiments of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... attention to the law of mind expressed in the last sentence, and which is the source of the perplexity so often experienced in detecting these transitions of meaning. Ignorance of that law is the shoal on which some of the most powerful intellects which have adorned the human race have been stranded. The inquiries of Plato into the definitions of some of the most general terms of moral speculation are characterized ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... struck upon a shoal, during the tempest and the obscurity of the night, and the pilot knew not where they were. His reckoning was lost—his calculations had all been set at naught by the confusion produced by the fearful storm which had assailed the ship and driven her from her course. The moment the corsair ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... 1878, to speak precisely—a ship laden with fragrant cedar logs from the valley of the Daintree River—140 miles to the north— touched on Kennedy Shoal, 20 miles to the south-east of Dunk Island. Crippled though she was she managed to make Cardwell, where she was temporarily patched up, and whence she set sail for Melbourne. It was the critical month of March, and the MERCHANT—clumsy and cumbersome, but a good ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... next be carried. Into one of these currents, the Sea Hawk had now got, and though she appeared to be stationary in the water, she was being driven on at a rapid rate past the land to the westward. Her captain, however, apprehended no danger—he had every rock and shoal mapped out in his mind far more correctly than on any chart in existence, and he felt confident of being able to avoid them; and thus, though the airs came from the westward, the brig was carried bodily to windward, and steerage way ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... deg. 32' S. Lat.; at night about three hours before daybreak, we again unexpectedly came upon a low-lying coast, a level, broken country with reefs all round it. We saw no high land or mainland, so that this shoal is to be carefully avoided as very dangerous to ships that wish to touch at this coast. It is fully ten miles in length, ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... and in some measure gave a partial direction to the wind. On a sudden, the base of the island, which projected under water considerably beyond the limits of the visible parts, struck the bow of the ship; she instantly swung round, and her head cleared, but her stern, coming on the shoal, struck repeatedly, and the sea being very heavy, her rudder broke away, and all her works abaft were shivered. The ship in this situation became, in a degree, embayed under the terrific bulk of ice, for its height was twice ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... up kelp ribbons to examine them. Half a mile or so from the cave she was about to turn back when her eye caught a strange appearance on the sea, hundreds and hundreds of moving points drawing in to the shore, white and black points like a shoal of fish only half submerged. It was ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... came in the tender green of the young leafage, and again they put to sea. So far fortune had steadily befriended them. Now the reign of misfortune began. Not far had they gone before the vessel was driven ashore by a storm, and broke her keel on a protruding shoal. This was not a serious disaster. A new keel was made, and the old one planted upright in the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Station and the Rifle Range, and were rounding the shoal onto the Point, when the trotting of a rapidly approaching horse came to them ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... hear the stream running past him? Do the particles of water, as they brush his sides and fins, cause a sound, as the wind by us? While he lurks beneath a weed in the still pool, suddenly a shoal of roach rush by with a sound like a flock of birds whose wings beat the air. The smooth surface of the still water appears to cover an utter silence, but probably to the fish there are ceaseless sounds. Water-fowl feeding in the weedy corners, whose ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... as a whaling port were passed before the Revolution wiped out her ships and killed or scattered her sailors. It was later discovered that larger ships were more economical, and Nantucket harbor bar was too shoal to admit their passage. For this reason New Bedford became the scene of the foremost activity, and Nantucket thereafter played a minor part, although her barks went cruising on to the end of the chapter and her old whaling families were ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... and among the mountain roots of everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours its unresting waters into the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... islands at its extremity, and passed between them; that on the north side is named Bolyna, and that on the south Bamdym. Sailing to the west-southwest a matter of fourteen leagues, they fell in with a white bottom, which was a shoal below the water; and the black men they carried with them told them to draw near to the coast of the island, as it was deeper there, and that was more in the direction of Borneo, for from that neighborhood ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... require our assistance they can have it. Tell this on your return to your Sultan." This amiable prince then took leave. If there be a desert aristocrat of gentle blood, it is unquestionably Jabour. A shoal of low Touaricks came to me afterwards, in the Sheikh's name, to beg. I saw through the ruse, and they were savage in being obliged to go off empty-handed. Some Touarick ladies now tried to squeeze in as the door was opened, and, in spite of the "bago, bago," ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Orion had a quick run to the rendezvous off the Sha-la-tung shoal, about twenty miles from Pehtang. On their way, near the entrance to the gulf, they came up with the fleet conveying the troops intended to be disembarked near the mouth of the Peiho. It was a magnificent sight, as the clouds of canvas appeared covering the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... the shore, letting loose its rope as it went, but it soon disappeared in the darkness, when the ear was her only guide to its evolutions. There was great affectation of stillness during all these manoeuvers, in order, as Richard assured them, not to frighten the bass, who were running into the shoal waters, and who would approach the light if not disturbed by the sounds ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... object, from the circumstance of the water being in a state of commotion around it, while the sea elsewhere was perfectly placid. On further examination, he discovered that some large fish was chasing a shoal of whiting, and in his eagerness to capture his prey, he more than once ran ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... and carried them off to dry, spreading them upon the green earth. But no sooner had she spread out the last piece than a fellow came riding up. "What's the big idea?" he demanded, shaking a fist at the garments on the ground. And Phoebe, from Shoal's Fork of Greasy Creek, never having heard the expression, mumbled in confusion, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... I have heard that what is called a "shoal" of herrings consists of millions of fish, and takes up a place in the sea larger than the area of London. This fish takes its name from an old word which means an army; and the herring-army has to come a long, long march—if ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... he had known her soul! Discouraged on disaster's changeful shoal Wrecking, he rested; starved on selfish pride Long years; nor would obey love's homeward tide. And the moon ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... on a shoal on the island of Jolos, near these Philipinas Islands. Being seen by the Indians and natives of that land, the latter attacked them, and put them all to the sword, leaving only the captain alive for the ransom that they can get for him. For two years there have been ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... period perfected. But while this gathering of ice is being brought about, the antarctic continent, now nearly covered with an ice sheet, will, through the extension of glaciers out into its shallow waters, cover a larger area than now; for where the waters are shoal the growing glaciers, resting on a firm bottom, will advance into the sea, and this advancement will continue wherever the shallow waters extend. Especially will this be the case ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... climbing the ladder and when he helped him to the bridge Mayne remarked: "She's on the tongue shoal. Don't know if I can back her off and steam out to deep water, but, if you ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... they could fully see the burning roundhouse. A moment later, chilled to the bone but with his mind cleared by the sharp plunge, Bucks felt his companion's arm drawing him toward the farther shore where, in the slack water of an elbow of the stream, Dancing led the way across a shoal of gravel and Bucks waded after him ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... sandy shoal of the Dogger, in twenty fathoms of water, and overhead I could see great black shadows ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... discovered, the trap was set at the edge of the dam, at a point where the animal passed from deep to shoal water, and always under the surface. Early in the morning, the hunter mounted his mule and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... mackerel. Something must indeed be done for the mackerel; the case was a serious one. Had the Britishers shown a resolution to be among the fish, Smooth had lent them a hand to secure the whole shoal, and then brought them back, merely to avoid the penalty of the British law, and secure the bounty given by ours. Well, the Britishers were all gone to a political meeting, where a noisy politician of the name of Joe Howe, and another of the name of Doyle, having come all the way from Halifax, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... "Shoal'd the water from 20 to 17 faths., and before the man in the chains could have another cast the ship struck and lay fast on some rocks, upon which we took in all sail, hoisted out the boats, and sounded round the ship, and found that we had got upon the edge of a reef of coral rocks, which ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... dominions. But, alas, for human ambition! About a year after the date of its first appearance, Nyoe sank into the depths out of which it arose, and its position is now marked only by a moderate shoal. ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... ever was seeing. I am hating the Simpsons, and no wonder. But Miss Gwynne is a lady,—Mrs Rowland Prothero, I am meaning. She was coming to see me the other day, and says she, "I know you have been unfortunate Mrs Jenkins, fach! and no fault of yours." And she was giving me this new white shoal. And, seure, if it wasn't for Rowland Prothero and she, I 'oudn't be in that tidy cottage by there, with Mrs Owen and my grandoater coming to see me and reading to me; and Mrs Prothero too, is seure, and bringing me something nice, and my Griffey with hundreds of thousands, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... rock or sand, whether steep or shoal—we knew not; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of expectation, was, if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... regular track of Chilean commerce, was a place so guarded by reefs on one hand, and impenetrable, ice-capped mountains on the other, that a proper survey was deemed impracticable even by officers of the British Navy, a service which has charted nearly every rock and shoal and tiny islet on ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... Last night, at dinner, we were startled by hearing that we seemed to be running on a rock or shoal, where no rock or shoal was known to exist. We backed our screw, and finally went over the alarming spot, and on sounding found no bottom. The sea was discoloured, but whether it was by the spawn of fish or sea-weed we could not discover. Peel took up water in a bucket, but could ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... crowd the shallow shoal waters, and move up and down the coast, during the whole of the open season, in great schools acres in extent. Occasionally their passage may be marked from afar by the flight of hungry sea-fowl hovering and flittering above ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... of those powerful romances of an ideal society with which recent days have made us all familiar. But Caspar's book was the forerunner of the shoal which the last ten years have cast upon our shores. He was one of the first to follow in the steps of Sir Thomas More and Sir Philip Sidney, and picture life as it should be rather than as it is. His hero, an Englishman of our own time, puzzled and distressed ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... whilst five or six icebergs were descending towards the south, ours was as motionless as though it had been stranded on a shoal. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... grating sound, as though a boat had just touched in shoal water. The Jackal spun round quickly and faced (it is always best to face) the creature he had been talking about. It was a twenty-four-foot crocodile, cased in what looked like treble-riveted boiler-plate, studded and keeled and crested; the yellow ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... fed by earthly possessions or delights. How should they have a sense of community of aims with grovelling hearts that cling to wealth or ambition, that are not at peace with God, and have no holdfasts beyond this 'bank and shoal of time'? A man who has drunk into the spirit of Christ's life is thereby necessarily thrown out of gear with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly: if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success: that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all; here, But here upon this bank and shoal of time We'd jump the life to ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... falling over still more considerably. The ship had been forced much further up the beach than before, and she had now in her bilge above nine feet of water, which reached higher than the lower-deck beams. On looking down the stern-post, which, seen against the light-coloured ground, and in shoal water, was now very distinctly visible, we found that she had pushed the stones at the bottom up before her, and that the broken keel, stern-post, and deadwood had, by the recent pressure, been more ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... first the hallowed tree Was launched by the lone mariner on some primeval sea, No stouter stuff than the heart of oak, or tough elastic pine, Had floated beyond the shallow shoal to pass ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... mention the fact that, at the age of five-and-twenty, he had been beguiled from that Arcadia by wily persons who took advantage of his innocent youth, who initiated him into the metropolitan mysteries which sadden the soul and deplete the pocket, who finally abandoned him upon the shoal of a youngest brother's allowance when his father passed away from the place in Lincolnshire, and young Sir Grant, reigning in the old baronet's stead, deemed himself generous in making the family scapegrace any provision at all. Yet such were the outlines of Mr. Musselwhite's ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... then," interrupted the seaman of the shawl. "As for your Cid, to me it is an useless volume, since it teaches neither the latitude of a shoal, nor the shape of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... every five miles, avoiding the "bight" of the great binds and thus escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high "bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head—and then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" the bar, and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her bows vanished, a great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under way, and in this ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... next trip, she was probably the most dangerous pirate ship that was ever afloat. You see they were all of them experienced men. They had years of practice behind them. They knew their ship, and they knew the ocean. There wasn't a shoal or a passage, an inlet or a creek from one end of the Spanish Main to the other that they didn't know. Black Pedro spread terror into far corners of the ocean, where neither his father nor grand-father had ever been heard of. They would have been ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... Macvitie, who applied the iodoform process to cotton, and only his subsequent unfortunate attempts to become a Cotton King prevented her being a very rich woman. As it was she had a tolerable independence. She came into prominence as one of the more able of the little shoal of young women who were led into politico-philanthropic activities by the influence of the earlier novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward—the Marcella crop. She went "slumming" with distinguished vigour, which was quite usual in those days—and returned ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... fully ground into my bones that the Champion would be after us about three o'clock, or as soon as she had landed her passengers at Parkville, that I wished to be fully prepared for any emergency. To the north of the "North Sister," and to the south of the "South Sister," the water was shoal for a mile in each direction, while the channel between the islands seemed to have been kept open by the strong south-west and north-east winds, as they forced the waters through. At any rate, there was a channel with five feet of water in it, though I was not entirely certain ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... flounces in the waves. Thus all my crew transformed around the ship, Or dive below, or on the surface leap, And spout the waves, and wanton in the deep. 130 Full nineteen sailors did the ship convey, A shoal of nineteen dolphins round her play. I only in my proper shape appear, Speechless with wonder, and half dead with fear, Till Bacchus kindly bid me fear no more. With him I landed on the Chian shore, And him shall ever gratefully adore.' 'This ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... repair, and there is no travel at present over the old Ute Crossing. The fording of the river on horseback was effected by dropping down to the river through a narrow side canyon, and crossing to the centre on a shoal, then following a centre shoal down quite a distance, and completing the crossing at a low point on the opposite side. This was only possible at the very lowest stage ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... shoal!' and had no idea that they were hastening to the queen's palace; but, then, dwellers on land have so little notion of what goes on in the bottom of the sea! Certainly the little new fish had none. She had watched jelly-fish ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... shown to the present General Assembly that the Government of the United States is solicitous that certain lands at Old Point Comfort, and at the shoal called the Rip Raps, should be, with the right of property and entire jurisdiction thereon, vested in the said United States for the purpose of fortification and other objects of ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... resembled the mid-day Sun blazing in his own splendour. Indeed, the Pandavas afflicted with fear, timidly gazed at Bhishma who was then achieving super-human feats in that battle. And the Pandava troops, thus fleeing away, O Bharata, failed to find a protector, like a herd of kine sunk in a shoal of ants while being trod down by a strong person. Indeed, the Pandavas could not, O Bharata, look at that mighty car-warrior incapable of being shaken, who, furnished with a profusion of shafts, was scorching the kings (in the Pandava ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lurch, the sleigh left the grade, and took the white snow edging the shoal water that led out to the deep green of the middle ice. The watcher drew a ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... by we might perceive a breach in the low barrier; the woods ceased; a glittering point ran into the sea, tipped with an emerald shoal, the mark of entrance. As we drew near we met a little run of sea—the private sea of the lagoon having there its origin and end, and here, in the jaws of the gateway, trying vain conclusions with the more majestic heave of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... intrigue to be farthered, or baffled, as circumstances render most to my own honour and glory—I wished for business but now, and I have got enough of it. But Buckingham will keep his own steerage-way through shoal and through weather." ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... incumbent is this duty upon him. Noblesse oblige. On the river Olynthiakos[41] in Northern Greece stood the tomb of the hero Olynthos, who gave the river its name. In the spring months of Anthesterion and Elaphebolion the river rises and an immense shoal of fish pass from the lake of Bolbe to the river of Olynthiakos, and the inhabitants round about can lay in a store of salt fish for all their needs. "And it is a wonderful fact that they never pass by the monument of Olynthus. They say ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... barometer which had somehow been broken, we pushed off once more to see what the day would develop. The rapid just below camp we ran through easily and then made swift progress for seven miles, running nine more rapids, two rather bad ones. The Canonita grounded once on a shoal but got off without damage. Where we stopped for dinner we caught sight of two mountain sheep drinking, and Andy and I got our guns out of the cabins as quickly as possible and started after them, but they flew away like birds of the air. Near this point there was a ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... which they cut their cables and ran into the river. Before they could get out of shot, he was able to pour in several broadsides at close range, killing Angria's chief admiral, and inflicting much damage. Fearing to lose some of his ships in the shoal water, he was obliged to draw off, ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... alongside the schooner, plainly bespoke his utter bewilderment. He must have though me bereft of my senses to be paddling about at that hour of the night. The tide had made, and the Sylph, righting her listed masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up red-hot ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... off from the group around Charles Gould till the Administrador of the Great Silver Mine could be seen in his whole lank length, from head to foot, left stranded by the ebbing tide of his guests on the great square of carpet, as it were a multi-coloured shoal of flowers and arabesques under his brown boots. Father Corbelan approached the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... it difficult to guess the class of trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between the strong iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside, certain packages, wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, though as numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the primitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the merchant clothiers in Paris, was the one whose stores were always the best provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whose commercial honesty never lay under the slightest ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... an hour of this kind of sailing they were close to the group of islands, and sighting a passage to the northward, swung over on the other tack. A rough beat to starboard brought them into the gap. Though they crossed a grim, black shoal at the narrowest part, Job did not shorten sail, but steered straight on as fast as the wind would take him. And at length they came clear of the headland and saw a great stretch of open sea to the southwestward with a faint, white dot of sail ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... any body. She was a free woman; and when my children were purchased, Mr. Sands preferred to have the bill of sale drawn up in her name. It was conjectured that he advanced the money, but it was not known. At the south, a gentleman may have a shoal of colored children without any disgrace; but if he is known to purchase them, with the view of setting them free, the example is thought to be dangerous to their "peculiar institution," ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... the Early Plantagenets, by Bishop Stubbs: one of the very few masterpieces among the shoal of little books on great subjects in which ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... had gone. At this time the ship had been pitching her spritsail-yard under water, and it blew a little hurricane. We were on deck in a moment, all hands paying out sheet. We brought the ship up with this cable, but not until she got it nearly to the better end. Unfortunately, we had got into shoal water, or what became shoal water by the depth of the troughs. It was said, afterwards, we were in five fathoms water at this time, but for this I will not vouch. It seems too much water for what happened. Our anchor, however, did actually ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... more, the Sperm Whale has done it. First: In the year the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. dashing his forehead against her hull, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the pleasantest for fishermen. It is their harvest; and they have little real hardship and a good deal of excitement. On calm nights, after the nets are shot, there are hours of keen expectancy, until the oily flicker on the surface of the water tells that the great shoal is moving to its fate; then there is the wild bustle among the whole fleet while the nets are hauled in; and then comes the pleasant morning lounge after the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... one that transmuted words to deeds. He drove the skiff onward with a powerful sweep that discovered an unexpected shoal. There might have been some danger of an upset if the oars were in less skillful hands. As it was, they were back in deep water within a ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... cannot be delayed for its sorrows. David must wait in his shop, and James must be at the bank; and in two weeks Donald had to leave for Edinburgh, though Christine was lying in a silent, broken-hearted apathy, so close to the very shoal of Time that none dared say, "She will ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Asia and Estevan: And, in the October following, Pizarro was prepared to put to sea with these two ships, in order to attempt the passage round Cape Horn a second time; but, in coming down the Rio Plata, the Estevan ran upon a shoal and beat off her rudder, and Pizarro proceeded to sea in the Asia without her. Having now the antarctic summer before him, and the winds favourable, no doubt was made of his having a fortunate and speedy passage: But, when off ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... tangible and real. I heard a shriek from the cabin aft, and called out for them all to keep below and keep the ports closed. Peterson had the power off in an instant, and swung her head as best he could with the dying headway; but it only put her farther on the shoal. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... not to them," shouted Telemachus. "Are you so foolish as to think you can please so many lords? If you give not the bow to the suppliant, my hands shall drive you from the land, and if I were strong enough I would expel this whole shoal of lawless men." Thus encouraged, Euinaeus handed the great bow to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... commanding Hart's loop suddenly opened on the dense battalions, and the trenches on the left bank took up the firing. The Kaffir guide disappeared in terror. But Hart still believed that there was a drift to be found somewhere or other and pushed his Brigade, like a shoal of herrings driven into a purse net, up the loop; and some companies even reached the kraal near the head of it. Without artillery—for Hart had not brought up the field batteries assigned to him—and exposed to a concentrated fire from front, left, and right, the unhappy Irish Brigade, which ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... of the official Bulletin— six square inches of paper thankfully received. For the rest we had no change from the perpetual sound of the sea and the mournful note of the bell-buoy that marks the inshore shoal. Its "dong-dong, dong-dong-dong" created a perfect illusion of the call to a tiny church through the country lanes of England. Everyone who was there can still hear the ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... sword from his side and handed it to the other, who thrust it with his own beneath his arm. Then once more the Friar bent his back, and, Robin having mounted upon it, he stepped sturdily into the water and so strode onward, splashing in the shoal, and breaking all the smooth surface into ever- widening rings. At last he reached the other side and Robin leaped ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... water uncommonly white, which alarmed the officer of the watch so much, that he tacked the ship instantly. Some thought it was a float of ice; others that it was shallow water; but, as it proved neither, probably it was a shoal of fish. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... reef and shoal obscurely mapped, And hauntings of the gray sea-wolf, The palmy Western Key lay lapped In the warm ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... cleaving the billows before her, manned by an able crew, and under the guidance of experienced officers; the finger of science to point the course of her progress, the faithful chart to warn of the hidden rock and the shoal, the long line and the quadrant to measure her march and prove her position. The poor little hooker cleft not the billows, each wave lifted her on its crest like a sea-bird; but the three inexperienced fishermen to manage her; no certain means to guide ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... native element. We got as beautiful a string in this way as one would wish to see, albeit they laughed at our best skill with fly and bait; and the cream of the matter was, that we had our pick of the shoal. ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... round trip, including a lay-over at Ilwaco all night, and returning to Portland next day, and sleeping on board the boat. A railway runs from the town to the outside beach, a mile and a half distant. There is a drive twenty-five miles long up this long beach to Shoal Water Bay, which is beautiful beyond description. This district is the great supply point for oysters, heavy shipments being made as far south as San Francisco. Sea bathing, both here and at ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... and 'inch'; 'errant' and 'arrant'; 'slack' and 'slake'; 'slow' and 'slough'{115}; 'bow' and 'bough'; 'hew' and 'hough'{115}; 'dies' and 'dice' (both plurals of 'die'); 'plunge' and 'flounce'{115}; 'staff' and 'stave'; 'scull' and 'shoal'; 'benefit' and 'benefice'{116}. Or, it may be, the difference which constitutes the two forms of the word into two words is in the spelling only, and of a character to be appreciable only by the eye, escaping altogether the ear: ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... were running about like ants, every one acting as if his life again depended upon his getting away immediately. The landing place was covered with baggage which had been dumped ashore. A number of canoes were lying in the shoal water, and a number of others had been hauled out while their owners repaired them. Amidst the baggage, and over the canoes, swarmed the Georgia's passengers, in their flannel shirts or broadcloth or muddy white, shouting and pleading and threatening, ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... too shoal for further exploration and Hudson returned downstream. It was time to conclude his voyage and he consulted his men. They were greatly averse to returning to Holland, fearing without doubt that he would report their open mutiny and ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... twenty leagues farther to the west he discovered four other islands; afterwards fell in with Maitea, Otaheite, isles of Navigators, and Forlorn Hope, which to him were new discoveries. He then passed through between the Hebrides, discovered the Shoal of Diana, and some others, the land of Cape Deliverance, several islands more to the north, passed the north of New Ireland, touched at Batavia, and arrived in France in ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath; Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts; Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... be called to mind in such a review is the long period of commercial depression which followed a short period of fictitious prosperity and inflated values. Misled by the apparently fair prospect of making money rapidly—of which prospect a shoal of interested persons sprang up to make the most—undertakings were entered upon on borrowed capital and properties were bought at prices which could not be realised upon them perhaps twenty years afterwards. The consequence of all this was a ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... Fantastic pink-and-orange crabs sidled awkwardly but nimbly this way and that. Tiny sea-horses, yet more fantastic, slipped shyly from one weed-covert to another, aware of a possible peril in every gay but menacing bloom. And just above this eccentric life of the shoal sea-floor small fishes of curious form shot hither and thither, live, darting gleams of gold and azure and amethyst. Now and again a long, black shadow would sail slowly over the scene of freakish life—the shadow of a passing albacore or barracouta. Instantly the shining fish would hide ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... shiny waste, broken by no object save the black head of a spermaceti whale, which would occasionally show itself at the top, casting up thin jets of brine. The principal bay, that of Finisterra, as far as the entrance, was beautifully variegated by an immense shoal of sardinhas, on whose extreme skirts the monster was probably feasting. From the northern side of the cape we looked down upon a smaller bay, the shore of which was overhung by rocks of various and grotesque shapes; ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... perceive a breach in the low barrier; the woods ceased; a glittering point ran into the sea, tipped with an emerald shoal the mark of entrance. As we drew near we met a little run of sea—the private sea of the lagoon having there its origin and end, and here, in the jaws of the gateway, trying vain conclusions with the more majestic heave ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... above them, the thunders roll, The ship gets aground on the hidden shoal, And the turbulent waters dash over the barque, And cries from the doomed ship come. Till nothing is left the tale to tell, But the angry roar of the surging swell; So the grand old vessel goes down in the dark— Wrecked ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Republic. His two armies were at first successful and captured several border towns, but that which entered in the south was repulsed at Estrelleta, while that which invaded the north was defeated at Beler. A small Haitian fleet which set out to attack Puerto Plata blundered on a shoal where it was left high and dry ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... against Ergimo's advice, I insisted on remaining on the surface, as the sea was tolerably calm. Eveena, with her usual self-suppression, professed to prefer the free air, the light of the long day, and such amusement as the sight of an occasional sea-monster or shoal of fishes afforded, to the fainter light and comparative monotony of submarine travelling. Ergimo, who had in his time commanded the hunters of the Arctic Sea, was almost as completely exempt as myself ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... without loss of respect for the dead, perhaps even with the silent approval of their own day and generation could it awake from its endless sleep and review the strange and eventful course of human life since they left "this bank and shoal of time." But may it not be safely prophesied that of all the names on the starry scroll of national fame that of Charles Darwin will, surely, remain unquestioned? And entwined with his enduring memory, by right of worth and work, and we know with Darwin's fullest approval, our ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... discovery of a bear fishing, and our capture of his supplies. He was a fine large black fellow, and had seated himself on a rock near the shore. Between this rock and the shore rushed a little portion of the great river, in which quite a shoal of white fish seemed to have been spawning. The sharp eyes of the bear having detected them, he had resolved to capture a number of them for his supper. His hand-like paw was all the fishing tackle he needed. He very skilfully thrust it low down into the water under ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... suffocated you like, my lady: it is all the same. You have read of panic-stricken people, when a church or a theatre is on fire, rushing to the door all in a heap and crowding each other to death? It is something like that with the fish. They are swimming along in a great shoal, yards thick; and when the first can get no farther, that does not at once stop the rest, any more than it would in a crowd of people: those that are behind come pressing up into every corner where there is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... of all were already weak, besides which they were entering amid the breakers. The ship sailed a long distance without meeting accident, and later they found themselves in the deep sea, free from so dangerous a fright. That shoal was marked down accurately on the charts, and was noted on other voyages. It was a rocky islet surrounded with many covered reefs. They considered it a marvelous occurrence that they should pass over them without meeting with accident on them. Father Fray Andres de San Nicolas fell sick ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... there ain't no sound to be heard but the lap of the water against the bow for a man not to have serious thoughts. It ain't our way to talk about it. I think we try to do our duty by our employers, and if a mate is laid up, he need never fear getting on a shoal for want of a helping hand; and when our time comes, I fancy as there ain't many of us as is afeared of death, or feels very bad about the account they say we have got to render arterwards. It's different ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... a light-house on this bank; but no engineer would be rash enough to attempt it, as he would feel sure that the ocean in the first heavy gale would sweep it away as readily as it does every temporary shoal that accumulates from time to time around a sunk vessel on the same bank. (Principles 10th edition ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... at New York the question was at its height. The theory of the floating island, and the unapproachable sandbank, supported by minds little competent to form a judgment, was abandoned. And, indeed, unless this shoal had a machine in its stomach, how could it change its position with such ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... belonging to the ship 'Baffin' went in pursuit of a whale. John Carr was harpooner and commander of them. The whale they pursued led them into a vast shoal of his own species. They were so numerous that their blowing was incessant, and they believed that they did not see fewer than a hundred. Fearful of alarming them without striking any, they remained a while motionless. At last one rose near Carr's boat, and he approached and, fatally ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... all day long in the quiet bay The eddying amber depths retard, And hold, as in a ring, at play, The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred; And yonder between cape and shoal, Where the long currents swing and shift, An aged punt-man with his pole Is searching ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... weather as this and plunge to and fro across the deck like maddened beasts. Now Joe Hawkridge had lingered, on pretext of making sure that one forward gun could be fired, if needs be, as a distress signal should the ship open her seams or strike upon a shoal. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... neither land nor sea; Not wholly shrunk, so that it should receive The ocean flood; nor firm enough to stand Against its buffets — all the pathless coast Lies in uncertain shape; the land by earth Is parted from the deep; on sandy banks The seas are broken, and from shoal to shoal The waves advance to sound upon the shore. Nature, in spite, thus left her work undone, Unfashioned to men's use — Or else of old A foaming ocean filled the wide expanse, But Titan feeding from the briny depths His burning fires (near to the zone of heat) ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... when lo! behind him, gaining fast, Cloanthus. On the leeward side he stole A narrower compass, grazing as he passed His rival's vessel and the sounding shoal, Then gained safe water, as he turned the goal. Grief fired young Gyas at the sight, and drew Tears from his eyes and anger from his soul. Careless alike of honour and his crew, Down from the lofty stern his timorous ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... lay for a long time under a tree, studying the Ogallalla tongue, with the zealous instructions of my friend the Panther. When we were both tired of this I went and lay down by the side of a deep, clear pool formed by the water of the spring. A shoal of little fishes of about a pin's length were playing in it, sporting together, as it seemed, very amicably; but on closer observation, I saw that they were engaged in a cannibal warfare among themselves. Now and then a small one would fall a victim, and immediately ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... efforts, they were being overhauled slowly, but Seymour still held on and did not despair. There was one chance of escape. Right before them, not a half league away, lay a long shoal known as George's Shoal, extending several leagues across the path of the two ships; through the middle of this dangerous shoal there existed a channel, narrow and tortuous, but still practicable for ships of a certain size. He was familiar with its windings, as was Bentley, as they ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... by S. by the compass, and soon perceived the sea to break right a-head of us; we immediately sounded, and shoaled our water from thirteen to seven fathom, soon after deepening it again from seventeen to forty-two; so that we went over the end of a shoal, which a little farther to the northward might have been fatal to us. Cape Blanco at this time bore W.S.W. 1/2 S. distant four leagues: But we were still at a loss for Port Desire, it being impossible ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... false slave, and slight their empty words: What! hopes the fool to please so many lords? Young as I am, thy prince's vengeful hand Stretch'd forth in wrath shall drive thee from the land. Oh! could the vigour of this arm as well The oppressive suitors from my walls expel! Then what a shoal of lawless men should go To fill with tumult the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the brink Of wild brook-ways of shoal and deep, Where killdees dip, and cattle drink, And glinting little minnows leap! Sing! slimpsy lass who trips above And sets the foot-log quivering! Sing! bittern, bumble-bee, and ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... innocence to disarm any villainy. Thirty families had halted at the mill the day before, the mob checking their advance at that point. All was quiet until about four in the afternoon. We were camped on either side of Shoal Creek. Children were playing freely about while their mothers and fathers worked at the little affairs of a pilgrimage like that. Most of them had then been three months on the road, enduring incredible hardships for the sake of their religion—for him you believe to be a bad, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... entrance, a haul of the dredge brought up the rare Terebratula rosea, and a small shell of a new genus, allied to Rissoa. The remainder of the day and part of the succeeding one were spent in a fruitless search for a shoal said to exist in the neighbourhood, to which Captain Stanley's attention had been drawn by Captain Broughton, of ...
— 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
... sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal—there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing—against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... islands in any part of our course, and we found but a single shoal marked on the chart. We passed far to the north of the newly discovered Brooks Island, and kept southward of the Aleutian chain. Since my return to America I have read the account of a curious discovery ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... to the eastward, it became pretty evident to all who understood the subject, that the two little lug-sails that were "eating into the wind," as the sailors express it, would weather upon her track ere she could stretch over to the other shoal. Even the landsmen had some feverish suspicions of the truth, and the steerage passengers were already holding a secret conference on the possibility of hiding the pursued in some of the recesses of the ship. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Throne; and the counties of Devon and Hereford, the cities of Exeter and Worcester, urged their respective Members to make all possible resistance to the tax. Lord Bute's personal unpopularity increased enormously, and a shoal of squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets appeared, in which he was held up to ridicule and contempt. One caricature represented him as 'hung on the gallows over a fire, on which a jack-boot fed the flames, and a farmer was throwing an excised cyder barrel into the conflagration. In rural ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... caverns the black gaping mouths of cannon. The shore outlines rose about five hundred feet on each side and great batteries and the white tents of some of Kitchener's army were to be seen almost everywhere. There was certainly no doubt about England being at war. As we drew near the breakwater a shoal of paddle wheel tugs rushed out to welcome us with their sirens blowing to pilot us safely into the most noted harbour in the world. From this port sailed such great captains as Drake, Hawkins and Cooke, who first circumnavigated ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... less than a hundred fathoms. So when in a dark night, or in a fog, the ship is driven by the wind in a direction where they know there is land, they sound often; and when they find that the water is shoal enough, ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... Shoal Creek, about sixteen miles from Fat West, a brother by the name of Haun had built a flour mill. Besides the mill there were a blacksmith shop and half a dozen houses. About thirty families lived here, some of which had just arrived from ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... he used to bathe by diving off the forecastle deck when the steamer was going at full speed, and catching a rope which was let down from the stern. Once while he was doing this he saw a shark and a shoal of pilot fish close to him in the water, as he describes ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... end." But no commonsensical talk seems to have any effect on the insensate fellows who are the betting-man's prey, and thus this precious sport has become a source of idleness, theft, and vast misery. One wretch goes under, but the stock of human folly is unlimited, and the shoal of gudgeons moves steadily into the bookmaker's net. One betting-agent in France receives some five thousand letters and telegrams per day, and all this huge correspondence comes from persons who never take the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... of a mountain stream, where the country was so lonely, that in summer time the wild ducks used to bring their young ones to feed on the bog, within a hundred yards of our door; and you could not stoop over the bank to raise a pitcher full of water, without frightening a shoal of beautiful speckled trout. Well, 'tis long ago since my brother Richard, that's now grown a fine, clever man, God bless him! and myself, used to set off together up the mountain to pick bunches of the cotton ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... stuck fast on a shoal or submerged reef, and then Ned had to feel his way to the front with his paddle, and dislodge them by main force. The water was of variable depth, and half a dozen times the boys suddenly plunged breast deep into ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... that trout were royal fare. His wide jaws and capacious gullet were big enough to accommodate a cousin a full third of his own size, if swallowed properly, head first. His speed was so great that any smaller fish which he pursued was doomed, unless fortunate enough to be within instant reach of shoal water. Of course, it must not be imagined that the great trout was able to keep his domain quite inviolate. When he was full fed, or sulking, then the finny wanderers passed up and down freely,—always, however, giving wide berth to the lair under the bank. In ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... with General Thomas that day, which was hot but otherwise very pleasant. We stopped for a short noon-rest near a little church (marked on our maps as Shoal-Creek Church), which stood back about a hundred yards from the road, in a grove of native oaks. The infantry column had halted in the road, stacked their arms, and the men were scattered about—some ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... then a vividly plumaged kingfisher, or a kind of black, racket-tailed daw with glossy plumage. Parrots of a diminutive size and dazzling green plumage flitted before them; and from time to time the lotus leaves were agitated by a shoal of fish, that alarmed by the wash of the steamer ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... can exceed the beauty of these waters, and their safety. Not a shoal exists within the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound, or Hood's Canal, that can in any way interrupt their navigation by a seventy-four-gun ship. I venture nothing in saying there is no country in the world that possesses ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... Again, when a shoal of fish has made its appearance on the reef, a number of superstitious ceremonies have to be performed before the people may go and spear them in the water. On the eve of the fishing-day the medicine-man of the tribe causes ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... was partly taken up by pyrogallic acid, that is to say, that little or no carbonic acid was present, but that a fair amount of oxygen was present, diluted of course by nitrogen. The exposure of a shoal of the beautiful blue pelagic Siphonophore, Velella, for a few hours, enabled me to collect a large quantity of gas, which yielded from 24 to 25 per cent. of oxygen, that subsequently squeezed out from the interior of the chambered cartilaginous float, giving only ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... young mind as plausible, as well as discreet. To recover even a single man would be a great advantage, and he had lingering hopes that some of the people might yet be found on the reef. Then Bob's idea about getting the ship through the shoal water, by passing to leeward, in preference to making the attempt against the wind, was a sound one; and, on a little reflection, he was well enough disposed to acquiesce in it. Accordingly, when they quitted the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper |
