"Declivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brow of the hill before me, were the dozen jaded riders, forced to draw rein by the steepness of the declivity, and all pointing with vehement gestures below. In the next instant, through the ravine at its foot, and within a hundred yards of the cliff, came Marianne, still clinging to the horse, and flying like the wind. The look which she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. A blinding sunlight drowned ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... on the steep, treeless declivity. The sound of shells bursting off at a distance, of tattooing machine guns, and roaring artillery on their own side was now mingled with the howling sound of shots whizzing through the air and coming closer ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... and at last came the night after Ugh-lomi brained the otter, and they had feasted. Uya went too far. Ugh-lomi awoke, scowling under his heavy brows, and he took his axe, and extending his hand towards Eudena he bade her wait for him upon the ledge. Then he clambered down the white declivity, glanced up once from the foot of it and flourished his axe, and without looking back again went striding along the river bank until the overhanging cliff ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... which meandered at the base of the hill, and running in an easterly direction, was lost to sight in the forest. In front of the house, at the distance of a rod, bubbled up a bright spring, which, dashing down the declivity, fell into the first-mentioned stream. Except this cultivated spot, which had been an old corn-field of the natives, selected by them for the fertility of the soil, its advantage of water, and the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... into the gloom among the trees, and she sat listening to the uneven crunch of his footsteps in the snow, until there was a sudden crash of broken branches, and a sound as of something falling heavily down a declivity. Then there was another ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... evening was closing in. The setting sun gilded my orchards and my vines as far as I could see. On the declivity of the hill a few white patches indicated ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... I approached it once, and found it swarming with trout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while the ascent grew steeper, the creek became a mere rill that issued from beneath loose, moss-covered rocks and stones, and with much labor and puffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity. Every mountain has its steepest point, which is usually near the summit, in keeping, I suppose, with the providence that makes the darkest hour just before day. It is steep, steeper, steepest, till you ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... him, his foot still in the stirrup. The mare shied, and the rein slipped from his fingers; he clutched at it, but Mary gave a vicious toss of the head, wheeled about, and began trotting down the declivity. Her trot at once broke into a gallop, and the gallop into a full run—a full run for Mary. At the foot of the hill she stumbled, fell, rolled over, gathered herself up, and started off again at increased speed. ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... swung behind her like a knapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal, climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird from branch to branch down the deepest declivity. She soon reached that part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster had seen the fascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed, she crept through the thicket until she reached a little waterfall ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the bottom of a slight declivity 2 m. S.E. of Ilminster. It owes the second part of its name to the family of Wake, the last male representative of which died in 1348. The church is a modern antique, with a central tower partly original (15th cent.). The N. chapel ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly that you would hardly hear it from any nearness, and yet with such expression that it would not be quite inaudible ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... began to brighten as with fire, and Sergius, wheeling his horse, urged him downward toward the plain. Decius was by his side in an instant, and behind them came the cavalry at a speed that threatened to hurl them headlong to the foot of the rocky declivity. Joy and fury shone on the faces of the men: only Marcus Decius ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... off the road here, and sat down to rest. Then I began to look about for a place to suit me, to gather together heather and juniper leaves, and make up a bed on a little declivity where it was a bit dry. I opened the parcel and took out the blanket; I was tired and exhausted with the long walk, and lay down at once. I turned and twisted many times before I could get settled. My ear pained me ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... The declivity was so small that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... the gun-room, because thence he can see a section of the highway, which, where it crosses the streamlet, comes within half a mile of the house. There the hollow and the lower wall permit any one at this window to obtain a view of the road on one of the sides of the valley. At this declivity it almost faces the house, and whether the passers-by are going to the market town, or returning to the village, they cannot escape observation. If they come from the town, the steep descent compels them to walk their horses down it; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... late that night when Carlos Freggetti came down a steep declivity into Great Saffron Street and walked swiftly along that deserted thoroughfare till he came to his brother's house. His brother was a respectable Italian artisan, engaged by an asphalt company in London. Near the narrow ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... proportional number of those who will distinctly profess their belief in the transubstantiation of Lot's wife, and the anticipatory experience of submarine navigation by Jonah; in water standing fathoms deep on the side of a declivity without anything to hold it up; and in devils who enter swine—will not increase. But neither is there ground for much hope that the proportion of those who cast aside these fictions and adopt the consequence of that repudiation, are, for ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and as long to master a steep hot ascent of about 400 feet, formed by a recent lava-flow from Hale-mau-mau into the basin. This lava hill is an extraordinary sight—a flood of molten stone, solidifying as it ran down the declivity, forming arrested waves, streams, eddies, gigantic convolutions, forms of snakes, stems of trees, gnarled roots, crooked water-pipes, all involved and contorted on a gigantic scale, a wilderness of force and dread. Over one steeper place the lava ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... our 59 approach to the shore, I discovered them approaching the mountain on which Santa Cruz stands. Soon after we came to anchor in the road, the boats came off, and the battery, which is situated about half-way up the mountain on the western declivity, saluted me with 8 guns, (the Muhamedans always saluting with an even number.) This compliment being unexpected, we were about half an hour preparing to return it, when we saluted the battery with 9 guns. The captain of the ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... summit must be no easy matter. As we sailed on, we came off the north-west side, which is almost perpendicular, and composed of successive tiers of enormous columns. Here we made out a cave, above which was a grassy declivity sloping upwards towards the summit. Though it is at the very mouth of the Clyde, its great height causes it to be seen at a distance, preventing it being dangerous to vessels bound to Glasgow. Any person inclined to solitude might take up his abode there, and live without leaving it, as it is inhabited ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... retained his grasp and found himself, when the wave receded, standing battered and breathless upon a small niche in the front of the rock which just gave him foothold. It was a marvellous escape, for looking on either side he could not see any break in the sheer declivity. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mental processes. A Latin tag came into my head about the facile descent into the abyss. I marvelled at its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat. But I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of the street of the Consuls which lies on a gentle slope. We had just turned the corner. All the houses were dark and in a perspective of complete solitude our two shadows dodged and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... there is either a causal connection between antecedents and consequents in the material world, or even a coactive and compulsory constraint in the moral world. It is physically necessary that fire should burn substances that are combustible, that water and other fluids should flow down a declivity, and rise again but only to a certain level; and there is the like kind of necessity, wherever a moral agent is forced to act under irresistible compulsion,—as when the assassin seizes hold of another's arm, and thrusting a ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... secondary. In general the appearance of the constitution of the locality must be considered if one would proceed usfully to choose the samples destined to represent them; the choice would be easy if one would establish a rule never to quit a declivity, a mountain, a country even, without having made the section (geologically). We should add that these sections should be the principal object in the ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... the varying density of the undergrowth; naturally selecting a path that afforded her the easiest passage through the bush. In this manner, after a very pleasant and enjoyable walk for about an hour, she arrived at the crest of the eastern spur of the mountain, and, descending a gentle declivity, soon found herself in a region as romantically beautiful as even her vivid fancy had painted. Ravine succeeded ravine, each with its own tiny streamlet meandering through it, and each more picturesque and enchanting than the last, until at length, emerging from this broken ground, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... be distinguished; then the line of the woods, stretching to the right from Meucon to Grand-champ, while to the left the plain of Plescop, threaded by a rivulet, sloped gradually toward Vannes. This natural declivity of the ground became more and more perceptible as ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... a year later, he is careful, among grave political matters, to remember and report to the same friend that in the sinking of a well in Richmond, on the declivity of a hill, there had been found, "about seventy feet below the surface, several large bones, apparently belonging to a fish not less than the shark; and, what is more singular, several fragments of potter's ware in the ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Oronooco to the river Amazon, and through the whole of Guiana, through Surinam and the northern part of Brazil, and in very various places along the river Amazon, even to its source on the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras, this palm is found, constituting forests of greater or less extent. Its smooth grey stem rising often 100 feet, forms groups that, in the northern part of Brazil, resemble the pallisades of some gigantic fortress. The produce of these lofty cylinders is very great, not merely ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... called the Ox Mountains, in the County Sligo, accurately imitating, in shape, a higher range of mountains somewhat more distant; afterwards an extremely white vapour, resembling a snow-storm, appeared along the southern declivity of the range. Mr. Cooper remarked to a friend at the time, that he thought this vapour might be charged with the fluid causing the disease in the potato. The friend to whom this observation was made, being a resident near those mountains, Mr. Cooper ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... above, to guard the pass in that direction. This corps was from Phocis, which, being the state nearest to the scene of conflict, had furnished a larger number of soldiers than any other. Their division numbered a thousand men. These being stationed on the declivity of the mountain, left only two or three thousand in the ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... munificence of the Ames family, and of the deep interest its members take in the welfare of their native town. In the triangle near the centre of the village, formed by the converging of the principal streets, is a declivity, where art has so arranged the rough and irregular forms of New England boulders as to re-produce a unique scene from some Scotch or Swiss village. This "rockery," as it is called, is clothed in summer with verdure and flowers, and from its summit ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... remainder of that day till moonlight, close by the skirt of a long wood, that we might take shelter therein, if there should be occasion $ and my eyes were the best part of the way behind me; but neither hearing nor seeing anything to annoy us, and finding by the declivity of the ground we should soon be in some plain or bottom, and have a chance of water for us all, and pasture for our muletto, which was now become one of us, we would not halt till we found a bottom to the hill, which in half ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... down into a great declivity in the shape of an immense Greek lamp, with the concealed marshes of St. Sond at the bottom. Beyond are the downs and heaths of Epernay, Rheims and Champagne, while the heights of Argonne stand out boldly in the distance. To the west ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which you know extends as far as Etretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I re-entered the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... soon speeding over the snow and in a few minutes was at the edge of the declivity in which lay the penguin rookery. Gazing down into it the boys could ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing from under his knees, beneath which the sand, disturbed by his efforts, was sliding downwards along the surface of the rock. Concluding that the sliding sand was the cause of the sounds, not an effect of the vibrations ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... entirety. It seems a sort of metonymy; Maudlin put for Oxford. The walk is, after all, but a sober path, worthy by association with one of the walks of Eden. Yet it shows no gay foliage, nor "shade above shade a woody theatre," such as is seen on a mountain declivity. It is a simple shadowy walk—shadowy to richness, cool, tranquil, redolent of freshness. There the soul feels "private, inactive, calm, contemplative," linked to things that were and are not. The mellow hue of time, not yet stricken by decay, clothes the buildings of ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... of the oar, Hercules had pushed toward the left bank. Besides, the current was not more rapid in that place, and the bed of the river kept its normal declivity to the falls. As has been said, it was the sudden sinking of the ground, and the attraction was only felt three or four hundred feet ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... it. The maize he guesses at thirty bushels, which from appearances it may yield, but not more. The oats and barley are not contemptible. This ground has been turned up but once The aspect of it is nearly south, on a declivity of the river, or arm of the sea, on which Rose Hill stands. It was cleared of wood about nine months ago, and sown this ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... the left 30 toward this second hill and had worked their way in groups, slipping through the tall grass and bushes, crawling when casualties came too often, courageously facing a sleet of bullets, and now hugging the steep southern declivity ready to spring forward the few remaining yards into the teeth of the enemy. The fire from the Spanish position had doubled in intensity until the popping of their rifles 5 made a continuous roar. There was a moment's lull and our line moved forward ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... direction, yet close in beside the shore a light boat was skimming over the gray water. Even as I gazed, the fellow plying the paddle saw me, and waved his hand. In another moment the bow grounded on the bank and its occupant came stumbling up the slight declivity. ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... would be foolish to attempt escape from the pool before dark. In front of him the mountain rose steeply till, so far as he could judge, it reached a pass which lay some two miles off, at the base of that main peak, on whose snows the priests had watched the breaking of the dawn. Part of this declivity was covered with blocks of green ice, but here and there appeared patches of earth, on which grew stunted trees, shrubs, and even grass and flowers. Being very hungry, it occurred to Otter that he might find edible roots ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... of Indians moved out of winter camp and pitched their tents in a circle on high land overlooking a lake. A little way down the declivity was a grave. Choke cherries had grown up, hiding the grave from view. But as the ground had sunk somewhat, the grave was marked ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... by side, now peering down into the ravine where the car was visible, bottom side up against a tree, near the base of the declivity. The horse's head could be seen protruding from beneath ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of five had not proceeded far, when, in passing through a defile, overhung with trees, they heard the voice of a man, singing. They immediately concealed themselves in a grove, on the brow of a declivity, up which the stranger would have to ascend. The moonlight, which left the grove in deep shadow, lit up the whole person of the wayfarer, as he advanced, and enabled them to distinguish his dress and appearance ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... foot of the hill from whence the town is supplied with water. We ascended the mountain, and traced the stream to its fountain-head, where we found it issuing from cavities in several parts of the hill, and was conveyed down the declivity in stone-troughs, and received on the plain by troughs of wood, supported about seven or eight feet above the ground by props; through this aqueduct, the water is carried to the center of the city, over a plain, from a distance of four ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... plain behind the village. In front of Vimiera was a steep hill with a flat top, commanding the ground to the south and east for a considerable distance. Fane's and Anstruther's infantry, with six guns, were posted here. Fane's left rested on a churchyard, blocking a road which led round the declivity of the hill to the town. Behind this position, and separated by the river and road, was a hill extending in a ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... altered aspect. Alas for him! The bird which once rose to heights unattained before by mortal pinion, filling the air with its joyful songs, now lies with maimed wing upon the ground, pouring forth its doleful cries to God." He has scarcely begun to descend the declivity of life, yet he appears infirm and old. He is as one who goes down to the grave mourning. Thus does he seem to Bathsheba as he sits before her. But there is more in David thus humble, contrite and smitten, to win her sympathy and even love, than there ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... is always rather fast, and down a declivity the torturers go at a run; the result is, that prominent parts of one's body are continually in collision with the seat or sides of the machine, coming down from various altitudes, according to the nature of the ground and ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... might find the means of existence, as the place was accessible to ships, and had wood and water in plenty. Before departing therefore, they set up high marks of stones on two opposite hills at the entrance of the bay, and placed a board on the declivity of a hill to the right, on one side of which they cut G. III. R. and S.U.F.—Georgius III Rex, Societas Unitatis Fratrum; and on the other, the initials of the missionaries, with the date of their arrival. This tablet was raised with some solemnity in presence ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... were left to hobble up the terraced street as best they might. Even mothers, after dragging them at their own sides till fearful of being too late, abandoned their young in the highway, certain of finding them rolled to the foot of the declivity, should they fail of scrambling to its summit. In short, it was a scene of confusion in which there was much to laugh at, something to awaken wonder, and not a little that ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Hatfield is a quaint, straggling place, with narrow streets and many antique houses. A steep declivity leads up to the old church, dedicated to St. Etheldreda, just outside one of the entrances to the grounds of Hatfield House. The church contains a monument to Sir Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, also tombs of the Botelers, Brockets, ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... from under him and he went down on his back with a crash, barely saving his head with his hands. The smooth hard rock was as slippery as ice from the water flowing over it. Wondering if this icy declivity had anything to do with the failure of Hoover and Young to return, Wilson arose and went on ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... thereupon turned to the telephone, and, calling up Meadow Brook, instructed the clerk at that resort to send a carriage for Mr. Westlake, who was sitting in the trap, entirely unharmed but disinclined to walk, at the foot of Laurel Hill; then he explained that the grays had run away down this steep declivity, that the yoke bar had slipped, the tongue had fallen to the ground, had broken, and had run back up through the body of the carriage. The horses had jerked the doubletree loose, and the last he had seen of their marks they had turned up the Bald Hill road and were probably ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... the verge of the morass was attained, and their path lay on the declivity. Green-sward it was, and, viewed from a distance, chequered with its narrow and verdant line the dark-brown heath which it traversed, though the distinction was not so easily traced when they were walking ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the storm was much abated. The declivity was so small, that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least I was in so weak a condition, that I did not observe them. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... "Cape Town is situated on the shores of Table Bay, which is the chief harbor of the Cape of Good Hope, and is exceedingly commodious; and close by rises a mountain of the same name, to the height of 3582 feet, by a declivity so gradual, that it has been ascended on horseback. I do not wish to detract from the general goodness of the inhabitants of Cape Town, but I must say they are an eager money-getting race. On the arrival of a ship from England an auction is generally held, and the various articles ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... town of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt, on the river Getel, 20 m. E. of Quedlinburg by rail. Pop. (1900) 5423. It is pleasantly situated under the north-eastern declivity of the Harz mountains. The inhabitants are mostly engaged in agriculture and there is practically no other industry. The palace of the dukes of Anhalt, standing on an eminence, contains a library and collections of various kinds, including a good picture gallery. It is approached by a fine ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... mattered little what he was, tinker or tailor. He had now only to work his way back to the mind of the peasant; to be an animal with intelligence; to get close to mother earth, and move down the declivity of life with what natural wisdom were possible. It was his duty to adapt himself to the mind of such as this tailor; to acquire what the tailor and his like had found—an intolerant belief and an inexpensive security, to be got through yielding his nature to the great religious ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... large streams, the Macquarie, Castlereagh, Gwydir, and the Dumaresq, with the many minor interfluent waters, which doubtless takes place upon those low levels, forms one or more noble rivers, which may flow across the continent by an almost imperceptible declivity of country to the north of north-west coasts, on certain parts of which, recent surveys have discovered to us extensive openings, by which the largest accumulations of waters might ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... rough pitching, from too rapid a generation of steam, he avoids by a curious application of springs; and should these be insufficient, one or two safety valves afford the ultimatum of security. He ensures an easy descent down the steepest declivity by his 'shoe-drags,' and the power of reversing the action of the engines. His hands direct, and his foot literally pinches obedience to the course over the roughest and most refractory ground. The dreadful consequences of boiler-bursting are annihilated ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... report of General Upton reads in part as follows: "The Second Connecticut, anxious to prove its courage, moved to the assault in beautiful order. Crossing an open field it entered a pine-wood, passed down a gentle declivity and up a slight ascent. Here the charge was checked. For seventy feet in front of the works the trees had been felled, interlocking with each other and barring all further advance. Two paths several yards apart, and wide enough for four men to march abreast, led through the obstruction. ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... ravine, the mouth of which was blocked by their monuments. The Libyan chain here forms a kind of amphitheatre of vertical cliffs, which descend to within some ninety feet of the valley, where a sloping mass of detritus connects them by a gentle declivity ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... eye, which alone can scan the heart, to read all the agonized suspense with which that young and beautiful creature approached the spot, where she might command a view of the whole of the side of the fearful declivity, from its giddy summit to the base, where it was washed by the sea. The latter, indeed, could not literally be seen from above, the waves having so far undermined the cliff, as to leave a projection that concealed the point where the rocks and the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... along-side the house where we first discovered the Rebel party. Our position is the most beautiful one we have yet found. To the west stretches an undulating prairie, separated from us by a valley, into which our camping-ground subsides with a mild declivity; to the north is a range of low hills, their round sides unbroken by shrub or tree; while to the south stretches an extensive tract of low land, densely covered with timber, and resplendent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... in their mouths; and it was with a hopelessness of checking their terrible speed that he stepped out of the road to give them room. The next instant he saw that they were making straight for the declivity from which the road shot back, seeing in the same breath that the driver of the wagon, not falling clear, had entangled himself in the long reins and was being dragged rapidly beneath the wheels. Tossing his axe aside, he sprang instantly at ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... His own company ran forward to follow his impetuous lead. The others joined in rapidly. Away they dashed down the side of the declivity, and in an instant more were swarming up the opposite side toward the astonished Rebels. Among these divided councils reigned. Some were excited snapping unloaded guns at the oncoming foe; others were fixing bayonets, and sturdily urging their comrades to do likewise, and meet the rushing wave ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... three-cornered hat with the balls, and loaded as rapidly as had he leaped a century. His guns mowed down the British in such numbers that Leslie fell back, and joining the Hessian grenadiers and infantry, who had now crossed the stream, charged up the southwestern declivity of the hill and endeavoured to turn McDougall's right flank. McDougall's advance opposed them hotly, while slowly retreating toward the crown of the eminence. The British cavalry attacked the American militia on the extreme right, and the raw troops fled ignominiously. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... of the rough declivity, meandered through gardens wild with African exuberance. The pear trees extended, like green fences, their serried rows of prickle-laden leaves; the century-plants opened like a profusion of bayonets, blackish or salmon-red in color; the old agaves shot their stalks into the air straight ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... on the declivity which led to the Valley of Etretat. On this particular morning I had, by chance, the sort of floating vapor which I needed. Suddenly something rose up in front of me like a phantom; it was Miss Harriet. On seeing me she was about to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 13,000; Christians, 5000). Called Nicopolis by Leo III. after his victory over the Arabs in 740, its name was changed by the Seljuk Turks to Kara-hissar. It stands partly on level ground, partly on a declivity, and above it rises a precipitous trachytic rock (400 ft.) on the summit of which are the ruins of an ancient castle. From its situation on the route of the caravans between Smyrna and western Asia ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... summer day, long gone among the summer days that come but to go, a lad of twelve years was idly and recklessly swinging in the top of a tall hickory, the advance picket of a mountain forest. The tree was on the edge of a steep declivity of rocky pasture-land that fell rapidly down to the stately chestnuts, to the orchard, to the cornfields in the narrow valley, and the maples on the bank of the amber river, whose loud, unceasing murmur came to the lad on his aerial perch like the voice of some tradition ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... we get down this hill, which is rather rugged!" said Mr. Force, as he passed his daughter, and went before her down the declivity, clearing away the branches of tall bushes that crowded and ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Sibylline Leaves. I dipped into a few of these with great satisfaction, and with the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old room with blue hangings, and covered with the round-faced family-portraits of the age of George I and II, and from the wooded declivity of the adjoining park that overlooked my window, at the dawn of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... ran. I can only leave to the imagination that brief exploratory climb. The broken body seemed at least a hundred feet long; the mangled shoulders and chest filled the great torn hole in the cliff. I climbed over the litter. Indescribable, horrible scene! A river of warm blood was flowing down the declivity outside.... ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... half lived in the Lower Town. Here, on the narrow strand beneath the cliff, the tenements stood in irregular groups, parted by winding streets. Up the hill, too, these tortuous pathways ran, changing, now and then, to breakneck stairs where the declivity was specially steep. The graded slope of Mountain Street zigzagged from the harbour up to the Castle, while on the St. Charles side the ascent was commonly made by way of Palace Hill. The Upper Town was chiefly occupied by public buildings, which comprised the Chateau, the Cathedral, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... for our scuffle had already brought us to the edge of the bank. I stuck my knife into his side, and summoned all my strength to throw him over. He resisted, was desperate heavy; but at last I got him so far down the declivity that he lost his balance, and he rolled over and over till he landed on the margin of the river; but in his fall he dragged me along with him. Fortunately, I fell uppermost, and his neck presented a fair mark for my hunting-knife. Without allowing myself time even to draw breath, I aimed ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... winding up the brae, keeping his captain's eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus that I still see him in my mind's eye, perched on a hump of the declivity not far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, his great voice taking hold upon the hills and echoing terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, standing somewhat back, until the fit should be over, and, with a pinch of snuff, my friend relapse ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a uniform dip, or inclination. Oftener, however, in hilly regions especially, they are quite irregular—the impervious stratum frequently having depressions of greater or less extent, and holding water, like a bowl. Not unfrequently, as we cut a ditch upon a declivity, we find that the dip of the strata below has no correspondence with the visible surface of the field, but that the different strata lie nearly level, or are much broken, while the surface has ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... somewhat hazardous thing to break cover, at such a moment, and under such circumstances; but it was absolutely necessary to incur its risks. My first leap carried me half-way down the declivity, and I was soon on the level land. In my front were two men, one of whom seemed to me to be in the grasp of the other. As they were moving, though slowly, in the direction of the house, I ventured to ask ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... writes to her brother, 'and nothing more charming than their situation. An extensive view over the Mendip Hills is in front of their house, with a pretty view of Wrington. Their home—cottage, because it is thatched—stands on the declivity of a rising ground, which they have planted and made quite a little paradise. The five sisters, all good old maids, have lived together these fifty years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but possesses fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We exchanged ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... righteous glare in his antagonist's eyes, the look of grateful relief which lighted the face of the rescued. Plunging onward, he came to a mountain-brook which, as clear as crystal, leaped and rippled, gurgled and muttered down the rugged declivity. Here he paused, whining and bemoaning his luck, and sat down and bathed his face. He was sober now, all too sober, in fact, for his peace of mind. Above the tree-tops he saw the roof and gables of his uncle's house, and, as he mopped his face with ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... fete was to have been held had been erected on a headland between Castle Raa and a precipitous declivity to the sea, and the only reasonable conjecture is that the unhappy lady, going out on Thursday night to superintend the final preparations, lost her way in the darkness ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... Javanese labourer going to his work in the field; the native women reaping, with the hand only, and stalk by stalk, the ripe paddy (rice) in one field, while those in the next are sowing the seed; the adjoining fields being covered with stubble, their crops having been reaped weeks before. Upon the declivity of the mountain is seen the stately coffee-tree, the plantations of which commence about 1300 feet above the level of the sea, and proceed up the hill till they reach the height of 4000 feet. Nothing can be more beautiful ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... Fort Motte, to the north, stood another hill, where Mrs. Motte, having been dismissed from her mansion, resided, in the old farmhouse. On this height Lieutenant-Colonel Lee with his corps took post, while Brigadier Marion occupied the eastern declivity of the ridge on which the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... away. To the right was one of those sudden depressions in the ground caused by the subsidence of the earth from hidden springs and the uprooting of one or two of the larger trees. When she had forced him down this declivity below the level of the needle-strewn forest floor, she seated him upon a mossy root, and shaking out her skirts in a half childlike, half coquettish way, comfortably seated herself in his lap, with her arm supplementing the clinging braid ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... by potent artificial breath. It lingered, and might linger, but would never culminate again without some stimulus from earthly vineyards. [Footnote: Though not exactly in the same circumstances as Kate, or sleeping, a la belle etoile, on a declivity of the Andes, I have known (or heard circumstantially reported) the cases of many ladies besides Kate, who were in precisely the same critical danger of perishing for want of a little brandy. A dessert ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... imagination that brief exploratory climb. The broken body seemed at least a hundred feet long; the mangled shoulders and chest filled the great torn hole in the cliff. I climbed over the litter. Indescribable, horrible scene! A river of warm blood was flowing down the declivity outward.... ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... had warmed to its business, and Harold took them down that declivity in a manner which startled even Maud, who long ago had resigned herself to the fact that she was tied for life to a young man for whom the word 'danger' ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... six miles we become conscious of a dreadfully offensive sulphurous smell, and soon find that it proceeds from a little river running through the Solfatara. A ride of eighteen Italian miles brought us to the town of Tivoli, lying amidst olive-woods on the declivity of the Apennines, and numbering about 7000 inhabitants. Towards evening I took a short walk in the town, beneath the protection of an umbrella, and was not much pleased. Next morning I left the house early, and proceeded first to the temple of Sybilla, built ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... approached, were cut into terraces, defended by strong walls of stone and sunburnt brick.31 The place was impregnable on this side. On the opposite, it looked towards the Yucay, and the ground descended by a gradual declivity towards the plain through which rolled its deep but narrow current.32 This was the quarter on which to ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... wide.—Moreover, the cow, which is an intelligent being and loves her calf, makes her milk flow by her wish to do so, and the milk is in addition drawn forth by the sucking of the calf. Nor does water move either with absolute independence—for its flow depends on the declivity of the soil and similar circumstances—or independently of an intelligent principle, for we have shown that the latter is present in all cases.—If, finally, our opponent should point to Sutra II, 1, 24 as contradicting the present Sutra, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... crossing the hall, threw open a door opposite to that by which Lionel entered, and the lake (we will so call it) lay before them,—separated from the house only by a shelving gradual declivity, on which were a few beds of flowers,—not the most in vogue nowadays, and disposed in rambling old-fashioned parterres. At one angle, a quaint and dilapidated sun-dial; at the other, a long bowling-alley, terminated by one of those summer-houses which the Dutch taste, following ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and energetic in her own house, was now obliged to retire snorting with rage or weeping, whenever she stationed herself at her door. All the women of the Claverias wished to revenge themselves for their former thraldom, standing already on the declivity of disrespect. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... from the drawing-room window at a house where we have often visited, and always with pleasure. The house stands on a very high hill; the drawing-room has a large bay window, and outside a balcony. You look down into a charming garden, with fine trees and fountains,—the ground being on a great declivity, I should think a slope of fifty degrees,—and then from the balcony you have the entire city laid out before you, down, down in the valley; while before you, and on either hand, stretch away the hills ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... bounded by level meadows; and so it is with the Ista. This small river winds extremely capriciously, coils like a snake, and does not keep a straight course for half-a-mile together; in some places, from the top of a sharp declivity, one can see the river for ten miles, with its dykes, its pools and mills, and the gardens on its banks, shut in with willows and thick flower-gardens. There are fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands); ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... round the hollows and over the broken ground on the mountainside. The great object of the young men who guided the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the top of the mountain; and ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... point where he could see down the declivity. He had not far to look—for already the animals that were making the noise were close up to him; and he perceived they were nothing more ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... other manufactories which had been established in this town, there were several common potteries, and one or two gunpowder-mills. The sulphur for the latter was obtained from Philadelphia, and the saltpetre was manufactured from substances dug out of grottos, or caverns, that are found on the declivity of lofty hills, in the mountainous parts of the state. The soil of these is extremely rich in ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... to Sicily. The second are in a manner northern with respect to these for they have the Germans to the east and north, on the west they are bounded by the English sea, and the mountains of Arragon, and on the south by the people of Provence and the declivity of the Apennine." Ibid. c. x. "Each of these three," he observes, "has its own claims to distinction The excellency of the French language consists in its being best adapted, on account of its facility and agreeableness, to prose narration, (quicquid redactum, sive inventum est ad vulgare ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the production of tides are well understood, the irregularities in the depths of the oceans and the outlines of the coast, the geographical distribution of the water over the face of the globe and the position and declivity of the shores greatly modify the movements of the tides and give rise to so many complications that no general formulae can be used to give the time or height of the tides at any place by calculation alone. The average ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... to a halt midway between the brow of the hill and the base. On either side tall houses, the declivity ending only at the water. It is a bustling street at all hours, with loungers, business men, women going to and returning from market, and children playing as children do the world over, in ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... of the log with the utmost care, raised by Hurry to his shoulder, and the two began to return to the shore, moving but a step at a time, lest they should tumble down the steep declivity. The distance was not great, but the descent was extremely difficult; and, towards the end of their little journey, Deerslayer was obliged to land and meet them, in order to aid in lifting the canoe through the bushes. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Terror had deprived them of speech or the power of uttering a sound, or they would have shouted. As it was, however, when they finally landed in a heap on some hard surface at the foot of the steep declivity down which they had fallen, it was some seconds before any of them breathed a word. Then it was ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... was an agreeable feast to his eyes, to survey the place: it is a round hill, about a Scots mile in circle, rising, with very little declivity, to the height of a bow-shot, and the head somewhat plain, and near a quarter of a mile in length and breadth; on the top it was garnished with near forty field pieces, pointed towards the east and south. The colonels, who were mostly noblemen, as Rothes, Cassilis, Eglinton, Dalhousie, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... any side, since they had only some winding pathways, very narrow, by which they got up to them; but the rock that lay on their front had beneath it valleys of a vast depth, and of an almost perpendicular declivity; insomuch that the king was doubtful for a long time what to do, by reason of a kind of impossibility there was of attacking the place. Yet did he at length make use of a contrivance that was subject ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... ascent boldly skirted the shoulder of the mountain, and then doubled upward in a series of serpentine coils. Below them the whole of Lake Garda was spread like a map. Mr. Wilder and the Englishman, having paused at the edge of the declivity, were endeavouring to trace the boundary line of Austria, and they called upon the officers for help. The two relinquished their post at Constance's side, while the donkeys kept on past them up the ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... into the garden—a spacious park-like enclosure terminating in a declivity, so as to afford a view over the sea far below. It was a mock wilderness of trees and bright blossoms, flooded in meridian sunlight. Some gardeners moved about, binding up the riotous vegetation that had sprouted overnight under the moist ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... heap of stones and brick, accumulated so as to cover a mountain, round which a river winds its brawling course. The Streets are generally narrow, dark, and unpleasant, and many of them almost impassible in consequence of their declivity. The cathedral is a huge gloomy pile; but the clergy are well lodged. — The bishop lives in a princely manner — the golden prebends keep plentiful tables — and, I am told, there is some good sociable company in the place; but the country, when viewed from ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of earth over which he had wandered during the past five years. Below him were green meadows and fields, pleasant villages, and the clear, full current of the Danube, along whose left bank extended a beautifully formed mountain chain, whose declivity toward the river presented a rich variety to the eye, for sometimes it was clothed in budding groves, sometimes displayed picturesque bare cliffs, and again vineyards in which labourers were working. From the farthest distance the steeples of Ratisbon offered the first ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... curving gracefully to the west, dividing against a jutting rock, and sweeping around it and the adjacent woodland, forming an island about a mile in circumference. That large white building, which crowns the summit of that gentle declivity on the nearest side of the island, with a neat porch in front, half embowered by vines and fruit trees—that is my birth-place. There never was a spot at once so tranquil and picturesque as that where stands my dear old homestead. Is it not a beautiful mansion-house? How sequestered and deliciously ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... his cry had been a signal, the great cone began to move. Slowly the circled base slipped down the shimmering facades; down, steadily down; I realized that we had paused at the edge of some steep declivity, for the bottom of the cone was now at a decided angle while the upper edge of the circle had dropped a full two hundred feet below the place where it had ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... steep declivity! Below I see the lazy dump-carts come and go, Creeping like beetles and about as big. The ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... now, in our little hut, and by the springs of Delphi! On the evening before his departure, Aphtanides sat thoughtful with me on the declivity of a mountain; his arm was flung round my waist, and mine was round his neck: we spoke of the sorrows of Greece, and of the men whom the country could trust. Every thought of our souls lay clear before each of us, and I seized ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... touch of an iron. A British shell from close over his head burst sixty yards ahead; he stumbled, fell flat, picked himself up. Three ahead of him now! He walked faster, and drew alongside. Two of them fell. 'What luck!' he thought; and gripping his rifle harder, pitched headlong into a declivity. Dead bodies lay there! The first German trench line, and nothing alive in it, nothing to clean up, nothing of it left! He stopped, getting his wind; watching the men panting and stumbling in. The roar of the guns was louder than ever again, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ago, was fast going down the declivity of life in all the darkness of heathenism; but a ray of heavenly light darted across his path, arrested his attention, and soon kindled to a flame. Now, I may say, he is a 'burning and a shining light;' one to whom we often point as a witness of the power ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... at full speed down the hill, with only two men on the driving-seat. The back straps had evidently given way, and the whole machine had a tendency to jump forward, when, in coming down the steepest part of the declivity, it got a jolt, and in the most ridiculous way turned "topsy-turvy," the roof coming down upon the horses' backs. The men were thrown off unhurt, but the poor animals were ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... On examining this subject when I returned to Linyanti, I found that, according to Dr. Arnott, a declivity of three inches per mile gives a velocity in a smooth, straight channel of three miles an hour. The general velocity of the Zambesi is three miles and three quarters per hour, though in the rocky parts it is sometimes as much ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... headlands. There was the approach to Cattaro for example, through an arm of the sea, amazingly beautiful on either shore, that wound its way into the wild mountains and ended in a deep blue bay under the tremendous declivity of Montenegro. The quay, with its trees and lateen craft, ran along under the towers and portcullised gate of the old Venetian wall, within clustered the town, and then the fortifications zigzagged up steeply to ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... phrases as 'substituted by religion' instead of 'replaced by religion,' and 'vulgarisation' where 'popularisation' is meant, we come to that most irritating form of translation, the literal word-for-word style. The stream 'excites itself by the declivity which it obeys' is one of M. Masson's finest achievements in this genre, and it is an admirable instance of the influence of schoolboys on their masters. However, it would be tedious to make a complete 'catalogue ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Regent, nobly converted the stigma into a war-cry; and, with the wallet of the "Gueux" slung across their shoulders, drank out of wooden porringers a benison on the cause of the emancipation of the United Provinces. So prompted to think of these stirring times, we are carried by the steep declivity of a few streets to that magnificent Town Hall, where, only eleven years before the occurrences in the Hotel Cuylembourg, Charles V. had resigned into the hands of his son Philip the sovereignty of an extensive and flourishing empire. All that could be ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Side of the bluff which had but little Slope being nearly purpindicular, I directed two men to kill those anamals, one went on the top and the other man near the water they had two Shots at the doe while in motion without effect, Those animals run & Skiped about with great ease on this declivity & appeared to prefur it to the leavel bottom or plain. Capt Lewis & one man walkd on Shore and he killed a yellow Bear & the man with him wounded one other, after getting the flesh of the bear on bord which was not far from the place we brackfast, we proceeded ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... flowers, until at length they reached the bridge. Just beyond it was the rocky precipice, with shrubs and evergreens growing upon the shelves and in the crevices, and spaces between the rocks. It towered up pretty high above the road, and the declivity extended also down to the brook below the bridge, forming one side of the deep ravine across which the bridge was built. There was a very large, old hemlock-tree growing upon a small piece of level ground between the ravine and the higher part of the precipice. ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... Jacob," near Safed, is comparatively gradual for 140 miles; and that from the south, i.e., from the elevation in the southern 'Arabah, where the level meets again from the north, is more precipitous for 50 miles. Action and reaction being equal in natural effects, the rapid declivity in the shorter distance is equal to the more gradual declivity in ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... on the declivity of the mountains, the descent of which was gentle and our march easy. The sound of the waves increased by degrees. Near three o'clock in the afternoon we perceived through the trees that the sun was clear; and an instant afterwards we beheld the sea, and a magnificent beach, covered ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... with which he had forced Ruth to the edge of the path. She fell sideways, dizzy and faint, clinging to the rough rock with both hands. As it was, she came near rolling over the declivity after all. ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... they bent their steps. They emerged from the gardens into the park, sauntering over the table-land, and seeking as much as possible the shade, in the soft but oppressive atmosphere. At the limit of the table- land their course lay by a wild but winding path through a gradual and wooded declivity. While they were yet in this craggy and romantic woodland, the big fervent drops began to fall. Coningsby urged Edith to seek at once a natural shelter; but she, who knew the country, assured him that the fishing-cottage was close by, and that they might ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Doune. Doune is a village on the Teith, a few miles northwest of Stirling. The word "brae" means slope or declivity; the braes of Doune stretch away east and ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... car came forward, its cutout open, turning to the left off the road over a ditch and into a field. The gate-keeper ran forward shaking her flag and screaming as she guessed the motorist's intention. But it was too late. The car was hidden for a moment from Markham's view in the declivity upon the other side of the railroad embankment, the exhaust roaring furiously, and leaped into sight, the front wheels high in the air as it took the near rail and then fell heavily with a complaining groan across the track ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... back his ears and pull so violently on the rein that his rider had all she could do to hold him, and lacked sufficient strength to direct his course. Seeing Zibeline's danger, Henri hastened to slacken his horse's pace, but it was too late: the almost perpendicular declivity of the other side of the hill added fresh impetus to the ungovernable rush of Seaman, who suddenly ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Edmond lying prone, bleeding, and almost senseless. He had rolled down a declivity of twelve or fifteen feet. They poured a little rum down his throat, and this remedy which had before been so beneficial to him, produced the same effect as formerly. Edmond opened his eyes, complained of great pain in his knee, a feeling of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stumbled or her dress caught and was torn by some jutting crag or bramble. In this way our progress was being continually interrupted and rendered almost impossible, when suddenly we came upon a sharp declivity leading to a steep path which wound down the side of the precipice to the beach below. Looking down, I saw on the shore beneath the cliff a collection of fishermen's huts, and groups of men and women ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... was a little disconcerted, not knowing whether it would be safe for a man to go down a steep declivity with such a burden on his back; but when he reflected that this was the arrangement that the guide himself had proposed, and that the guide had, doubtless, done the same thing a hundred times before, he ceased to feel any uneasiness, and following Mr. George up the steps, ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... light green meadow, which is enwreathed by gardens and woods: no English park has a finer verdure than the meadows near Hellekis. They go up to "the grottos," as they call the projecting masses of red stone higher up, which, being thoroughly kneaded with petrifactions, project from the declivity of the earth, and remind one of the mouldering colossal tombs in the Campagna of Rome. Some are smooth and rounded off by the streaming of the water, others bear the moss of ages, grass and flowers, nay, ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... mountain peaks in the horizon are, to the eye of science, parts of one range. We should consider that the flow of thought is more like a tidal wave than a prone river, and is the result of a celestial influence, not of any declivity in its channel. The river flows because it runs down hill, and flows the faster the faster it descends. The reader who expects to float down stream for the whole voyage, may well complain of nauseating swells and choppings of the sea when his frail shore-craft gets ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... stood gazing down the declivity, a small boat cut across their line of vision and came up to the slip with a sweep which only the ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... following which, it was possible to turn the highest point of the pass, that which formed the southern protection of the building, and come out on the side of the cove at another shelf, that was not more than fifty feet above the level of the vessel's decks. Down this last declivity, Roswell proposed to lower his casks by means of a projecting derrick, the rock being sufficiently precipitous to admit of this arrangement, while his spare spars furnished him with the necessary means. Thus was every preparation made ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... still followed the margin of the lake, until we reached a spot where its waters trickled, by a low passage, southward. The path took the same direction, pierced the barrier of low rocks, and came out on the verge of the southern declivity, which was still more precipitous than that on the other side. For a short distance the path ran en corniche along the margin of the descent, until it reached the remotest point of what might be called the col, whose southern ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... me that I had passed the slide or declivity on the hillside, where logs were slipped down into the valley, and I inferred that Johnson's business was cutting ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Possagno, the birthplace of Canova, on our way. The road to the latter place passes through a beautiful country, that gently undulates on either hand till in the distance it rises into pleasant hills and green mountain heights. Possagno itself lies upon the brink of a declivity, down the side of which drops terrace after terrace, all planted with vines and figs and peaches, to a watercourse below. The ground on which the village is built, with its quaint and antiquated stone cottages, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... declivity of the mountain towards the west, they met with another well, but the water was a very strong mineral, had a thick green scum on the top, and stunk intolerably. Necessity, however, obliged some to drink of it; but it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... authority—either way we are the losers; but the officers certainly exert themselves in our favor. Coming into this bay, there is some difficulty in distinguishing the fort; but coming from the westward, its position may readily be known by steering for two lumps on the S.E. declivity of the mountain. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... were simply in attendance on the hoplites. The Persians, about three hundred thousand in number, occupied the line of the river Asopus, on a plain; the Greeks stationed themselves on the mountain declivity near Erythae. The Persian cavalry charged, to dislodge the Greeks, unwilling to contend on the plain; but the ground was unfavorable for cavalry operations, and after a brief success, was driven back, while the general, Masistias, who commanded it, was slain. His death, and the repulse ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... us, the only bit of horizon we could see was across the line of railway; on either side of this, high wooded rocks, some few hundred feet from the line, dropped to a much lower level than that on which the house stood, and beyond the brow of this declivity the sky had the appearance of a huge fire, whose bright-red flames shot up into great clouds of rolling, whirling smoke, their inky hue gradually expanding until the whole sky became covered. Still the ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... throwing stones and chips in different directions, we made him spring his rattle again, and began another attack. This time we drove him into the clear ground, and saw him gliding off, with head and tail erect, when a stone, well aimed, knocked him over the bank, down a declivity of fifteen or twenty feet, and stretched him at his length. Having made sure of him by a few more stones, we went down, and one of the Kanakas cut off his rattle. These rattles vary in number, it is said, according to the age of the snake; though the Indians think they indicate the number of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana |
