"Ebb tide" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 25 May.—Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing. As I knew that the only ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... proud to know that your boy has got the chance to strike a telling blow at the enemies of his native State. That's the way it makes me feel, and, Marcy, we want to get the schooner out as soon as we can, so as to catch the ebb tide to take us down ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... singular and ingenious. At low water, they inclose a large extent of the flat shore with stakes interwoven with boughs of trees, forming a kind of basket-work; which pens or corrales are covered by every flood and left dry by the ebb tide, at which time they generally find abundance of fish. They likewise employ as food a species of sea-weed, called luche, which they form into a kind of loaves or cakes which are greatly esteemed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... eyes, which he can protrude at pleasure right outside the sockets, so as to look in whatever direction he chooses, without even taking the trouble to turn his head to left or right, backward or forward. At ebb tide this singular peripatetic goby literally walks straight out of the water, and promenades the bare beach erect on two legs, in search of small crabs and other stray marine animals left behind by the receding ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... tropics, J. P. Bridger, United States consul on the island of Ratona, was in the city. We had wassail and jubilee and saw the Flatiron building, and missed seeing the Bronxless menagerie by about a couple of nights. And then, at the ebb tide, we were walking up a street ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... and lasted another ten minutes. During this time an opening had been discovered, and the ship was towed towards it, but so strong a current set through it that she was driven fully a quarter of a mile away from the reef. Aided by the boats, the ebb tide carried her nearly two miles away by noon. When the flood made, however, she was once more carried back towards the reef; but in the meantime the first lieutenant had discovered a passage, and a light breeze springing up, it was resolved to attempt it. ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... tempting fumes in their nostrils, they waited, each for the other, to quaff first. And neither did. Finally Rodrigo proposed that they equalize the perils of indulgence. Accordingly each lowered the contents of his flask by three swallows, after which they compared the extent of the ebb tide in ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and, with rhythmic sway of black bodies and dip of many oars, came the barges of the river planters. Right royally came the lords of the wilderness—members of the Council perhaps, and in brave gold-laced attire—dropping down with the ebb tide to the tiny capital in the island marshes. And up the stream came ships from "London Towne," spreading soft white clouds of canvas where sail was never seen before; and carrying past the naked Indian in his tepee ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... north east trend of the Cape. Here the coast is low and sandy, and is of shoal approach. A small clump of mangrove-trees on the beach was the first sign of vegetation that we had seen; and, from the absence of verdure hereabout, is a conspicuous object. The thermometer stood at 89 degrees. The ebb tide then commenced and drifted us out near our last night's anchoring ground, and the evening was spent, without success, in searching for our lost anchor. At sunset a fresh breeze set in from the South-West, and fearing a repetition of our loss, we continued under sail during the night, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... fields toward the river-mouth, a mile away. They followed a path across the wide stretch of pasture, where wild blackberry vines and tall blueberry bushes grew, then through a strip of meadow land, and at last ran out on the bare stretch of sand and weed left by the ebb tide toward the narrow channel cut by the clear water of ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... ebb tide was running with such violence, that although the schooner was going one knot and a half through the water, yet by the land we were evidently going retrograde almost as much, and towards the land withal: but the light air that remained enabled us ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... entrance of the river being at springs twenty feet, any vessel can get in at that time, but, with all these conveniences for traffic, there is none here at present. The water in the river is fresh down to the bar with the ebb tide, and in the rainy season it is fresh at the surface quite outside. In the rainy season, at the full and change of the moon, the Zambesi frequently overflows its banks, making the country for an immense distance one ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... some of the ancients, the skins of seals, even after they had been parted from their bodies, remained in secret sympathy with the sea, and were observed to ruffle when the tide was on the ebb. Another ancient belief, attributed to Aristotle, was that no creature can die except at ebb tide. The belief, if we can trust Pliny, was confirmed by experience, so far as regards human beings, on the coast of France. Philostratus also assures us that at Cadiz dying people never yielded up the ghost while the water was high. A like fancy still lingers ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... attempt to carry out the policies of Lincoln and had gone down in the strife. The Democratic Party had reached the ebb tide of its disastrous fortunes. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... of others also, the law of wise life is, that the maker of the money shall also be the spender of it, and spend it, approximately, all, before he dies; so that his true ambition as an economist should be, to die, not as rich, but as poor, as possible,[88] calculating the ebb tide of possession in true and calm proportion to the ebb tide of life. Which law, checking the wing of accumulative desire in the mid-volley,[89] and leading to peace of possession and fulness of fruition in old age, is also wholesome, in that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... here about 21/2 miles wide. Seven Indians in a Canoe on their way down to trade with the nativs below, encamp with us, those we left at the portage passed us this evening and proceeded on down The ebb tide rose here about 9 Inches, the flood tide must rise here much higher- we made 29 miles to day ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... to write you a nice letter, but it won't come, and the letter must go as it is. Please read into the remaining blank sheet all the feelings and good wishes I should express and do feel, and next time I write you, may it not be in the ebb tide, at ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... and bootless job to attempt warping a ship for miles against a head-beating sea," returned the first lieutenant; "but the land-breeze yet flutters aloft, and if our light sails would draw, with the aid of this ebb tide we might be able to ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Louis Philippe, and in England, during Victoria’s youth, taste reached an ebb tide; in neither of those countries, however, did the general standard fall so low as here. It was owing to the savoir faire of one man that Newporters and New York first saw at home what they had admired abroad,—liveried servants in sufficient ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... advanced between the breakers, with a favorable wind, so that we passed the boat on our starboard, within pistol-shot. We made signs to her to return on board, but she could not accomplish it; the ebb tide carried her with such rapidity that in a few minutes we had lost sight of her amidst the tremendous breakers that surrounded us. It was near nightfall, the wind began to give way, and the water was so low with the ebb, that we struck six or seven times with violence: ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... designate the danger. I did not hesitate—I loved Mr Turnbull, and my love and my feelings of resentment were equally potent. I seized the bight of the rope, twisted it round my arm, and plunged in after, recollecting it was ebb tide: fortunate for Mr Turnbull it was that he had accidentally put the question. I sank under the ice, and pushed down the stream, and in a few seconds felt myself grappled by him I sought, and at almost the same time, the rope hauling in from above. As soon as they found there ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sea breeze and the strong ebb tide, which together kicked up a nasty sea, to bring me to grief. But I was on my mettle, and never in all my life did I sail a boat better than on that day. I was keyed up to concert pitch, my brain was working smoothly and quickly, my hands never fumbled once, and ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... It was ebb tide, and as they gained the opposite side of the narrow island and came out upon the long reaches of white sand, the wild delight of the boys was unrestrained. They were in a new world. Even the trees ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... the fog should lift, ebb tide would only duplicate Roger's predicament of the morning. Toward four he saw that the mist was gradually growing lighter; saw water visible fifty feet from the island. Presently a breeze sprang into being, the most welcome wind Roger had ever known. Before it ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... inclined we may inspect the old Spanish grants in the Surveyor-General's office. Those of us whose tastes are modern and literary may find our account in identifying some of the places in R.L. Stevenson's "Ebb Tide," and it will go hard with us if we do not also meet a few of his characters amid the cosmopolitan crowd in the streets or on the wharves. At night we may visit China without the trouble of a voyage, and perambulate a city of 25,000 Celestials under the ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... his strength to ebb tide, and then it was seen that the tide was running out. As he lay in the sick chamber a minister called, whose ministry had touched large numbers of the men in the railroad of which the sick man was head, and in the ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... we thought, some balks of timber, floating away on the ebb tide over the outside of Broken Rocks, two of us shoved a small boat down the beach. Our flotsam was a trick of the fading light on the sea, just where Broken Rocks raised the swell a little; but in the exquisite, the almost menacing, ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... about now, but at the time I was in a motor boat that had left Mahommerah to take me for a run and it had broken down and seemed unlikely to start again in spite of all the coxswain's efforts. Consequently we were drifting about on the stream and likely to be swept down by the ebb tide. We were unfortunately on the far side of the river from Abadan, and consequently our plight would not be observed from the works. The situation was not a pleasant one because we stood a very good chance of being run down ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... expected to see him waiting for us when we landed in England. The day passed quietly. No one was allowed ashore. The ship's gig went down to see some of the other ships of the White Star fleet and we got some of our belated mail. On Saturday we were to sail with the ebb tide. All the transports had come in and there was assembled in Gaspe Basin the greatest Armada that ever set sail for British shores. We were going in this great Armada to assist the Mother Country to maintain the Pax Britannicum. There were over twenty-five ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... cold and very dark, and there was some ice afloat in small masses, amidst which my boat, turning with no guidance, moved on the full of the ebb tide toward the great river. For about two hundred yards I drifted, lying flat on my back. At the outlet of the creek was a sudden turn where the current almost fetched me ashore on the south bank. There from the slip nearly overhead, as the boat whirled around, I heard a sentinel call ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... so. It's an important picture. Really, Kelly, it's great stuff—a still, turquoise-tinted pool among wet rocks; ebb tide; a corking little mermaid caught in a pool left by the receding waves—all tones and subtle values," ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... on both sides had joined the fray. But the big Minnesota still remained, though aground and apparently at the mercy of the Merrimac. The great draught of the Merrimac and the setting in of the ebb tide, however, made the Confederates draw off ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... water-front is protected by a continuous bank, sufficiently high and strong in all of its parts to resist the action of the highest tides and the strongest waves to which it will be subjected. As it is always open to inspection, at each ebb tide, and can always be approached for repair, it will be easy to keep it in good condition; and, if properly attended to, it will become more solid and ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... came down to us, and as the time went by, and the ebb tide set in, the hum strengthened into a long roar of voices, that broke out into a yelling laugh now and then, as some word of scorn went round. For they thought our Norsemen ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... to every feeling of womanly delicacy you will accept my statement without question. I soon established myself under my sunshade and had for some time been gazing out dreamily over the sea, when he approached, walking close to the edge of the water—it was ebb tide. I assure you the wet sand actually brightened about his feet! As he approached me he lifted his hat, saying, "Miss Dement, may I sit with you?—or will you ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... respond now as they once did to the sharks and the pirates, the planters, and all the rollicking high spirits of that splendid book. Then there is Dana's "Two Years before the Mast." I should find room also for Stevenson's "Wrecker" and "Ebb Tide." Clark Russell deserves a whole shelf for himself, but anyhow you could not miss out "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Marryat, of course, must be represented, and I should pick "Midshipman Easy" and "Peter Simple" ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thirty-nine years old. This in six volumes carried the history to 1858 in an interesting, accurate, and impartial narrative. Four of the five chapters of the first volume are entitled "The Material Condition of England in 1815," "Society in England," "Opinion in 1815," "The Last of the Ebb Tide," and they are masterly in their description and relation. During the Napoleonic wars business was good. The development of English manufactures, due largely to the introduction of steam as a motive power, was marked. "Twenty years of war," he wrote, "had ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... for the burial of the almost innumerable dead, a task which, gigantic as it was, was made light by the work of hundreds of thousands of willing hands. Those of the invaders who had fallen in London itself were taken down the Thames on the ebb tide in fleets of lighters, towed by steamers, and were buried at sea. Happily it was midwinter, and the temperature remained some degrees below freezing point, and so the great city was saved from what in summer would infallibly ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... o'clock in the morning, we anchored in fifteen fathom, the shoal bearing N.N.W.1/2 W. at the distance of about half a mile. At noon, we weighed with a light breeze at N.E. and worked with the ebb tide till two; but finding the water shoal, we anchored again in six fathom and a half, at about the distance of half a mile from the south side of the shoal; the Asses' Ears then bearing N.W. by W. distant four leagues, and the south point of the entrance of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the supreme satisfaction of hearing the clang of the electric bell in the engine-room as he put the telegraph lever successively to "Stand By," and "Slow Ahead." Gradually the ship crept north, gaining way as the engines increased their stroke and the full body of the ebb tide made its volume felt. Round swung the Kansas to the west, just as the sun cleared the highest peak of the unknown mountains. Courtenay had not forgotten his bearings. Although he had men using the lead constantly, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the beach, and there held speech with the shipmaster, who, as it chanced, being a man of Wales, could make shift to understand the Gaelic tongue, and from him she learned that the ship was to leave at the ebb tide for England. ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... while they are running in at the other, causing a whirlpool which would engulf a large boat and greatly endanger even a small vessel. Of course it was out of the question to attempt the passage of such a vortex in canoes, except at half flood or half ebb tide, at which periods the waters became quiet. On arriving at the mouth of the gulf, the travellers found the tide out and the entrance to it curling and rolling in massive volumes, as if all the evil water-spirits of the north were holding their orgies there. Oostesimow and Ma-Istequan, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... to prop him, whose bright eyes Burned steadily, as fire when the wind dies. Great in the girth was he, but not so tall By a full hand as many whom the wall Showed like gaunt channel-posts by an ebb tide Left stranded in a world of ooze. Beside His knees she kneeled, and to his wounded feet Applied her balms; but he, from his low seat Against the wall, leaned out and in her ear Whispered, but so that no one else could hear, "Other than my wounds are there for thy pains, Lady, and ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the signal ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... fishing, in which he condemned them, and I defended. Pushed by his arguments, at length I said, "for I went a-fishing myself sometimes with a boat on the Acushnet; yes, and barely escaped once being carried out to sea by the ebb tide," I said, "My fishing is not a reckless destruction of life; somebody must take fish, and bring them to us for food, and those I catch come to my table." "Now," said he, "that is as if you said to your butcher, You have to slay a certain number of cattle, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... took them all by surprise, and they were so astonished, that he had to repeat the call before they fully understood what was meant. Then they immediately gave three long and hearty cheers. The beach is covered with a soft blue mud. It being ebb tide, I could see some distance; found it would be impossible for me to take the horses along it; I therefore kept them where I had halted them, and allowed half the party to come on to the beach and gratify themselves by a sight of the sea, while the other ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... September, we got sight of the Deccan coast near Dabul on the 2d October, where we found great hindrance to our navigation, till we learnt by experience to anchor during the ebb tide, and continue our course with the tide of flood. Continuing this procedure, we anchored in the evening of the 14th, two and a half miles short of the bar of Surat; when presently a fleet of fourteen frigates or barks came to anchor near us, which we discovered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... their clothing and, having climbed to the highest point within easy reach, now stood interestedly watching the slow approach of the ship, her progress under the impulse of the gentle breeze being greatly retarded by the ebb tide. Speculation was rife among the little group of boys upon the question of the ship's identity, some maintaining that she must necessarily be a Plymouther, otherwise what was she doing there, while others, for no very clearly denned reason, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... no small part of Christian wisdom and prudence to recognise this fact, both in order that it may prevent us from becoming unduly doubtful of ourselves when the ebb tide sets in on our souls, and also in order that we may lay to heart this other truth, that because these moods and changes of aspect and of vigour will come to us, therefore the law of life must be effort, and the duty of every ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... commenced our endeavours to construct a canoe: our first essays were unsuccessful, but by Saturday night we had a bark one completed, which we hoped would answer our purpose; though I think if the natives saw it they would ridicule our rude attempts. This morning, the ebb tide answering, we commenced transporting our luggage, and in three hours every thing was safe over. A very serious misfortune however occurred in swimming the horses across: two of them were seized with the ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... tips of fragile corals to the ooze on the edge of the beach sand there is seething life. Exposed by the ebb tide, the sun-caressed slime glitters and shimmers, so that if the observer is content to stand still for a few moments he shall see myriads of obscure activities, graceful and uncouth, of the existence of which he has not previously dreamt and among ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... usual dazzling glare. A faint perfume from a quaint lilac-colored beach-flower, whose clustering heads dotted the sand like bits of blown spume, took the place of that smell of the sea which the odorless Pacific lacked. A few rocks, half a mile away, lifted themselves above the ebb tide at varying heights as they lay on the trough of the swell, were crested with foam by a striking surge, or cleanly erased in the full sweep of the sea. Beside, and partly upon one of the higher rocks, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... a strong ebb tide, and we rowed late, in order, if possible, to get out of this branch before we stopt for the night. About six o'clock in the evening we entered the southern branch, and very soon after encamped for the night. ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... "bravo!" but wisely refrained. Her eyes were full of tears, though, and her resolution at ebb tide. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... drifting northward on the ebb tide with its sails flapping idly against the spars. It had been a fine morning, and the Captain, a man from Fecamp, where every boy that is born is born a sailor, had been fortunate in working ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... over the land. Stars came out, at first one or two, then by thousands, till the night was full of them. The wounded man dozed and stirred and dozed again. It was plain that the sands of his life were running low. Dinsmore, watching beside him, knew that it was the ebb tide. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... down I observed that a lighter had broken adrift from her moorings, and was sweeping down the river with the ebb tide. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he'll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... to the heavy picket. Here she waited until the backward rush again slackened the chain, then she half drew the iron pin that held the last link. Half drew it! Had the girl been alone, she told herself, she would have given her to the ebb tide. ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... for the ship, but were some time in getting on board on account of a very rapid ebb tide, which set N.E. out ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... dies, if no adoptive parents can be found, the child is placed alive in the arms of the corpse and buried together with it" (125. II. 589). Of the Banians of Bombay, Niebuhr tells us that children under eighteen months old are buried when the mother dies, the corpse of the latter being burned at ebb tide on the shore of the sea, so that the next tide may wash away the ashes (125. II. 581). In certain parts of Borneo: "If a mother died in childbirth, it was the former practice to strap the living babe to its dead mother, and bury them both, together. 'Why should ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to the Emperor the conversation which he had with you this morning. His Majesty will proceed on board your ship with the ebb tide to-morrow morning, between ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... As he had received no reply at 9 o'clock that evening, he decided, in view of the infectious character of the disease of which the East Indian had died, that the cremation of the body should take place that very night, beneath the cliff, on the beach, at ebb tide. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... shining, slippery, red gash, twisting hither and thither through stretches of red-brown, sun-cracked flats, whitened here and there with deposited salt. Where the creek joined the Tantramar, its parent stream, the abyss of coppery and gleaming ooze revealed at ebb tide made a picture never to be forgotten; for the tidal Tantramar does not conform to conventional ideas of ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the Saucy Sally shipped some shingle ballast, got under weigh on the first of the ebb tide, and safely threading her way past the shallows and through the narrow channels of the harbor, emerged into the open sea, and turned her ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... yards, and every bullet hit us somewhere, either in the hull or aloft. Then they took to their oars again, and I saw that unless we could knock some of them over she—and those in the second boat as well—would be aboard of us in a few minutes, for there was now but little wind and the strength of the ebb tide was ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... Dexter. "When a man vanishes in that sudden way his body is generally found in a clump of blackberry bushes, months afterwards, or left somewhere on the flats by an ebb tide." ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had been fortunate for Wolfe. Two deserters came from the camp of Bougainville with intelligence that, at ebb tide on the next night, he was to send down a convoy of provisions to Montcalm. The necessities of the camp at Beauport, and the difficulties of transportation by land, had before compelled the French to resort ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... opposite each other, namely, the two small ones; for to the westward of these there is a large one which is not to be regarded. Having the capes thus opposite each other, you are in the middle of the channel and by the first buoy. The current runs outside along the shore, east and west, to wit: the ebb tide westerly, and the flood easterly, and also very strong. The ebb runs until it is half flood. There are still two other channels, the old one which is the middle one, and the Spanish Channel stretching to the east. We had ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... four in the morning, we got under way with the ebb tide; and there being a dead calm, the boats were sent ahead to tow the ships. At ten the wind springing up from the S.E. by S., and the tide having turned, we were again obliged to drop anchor in seven fathoms; the Three Needle Rocks bearing S. 1/2 E.; and the ostrog N. 1/2 E., at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... with the love of brothers so plain between us it needed not a word. Our souls went out to one another in stark good faith; never before had I had anything but a guarded watchfulness for any fellow-man. Still I see him, upon that wild desolate beach of the ebb tide, I see him leaning against the shelly buttress of a groin, looking down at the poor drowned sailor whose body we presently found. For we found a newly drowned man who had just chanced to miss this great dawn ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... the reply. "All I'm tryin' to do is keep her afore it. If this no'theast wind would hold, we'd be all right, but it's dyin' fast. And the tide must be at flood, if not startin' to go out. With no wind, and no anchor, and the kind of ebb tide there'll be pretty soon—well, if we don't drift out to sea we'll be lucky. . . . Pump! pump! you son of a roustabout. If I hear you stoppin' for a second I'll come ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... midnight and the ebb tide set in. The good wind was still blowing down the river. Two lanterns went aloft in the rigging of the Sutherland, and the signal for one of the great adventures of history was given. All the troops had gone into boats earlier ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... activity again. Bill Blunt came down from the village, leading the crew with great importance, for he was going to a job that would call forth all his exhaustive knowledge of the sailor's craft. Jerry Rolfe scouted for boats, and by half-ebb tide the Barang's wet ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... been swept by an unusual current over thirty miles in the course of twelve hours, an event altogether unlooked for, and which would have baffled the skill of the most experienced navigator; our chart, upon examination, also proving to be incorrect. Luckily it was ebb tide when she went on, and after getting out all the boats, and lightening the ship by throwing overboard shot and starting water, she was got off, after having been aground about ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... phenomenon which has in latter times often occurred at Callao, and which, in 1841, I had myself the opportunity of observing. About two in the morning the sea flowed from the shore with greater force than in the strongest ebb; the ships farthest out were left dry, which is never the case in an ebb tide. The alarm of the inhabitants was great when the sea rushed instantly back with increased force. Nothing could withstand its fury. Meanwhile there was no commotion of the earth, nor ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... rose and moved to the secretary, where he got a fresh cheroot, and lighted it with slightly trembling fingers. He grumbled inarticulately, remembering his own exploits in the carrying of sail and record runs under the bluff bows of the Honorable John Company itself. The ebb tide, he thought, returning to William's figure and its amplification by himself. So much that had been good sweeping out to sea never to ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with her feet. She stood upright. At the sound of Neal's voice all her fears vanished. She could see him now. He was stumbling down over the slippery stones which the ebb tide left bare. He reached ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... said the captain. "You see I'd leave with the ebb tide, and get out into the bay. Then I'd anchor an wait till the next ebb, an so on. Bless your hearts, ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... very quickly. One day Jacky Hart died—drifted out with the ebb tide, holding Frances's hand. She had loved the patient, sweet-souled little creature and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... that these accidents occur in the night-time, in very hazy weather, or at ebb tide. In the latter case it is necessary for boats to be taken in carts over the sands down to low-water mark, before any assistance can ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... moonlight night at ebb tide the crowd of soldiers crept into the cavern and lashed two long ladders together, and began to climb up the precipice. But a strong arm seized the ladders from above, and flung them back on the granite floor of the cave. Standing ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a black patch over the place where his right eye should have been, while his left arm was partially crippled; and his crew consisted of a mite of a boy whose activity and intelligence could scarcely make up for his want of size and strength. The ebb tide, too, was making strong out of Portsmouth Harbour, and a fresh breeze was blowing in, creating a tumbling, bubbling sea at the mouth; and vessels and boats of all sizes and rigs were dashing here and there, madly and without purpose it seemed to me, but ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood;—and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the 24th, we steered out of Port Bowen by the northern passage, as we had gone in. The wind was from the westward; but so light, that when the ebb tide made from the north-west at ten o'clock, it was necessary to drop the kedge anchor for a time. In the evening we came to, in 10 fathoms fine grey sand, one mile and a half from the main; being sheltered between N. ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... went out the boats were all high and dry. At last the day dawned bright and fair, enabling them to see what had happened, and when the tide once more returned, they got the canoes out of the trap. They now proceeded with the ebb tide, stopping with the beginning of the flood, constantly on the lookout for the Spanish settlements, and not till the 28th, when they saw before them such a commotion of waters that their small craft would be instantly engulfed, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... three adventurers dropping down the Thames with the first of the ebb tide, and a slight breeze from the south-west; Mabberly and Jackman in the very small cabin looking after stores, guns, rods, etcetera; Barret anxiously scanning the columns of a newspaper; Quin and the ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a different kind takes place down the river towards the sea. These birds are recruited from the ranks of the birds that stay, with some foreign winter visitors also. They pass down the river feeding on the mud and among the stones at ebb tide. Among those I have seen are flocks of starlings and scattered birds, mainly redwings, thrushes, blackbirds, and occasionally robins. Sandpipers also migrate up the Thames in spring, and ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... night was that! Down came the snow thicker than ever, the fierce wind howled and shrieked through the rigging, and when the ebb tide made, the ice in huge masses came down, crashing with fearful force against the sides of the frigate, mass rising above mass, till it seemed as if it were about to entomb her in a frozen mountain. The science and experience of the oldest officers were set at ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... impenetrable forest; on the other, Charnisay's fleet. On the night of June 12th, La Tour and his wife slipped from a little sally port in the dark, ran along the shore, and, evading spies, succeeded in rowing out to the store ship. Ebb tide carried them far from the four men-of-war anchored fast in front of the abandoned fort. Then sails out, the store ship fled for Boston, where La Tour and ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... burning. On my right hand was the outer telegraph building. When they see us they telegraph to another place, from which they telegraph all over San Francisco. When we were going in there was a strong ebb tide. We arrived at the wharf a little after five o'clock. The first thing which I did was to look for my father. Him I ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... can get on with Mrs. Peake you deserve considerable praise, lad. Not but what she is a good enough woman, and with a kindly heart; but ever since little Joe went out on the ebb tide and never came back again she seems to have become what I might say, soured on humanity. Abner is meek enough to stand it, but she has had quarrels with many people in the village. Still, who knows but what ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... and it seemed to thee that it was slow in emptying a wonder befell, which I should not have believed possible: the other end of the horn lay in the sea, which thou sawest not; but when thou shalt go to the sea, thou shalt see how much thou hast drunk out of it. And that men now call the ebb tide." ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... certain that he could reach the shore; but he considered it would be better to get within hail of the brig, some distance to the southward of him, and the most difficult task of the two, as the ebb tide was now running, which, although it carried him towards the land, set to the northward; and to gain the object of his choice would require much greater exertion. Here, again, are Brock's reflections:—'If I gained the shore, could I get out of the surf, which at this ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... of day, sailing along very fast with a strong and steady breeze from the east, although they were in danger of being swamped, as the sea broke over the boat repeatedly. At two o'clock p.m. they were abreast of Port Philip Heads; but they found a strong ebb tide, with such a ripple and broken water that they did not consider it prudent to run over it. They therefore put the boat's head to windward and waited for four hours, when they saw a cutter bearing down on them, which proved to be 'The Sisters', Captain Mulholland, who took the boat in tow and landed ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... As soon as the ebb tide made in our favour, we weighed, and, with a light breeze, between W.S.W., and S.S.W., plied down the river, till the flood obliged us to anchor again. At length, about one o'clock next morning, a fresh breeze sprung up at W., with which we got under sail, and, at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... her great harm, but we were not disabling her. An hour passed and the sun drew on to setting. The Roanoke turned and went back under the guns of Old Point, but the Saint Lawrence remained to thunder at the turtle's iron shell. The Merrimac was most unhandy, and on the ebb tide there would be shoals enough between us and a berth for the night.... The Minnesota could not get away, at dawn she would be yet aground, and we would then take her for our prize. 'Stay till dusk, and the blessed old iron box will ground ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... John Silver and Billy Bones and Alan Breck, whom every privately shriven rascal of us simply must honor and revere as giants of courage, cunning and controlled, conscience, Stevenson turned from singles and pairs, and in "The Ebb Tide," drove, by turns, tandem and abreast, a four-in-hand of scoundrels so buoyant, natural, strong, and yet each so totally unlike the others, that every honest novel reader may well be excused for shedding tears when he reflects that the marvelous hand and heart that ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... position by buoys at the top and by weights at the bottom; the buoys are attached by cords twelve or fifteen feet long, which allow the net to sink out of the reach of the keels of passing vessels. The net is thrown out on the ebb tide, stretching nearly across the river, and drifts down and then back on the flood, the fish being snared behind the gills in their efforts to pass through the meshes. I envy fishermen their intimate acquaintance with the river. They know it by night as well as by day, and learn all its moods ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... addition to the number of our crew. It was about an hour after midnight, when the man who had the watch on deck was comfortably seated on a coil of rope beneath the main deck awning, and probably dozing, while sheltered from a heavy and protracted shower of rain. The night was dark and gloomy; the ebb tide made a moaning, monotonous noise under the bows, and rushed swiftly by the sides of the vessel, leaving a broad wake astern. The sailor was roused from his comfortable position by a sound resembling the cry of a person ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper |
