"Bilge" Quotes from Famous Books
... vessel never gelling afloat with its freight of nations and their rulers;—and now, Sir, there is and has been for this long time a fleet of "heretic" lighters sailing out of Boston Bay, and they have been saying, and they say now, and they mean to keep saying, "Pump out your bilge-water, shovel over your loads of idle ballast, get out your old rotten cargo, and we will carry it out into deep waters and sink it where it will never be seen again; so shall the ark of the world's hope float on the ocean, instead ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... over on her bilge, with her deck partly turned towards the shore, the sea, after she struck, having driven ... — From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... sailor, with its coarseness and drudgery, its inadequate pay, its evil-smelling food, its maggoty bread, its beer drawn from casks that once had held oil or fish, its stinking salt-meat barrels, the hideous stench of the bilge-water—all this could in one sense be no worse than his sufferings in jail. In spite of self-control, jail had been to him the degradation of his hopes, the humiliation ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not care overmuch for my secular history, but will say, 'What did you learn on the passage?' Well, the passage was truly a fearful trial; dirt prevailed in everything; the bilge-water literally, when pumped out from decayed sugar, tore up the very inmost parts of the stomach, and showed me that, if that was wrong, life was unendurable. I am not generally sick at sea, but I was nearly dead with it; perhaps it was Mauritius fever coming ... — General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Her bilge abaft under the mizzen-chains was just awash; and, the water, deepening from here, as the shore shelved somewhat abruptly, was about the depth of four fathoms or thereabouts by the rudder post, where the bottom could be seen, of soft, shining white ... — The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... seas. For this purpose he lightened his vessel, thrust her into some narrow inlet where she would be left high and dry at low water, fastened blocks and tackles to her masts to pull her over on to her bilge, and then scraped her thoroughly ... — The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... indestructibility. But a low beach, possibly formed by the recent overturning of the berg, received the Titan, and with her keel cutting the ice like the steel runner of an ice-boat, and her great weight resting on the starboard bilge, she rose out of the sea, higher and higher—until the propellers in the stern were half exposed—then, meeting an easy, spiral rise in the ice under her port bow, she heeled, overbalanced, and crashed down on ... — The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... spirit. You beat all day to windward against the tide toward what should be but an hour's sail: the sea is high and the spray cold; there are sunken rocks, and food there is none; chill gray evening draws dangerously near, and there is a foot of water in the bilge. You have swallowed your tongue twenty times on the alkali; and the sun is melting hot, and the dust dry and pervasive, and there is no water, and for all your effort the relative distances seem to remain the same ... — The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... drum-taps. Chains clanked, a ship's dog barked incessantly from a companionway, ropes creaked in complaining pulleys, blocks rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and strangled, while all the air was redolent of oakum, of pitch, of paint, of spices, of ripe fruit, of clean cool lumber, of coffee, of tar, of bilge, and the brisk, nimble odor ... — Blix • Frank Norris
... About 2,000 fire-bricks were used. The proprietors of this kiln say about one-half the lower part of the well might have been lined with a first quality of common brick and saved some expense and been just as good. The form of the well shown in Fig. 3 is 7 feet in diameter in the bilge, exclusive of the lining of brick and ashes. Experiments in this vicinity have proved this to be the best, this contraction toward the top being absolutely necessary, the expansion of the stone by the heat is so great that the lime cannot be drawn from perpendicular ... — Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... got it, sir," Lister agreed. "If her bilge was in the sand and the divers couldn't break into the engine-room—" He paused and laughed. "A powerful centrifugal pump lifts some water, but you can't pump ... — Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... us at 5 a.m. that I must proceed to Bilge Trench to be temporarily attached to D Company in Wood's place. At present C Company (Captain Mordecai) are in the front line, with their headquarters in the Estaminet (the deep tunnel dug-out beneath Wieltje). D Company (Captain Bodington) are in support in Bilge Trench. Colonel ... — At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... all was snug aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much of a favor, for the confusion of everything below, and that inexpressible sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of bilge water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold, wet decks. I had often read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there could be none worse than mine; for, in addition to every ... — Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... heaving of ropes, winding of cables, shouts, curses, the rattling of carts on the piers, the tinkle of bells on the cars, the roar of escaping steam, the scream of whistles, and the foul smells of garbage and bilge-water. He watched the men at their work, he saw the passengers come out, with sleepy eyes and sodden faces, and take their departure. He too must go—but where? He wandered off the pier in a maze. Where should he go? what should he do in all this crowd ... — Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... pumps, besides the bilge injections, we could keep her afloat for hours, even with a ten-inch shell in her hull," I assured him, repeating that there was no water in the engine ... — The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... that there were holes in all the three boilers. Two men were set to work the pumps, one or two of the passengers also assisting, but as fast as the water was pumped into the boilers it poured out again. The bilge was so full of steam and boiling water that the firemen could not get to the fires. Still the steamer struggled on, laboring heavily, for the sea was running very high. At midnight they were off St. Abbs Head, when the ... — The Junior Classics • Various
... the boat to the southward and westward, careening gunwale-to, and sending the spray flying in such drenching showers over the weather bow, that presently the water rose above the bottom boards and splashed like a miniature sea in the lee bilge, compelling Dick to abandon the mainsheet to Stukely while he took a bucket and proceeded to bale. But the wind showed a disposition to freshen, careening the boat so steeply that, despite Stukely's utmost care, the water began to ... — Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... station is done on wagons or motor trucks equipped with a rack that permits the barrels being carried lying down, but supported at each end of the barrel so that the weight of the barrel does not come upon the bilge. They can be so racked up that one wagon will carry fifty-five barrels. A three-ton truck will carry forty barrels of apples and haul forty more on trailer. Such an outfit in one of my orchards makes five trips in one day a distance ... — Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... says he, "but then bilge-water never is, you'll mind. But you'll grow used to it in time, shipmate, unless, instead o' swallowing this unholy reek you'll swallow your pride and 'list as ... — Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... keep her on her proper course. When asked, why there was not steam on, the fireman said that a deal of water had been finding its way into the vessel all day, and that sometime before she got into the strait, the bilge-pumps were choked. The water in the hold then overflowed the coals; so that, in renewing the fires, a deal of water went in with the coals, and made it impossible to keep the steam up. It was the ... — Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... adopted by the National Apple Shippers' Association and made law in New York State has a length of stave of twenty-eight and one-half inches and a diameter of head of seventeen and one-eighth inches. The outside circumference of the bilge is sixty-four inches and the distance between the heads is twenty-six inches. It contains one hundred quarts dry measure. The staves are mostly made of elm, pine, and red gum, and the heads principally ... — Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... continued its inroads on the inner, breaking up the margins of both, until the channel was so nearly closed as to bring the field from which the danger was most apprehended in absolute contact with the side of the schooner. When the margin of the outer floe first touched the bilge of the schooner, it was at the precise spot where the vessel had just been fortified within. Fenders had also been provided without, and there was just a quarter of a minute, during which the two captains hoped that these united means of defence might enable the craft ... — The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... who seemed to pity my miserable condition, gravely assured me that exercise was a capital thing as a preventive or cure for seasickness, and advised me to try the pump. I followed his advice: a few strokes brought up the bilge water, than which nothing at that time could have been more insufferably nauseous! I left the pump in disgust, and retiring to the after part of the quarter-deck, threw myself down on a coil of rope, unable longer to ... — Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... from the intense light. Some hung motionless in the water; others nibbled daintily the green and lazy slime on the batten at the bilge, their gently waving shadows being barely perceptible, for their delicate, semi-transparent bodies absorbed but the merest particle ... — Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... has been too monotonous to afford a single noticeable incident. The weather has been cold, damp, and foggy, with light head winds and a heavy swell; we have been confined closely to our seven-by-nine after-cabin; and its close, stifling atmosphere, redolent of bilge-water, lamp oil, and tobacco smoke, has had a most depressing influence upon our spirits. I am glad to see, however, that all our party are up today, and that there is a faint interest manifested in the prospect of dinner; but even the inspiriting strains of the Faust march, ... — Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... large floe-piece, which was still alongside of her, seemed alone to support her below water, and to prevent her falling over still more considerably. The ship had been forced much further up the beach than before, and she had now in her bilge above nine feet of water, which reached higher than the lower-deck beams. On looking down the stern-post, which, seen against the light-coloured ground, and in shoal water, was now very distinctly visible, we found that she had pushed the stones at the bottom up before her, and that ... — Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... miserable. Their boat constantly shipped water, and they had to use the hand force pump, which, fortunately, was in the craft. A pump was connected with the cylinder cooling apparatus, designed to free the cockpit of bilge water, but the pump ... — The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... nearly paid dearly for my rashness in boating. My boat was once capsized in a moment in a squall, and Hannibal and myself were soused in the water before we knew what had happened. I caught hold of the bilge of the boat, and nearly drowned myself with laughing at the Son of Amilcar, who was splashing about shrieking with terror, and swallowing quarts of salt-water, as his open mouth popped every moment under a wave. In vain I called to him to come to me, and ... — The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... with the ailing motor. Once he lost a portion of the creature's anatomy in the bottom of the boat. Nautica found him, inverted and full of emotion, fishing about in the bilge-water for the lost piece. She offered him everything from the toasting-rack to the pancake-turner to scrape about with; but he would trust nothing of the sort, and kept searching until he found the piece with his own black, ... — Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... it. Some of these here land-sharks had trimmed me from top-gallant mast to bilge keel. They cleaned me out and left me high and dry. So when I see that 'ad' I says to myself, says, I, there's just the ... — The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... my breast and throat, as if my ribs were being compressed inwardly, and my lungs had not room enough to expand and let me breathe. My nostrils were filled with a nauseating smell—the smell of "bilge-water"—for being at the bottom of the hold, I was close to the latter, and could hear it "jabbling" about under the timbers, where no doubt it had lain for a long time. In all these symptoms I had no difficulty in telling what ailed me: sea-sickness—nothing more. ... — The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... find it shoaler than we expect and I had plenty trouble coming along. Finlay could hardly drive her four knots in last night's breeze and the current put us on Tortillas reef. She stopped there twenty minutes, jambed down on her bilge while the sea came ... — The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... marble bason. The taste of some of the officers had peopled this with golden fish; whilst on the bason's brim were placed stands for exotics, whose fragrance charmed our sea-worn traveller, so lately emancipated from those sad drawbacks to a voyage, the odours of tar and bilge water. ... — A Love Story • A Bushman
... to come and have a good time here. I can't think why Irish people want to be Irish. It seems so damn silly. Gilbert's writing a play. He has done about a page and a half of it, and it's most awful bilge. He keeps on reading it out to me. He read some of it to me last night when I was brushing my teeth which is a damn dangerous thing to do, and I had to clout his head severely for him. He is a chap. He got poor Mary into a row on Sunday. We took him to church with us, and when the ... — Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... feebly at the corpse—"O'Brien were his name—a rank Irelander—this man and me got the canvas on her, meaning for to sail her back. Well, he's dead now, he is—as dead as bilge; and who's to sail this ship I don't see. Without I gives you a hint, you ain't that man, as far's I can tell. Now, look here, you gives me food and drink, and a old scarf or ankercher to tie my wound up, you do; and I'll tell you ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... light leaning figure of the pretty schooner, which seemed to skate along upon her bilge and make white shavings of all the sea that touched her. She at first imagined that this might be the yacht Neigh had arrived in at the end of the previous week, for she knew that he came as one of ... — The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... at 4 p.m., and at 5 p.m. went ashore in a native boat, furnished with bilge pieces, to keep her straight when beached, and to avoid the surf, for it was too rough for our own boats. At the water's edge a curious sort of double sleigh, drawn by two oxen, was waiting. Into this we stepped, setting off with considerable rapidity up the steep shingly ... — A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... worth two squirts of bilge water," Captain Noah lied glibly. "However, I'll take him off your hands and reimburse you for the expense of bringing his successor down from Seattle or up from San Francisco. My two mates have just asked to ... — Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the hose led from the bilge-cock, the cock turned, and, if the forcing-pump or engine is worked below the gun-deck, will see it manned and worked by some of the ... — Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... arms, bayonets and sabres; and I have pricked the back of my hands until the blood came out in many places; and I have made thee lick it; and I have then done the same to thine. Afterward, from thy tenth year, I have mixed gunpowder in thy grog; I have peppered thy peaches; I have poured bilge-water (with a little good wholesome tar in it) upon thy melons; I have brought out girls to mock thee and cocker thee, and talk like mariners, to make thee braver. Nothing would do. Nay, recollect thee! I have myself led thee forth to the window ... — Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... "Bilge, my eye! You sniff the banquet I fetched ye. Here's a prime cheese that was hatched when Trimble Rogers ... — Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water. It could not be called a cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed in beloved toil; how much less for a young gentleman haunted by alarms and awaiting the arrival of ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reckless old fool, but was tipsy, and in no temper to reason with. The situation of the brig was safe enough as far as ocean and weather went; nothing could hurt her as she lay mud-cradled on her fat bilge. We clewed up and let the canvas hang by its rigging, and then dropped the anchor; after which old Bunk and the others cleaned themselves up and got the boat over, and went away in her, singing songs, leaving me and William ... — The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... without is soft and beautiful, and no doubt the Norma herself looks all in unison with the scene, balancing herself like a lazy swan, white and graciously. So it is without, and within, there is miserable sea-sickness, bilge-water, and all the unavoidable disagreeables of a ... — Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... style of Tom Castleton and not of Adrian Boldero. But was what I read the style of Adrian Boldero? This vivid, virile opening? This scene of the two derelicts who hated one another, fortuitously meeting on the old tramp steamer? This cunning, evocation of smells, jute, bilge water, the warm oils of the engine room? This expert knowledge so carelessly displayed of the various parts of a ship? How had Adrian, man of luxury, who had never been on a tramp steamer in his life, gained ... — Jaffery • William J. Locke
... &c adj.; debasement, depression, prostration &c (horizontal) 213; depression &c (concave) 252. molehill; lowlands; basement floor, ground floor; rez de chaussee [Fr.]; cellar; hold, bilge; feet, heels. low water; low tide, ebb tide, neap tide, spring tide. V. be low &c adj.; lie low, lie flat; underlie; crouch, slouch, wallow, grovel; lower &c (depress) 308. Adj. low, neap, debased; nether, nether most; flat, level with the ground; lying low &c v.; crouched, subjacent, ... — Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Storm was over, the waves Dashed over her windward Side and She must have filled with water if the Lockers which is covered with Tarpoling & Threw of the water & prevented any quantity Getting into Bilge ... — The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... down. Only once she turned her head and looked back. Perhaps Loloku would try again. Then, as they came to the boat, a young girl, at a sign from O'Shea, took off the loose blouse, and they placed her, face downwards, across the bilge of the boat, and two pair of small, eager, brown hands each seized one of hers and dragged the white, rounded arms well over the keel of the boat. O'Shea walked round to that side, drawing through his hands the long, heavy, and ... — By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... her in a bit too near, my son. The bilge chocks is both pulled off; look you, they're gone away astern." And, sure enough, two long planks drifted away behind the boat. They had been torn off by the force with which she rushed upon the outlying rock. Tommy ... — The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... had my whole wits) riveted my attention, and held me staring open-mouthed, as though in good truth the apparition of the devil had risen before me, was the body of a ship leaning on its bilge, at not more than a gunshot from where I stood, looking toward the interior. When my eyes first went to the thing I could not believe them. I imagined it some trick of the volcanic explosion that had ... — Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... anchor. Soon the soft slap of the water around the bow and the regular heaving motion told that the Bozra was under way. The sea-mouse creaked and groaned through all her timbers and her lading. The foul bilge-water made the hold stifling as a charnel-house. Lampaxo, Hib being absent, began to ... — A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... steward drew a brace, and to it fitted a half- inch bit from his hip-pocket. On his knees, he bored through the head of the first cask until the water rushed out upon the deck and flowed down into the bilge. He worked quickly, boring cask after cask down the alleyway that led to deeper twilight. When he had reached the end of the first row of casks he paused a moment to listen to the gurglings of the many ... — Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... together! This coarse sewing with cocoa-nut fibre cord laces a straw rope against the inside of the seam, and this apparently swells when wet and gives elasticity and play, and keeps out a considerable amount of water. But I see there's a good deal of baling done, and the baggage, with the water in bilge and spray over all, must get wet outside at least—Fixed up about cabins for Rangoon, lunched at our hotel, the Connemara, then hired a gharry or victoria—I'm not sure which the conveyance we hired by the week ... — From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... square-built seamen, drinking away together in the dismal cabin, which reeked of fish-pickle and bilge-water. The overhead beams came down too low for their tall statures, and rounded off at one end so as to resemble a gull's breast, seen from within. The whole rolled gently with a monotonous wail, ... — An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... was overturned, and once more we were pitched into the water. This occurred, I should say, eight times, the boat usually righting itself. Before we were picked up by the Bluebell six of the party of eight or nine were lying drowned in the bilge water which ... — New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... interstices a considerable quantity of molasses, which impairs the color of the product, and escaping slowly, and with difficulty, is, to a considerable extent, lost on the homeward voyage by drainage into the hold, occasioning much positive loss to the owner, and giving the bilge-water a most offensive odor. He therefore recommends the use of deep vessels, and avoidance of all agitation in this part of the process, so as to enable the crystallisable portion of the syrup to effect a more ... — The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... along about that time, what with the stale cookin' and bilge water scents that was comin' from the stuffy cabin, and this charmin' mood that old Spiller was in, I was gettin' restless. "Say, Chunk," I breaks in, "you may be enjoyin' this, all right; but I've got enough. It's me for shore! ... — Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... and looked into the cabin to make certain that no member of the barge-crew slept there. Finding no one, he went into the engine-room and opened the sea-cock. Then he lifted up a floor-board, looked into the bilge, saw that the water therein ... — Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... invitingly furnished room of cushioned couches, paintings, tapestries, soft chairs, warmly toned rugs. The desk at which Merle toiled was ornate and shining. Ex-Private Cowan felt a sudden revulsion. He was back, knee-deep in trench bilge, tortured in all his being, looking at death from behind a sandbag. Vividly he recalled why ... — The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick, and the giddiness soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, which I attributed, in great measure, to the saeva Mephitis of the bilge- water; and it was certainly not decreased by the exportations from the cabin. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied passengers, one of whom observed not inaptly, that Momus might have discovered an easier way to see a man's inside, than by placing a window in his breast. ... — Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the boss and powerfully project it thence in a direct line with the longitudinal axis of the ship. To give this cigar-shaped curvilinear hull perfect stability when resting upon the ground, it was fitted with a pair of deep and broad bilge-keels, one on either side of the ship, extending fore and aft for just a third of her length. These bilge-keels contained four grip-anchors—one at either extremity of each keel—by means of which the ship could, when ... — With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... stop to admire 'em. I give one look around. Nobody was in sight. Then I ran down the pier and jumped aboard. Almost the first thing I put my hand on was what I was looking for—the bilge-pump. 'Twas a small affair, that you could lug around in one hand, but mighty handy for keeping a boat ... — Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... from the gunwale to the keel, Rat riddled, bilge bestank, Slime-slobbered, horrible, I saw her reel And drag her oozy flank, And sprawl among the deft young waves, that laughed And leapt, and turned in many a sportive wheel As she thumped onward with her ... — Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... avoid the labour which would have attended her being launched in the usual manner, Mr. Raven, the master of the Britannia, offered his own services and the assistance of his ship to lay her down upon her bilge, and put her into the water on rollers. This mode having been adopted, in the forenoon of Wednesday the 24th of this month she was safely let down upon the rollers, and by dusk, with the assistance of the Britannia, was hove down to low-water mark, whence, at a quarter ... — An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... courteously. "For, speaking as man to man, I must confess that for sheer, concentrated bilge she gets away with the biscuit with almost insolent ease. Luella Granville ... — Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of twenty-eight knots and have a cruising radius exceeding 1200 miles. The design of the hull is the concave bottom, square bilge type, developed for this particular service. It furnishes a steady gun platform, which, with the necessary speed, is the most vital feature of a ... — Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... deal of water awash in the cockpit; therefore the shallow hold must have been full. And I knew there was plenty slopping about in the cabin, ruining everything. I rigged the little pump amidships and the pipe threw a full stream of bilge across the deck. And it wasn't bilge long, but came clear. Inboard came another wave—but not a large one this time—and I pumped ... — Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... set to work and cleared away the penthouse, stowing its heavy timbers beneath the deck along the keel, for they would in some degree take the place of the ballast which the little ship needed. There was some water in her bilge from the great wave, and that we baled out easily, but she was well framed and almost new. It was good to see the run of the decks clear again from ... — A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... had to do was to pump her out, and then she would float again. To effect this, we had to lighten her as much as possible, by taking out of her her guns and stores of every description; then to get purchases on her from the shore, and assist the purchases with rafts under her bilge, so as to raise her again upon an even keel. On the second day after she filled, when the tide had run out, we removed all our chests from the lower deck; most of them were broken, and a large proportion of the contents missing. On the 27th May every thing had been prepared, and ... — Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... morning broke, with the exception of two vessels, the whole French fleet was lying helplessly aground on the Palles shoal. Some were lying on their bilge with the keel exposed, others were frantically casting their guns overboard and trying to get afloat again. Meanwhile Gambier and the British fleet were lying fourteen miles distant in the Basque Roads, and Cochrane in the Imperieuse was watching, ... — Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... were all staring ahead and seeking to penetrate the blinding veil of vapor, and I felt more utterly strayed and lost than ever in my life before. Our faces were running with the salt spray that swished over the bows or flew over the quarters, to stream down into the bilge at our feet, foul with fragments of squid and caplin long dead. We were also beginning to listen eagerly for other sounds than the wind hissing in the cordage, the breaking of wave-tops and the hard thumping of the blunt ... — Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... say salt water, lad, I said bilge—a fathom o' bilge water," interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a sternly ... — Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... a little bank and across a bridge that spans a canal and one catches a glimpse of long lines of house boats, with dim lights, nestling under overhanging balconies. Overall is that penetrating odor of the Far East, mingled with the smell of bilge water and the reek of thousands of sweating human beings. These smells are of the earth earthy and they led one to dream that night of weird and terrible creatures such as De Quincey paints in his Confessions ... — The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... 883 feet long, 92 1/2 feet broad; her height from keel to bridge was 104 feet. She had 8 steel decks, a cellular double bottom, 5 1/4 feet through (the inner and outer "skins" so-called), and with bilge keels projecting 2 feet for 300 feet of her length amidships. These latter were intended to lessen the tendency to roll in a sea; they no doubt did so very well, but, as it happened, they proved to be a weakness, for this was the first portion of the ship touched by the ... — The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... down into the hold. Clarke carried a lantern. Charlie Jones held Singleton's broken revolver. I carried a belaying pin. But, although we searched every foot of space, we found nothing. The formaldehyde with which Turner had fumigated the ship clung here tenaciously, and, mixed with the odors of bilge water and the indescribable heavy smells left by tropical cargoes, made me dizzy ... — The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... straight sheer, 27-inch bulwarks, a moderately full but easy entrance, a fine, long run, and little drag to the keel. The midsection was formed with moderately short and rising floor, round and easy bilge, and some tumble-home in the topside. The stem raked a good deal for a ship-rigged vessel; the post raked slightly. There was a distance of 6 feet between upper and lower deck planks. The stern was of the square transom, round ... — The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... although where it was had not yet been ascertained. Adair and his lieutenant, as well as the carpenter and boatswain, had made repeated efforts to discover the exact spot. The only way to do this was to creep under the bunkers among the bilge water, an unpleasant and dangerous task. It was evident that the water must be reduced before the ... — The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... new block that was to be. In the hold of this forgotten bark was discovered a forgotten case of champagne. It had been sunk in mud and ooze for years. When the bottles were opened the corks refused to pop, and nobody dared to touch the "bilge" that was within. All this was on the happy hem of Happy Valley—and still ... — In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... alone was admitted on deck at a time, after sunset, which occasioned much filth to run into the hold, and mingle with the bilge water, which was not pumped out while he was aboard, notwithstanding the decks were leaky, and the prisoners begged permission to let in water and pump it ... — American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... skulking lot of lubbers loafing about, adding to the expense and taking away from the romance. Give him a handy boy, he would sail it himself. We knew that yacht, and we told him so; we had been on it with Harris before. It smells of bilge-water and greens to the exclusion of all other scents; no ordinary sea air can hope to head against it. So far as sense of smell is concerned, one might be spending a week in Limehouse Hole. There ... — Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... called The Sieve, and when I'm aboard I'll close all the shutters, and lock up the parrot that sneezes and stutters, and wake all the skippers, and put on my slippers, and get into bed while the mates overhead are swabbing the decks and heaving the lead and baling the bilge-water up with their dippers; and when they have gotten the vessel to going, and settled all down to their knitting and sewing, and the twenty-third mate, who is always so late, has learned what is meant by a third and last warning, I'll turn up the gas, take a look at the glass, and read me the ... — The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... say that old age takes no part in public business. They are like men who would say that a steersman does nothing in sailing a ship, because, while some of the crew are climbing the masts, others hurrying up and down the gangways, others pumping out the bilge water, he sits quietly in the stern holding the tiller. He does not do what young men do; nevertheless he does what is much more important and better. The great affairs of life are not performed by physical strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, ... — Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the bowsprit like the point of the in-turned thumb, a faint soul-killing rock of kerosene filled it, intensifying, after the fashion of ambergris, all the other perfumes, without losing in power. Bilge, tobacco and humanity, you cannot know what these things are till they are married with the reek of kerosene, with the grunts and snores of weary men, with lamplight dimmed with smoke haze; with the heave and fall of the sea; the groaning of timbers and the boom of the waves. This is the fo'c'sle ... — The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... best; to ascertain whether new or stale—hold to the light, if the white is clear, the yolk regularly in the centre, they are good—but if otherwise, they are stale. The best possible method of ascertaining, is to put them into water, if they lye on their bilge, they are good and fresh—if they bob up an end they are stale, and if they rise they are addled, proved, ... — American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... namely, pugnacity and perseverance." Again the italics are mine. What we have here is merely the old, old delusion of masculine enterprise in amour—the concept of man as a lascivious monster and of woman as his shrinking victim—in brief, the Don Juan idea in fresh bib and tucker. In such bilge lie the springs of many of the most vexatious delusions of the world, and of some of its loudest farce no less. It is thus that fatuous old maids are led to look under their beds for fabulous ravishers, and to cry out that they have been stabbed with ... — In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the shafting is forged of Siemens-Martin mild steel of the best quality, each of the three separate cranks being built up. The condensers are placed at the outsides of the engine room, and the air, feed, and bilge pumps are between the engines and the condensers and worked by levers from the low-pressure engine crosshead. There are two centrifugal pumps, each worked by a separate engine for circulating water through the ... — Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... horrors of that hold I know not. The place was low, not more than seven feet in height, and the slaves lay ironed in the bilge water on the bottom of the vessel. They were crowded as thick as they could lie, being chained to rings fixed in the sides of the ship. Altogether there may have been two hundred of them, men, women and children, ... — Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... an aggregate surface of 2250 square feet, the length of the tubes between the tube plates being 9 ft. There is also in each compartment one centrifugal circulating pump driven by a small independent engine, of the diameter of 3 ft. 9 in., and capable of pumping from the bilge as well as the sea. The screw propellers are 18 ft. 3 in. in diameter with a mean pitch of 24 ft. ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... it is incredible; we are all left panting in the rear; twig, O twig it. His name is Clinton; I should say the most melodious prosewriter now alive; it's like buttermilk and blacking; it sings and hums away in that last sheet, like a great old kettle full of bilge water. You know: none of us could do it, boy. See No. 571, last page: an article called "Sir Claude the Conqueror," and read it aloud in your best rhythmic tones; mon ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Unpack our boat and store the stuff on your boat so it can't be stolen. Overrun our engines and oil her up. Clean out the bilge and make ... — The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... the mention of names, whereas I myself, apart from not mentioning anyone by name, have moreover so tempered my pen that the sagacious reader will easily understand that my aim has been to give pleasure, not pain; for I have at no point followed Juvenal's example in 'stirring up the murky bilge of crime', and I have sought to survey the laughable, not the disgusting. If there is anyone whom even this cannot appease, at least let him remember that it is a fine thing to be reviled by Folly; in bringing ... — Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... operations. He drove his chisel through the sheathing as close to the cabin floor as he could. Remembering that the schooner was upside down and that the floor was over his head, the aperture he was starting work on would bring him nearest the bilge. When he had chiseled a hole big enough for a start, he secured the saw from the mate and sawed a square opening. He lifted himself up and worked his way through the hole and found himself on lumber and out of water. It was ... — Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... steamer, which we will call the Water Witch; and when everything was ready, the ship started upon a trial trip. Soon after she got to sea, Bradley, who was aboard, said he would like to try the pump upon the bilge-water to ... — Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... flocks of Ducks alight never again to emerge until their dead bodies drift to the shore. It was on November 27, 1912, that the naval tank ship Arethusa steamed into the harbour of Providence, Rhode Island, with a cargo of crude oil. For several days following her bilge pumps sent overboard a continuous stream of water and oil seepage. On December 3d the following news-item appeared in the Providence Daily Bulletin, "The east shore of the lower harbour and upper bay, from Wilkesbarre pier to Riverside and below, ... — The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... treachery. He is seized sometimes at the hospitable board, and assassinated, or perhaps cruelly poisoned. But what skill can ensure safety, where confidence is so shamefully abused? He is a capital sailor, even bilge-water don't make him squeamish, and he is so good a judge of the sea-worthiness of a ship, that he leaves her at the first port if he finds she is leaky or weak. Few architects, on the other hand, have such a knowledge of the stability of a house as he has. He ... — Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... hustled along to a hole in the forward part of the deck (having what looked like a box turned upside down over it), through which, now utterly bewildered, I descended, by means of a ladder, to a dark, damp, mouldy place, which was filled with the foul smells of tar and bilge-water, and thick with tobacco-smoke. This, they told me, was the 'fo'casle,' that is, forecastle, where lived the 'crew,' of which I became now painfully conscious that I was one. If there had been the slightest chance, I should have run away; but running away from a ship is ... — Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... Brasses Fill Up Main Engine Feed Pump and Bilge Rams Open and Scale After Port Boiler Main Circulator Impeller to Examine Hydrokineter Valve on ... — Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... blasphemy man meant? Oh, I don't know; some bilge, just as he used to about the masters. You know the man talked some rubbish about how the State couldn't have it both ways—couldn't blaspheme against God by flatly denying that all men were equal and basing all its legislation on keeping one ... — If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... with the Eastern Emperors was concluded, he was well informed of the outrageous deeds of the Roman patricians. No sooner had he brought the war on the Saxon frontier to a successful conclusion than he descended again into Italy 'to purge the Roman bilge,' in the chronicler's strong words. On his way, he found time to visit Venice secretly, with only six companions, and we are told how the Doge entertained him in private as Emperor, with sumptuous suppers, and allowed him to wander about Venice all day as a simple unknown traveller, with his ... — Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... an' drives 'em in a whirlwind. Presently the wind starts the ice to buckin' an' tremblin' like a jelly under you, splitting inter lanes. You lose yore direction even when you got eyes. I'm left in it by that bilge-blooded skunk, blind on the rockin', breakin' floe, while he scuds back to the schooner with his men. That's Honest Simms! Jim Lund's left behind but Honest Simms has the position ... — A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... preternaturally grave expression, his eyes forbidding as they rested upon the renegade. I know—from Lord Henry's own pen—that no word had passed between them during those brief moments before Sakr-el-Bahr was hurried away by his guards to be flung into those dark, cramped quarters reeking of tar and bilge. ... — The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... boy," agreed the veteran. "Overhaul ship from bilge ter royals, and if not found, then take ... — The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... too," said Jack. "The smell of this vile bilge-water breeds a nausea, and, whew, 'tis ... — Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... other matters." "I don't intend to write for you as an outsider (have I not put almost my last quid into your blooming Company?—7% or not). . . . God forbid that you should have an art critic who'll go round the picture shows for you and write bilge about this painter and that—this 'art ... — Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... especially on an uncertainty. We were now reduced to a small daily allowance of calavances, which not being sufficient to keep us alive, we had recourse to the remainder of our smoked congers which had been neglected for some months, and had been soaking and rotting in the bilge-water, so that they were now as disgusting food as could be. Under these calamitous circumstances, we again met the Success near port Angels, in lat. 15 deg. 50' N. long. 96 deg. 25' W. Having exchanged signals, we stood so near each other that a biscuit ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Oh roads we used to tread, Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws—fra' Govan to Parkhead!) Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say: "Good morrn, McAndrews! Back again? An' how's your bilge to-day?" Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair To drink Madeira wi' three Earls—the auld Fleet Engineer, That started as a boiler-whelp—when steam and he were low. I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' ... — The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... Prince of Wales iron steamship, at Blackwall, which singularly corroborated his views as to the strength of wrought-iron beams of large dimensions. When this vessel was being launched, the cleet on the bow gave way, in consequence of the bolts breaking, and let the vessel down so that the bilge came in contact with the wharf, and she remained suspended between the water and the wharf for a length of about 110 feet, but without any injury to the plates of the ship; satisfactorily proving the great strength of this form of construction. Thus, Mr. Stephenson became gradually ... — Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... extended under the whole of West Gotham Court. The walls of rough stone dripped with slimy exudations, while the pavements yielded to the slightest pressure of the feet a suffocating odor compounded of bilge-water and sulphuretted hydrogen. Upon one side of this elongated cave of horrors were ranged a hundred closets, every one of which reeked with this filth, mixed with that slimy moisture which was everywhere as a proof that the waters ... — Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... pump. He never tired of examining it, and pumping up the water. Indeed, so much was he taken up with this pump, that he could not be prevailed on to return on shore, but sent a canoe to fetch his favourite stool, on which he seated himself, and spent the remainder of the day in pumping the bilge-water out of ... — The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... I struck my watch at three in the morning. And the air was so unworthy of that name,—it was such a thick paste, seeming to me more like a mixture of tar and oil and fresh fish and decayed fish and bilge-water than air itself,—that I voted three morning, and crawled up into the clear starlight,—how wonderful it was, and the fresh wet breeze that washed my face so cheerily!—and I bade Battista take his turn below, while I would lie there and mind the helm. If—if he had done what I proposed, ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the barbarous cacophony of the clanking pump rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the steady stream of bilge as though he found some ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a stage of sea-sickness, but, except in the case of two or three, it soon passed off. Seas deluged all parts of the ship. A quantity of ashes was carried down into the bilge-water pump and obstructed the steam-pump. Whilst this was being cleared, the emergency deck pumps had to be requisitioned. The latter were available for working either by hand-power or by ... — The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... issuin' orders 'board here now," growled the Cap'n, bending baleful gaze on the foreman of the Ancients. "Go for'ard and tell 'em to chop down both masts, and then bore some holes in the bottom to let out the bilge-water. Then they can set her on fire. There might be something them blasted Ancients could do to ... — The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... associates were absent on duty; the 'tween-decks was crammed with casks and cases, and chests, and bags, and hammocks; the noise of the caulkers was resumed over my head and all around me; the stench of bilge-water, combining with the smoke of tobacco, the effluvia of gin and beer, the frying of beef-steaks and onions, and red herrings—the pressure of a dark atmosphere and a heavy shower of rain, all conspired ... — Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... engine room there are six steam pumps, two of them bilge pumps, worked by the main crossheads, for clearing the engine room of water. For pumping out the ballast tanks there are two more, which have their own independent engines. The remaining two are for various ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... mud bank left bare by the tide, which was far out, nearly half a mile. Clouds of sea-gulls were forever rising and settling upon this mud bank; a wrecked and abandoned wharf crawled over it on tottering legs; close in an old sailboat lay canted on her bilge. ... — McTeague • Frank Norris
... a tongue,' said the voice of doom, 'in the starboard sofa-locker; beer under the floor in the bilge. I'll see her round that buoy, if you wouldn't mind beginning.' I obeyed with a bad grace, but the close air and cramped posture must have benumbed my faculties, for I opened the port-side locker, reached down, and grasped a sticky body, which ... — Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... as I caught sight of my sailor-like features reflected in a tar-barrel that stood beside the mast, while a little later I could scarcely repress a sense of gratification as I noticed them reflected again in a bucket of bilge water. ... — Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... Lodgings as not Grand enough for me on the eve of my wedding, and the Vessel of which he was Commander was lying in the Pool, that we should have Beds—at his charges—at the same Tavern; and, indeed, your Seafaring Men, although rough enough, and smelling woundily of tar and bilge-water, are the most Hospitable Creatures breathing; and that makes Me so free with my Money when there is a treat afoot; albeit I can, without Vanity, declare myself Amphibious, for I have seen as much service by Sea as by Land, and have always approved myself a Gentleman ... — The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... stuck down deep in the grease-pot ever since you struck Annapolis!" cried Farley angrily. "I hope you bilge, Darrin; with all my heart I hope you bilge soon. We don't need a mollycoddle like you ... — Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... so gaily such a very little time before. I had exchanged a good prison for a bad one. The smell of oranges, so near to the hold in which they were stored, was overpowering, mixed, as it was, with the horrible ship-smell of decaying water (known as bilge-water) which flopped about at each roll a few feet below me. My hammock was slung in a draught from the main hatchway. People came down the hatchway during the night to fetch coils of rope or tackles. Tired as I was, I slept very badly that first night ... — Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... had been smoked out, to extirpate the vermin overrunning her. At midnight, the larboard watch, to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly as every man waked, he exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed to be heightened by the shaking up the bilge-water, from the ship's rolling. ... — Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Pele-honua-mea 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
... in the middle—so continue the range on each side, until the furnace is completely covered in, leaving a small hole for the flue leading to the chimney behind, leaning towards the side, from which the flue is to be started, to proceed round the bilge of the still, which passage must be ten by four ... — The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... fog-horn bluff was safe enough, where all was weed and weft, And the conger-eels were a-making meals, and the pick of the tackle left Was a binnacle-lid and a leak in the bilge and the chip of a cracked sheerstrake And the corporal's belt and the moke's cool pelt and a portrait of ... — The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... melancholy rendered the merriest of the party silent, and a perfect deluge of rain rendered a retreat into the lower regions a precautionary measure which even the boldest were content to adopt. Below, in addition to the close overpowering odour of cabins without any ventilation, the smell of the bilge-water was sufficient in itself to produce nausea. The dark den called the ladies' cabin, which was by no means clean, was the sleeping abode of twelve people in various stages of discomfort, and ... — The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... "Bilge," he interrupted sharply. "I didn't fetch boundaries back in the Two Capes, did I?" He thrust the offending volume into a crevice of his chair. "Laurel," he added, "what is the outport of ... — Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... intensity. Ypres itself was shelled by the celebrated 420 m.m. Skoda howitzer. The enemy drenched the area with the old lachrymatory gas shells, as well as a new gas he had lately introduced known as "Yellow Cross" or "Mustard" gas. Bilge Trench came in for special attention, and on one day it was estimated that 1,200 heavy shells ... — The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... material, in so small a space as the canoe affords, seems a difficulty almost insurmountable. Still it is effected. I litter down amidships, with my bedding spread on reeds, in so short a compass that my legs keep slipping off and dangling in the bilge-water. The cook and bailsman sit on the first bar, facing me; and behind them, to the stern, one-half the sailors sit in couples; whilst on the first bar behind me are Bombay and one Beluch, and beyond them to the bow, also ... — What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... burnished silver. It would have been cigar-shaped but for the fact that the forward end was drawn out into a long sharp ram, the point of which was on a level with the floor of the hull amidships as it lay upon the table. Two deep bilge-plates, running nearly the whole length of the hull, kept it in an upright position and prevented the blades of the propellers from touching the table. For about half its whole length the upper part of the hull was flattened and formed a deck from which rose three short strong masts, each ... — The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... ain't passin' on it,—but one thing is certain, when a ship's made as many voyages as Lucy has and ain't been home for repairs nigh on to seven years—ain't it?" and he looked at Jane for confirmation—"she gits foul and sometimes a little mite worm-eaten—especially her bilge timbers, unless they're copper-fastened or pretty good stuff. I've been thinkin' for some time that you ain't got Lucy straight, and this last kick-up of hers makes me sure of it. Some timber is growed right and ... — The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... from side to side of the ship. Stringers always consider themselves most important, because they are so long. In the "Dimbula" there were four stringers on each side—one far down by the bottom of the hold, called the bilge stringer; one a little higher up, called the side stringer; one on the floor of the lower deck; and the upper-deck stringers that have ... — McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... however, imagine a small and dirty cabin, into which no one is admitted save by the companion-door and a small sky-light that cannot be opened in rough weather—let them imagine, if they can, the "villanous compound of smells," produced by confined air, the flavour of bilge water, agitated in the hold of the ship, and diffused through every creaking crevice, and pitch, and effluvia of rancid salt meat and broth, and the products of universal sea-sickness, altogether inevitable in such circumstances—let them figure such a confined ... — Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... and his two classes the next morning, one at nine and the other at ten o'clock; in fact, it was nearly eleven when he awoke. His head was splitting with pain, his tongue was furry, and his mouth tasted like bilge-water. He made wry faces, passed his thick tongue around his dry mouth—oh, so damnably dry!—and pressed the palms of his hands to his pounding temples. He craved a drink of cold water, but he was afraid to get out of bed. He felt pathetically weak ... — The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... otherwise effected the usual sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck. The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river beyond the "measured mile"; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a ... — The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte |