"Steersman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the tip of our conning staff being out of the water. But by an ingenious system of tiny mirrors the steersman was able to see his way as plainly as if he had been on deck ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... illumed with brightness his swimming eye. He was thus carried till he arrived at the spot where his boat should have been. It was already, with Thompson and their baggage, half way towards the vessel. In its place was the regimental gig, manned by George's best friends. Its steersman was Colonel Vavasour, drest in the fanciful aquatic costume his ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... frenzied strokes of their paddles. Two enormous waves passed, leaving us undamaged; but a third approached, huge and threatening. Should we get to the shore before it? Would it rise upright and capsize us, or would it break on us and swamp us? Neither. It did reach us, indeed, but the old steersman had calculated well; it lifted us up unharmed and carried us on to the beach, where a hundred negroes laid hold of the canoe and dragged it high and dry. I was seized myself before I had time to collect my ideas, and put into a hammock hung upon ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... several bushels of shavings, Jack Harris and Phil Adams, who were steering, dropped on the ground, and allowed the vehicle to pass over them, which it did without injuring them; but the boys who were clinging for dear life to the trunk-rack behind fell over the prostrate steersman, and there we all lay in a heap, two or three of us quite picturesque ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... spoke of the wheel and swung in behind it. But a strapping Rarotonga vahine[1]—she must have weighed two hundred and fifty—brought up against him and got an arm around his neck. He clutched the Kanaka steersman with his other hand. And just at that moment the schooner flung down to starboard. The rush of bodies and the sea that was coming along the port runway between the cabin and the rail, turned abruptly and poured to starboard. Away they ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the soul of good nature. "Well, only for five minutes, remember. I've a lot of lessons to-night." He sat down on the upturned table, his legs sprawling on the carpet, and hummed "Tom Bowling," but the Mhor leaned from his post as steersman and said gravely, "Don't dangle your legs, Jock; there are sharks in these waters." So Jock obediently crumpled his legs until his chin ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... he had toiled for. Yet sweet was the scent of the sea-breeze arising; And I felt a chain broken, a sickness put from me As the sails drew, and merchant-folk, gathered together On the poop or the prow, 'gan to move and begone, Till at last 'neath the far-gazing eyes of the steersman By the loitering watch thou and I were left lonely, And we saw by the moon the white horses arising Where beyond the last headland the ocean abode us, Then came the fresh breeze and the sweep of the spray, And the beating of ropes, and ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... without great difficulty, in the face of such a sea. The men stoutly took their oars, casting a look forward at the rocks, then at the quay, and on the face of their young steersman. Little they guessed the intense emotion that swelled in his breast as he took the helm, to save life or to lose it; enjoying the enterprise, yet with the thought that his lot might be early death; glad it was right thus to venture, earnest ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the steersman at once began to slew her round, and then he too went down as a bullet from Tematau took him fair and square in the chest, and we saw the blood pouring from him as he fell across the gunwale. In another ten seconds they were paddling away from us, leaving ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... women may rightly claim for their own. He really loved Etta. He was trying to gauge the meaning of a little change in her tone toward him—a change so subtle that few men could have detected it. But Claude de Chauxville —accomplished steersman through the shoals of human nature, especially through those very pronounced shoals who call themselves women of the world—Claude de Chauxville knew the value of the slightest change of manner, should that change manifest itself more ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... year died King Harold at Oxford, on the sixteenth before the calends of April; and he was buried at Westminster. He governed England four years and sixteen weeks; and in his days tribute was paid to sixteen ships, at the rate of eight marks for each steersman, as was done before in King Knute's days. The same year they sent after Hardacnute to Bruges, supposing they did well; and he came hither to Sandwich with sixty ships, seven nights before midsummer. He was soon received both by ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... broke into the song with the order to let go the anchor. As the ship swung to the tide the steersman, who wore neither coat nor waistcoat, could be seen idly handling the wheel still, though his duties were necessarily at an end. He was a young man, and a gay salutation of his unemployed hand toward the assembled people—as if he were sure that they ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... princes, and they came from all their valleys to the yellow sands of Pagasai. And first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion's skin and club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan; and Caineus, the strongest of mortals, whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with trunks of pine trees, but even so he would ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... as morning dawned, the viking saw a goodly vessel making gallant headway. As she drew near the land with streamer flying and broad sails flapping in the wind, the viking saw that there was no soul on board of her; and yet, without steersman to guide her, the vessel avoided the shoals and held her way straight to the spot ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... and found there was plenty of room for it. There were little sliding windows, which with the open door afforded fairly decent ventilation. But the helm was just behind the deck house, and the helmsman either sat or stood on the roof, so that all night his responses to the steersman on the Blanco interfered with my sleep. Then, too, they kept their spare lanterns and their cocoanut oil and some coils of rope in there. At intervals soft-footed natives came in, and I was never certain whether it ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... clutching a very hot smoke-stack. He chose the latter, recovered his balance with an easy grace, punctiliously saluted the tiny flag of the Zaire as he whizzed past her, and under the very eyes of Hamilton, with all the calmness in the world, took the wheel from the steersman's hand and ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... Porcupine Rapids, and the tracking line fastened a few inches back of the bow leaving enough loose end to run to the stern and this was tied securely there to relieve the unusual strain on the bow fastening. Ed took the position of steersman in the boat, while the other three were ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... and here and there actual falls. The boat is usually propelled up a rapid by poling. Each member of the crew has beside him a stout pole some eight or nine feet long; and when the boat approaches a rapid, the crew at a shout from the captain, usually the steersman, spring to their feet, dropping their paddles and seizing their poles. Thrusting these against the stony bottom in perfect unison, the crew swings the boat up through the rushing water with a very pleasant motion. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... few minutes later Lavinia saw his trim brown launch, with its awning and steersman in gleaming white, rushing ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the chain of islands behind, and one morning struck out from the shore into the waste of waters, the prows of the canoes turned westward, the steersman guiding our course by the sun. For several hours we were beyond view of land, with naught to rest the eye upon save the gray sea, and then, when it was nearly night, we reached the shore, and beached our canoes at ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... of an incoming billow the lifeboat was seen perched, with the men laboring at the oars to keep it steady, and the steersman standing at his post, every muscle strained to hold ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... guide, the captain, steersman, and ballaster of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, will carry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... steersman of a yacht came a wooing. For two years he had gone about and hugged his misery for her sake, and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... a packet brought me my first grief. She came up behind us with her horses at the full trot. Their boat was down the canal a hundred yards or so at the end of the tow-line; and just before the boat itself drew even with ours she was laid over by her steersman to the opposite side of the ditch, her horses were checked so as to let her line so slacken as to drop down under our boat, her horses were whipped up by a sneering boy on a tall bay steed, her team went outside ours on the tow-path, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... describing a voyage with Chopin to the island of Majorca. "The night was warm and dark, illumined only by an extraordinary phosphorescence in the wake of the ship; everybody was asleep on board except the steersman, who, in order to keep himself awake, sang all night, but in a voice so soft and so subdued that one might have thought he feared to arouse the men of the watch. We did not weary of listening to him, for his singing was of the strangest kind. He observed a rhythm and modulation ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... in carrying "tibbin" from the farms to the larger towns. "Tibbin" is the chopped straw upon which horses and cattle in the towns are mainly fed, and it is loaded on to the boats in a huge pyramidical pile carried upon planks which considerably overhang the boat's sides. The steersman is placed upon the top of this stack, and is enabled to guide his vessel by a long pole lashed to the tiller, and it is curious to notice that the "tibbin," though finely chopped, does not ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... he gave an order to the steersman, and sent Riach to the foretop. There were only five men on deck, counting the officers; these being all that were fit (or, at least, both fit and willing) for their work. So, as I say, it fell to Mr. Riach to go aloft, and he sat there ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman no less a character than the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... the shore. As we neared the beach we perceived that even during 103the short time which had elapsed since we quitted it, the sea had become considerably rougher, and the line of surf now presented anything but an encouraging appearance. As we approached the breakers the steersman desired us to back with our oars till he saw a favourable opportunity; and the moment he gave us the signal to pull in as hard as we were able. After a short pause the signal was given, and we attempted ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... proclaimed vigorously after a while during which he had come to have confidence in the new steersman's knowledge and had been intrigued into conversation. "Don't I know? Black folks knows sooner'n white folks about ha'nts, Cap'n. Ain't I heered all the happenin's dat's done been an' gone an' transcribed ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... o'ermounts them; The god rides the waves, sails about the island; The host of little gods ride the billows; 15 Malau takes his seat; One bales out the bilge of the craft. Who shall sit astern, be steersman, O, princes? Pele of the yellow earth. The splash of the paddles dashes o'er ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... more. The launch split her way swiftly toward the north. By the vague, ghostly shimmer of light upon the waters, a tense smile appeared on the steersman's lips. In his dark eyes gleamed the joy which to some men ranks supreme above all other joys—that of bending others to his will, of dominating them, of making them the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... aside. I felt that, after all, Miss Fraenkel's crystal-clear bromidity would be a delightful change after so much intense living and introspection. For that evening, after dinner, as I listened to the music of the Steersman's Song from the Flying Dutchman, it seemed only too likely that even after all these years, so deathless is passion in some hearts, the skilled hand of Frank Carville might set a woman's soul vibrating with ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... hope of safety; so they used to send out the ship with a black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now Theseus so encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the Minotaur, that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and charged him on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one, if not, the black one as a sign of mourning. But Simonides says that it was not a white sail which was given by AEgeus, but "a scarlet sail embrued ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the pilot, by offering to relieve him while he went down to his dinner. In his spare moments Frank, who wisely regarded it as the duty of every officer to acquaint himself with every part of the management of a vessel, had learned to handle the wheel, and he was an excellent steersman. He could make a landing or get a boat under way, as well as the most experienced pilot; and in the present instance he was fully capable of steering the boat, for as the water in the river was high, there was no danger of getting out ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... up asleep and no longer visible. All that stood out with any distinctness of outline was the lug sail, stiff as a board. I endeavored to turn my head, without disturbing the slumbering girl, to gain view of the steersman. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... "Whee yo ee.—Whee yo ee." The steersman gave "Whee," and was followed by the other men with a repetition ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... His bards were awake to his anxiety, and celebrated John Mattock's doings with a trump and flourish somewhat displeasing to a quietly-disposed commoner. John's entry into Parliament as a Liberal was taken for a sign of steersman who knew where the tide ran. But your Liberals are sometimes Radicals in their youth, and his choice of parties might not be so much sagacity as an instance of unripe lightheadedness. A young conservative ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the rapids as well as any pilot. No one who has not seen a rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with a nice wide shallow Thames lock may ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Racing is the popular sport of crew rowing or sculling, where each college appoints a crew of eight strong scull pullers or oarsmen and one small coxswain or steersman to pilot a long narrow boat called a skiff or shell. The coxswain calls the strokes and is generally the coach and commander of the crew. Unlike in a canoe, the pullers face backwards, and the one nearest the coxswain is called the "stroke ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... and was able to save only the clothes on his back. Thus that boat, which withstood so many buffetings of the sea without any harm, happened to overturn four brazas from shore, through the carelessness of its steersman. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... exogamous sections or vargas, the names of which in some cases indicate a military calling, as Dalai, from Dalpati, commander of an army, and Senapati, commander-in-chief; while others are occupational, as Maharana (painter), Dwari (gatekeeper) and Mangual (steersman of a boat). The latter names show, as might be expected, that the caste is partly of functional origin, while as regards the military names, the Hatwas say that they formerly fought against the Bhonslas, under one of the Uriya chiefs. They say that they have the perpetual ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... element; but presently it swam slowly in the direction of the turtle till out of sight; in a very short time the line was rapidly carried out, there was a jerk, and the turtle was fast. The line was handled gently for two or three minutes, the steersman causing the canoe to follow the course of the turtle with great dexterity. It was soon exhausted and hauled up to the canoe. It was a small turtle, weighing a little under forty pounds (40 lbs.), but the sucking fish adhered ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... he steered so as to get every foot of speed possible out of the cutter, while, sheet in hand, Tom May sat eagerly watching the steersman, ready to obey the slightest sign as the boat's crew sat fast with the oars in the rowlocks ready to dip together and pull for all they were ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... his beard is taken off in a twinkling, let the Atlantic waves roll as they may. The house at the stern contains a smoking-room, and a small apartment completely sheltered from the weather for the steersman. The smoking-room communicates with the cabin below, so that, after dinner, those passengers so disposed may, without the least exposure to the weather, or annoyance to their neighbors, enjoy the weed of old Virginia in perfection. This smoking-room is the principal prospect ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... not only respected the lad who so boldly reproved them, but boasted of the companionship of one so unlike themselves. Said the steersman to the bowman of another boat, "We have a fellow in our crew who never drinks, smokes, chews, swears, nor fights; but he's a jolly good fellow, strong as a lion, could lick any of us if he has a mind to, and a first-rate worker. I never saw ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... reefer, however, was resolved to bring him to. "What, Bob Clewlines!" cried he, "do I not hail an old shipmate in you, a quarter-master on board the ——, the bravest heart of oak, the best reefer, and the merriest steersman of the whole ship's crew; and," said he audibly, that every one passing might hear and value fallen courage and fidelity, "and as prime a seaman as ever trimmed a sail, or served a gun; why, what has broke up your old hulk this way?" The man could not find utterance; remembrance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... and Ole spoke again to the steersman, but without any better result. The boatswain was not to be thwarted. Going forward, he took the little wheel into his own hands, and headed the steamer towards the Rensdyr. Indicating by his signs what he wanted, the man at the helm seemed to be quite willing ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... miles off Point Venus the night before last, at eleven o'clock, we hoped for a bit of wind to reach port by morning. It was calm, and we were all asleep but the man at the wheel, when a waterspout came right out of the clear sky,—so the steersman said,—and struck us hard. We were swamped in a minute. The water fell on us like your Niagara. Christ! We gave up for gone, all of us, the other five all kanakas. We heeled over until the deck was ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... seventy-six benefices, M. de Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired to obtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. The government was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman, from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Little cared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of the regency," says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, without examination, as an act of homage to the late king, and a simple executive formula. The ministers ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... buoyancy of one of these craft is surprising. Six men, as many as could sit upon the deck, were passed over, in the largest of our three boats, at a time. The boats were towed backwards and forwards by Indian swimmers—one at the bow, and one at the stern as steersman, and two on each side as propellers. The poor fellows, when they came out of the cold water, trembled as if attacked with an ague. We encamped near the house of Mr. Livermore (previously described), ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... pier; whilst the others took the oars, which were muffled, and rowed with all precaution till they attained the middle of the river; they then ceased their efforts, lay upon their oars, and trusted to the steersman for keeping her in ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... said the designer to the steersman; and he pulled out his watch with exactly the same look of calm interest he showed when presiding over the trial of the fastest ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... A steersman who has captured a very curious specimen carries it off carefully to press between the leaves of his signal-book, like a flower. Another sailor, passing by, taking his small roast to the oven in a mess-bowl, looks at ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... compare with anything earthly the voice with which he ordered every man below. All I will record is—and it is to his everlasting honour—that in that awful hour the Captain was true to his vow. 'Do you see land?' he roared to the steersman. 'Aye, aye, sir,' said the man, 'land on the larboard bow.' 'Then,' said the Captain, 'put ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos) She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... finally the grooms of the party. The whole 'Rondeel' (now Belle-Alliance Platz) and the Wilhelms-Strasse were crammed full of people; all windows crowded, all heads bare, everywhere the deepest silence; and on all countenances an expression of reverence and confidence, as towards the just steersman of all our destinies. The King rode quite alone in front, and saluted people, CONTINUALLY taking off his hat. In doing which he observed a very marked gradation, according as the on-lookers bowing to him from the windows seemed to deserve. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... forty pirate ships under the coast of Seeland. He tried to steal past; forty against one were heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The pirates lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready for a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. The steersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own. He beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they would have him dead or alive, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... now," protested Colfax, born a Sims but living it down and feeling that never more than at this minute, when rudely the steersman's helm had been snatched from his grasp, was there greater need that he should be a Colfax through and through——"but, Mr. Lobel, it was my idea that up to this point anyway the action should be played with restraint to sort of prepare the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... volunteered at once, and Caesar took his post as steersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into the canoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposed to them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bank delivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... These two doors form the entrance to the pilot-house; please, step in. Here is the steering wheel, and by means of these brass tubes the steersman communicates with the engineer. Look up to the ceiling. It is decorated with multitudinous charts and maps. Before we leave this room do not forget to glance at the mariner's compass in ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... swine are plenty as rats. And now, when they fare to the sea, The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree And load the canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat; And all day long on the sea the jaws are crushing the meat, The steersman eats at the helm, the rowers munch at the oar, And at length, when their bellies are full, overboard with the store!" Now was the word made true, and soon as the bait was bare, All the pigs of Taiarapu ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sails together again; wider and wider would the distance grow between them; higher and higher would swell the waves as they sped on their separate courses; the one light and buoyant with her freight of noble hopes and dauntless steersman at the helm, the other without sail or ballast, drifted about at the mercy of winds ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Ships: the Capt. was named Cornelius Linquoint and commanded the Ship in English called the Commonwealth, of 20 peice of Ordnance. then hee tooke our master, merchant and ten seamen more out of our Ship and left seven of us aboard and soe went aboard his man of war againe and ordered the Dutch Steersman, whome hee left with Eleven Dutchmen more on board of our Ship, to Steere after the man of War, and in case wee should bee parted by weather to Saile with our Ship to the Groyne in Galecia, as the said Steeresman informed mee: ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... the steersman, and all the oars stood upright in the air. The man in the bow seized the boat-hook, and, turning round quickly, showed me the honest face of Sailor Ben ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... this matter we must first give a general description of the virtues of a good citizen; for as a sailor is one of those who make up a community, so is a citizen, although the province of one sailor may be different from another's (for one is a rower, another a steersman, a third a boatswain, and so on, each having their several appointments), it is evident that the most accurate description of any one good sailor must refer to his peculiar abilities, yet there are some things in which the same description may be applied to the whole ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... towns and villages, who seldom came to Para themselves, but entrusted vessels and cargoes to the care of half-breeds or Portuguese cabos. Sometimes, indeed, they risked all in the hands of the Indian crew, making the pilot, who was also steersman, do duty as supercargo. Now and then, Portuguese and Brazilian merchants at Para furnished young Portuguese with merchandise, and dispatched them to the interior to exchange the goods for produce among the scattered population. ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... narrow was the cranium and so extremely full the jowl. It was followed by a short bull neck and a heavy pair of shoulders in a shirt of dirty grey flannel; and having emerged so far, the apparition paused for a look around. It was the steersman of yesterday afternoon. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... anchor, says he, in the spot designated to us, I landed with midshipman Moor, the steersman, Chleb Nikow, four sailors, and Alexis, a native of the Kuriles, who acted as interpreter. So deceived were we by the apparent friendliness of the Japanese, that we took no arms with us, except our swords. In order to destroy any distrust they might feel towards us, I ordered our boat to be partly ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... lightning and rain. While one of these blasts was blowing with all its violence, and the darkness was so thick that we could not see from one part of the ship to the other, we suddenly discovered, by a flash of lightning, a large vessel close aboard of us. The steersman instantly put the helm a-lee, and the ship answering her rudder, we just cleared each, other. This was the first ship we had seen since we parted with the Swallow; and it blew so hard, that not being able to understand any thing that was said, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... beach. The ocean calm'd, The Epidaurian god his father's fane Now leaves; a deity to him close join'd Thus hospitable found: the sandy shore Ploughs in a furrow with his rattling scales: Then, in the steersman confident, he rests On the high poop his head, till they approach Lavinium's city, and her sacred seat, And Tiber's mouth. The people rush in heaps, And crowds of matrons and of fathers rush, Confus'dly hither; even the vestal maids Who guard the sacred fire: and all ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... river scene. Far ahead the paddlers can hear the roar of the swirl. Now the surface of the river rounds and rises in the eddies of an undertow, and the canoe leaps forward; then, a swifter plunge through the middle of a furious overfall. The steersman rises at the stern and leans forward like ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... exulting "Ugh!" was now heaved from the chest of the Indian, who stood calmly on the spot on which he had first rested, while Fuller prepared a coil of rope to throw to the active steersman. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... word to load and reserve fire," said the captain; "and hand me a musket, Fred. Load again as fast as I fire." So saying, the captain took aim and fired at the steersman of the largest boat, which pulled towards the stern. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... moment, slowing every foot because of the level ground and the still heavy snow surface of the road-bed, it passed him. He saw a ten-foot pair of bobs laden with children seated astraddle the board. Each child held up the legs of the one behind. In front, the steersman, his feet braced against the cross-pieces, guided by means of ropes leading to the points of the leading sled. At the rear the "pusher off" half reclined, graceful and nonchalant. With the exception of the steersman, who was too busy, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... will not do the work—Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us towards the port May dash us on the shelves.—The steersman's part is vigilance, Blow it or rough or smooth. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... comes a ship far sailing then,— St. Michael was the steersman; St. John sate in the horn; Our Lord harped; Our Lady sang, And all the bells ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... in the Indian tongue was shouted at them that they must not attempt to land. A shot was fired over their heads to emphasise the fact that the savages were in earnest, and with no alternative, and taken wholly by surprise, Shad at the steersman's paddle astern, swung the canoe out into the stream, still continuing ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... her to the ship joyfully, and the King, when he saw that her beauty was even greater than the picture had set forth, felt his heart leap at the sight. Then she climbed up into the ship, and the King received her. Faithful John stayed by the steersman, and gave orders for the ship to push off, saying, "Spread all sail, that she may fly like a bird in ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... beside the Steersman then, and gazing Upon the west, cried, "Spread the sails! Behold! 3200 The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing Over the mountains yet;—the City of Gold Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... on the following morning, Jack mounted the steersman's seat, and sent the Terror rolling to the place where the bandits ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... the moon sharpened his strong features into startling expression, as he regarded me for a second with mingled astonishment and vexation. He did not seem to notice my offered hand; but, saying something in a low cold tone about the unexpected pleasure, turned to the steersman, and demanded fiercely why he had not abided by his agreement? The sailor, quailing before the authoritative tone and aspect of his really noble-looking questioner, began an exculpatory account of my having been brought thither by Ingram, to whom ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... sank in volume. The wind died rapidly. Yet there was no increase of light, and presently they heard afar a rushing sound. Great drops beat like hail upon their tarpaulin, and all except the man who was steering snuggled to cover. The steersman happened to be Shif'less Sol this time, and he wrapped one of the new Spanish blankets tightly around him from ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... high; it skimmed a few hundred feet above the banked darknesses of cumulus that hid the world, ready to plunge at once into their wet obscurities should some hostile flier range into vision. The tense young steersman divided his attention between the guiding stars above and the level, tumbled surfaces of the vapour strata that hid the world below. Over great spaces those banks lay as even as a frozen lava-flow and almost ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... man, bluejacket, galiongee^, galionji^, marine, jolly, midshipman, middy; skipper; shipman^, boatman, ferryman, waterman^, lighterman^, bargeman, longshoreman; bargee^, gondolier; oar, oarsman; rower; boatswain, cockswain^; coxswain; steersman, pilot; crew. aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist^, airman, aviator, birdman, man-bird, wizard of the air, aviatrix, flier, pilot, test pilot, glider pilot, bush pilot, navigator, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... knighted the steersman of his boat in the morning, and hanged him in the evening of the same day. Fifty thousand people stood around the columns of the national capitol, shouting themselves hoarse at the presidential inaugural, and in four months so great were the antipathies ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... mind at once," said the widow Robson, "or we shall none go, I fancy, as Arthur Blackbourne is the steersman of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... to the women are of ruder construction, and only calculated for fine weather; they are, however, useful vessels, being capable of containing twenty persons with their luggage. An elderly man officiates as steersman, and the women paddle, but they have also a mast which carries a sail, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... the boats' crews were busily employed in getting their respective boats and gear ready for action. Each boat had a harpooner, who pulled the bow oar, a steersman, next to him in rank, who steered, and a line-manager, who pulled the after or stroke oar; and besides them were two or three seamen who pulled the ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... holding our own," was the answer of the steersman, "and I think we're catching up to the yellow car again. If we pass that I'm not so sure but what we can come in a close ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... anything but cower from the weather. Only the great eyes of him, peering aloft from under the peak of his sou'wester, showed that the man was awake; and the ready turns of the helm, that brought a steering tremor to the weather leaches, marked him a cunning steersman, whichever way his ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... in the boat it was manned by four oarsmen and one steersman, and as passengers, Norris, an Englishman and myself, and brought over a mail. We landed at Cobb Neck. Morris said he would start back from the other side ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... gently pushed out on the water. A last sign of the cross, and the lithe figures leap light as a mountain cat to their place in the canoes. There are four benches of paddlers, two abreast, with bowman and steersman, to each canoe. One can guess that the explorer and his sons and his nephew, Sieur de la Jemmeraie, who was to be second in command, all unhatted as they heard the long last farewell of the bells. Every eye is fastened on ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... tone, which must not be taken as seriously unfriendly. "His voyage homeward," says Mr. Glover, "was adventurous." It is a pity that space cannot be found for a full citation of Synesius's enthralling narrative. His Jewish steersman is an entertaining character. There were twelve members in the crew, the steersman making the thirteenth. More than half, including the steersman, were Jews. "It was," says Synesius, "the day which the Jews call the Preparation [Friday], and they reckon the night to the next day, on which they ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the palm of his hand, and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... starn drift down stream, Jasper," said the man of the woods to the young mariner of the lake, who had dispossessed Arrowhead of his paddle and taken his own station as steersman; "let it go down with the current. Should any of these infarnals, the Mingos, strike our trail, or follow it to this point they will not fail to look for the signs in the mud; and if they discover that we have left the shore with the nose of the canoe up stream, it is a natural ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... stern, much as boats are rounded off towards the bows at the present day. It did not possess either mast or sail, but was propelled wholly by oars, which were of the same shape as those used anciently by the rowers in the round boats. In the steersman's hand is seen an oar of a different kind. It is much longer than the rowing oars, and terminates in an oval blade, which would have given it considerable power in the water. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The helmsman steered with both hands; and it seems ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... applies: As in pursuit along the aerial way, With ardent eye the falcon marks his prey, Each motion watches of the doubtful chase, Obliquely wheeling through the fluid space; So, govern'd by the steersman's GLOWING hands, The regent helm ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... utmost care in the middle of the boat, is firmly tied; the other end is fastened to the bottom of the boat. Thus prepared they row in profound silence, leaving the whole conduct of the enterprise to the harpooner and to the steersman, attentively following their directions. When the former judges himself to be near enough to the whale, that is, at the distance of about fifteen feet, he bids them stop; perhaps she has a calf, whose safety attracts all the attention of the dam, which is a favourable circumstance; perhaps ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur |
