"Steeper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... roads leading into and out of Birmingham in the olden days were little better than deep ruts, which were more or less levelled about the middle of last century. The making of the great Holyhead coachroad also graded some of the steeper spots as well as the lowest, but the modern town improvements must be credited as the greatest factor in the levelling of the roads, none of which, however, were "macadamised," until 1818. The total length of highways "taken ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... called 'The Rebel Trail,'" he explained to Jess after they had climbed a steeper hill than any they had ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... slight and made gently—is to tilt up the elevating plane A, and this in its turn, owing to the pressure of air upon it, raises the front of the machine. The result of this alteration in the angle of the craft is that it presents its main-planes at a steeper angle to the air. Their lifting influence is increased, with the result that—at an angle governed by the pilot with his movement of the elevating plane—they bear the machine from the ground ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... Montemurlo still: the Cerchi still Were in Acone's parish; nor had haply From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte. The city's malady hath ever source In the confusion of its persons, as The body's, in variety of food: And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge, Than the blind lamb; and oftentimes one sword Doth more and better execution, Than five. Mark Luni, Urbisaglia mark, How they are gone, and after them how go Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and 't will seem No longer new or strange to thee to hear, That families fail, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... get to the tower we had to go through a great many apartments, passages, and corridors, and terminate all by climbing a winding staircase, steeper and narrower than was at all desirable for any but wicked heretics, who ought to be made as uncomfortable as possible. However, by reasonable perseverance, the archbishop, the bishop's lady, and all the noble company present found themselves safely at the top. Our host remarked, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to the naked stalks, an old lane descended to a shell-paved wharf of a stumpy, square form; and almost at the other, or western, end of the clearing stood a respectable farm-house of considerable age, with a hipped roof and three queer dormer windows slipping down the steeper half below, and two chimneys, not built outside of the house, as was the general fashion, but naturally rising out of the old English-brick gables. All between the gables was built of wood; a porch of one story occupied nearly half the centre of that side ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... thence to Ebenheit, your path is steeper and steeper; from Ebenheit to the Lilienstein you take a guide. The Mountain is conical; coarse RED sandstone; steps cut for you where needed: August the Strong's Hunting-Lodge (JAGDHUTTE) is here (August went thither in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... improvements that one instinctively looks for a real-estate dealer's sign: "This beautiful lot can be yours for twenty-five dollars down and ten dollars a month for a year." Climbing higher, the roads become steeper and narrower and, because of the heavy rains, very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your brakes is quite likely to bring your career to an abrupt and unpleasant termination. To motor along one of ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... its descent, as there was but little time to spare before darkness came on. The riems were now secured to the hinder part to prevent its slipping down too rapidly in the steeper places. The scenery from the top of the hill was wild and picturesque. Beyond the river lay several cloofs or valleys, containing numerous fine timber trees, and rich in the variety of their foliage and gorgeous flowers. A carpet of green clothed the side and foot of the berg, as ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... to roll down a place like that, there is no stopping till the bottom is reached. Think of people FARMING on a slant which is so steep that the best you can say of it—if you want to be fastidiously accurate—is, that it is a little steeper than a ladder and not quite so steep as a mansard roof. But that is what they do. Some of the little farms on the hillside opposite Heidelberg were stood up "edgeways." The boy was wonderfully jolted up, and his head was bleeding, from cuts which it had got ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... steadily beside the horse, the load clanked behind as the hill descended steeper. The road curved down-hill before him, under banks and hedges, seen only for a ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the toe not only tilts the coffin bone forward and makes the hoof stand steeper at the toe, but slackens the tendon that attaches to the under surface of the coffin bone (perforans tendon), and therefore allows the fetlock joint to sink downward and backward and the long pastern to assume a more nearly horizontal ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... glittering stars. It was easy to find his way, for on the level sands there were no impediments, and when the mountain was reached, a low divide offered him easy passage up the ascent. For the most part the slopes were gradual and in steeper places, ledges of granite, somewhat like giant stairs, assisted him to the highest ridge. From this vantage-point he could see the level plain stretching away on the farther side; he could count ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the wood, and began to climb among loose stones, finally finding solid rock beneath our feet, the path skirting the edge of what seemed to be a deep gash in the earth, and winding about wherever it could find passage. The way grew steeper and steeper, and more difficult to traverse, although, as we thus rose above the tree limit, the shadows became less dense, and we were able dimly to perceive objects a yard or two in advance. I strained my eyes over Barbeau's shoulder, but could gain no glimpse of De ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the girl took the trail to the uplands, deciding to visit the farthest camp first, and then, if she had time, to call at one or two other camps on her way back to the rancho. As the trail grew steeper, she curbed the impatient Challenge to a steadier pace and rode leisurely to the level of the timber. On the park-like level, clean-swept between the boles of the great pines, she again put Challenge to a lope until she came to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... the girl caught sight of this last boat she began rapidly to descend the 300 feet of cliff which separated her from the cove below. The path began in easy zig-zags, which, however, got gradually steeper, and the last thirty feet of the descent consisted of a sheer face of rock, in which were fixed two or three iron stanchions with a rope running from one to the other to serve as a handrail; and the climber must depend for other assistance on the natural irregularities ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... all some four hundred fighting men, together with a crowd of nearly two thousand women and many children. Now although this teocalli was not quite so lofty as that of the great temple of Mexico, its sides were steeper and everywhere faced with dressed stone, and the open space upon its summit was almost as great, measuring indeed more than a hundred paces every way. This area was paved with blocks of marble, and in its centre stood the temple ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... he was trying, but the path grew steeper and steeper, and the plash of water falling among the stones made it hard to hear. We went on and on, ever upward, until the walls of the narrow glen widened, and at last we were on a barren hillside, across which the little stream found its way in a belt of green grass and fern and ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... them capable of climbing grades which, in the early days of railroad engineering, were deemed out of the question. The improvements proved a serious stumbling block in the way of the inventors, who found that an ordinary locomotive was able to climb a much steeper grade than was commonly supposed. The first railroads were laid almost level, but it was soon discovered that a grade of a few feet to the mile was no impediment to progress, and gradually the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... mire in which it was bogged. Lieutenant Hardy was killed by a shot through the head, and the gun was abandoned. The other three guns were taken back 400 or 500 yards farther. They were then stopped by a channel, deeper and steeper than any which had been before met, and here they became hopelessly bogged. They were spiked and left in the water, and the drivers and gunners moved off with the cavalry just as the long line of ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... end of another quarter of an hour they were approaching a steeper place than usual, but their pursuers were very near now, and the gentlemen owned to themselves that though they might shoot down a few of their enemies, the Malays would certainly conquer; when Ned, who had been staring about ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... become smoother and steeper, if possible. A chain or rope trails from above in four places. You have good hope that it is well secured, and wish you were lighter, as you go up hand over hand. Then a beautiful slope for hands, knees, and feet for half an hour, ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... heath of Tiel, on which Spaniards, Italians, Walloons, Germans, Dutchmen, English; Scotch, and Irishmen now all found themselves together, was a ridgy, spongy expanse of country, bordered on one side by the swollen river, here flowing again through steeper banks which were overgrown with alders and pollard willows. Along the left of the Spanish army, as they moved in the direction of Herenthals, was a continuous fringe of scrub-oaks, intermixed with tall beeches, skirting the heath, and forming a leafless ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... looked at as a mere accidental coincidence, that while Napoleon was modernizing the political world, Bichat was revolutionizing the science of life and the art that is based upon it; that while the young general was scaling the Alps, the young surgeon was climbing the steeper summits of unexplored nature; that the same year read the announcement of those admirable "Researches on Life and Death," and the bulletins of the battle ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Smith had come in from their usual walk, and were toiling slowly up from the hall to the nursery. The stairs got steeper at the last flight, and Nurse went more slowly still, and panted a good deal, for she was stouter than she need have been, though Ruth would never have dreamed of saying so. Ruth was in front, and she had nearly reached the top when something ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... being so constructed as to rest on a horizontal base, the oblique sides bearing the relation to each other of two to one. Stevinus found that his chain of balls just balanced when four balls were on the longer side and two on the shorter and steeper side. The balancing of force thus brought about constituted a stable equilibrium, Stevinus being the first to discriminate between such a condition and the unbalanced condition called unstable equilibrium. By this simple experiment was laid the foundation of the science of statics. Stevinus ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... inaccessible and dangerous to animals in descending to drink. To this point I had sent the sheep, and the men were leading the horses also towards it when the foremost, which unfortunately was the best, made a rush to the water at a steeper place, and fell into the river. He swam however to the other side but, in returning, sank in the middle of the stream, never to rise again. He had winkers on and I think it probable that he had put his foot into a short rein which was attached ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... incredible mountain roads until dusk. Despite sheer recklessness, however, he could not average thirty miles an hour. There were times when even the half-track had to crawl or it would overturn. The sun set, and he went on up steep grades and down steeper ones in the twilight. Night fell and the headlights glared ahead, and the staff car clanked and clanked and grumbled and roared on through ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... hill, taking advantage of every stone and boulder, and although exposed to a terrific fire, gradually pushing on until they reached a stone wall which ran round the face of the hill. Beyond this the ground was much rougher and very much steeper—so steep, indeed, that it was almost impossible to climb it. The fire of the enemy was now terrific. The troops were some three hundred yards from the crest, and it was certain death to show a head above the wall. An officer placed his helmet on the end of his sword, and the moment he ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... lay down, and slept as soundly as if they were in the best of the halls of men. On the morrow betimes they arose soberly and went their ways with few words, and, as they deemed, the path still led them onward. And now the great ridge on the north rose steeper and steeper, and their crossing it seemed not to be thought of; but their half-blind track failed them not. They rested at even, and ate and drank what little they had left, save a mouthful or two of wine, and then went on again by the light of the moon, which was so bright that they still saw ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... Lydeard, Crowcombe, Stogumber, Williton). On the E. side, they are cut by numerous long and leafy combes (notably Cockercombe and Seven Wells' Combe), which afford easy ascents; but on the W. the slopes are much steeper and barer. Their tops are covered with bracken, heather, scrub oak, and quantities of whortle berries, the ripening of the last marking the beginning of the summer holidays for the village children, who then go "whorting." The most conspicuous summits in order from S.E. to N.W. are Cothelstone ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... back. Well up we came upon the "chaparral," the hacienda herdsman, tawny with sunburn even to his leather garments. He knew by name every animal under his charge, though the owners did not even know the number they possessed. A still steeper climb, during the last of which even the horses had to be abandoned, brought us to a hilltop overlooking the entire lake, with the villages on its edge, and range after range of the mountains of Jalisco and Michoacan. Our animals were more ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... drachmas, a fictitious unit of currency established by foxy old Mammon, was the flat fee for use of the road. Blissfully unaware of this "Transportation Charge," or how it would be paid, numerous phantom pilgrims were sliding down the steeper hills—and having a swell time. Their shouts of glee reached Nick's largish ears despite the lack of air as mortals know it. Clever old Mulcie had installed freezing plants here and there to surface the road with ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... rougher and steeper as we ascended, and the grass and trees gave place to low, scrubby bushes. We were half an hour or more in the cloud-belt, where the singing skylarks did not follow us. The clouds proved to be as loose of texture and as innocent as any summer fog that loiters in ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me. For I had been accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made it one of the cleanest towns in the world. So that the ancient and unreformed filth and wretchedness of Thorn appealed to my senses as they had never ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... right the bank is steeper, and upon it stand a number of cabbage-tree palms. Down below is a little rocky, rugged gully, with a brawling stream rushing through it. Just abreast of the shanty this stream forms a cascade, tumbling into a pool ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... became steeper and more rugged every moment, and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; they were all distant, ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... official breakfast was over, also the visit to the Mairie, where there are a few souvenirs of the poet—his picture, acte de naissance,[12] and signature. The procession was just forming to climb up the steep, little street that leads to the church, so we took a short cut (still steeper), and waited outside the doors to see them arrive. It was a pretty sight to see the cortege wind up the path—the Bishop of Soissons and several other ecclesiastics in their robes, blackcoated officials, some uniforms—the whole escorted by groups of children ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... pretty clear of undergrowth, and in which we could walk freely. We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope of even ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... of moor the only break is the quaint-shaped Giant's Chair, puzzle of geologists, looking as though plumped down by accident in the heathery wild. The ground rises suddenly from the uniform grade of the Brae; up it goes, ever growing steeper, until at length it runs abruptly into a sheer curtain of rock—the Fall—which rises perpendicular some forty feet, on the top of which rests that tiny grassy bowl—not twenty yards across—they ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... charged, yelling, and came out upon the mountain road that led far down to the pike. Here a new impulse took him and he moved down this road to form a junction with his father. For some time the way was comparatively level. By and by he came to heavier timber and deeper and steeper descents. He went ever more and more loiteringly, for his father did not appear. He thought of turning back, yet his longing carried him forward. He was tired, but his mother did not like him to walk long distances when he was tired, so it wouldn't be right to ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the rivulet. As a due mixture of pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used occasionally to disport ourselves, as the lawyers call it, at this sand-hill. Our diversion was this: we used to go to the top of the hill, which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used to draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself down with his arms by his sides; and then the others, one at head, and the other at feet, sent him ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... carefully surveyed the extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with the horizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest land in North Truro. Even this vast clay-bank is fast wearing away. Small ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the slope is found to be steeper, and more difficult than was expected. What from below seemed a gentle acclivity turns out to be almost a precipice—a very common illusion with those unaccustomed to mountain climbing. But they are not daunted—every ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... ascent becoming steeper and steeper as we mounted upwards, often casting wistful looks at the beacon rock. Just before we gained the summit, smoke was seen curling up from the copse at a little distance from ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... foot-pace, and by the time we left our horses and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. Except that, looming out of the cloud just ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... of roofing farm buildings may be summarized in this advice: Use patent roofing if you know of a variety that will last; if not, use shingles. Shingle roofs require a steeper pitch than do roofs of prepared roofing. A shingle roof can be made much warmer by using tightly laid sheathing covered with building-paper. Especial care should be taken that the joints at the eaves of the house are ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... watched the long-shanked, awkward pen of the barograph in our Weather Bureau station at Galveston. In the jerky, scrawling fashion of a child writing his first copy on a slate, I saw the pen gradually draw what looked like a rough profile map—a long declining plateau, a steep and then a steeper slope, a ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... to move through a long arc than through a short one, if impelled by the same force; but the subject appears in a different light upon more mature reflection, for it is then seen, that the weight which performs the longer journey starts down the steeper declivity, and therefore acquires a greater velocity. A ball does not run down a steep hill and a more gently inclined one at the same pace; neither, therefore, will the suspended weight move down the steeper curve, and the less raised ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... thousands of feet below. The shape of this extraordinary turn I will describe in a moment. Let me say, meanwhile, that there was no precipice or rock between me and the river, only a down, down, down through other trees and pastures, not too steep for a man to walk, but steeper than our steep downs and fells in England, where a man hesitates and picks his way. It was so much of a descent, and so long, that one looked above the tree-tops. It was a place where no one ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... sea lapped across the horizon into the azure sky; on the other side the sea lifted itself into great breakers of emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a white coral beach. Beyond the beach, green plantations of sugar-cane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became jagged volcanic crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most beautiful dream. The Snark turned and headed directly in toward the emerald surf, till it lifted and thundered on either ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... sand spit is the steeper. There the folds of the sea fall in velvety thuds ever so gentle, ever so regular. On the southern slope, where the gradient is easy, the wavelets glide up with heedless hiss and slide back with shuffling whisper, scarce moving the garlands of brown seaweed which a few hours before ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the time of which we have any history, there were rivers in California,—rivers now dead,—whose sides were steeper and whose channels were wider than those of the rivers in the same part of the world to-day. Rapid streams they were, and busy, too; washing away from the rocks along their sides the gold held there, dropping the yellow grains down into the gravelly beds below. ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... see a church, standing in a very high position, with a still steeper ascent than the one I have been describing, leading up to it. On the right is a winding road for carriages, which leads up, by a tolerably gentle ascent, ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... point of foundering. Even as they watched, the craft seemed to settle visibly deeper in the water, and she rolled heavily two or three times. A few seconds later her stern was seen to lift high and her bows to point downward; steeper and steeper became the angle of her decks and then, with a slow forward movement that quickly became a diving rush, she plunged to the bottom, vanishing from their sight in a whirl and froth ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... than the first charge, for not only was the slope steeper, but the face of the hill was covered with low, tough scrub, the tangled roots of which caught the men's feet as they ran, and brought many down. The result was that the line was no longer level. Some got far ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... at the end of the month, when Old Pipes had finished his piping, he took his stout staff and went down the hill to the village to receive the money for his month's work. The path seemed a great deal steeper and more difficult than it used to be; and Old Pipes thought that it must have been washed by the rains and greatly damaged. He remembered it as a path that was quite easy to traverse either up or down. But Old Pipes had been a very active man, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... steeper part of the incline the unhappy engine so laboured that each revolution of the wheels threatened to be the last. Still they moved onward with a sort of grim persistence, and it occurred to Esther that if she did not go altogether mad in the interval there might just possibly be a glimmer ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... was so beautiful and novel that I paused and gazed at it. Across the glen, behind the houses, rolled up a dark mass of timbered ranges, getting higher and steeper as far as the eye could reach, while to the north-east the river's course might be traced by the timber that fringed the water's edge, and sometimes feathered some tributary gully almost to the level of the flat lofty table-land. On either side of it, down behind, down ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... and other ladders, steeper and even more dangerous than those we had climbed before, and suddenly the fresh air of the wide heavens. We had reached the highest gallery. Above us the sky. Below us the city—a little toy-town, where busy ants were hastily crawling hither and thither, ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... refuse the craggy path and rear, and sometimes a knight is unseated and the others look back and laugh at his discomfiture and ride on until they themselves are proved unfit; and so, on and on, while the way gets steeper and more perilous, and the company smaller and still smaller, until the sun drops down behind the mountain and the gold flag flutters as gray as a moth, and in all the windows of the castle torches spring up to greet the knight ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... steeper, narrower every moment, and after a time Leloo forgot to reply to his forest friends, and just rode on, peering through the shadows to avoid the dangers on all sides. Presently a sound that belonged to neither ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... they came to the yet invisible Fall, the more thunderous grew the din—it was as though they approached some vast battle-field, where opposing armies were in full action, with all the tumult of cannonade and musketry. The ascent grew steeper and more difficult—at times the high barriers of rocks seemed almost impassable,—often they were compelled to climb over confused heaps of huge stones, through which the eddying water pushed its way with speed and fury,—but Sigurd's precision ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... road to the foot of the trail grew steeper, Rob Kendall found an increasing difficulty in guiding his team with one hand. His bride drew herself from his ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... character of the forest was changing: the ground rose rapidly, the thick, tangled undergrowth disappeared, and they were able to walk briskly forward, under the shade of the large trees. The hill became steeper and steeper, as they advanced; and Will knew that they were ascending the hill that they had seen from the ship, when she was coming towards ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... with Cap'n Jack up a deep gully. On either hand the sides of the chasm shot up, steeper than the roof of a house, while in some ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... morning-room windows was a triangular slope of turf, which the indulgent might call a lawn, and beyond its low hedge of neglected fuchsia bushes a steeper slope of heather and bracken dropped down into cavernous combes overgrown with oak and yew. In its wild open savagery there seemed a stealthy linking of the joy of life with the terror of unseen things. Sylvia smiled complacently as she gazed with a School-of-Art appreciation at the ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Flanders and from England, because the Tuscan fleece was too hard and poor. Through these lonely pastures you climb with your guide, through forests of oak and chestnut, by many a winding path, not without difficulty, to the steeper sides of the mountain covered with brushwood, into the silence where there is no voice but the voice of the streams. Here in a cleft, under the very summit of Falterona, Arno rises, gushing endlessly from the rock in seven springs of water, that will presently ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... trees that shaded and sheltered it. The ladies cried 'lovely!'—and so it was, after the sunshiny fields on a warm June morning. But this was not the fishing ground. The brook must be followed up to the woods whence it came. And soon the banks became higher and broken, the ascent steeper, the trees closer; no longer a mere fringe or veil to the fostering waters. Fields were forgotten; the brook grew wild and lively, and following its course became a matter of some difficulty. Sometimes there was no edge of footing beside the stream; they must take to the ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... arrival, J——- and I went to visit the Enchanted Castle; and we were so venturesome as to turn aside from the road, and ascend the declivity towards its walls, which indeed we hoped to surmount. It proved a very difficult undertaking, the site of the fortress being much higher and steeper than we had supposed; but we did clamber upon what we took for the most elevated portion, when lo! we found that we had only taken one of the outworks, and that there was a gorge of the hill betwixt us and the main walls; while the citadel rose high above, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the ocean should be suddenly drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma;[121] while, finally, the island with a fringing reef would have the appearance ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... really set your whole heart upon becoming a nurse when you grow up, and your granddaddy has consented, it is not for me to say that you cannot do it. But I do know the path which you must travel. I know that it is much steeper, much more rocky and full of briary bushes than any one your feet have ever climbed on your mountain, and you will have to keep a very brave little heart inside you, if you hope to reach the summit. And ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the southern side of the range project into the sea. Towards the summit the brow came out somewhat, and even the rude steps in the turf were not much assistance in climbing this almost perpendicular wall of sward. Above the brow the ascent became easy; these brows raised steeper than the general slope are often found on the higher hills. A circular entrenchment encloses the summit, but the rampart has much sunk, and is in places levelled. Here it was pleasant to look back upon the beech woods at the foot ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... sprang from the carriage to retrace his way; but he only climbed up a ladder that grew every instant steeper; and all at once he was plunged downwards after his horse and carriage into the stream. He could swim, and as he swept down this thought came to him—that he might be able to get the shore, as he heard the cries ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her husband's opinion when he led her up into the stupendous gorge and the walls of rock began to tower on each side ever steeper ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... closely covered with loose stones. On the north of wind side these stones were covered with a hard beaten crust of snow nearly two feet thick, on the south side most of them were bare. According to Brusewitz the southern slopes are still steeper than the northern. South of the hill he saw a large valley—probably a lake—through which flows the river ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... entered the thick highland forest, which stretched before us farther than we could see, and through the dense underwood of which the axe of our pioneers had to cut us a way. The ground had been gradually ascending for two days—that is, ever since we had left the Amboni—and it now became steeper; we had reached the foot of the Kenia mountain. The forest zone proved to be of comparatively small breadth, and on the morning of the 30th we emerged from it again into open undulating park-land. When we had scaled one of the heights ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... delicate child, and her frolic did not last long. As the ascent became steeper, her breath grew shorter, and she toiled on in a resolute uncomplaining manner after his long, vigorous steps, till he looked round, and seeing her panting far behind, turned to help her, lead her, and carry her, till the top was achieved, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had begun to stir in their nests and call their morning greetings across from one tree top to another. As far as Mollie could see stretched the unbroken forest. A narrow path ran down the hill between the trees. A steeper incline rose back of them and this was broken with deep ravines. Mollie could neither see nor hear anyone. Yet it seemed to her that she was not alone. She had a sense of some ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... morning the men gathered noiselessly at the knob's base, having left their horses far up the road. Just as the first streaks of day were appearing the two groups of men about one hundred feet apart began climbing the steep elevation. The slope was fully forty-five degrees, and in some parts much steeper. The men had to brace their feet against trees and saplings, and near the top to pull themselves up by holding on to branches of trees and shrubs ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... you will think ours rather steeper, Mr. Wallace," said Leonard, and he proceeded to give him a short ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... myself. I was induced to scale the heights of a horse that was built somewhat along the general idea of the Andes Mountains, only more rugged and steeper nearing the crest. From the ground he looked to be not more than sixteen hands high, but as soon as I was up on top of him I immediately discerned that it was not sixteen hands—it was sixteen miles. What I had taken for the horse's blaze face was a snow-capped peak. Miss Anna Peck might have ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... Still the descent grew steeper. We stopped, and Father Olever felt for the bank with his whip to be sure we were on the road. Then we heard the sound of rushing, angry waters, mingled with the roar of the wind, and he seemed to hesitate about going on, but we could not very well stay there, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... "The road is steeper here," said Berger, halting after he had led his party half a mile through the darkness. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open meadow, gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs. Here, we wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this quarter of the island to its base. Black crags frowned overhead: among them the shouts of the Islanders reverberated. Yet steeper grew the defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone of the arch seemed dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a subterranean tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... was an eternity of struggling up the now-steeper canyon under loads that seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds; forcing their protesting legs to carry them fifty steps at a time, at the end of which they would stop to rest while their lungs labored to suck in the thin air in ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... The hills here became steeper, the fir-woods below were like a green sea, and white clouds above sailed along over the blue sky. The wildness of the region was, as it were, tamed by its uniformity and the simplicity of its elements. Nature, like a true poet, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... sinking, and its significantly steeper slope took us to greater depths. It must have been nearly three o'clock when we reached a narrow valley gouged between high, vertical walls and located 150 meters down. Thanks to the perfection of our equipment, we had thus gone ninety ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... rising for long past, now we mount a steeper bit of rising ground and suddenly there comes into view a tiny valley from which the hills rise again, and on the opposite slope, spread out before us, is Nazareth. We pull up and look at it in silence. The little, flat-roofed, white houses are dotted about among gardens and trees, and resemble ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... lusterless hue. Not a blade of grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an exhilarating emotion consumed her. If ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... with one accord they paused to glance at the ship in response to an exceptionally strident outburst of sound, they beheld the line of lights suddenly incline from the horizontal, saw the slope grow steadily steeper, and then, as the great mass of the vessel's stern hove up, an indistinct blur of deeper blackness on the darkness of the night, the line of lights slid forward and vanished one after another until all had disappeared, while at the same moment a heartrending wail from ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... lamp spluttered up, after the ducking which had extinguished it, Wilson gazed down the gallery before him with a touch of new dismay. The water was flowing over it in a thin, glossy coat, and it was considerably steeper than on the outer side of the fault. Apparently the only thing to do ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... of the river had been growing steeper, and at the upper entrance of the little park he came to the first waterfall he had seen. Above this, on the opposite side, was a hole that looked inviting. He decided that a dead tree lying across the river would, at a pinch, serve ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... low-arched galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... earth "would require the united exertions of 10,000 men for twelve years, or of 20,000 men for six years."[L] Then only could the construction of the palaces begin. The mound of Nebbi-Yunus, which has not yet been excavated, covers an area of forty acres and is loftier and steeper than its neighbor: "its erection would have given full employment to 10,000 men for the space of five years and a half." Clearly, none but conquering monarchs, who yearly took thousands of prisoners in battles and drove home ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... then I could only go round and round the place, looking with despair at the steep sides of the cream-jug, which seemed far larger and steeper than they had done before ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... they nigh to the crown of the bent, and before them were the oak-trees sparser and smaller as they went down the further side, which seemed by their sudden shortening to be steeper than the hither side; and betwixt them showed the topmost of thorn and whitebeam and logwood, intertwined with eglantine and honeysuckle and the new shoots of the traveller's joy. There the wood-wife put forth her hand to bid Birdalone stay, who came up to her friend and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... the day wore away, and the road led into a more and more mountainous country. The hills were longer and steeper, and the tracts of forest more frequent and solitary. The number of passengers increased too, until the coach was pretty heavily loaded; and sometimes all but the female passengers would get out and walk up the hills. On these occasions Forester and ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... smoking-car, with the black bag between his feet. Even experienced travelers found the lunges of the train trying to their nerves as it shot at speed around "hairpin" bends, or hurled itself to the fall of a steeper descent. To Zeke, who for the first time knew the roar and jolt of such travel, this trip was a fearsome thing. To sit movelessly there, while the car reeled recklessly on the edge of abysses, was a supreme trial of self-control. The racking peril fairly sickened him. A mad impulse ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... came in sight of the luminous mountain, which cheered me considerably. It was a curious thing, indeed. A straight-sided cone of light it was, rather steeper than the average volcano. Its point was sharp, its sides smooth as if cut with a mammoth plane. And it shone with a pure white light, with a steady and unchanging milky radiance. It rose out of the black and dull yellow of the ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... the dry torrent's steeper banks he might crouch, and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... road dipped into a little valley and rose again, breasting the slope of a wooded hill which thrust itself out from the steeper flank of the mountain-range. Down the hill-side a song floated to meet us—that most noble lyric of old ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grew steeper, he fastened the rope to the dog's harness and advanced a little at a time, dragging Brave up after him. Soon he was forced to snub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet. Toward noon—at least he thought it was noon—it ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... about all the windings of the stream; it went through fields and woods and meadows, and at last the banks got steeper and higher, and the trees overhead darkly arched their mysterious branches, and we felt like the princes in a fairy tale who go out to ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... again on the western side of the mountain—the side facing the sea—the timber line is far higher up than on this. Nor, again, is it a matter of angle that makes the timber line here so low, for those forests on the Sierra del Cristal were growing luxuriantly over far steeper grades. There is some peculiar local condition just here evidently, or the forest would be up to the bottom of the wall of the crater. I am not unreasonable enough to expect it to grow on that, but its conduct in staying where it does ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... on, following the river along ground that grew swiftly steeper, conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... On the steeper ground my horse slackened a bit, but I urged him forward till we were deep in the wood, with a choice of four or five paths, any of which led, heaven knows where. Here I let him stand and get his wind, while I turned over in my mind what ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... named; and through this gate of mountain often, when the day was waning, a bar of slanting sunset entered, like a plume of golden dust, and hovered on a broad black patch of weather-beaten fir-trees. The day was waning now, and every steep ascent looked steeper, while down the valley light and shade made longer cast of shuttle, and the margin of the west began to glow with a deep wine-color, as the sun came down—the tinge of many mountains and the distant sea—until the sun himself settled quietly into it, and there grew ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of about 2 miles an hour, having previously very carefully scraped and dried our runners. The day was gloriously fine and we were soon perspiring. After the first mile we began to rise, and for some way on a steep slope we held to our ski and kept going. Then the slope got steeper and the surface much worse, and we had to take off our ski. The pulling after this was extraordinarily fatiguing. We sank above our finnesko everywhere, and in places nearly to our knees. The runners of the sledges got ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... stopped her and told her what the men said, and that they must all begin the ascent from that point. The valley was inviting, with its pleasant water and its broad meadow, and some of the knights murmured; but when Eleanor heard that Gilbert had chosen the steeper way, she had no doubt, and bade them all be silent; yet as there was much space on the grass, and as the men said that the ascent was long, it seemed better to halt awhile before beginning to climb. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... place the camels HORS DE COMBAT, as every step cut their feet, and every few minutes they ran the risk of a sprained or broken limb; mules would be more suitable for such country. The further we advanced the rougher became the ground, the narrower the little glens, and the steeper the rocks. However, one final and tremendous scramble landed us all safely above the hills, and to our joy we found that a flat plain of spinifex spread before us. On it were clumps of mulga. Now ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... that his only safety was in speed; and (as a deer does not run well up-hill, nor like a roe, straight down hill) on the dogs approaching him, he turned, and almost retraced his footsteps, taking, however, a steeper line of descent than the one by which he ascended. Here the chase became most interesting—the dogs pressed him hard, and the deer getting confused, found himself suddenly on the brink of a small precipice of about fourteen feet in height, from the bottom of which there sloped ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... somewhat further than the carriage road extends, the uncle and aunt were not unwilling to partake to a certain extent the spirit of the enterprise. They all, therefore, mounted their horses, and, accompanied by their guide, advanced by the steeper and more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... not to be compared to Mount Ararat, it is still rather difficult. Trusting to my Ararat experience, I thought of descending in the snow, and started. I was much astonished at finding the slope far steeper than I expected, and consequently went down like a shot, and reached the bottom one hour and a half before the others. A Russian doctor tried it after me, and in trying to change his direction was turned round, and went to the bottom sometimes head ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... had given them the slip, but the yelling told me that they were still after me. I thought I could go down this draw a ways and then circle out and get back to my ranch. But I kept going down the canyon and the walls kept getting steeper and steeper, and narrower and narrower until finally they got so close together that me ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... helped by the use of the "rill" system and often evaded altogether, if flow be assisted by a sheet-iron trough described in the discussion of stope transport. Further saving in shoveling can be gained in this method, by giving a steeper pitch to the filling winzes and to the ore-passes, by starting them from crosscuts in the wall, and by carrying them at greater angles than the pitch of the ore (Fig. 36). These artifices combined have worked ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... cautious pilotage, probably dismounting and leading his horse at places, he had managed, undiscovered, to get thus far up that northern cliff, for it was almost sheer. But he must next make the upper, still steeper half, with little shelter from the on-coming flint-locks, and the worst kind of footing for Mack. Could any horse foaled of a mare climb that crag and bear his rider to safety, for this was ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... days the united expeditions kept on their way up the mountain side, which sloped gradually at its base, the steeper portion still being several days' ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... the major continued his ascent; it became steeper as they neared the crest, and at last they were both obliged to drag themselves up by clutching the vines and underbrush. Suddenly the major stopped with a listening gesture. A strange roaring—as of wind or ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sweat this mountainous place was turned into a level plane, and this sandy soil made abundantly fruitful. Very heavy and long was the labour of preparing a site for the burial-ground and church, for here the slope was steeper than in other places, and extended over the whole face of the ground. Yet by little and little and by labour done at divers times this hill was taken away and the matter thereof thrown outside the boundary wall into a deep valley toward the north: so that to ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... and free from underbrush, the ascent gradual. Most of the way we kept the voice of the creek in our ear on the right. 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 ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... the descent, holding the cross aloft, chanting solemnly; his Indians, to whom he had given a swift signal, following and lifting up their voices likewise. The mountain on this side was bare, as if from fire, the incline shorter and steeper. The priest noted all things, although he ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... feet, and went down to the stream and drank of its waters, and washed the night off him in a pool thereof, and then set forth on his way again. When he had gone some three hours, the road, which had been going up all the way, but somewhat gently, grew steeper, and the bent on either side lowered, and lowered, till it sank at last altogether, and then was he on a rough mountain-neck with little grass, and no water; save that now and again was a soft place with a flow amidst ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... in the wavy line of skids, which vanished at the edge of a steeper dip and reappeared below, to plunge out of sight again. Its end was banked up with wet gravel near the track. Festing could not see the track, but the opposite side of the river was visible, with the island, near which ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... presently the bed of a small brook: woodroad or footpath never can be there. For a while there was room to walk on dry land: soon the cliffs closed in upon us, on the right rising sheer, on the left sloping, but steeper than I would want to climb. At first the stream was very shallow and narrow, and the fish small and scarce; but think of the creatures that must come there to drink at night! It was the only watercourse for miles, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... on, stumbling into holes, flopping into treacherous ruts, halting in the steeper places to catch my breath, till I reached the top of the hill. There I halted—stopped short, in fact: the fence had given out! In its place was a treacherous line of bushes that faded into a delusive clump of trees. Beyond, and on both ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... reach the next plateau. Another couple of hours' march brought us to the gate's of Begemder. In front of us arose the plateau of Dahonte, only about a couple of miles distant, but we had to ascend a more abrupt precipice than the one we had just passed and climb again a steeper ascent before we could reach it. The valley of the Jiddah, a tributary of the Nile, was between us and our halting-place—a stiff march, as the silver thread we viewed from the narrow passage between the basaltic columns of the Eastern Begemder ridge was 3,000 feet ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... Cove? Well, imagine Lulworth, with a narrower entrance, its water blue as a sapphire shot with amethystine violet, its cliffs taller, steeper, hung with matted creeper and, high aloft, holding the heaven in a three-part circle almost as regular as you could draw with a pair of compasses. We were floating in the cup of a dead volcano, broken on the seaward side; and ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... they thought it was the higher and steeper, which made them think several times of giving up the enterprise. When one was weary, the other stopped, and both rested together. Sometimes they were both so tired, that they wanted strength to go further; then, despairing of being able to reach the top, they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... commenced ascending over the debris of stony avalanches, the path becoming steeper and steeper, until the far-off summit almost hung over our heads. It was now a zigzag ladder, roughly thrown together, but very firm. The red mare which my friend rode climbed it like a cat, never hesitating, even at an angle of 50 deg., and never making a false step. The performance of this ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... side of the Cordillera is much shorter or steeper than on the Pacific side; in other words, the mountains rise more abruptly from the plains than from the alpine country of Chile. A level and brilliantly white sea of clouds was stretched out beneath our feet, shutting out the view of the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... to a gentle rise in the ground. It grew steeper. The horse slacked in its galloping. The incline grew steeper still. The horse slowed to a walk, which it pursued with a rhythmically tossing head. It was only less uncomfortable than a gallop. The dim outline ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... to the foot of the steeper slopes, above the tree line, hesitated, eyed me, then started up a narrow little passage that led up between two cliffs. A rock-slide cluttered this granite stair. Stable footholds were impossible for the ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills |
