"Punt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The enemy's next high punt found him rock-like in steadiness. And rock-like he tossed high over his shoulders the tow-headed Welshman rushing joyously at him, and delivered his ball far down the line safe into touch. But after his kick he was observed ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... curtain on me, see. I's workin' fer Brady then. An' when I says the Honorable Milt has white wings folded acrost his back I says it sincere, believe me. Him 'n' me went fishin' together in the same punt ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... he had done nothing of the sort. Indeed, the very idea that 'Pater' Winton (and a boy is not called 'Pater' by companions for his frivolity) would make a shot at anything was beyond belief. But he replied, 'Yes,' and all the while worked with his right heel as though he were heeling a ball at punt-about. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... had all kinds of boats, small and great, from the four-oared punt up to the ten-oared galley, some of wood and bark, others of the boat-shaped, blue mussel shells. Our greatest pride, the large yacht—a great, mended trough, with one mast and a deck, that was constantly ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... "young Hill has arranged for me to have the stable for our practice, for old Hill himself was rather against it, and as he has a prejudice against St. Amory fellows generally, but especially when they're of the Junior School—some of your tribe scuttled his punt for him on the moat, didn't you?—I thought you would not mind humouring the man's amiabilities. The Coon and he talk rot—sporting rot—and it would only bore ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... fastidious angler, and managed to be a week in discovering the right place to fish in—always, it is unnecessary to say, under Alicia's guidance. We went up the stream and down the stream, on one side. We crossed the bridge, and went up the stream and down the stream on the other. We got into a punt, and went up the stream (with great difficulty), and down the stream (with great ease). We landed on a little island, and walked all round it, and inspected the stream attentively from a central point of view. We found the island damp, and went back to the bank, and up the stream, and ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... mosquito, we motored on towards Brandenburg, along the chain of lakes formed by the Havel. It was like heaven after the Lutzowstrasse. And at four o'clock we stopped at a Gasthaus in the pinewoods and had coffee and wild strawberries, and Herr von Inster paddled me out on the Havel in an old punt we found moored ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... gravitation Would prevent your vicious current from contaminating me! With your hedonists who grovel on a cushion with a novel (Which is sure to sap the morals and the intellect to stunt), And the spectacle nefarious of your idle, gay Lotharios Who pursue a mild flirtation in a misdirected punt!" ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... that in clear weather it may be seen sixty Dutch miles off at sea.' His illustration of the 'Piek-Bergh op het Eilant Teneriffe' shows an almost perpendicular tower of natural masonry rising from a low sow-back whose end is the 'Punt Tenago' (Anaga Point). The 'considerable merchants and persons of credit,' whose ascent furnished material for the Royal Society, set out from Orotava. 'In the ascent of one mile some of our Company grew very faint and sick, disorder'd by Fluxes, Vomitings, and Aguish ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... huddled at their desks in the Modern class-room, biting their pens, groaning over their sums, and gazing dismally from the window all at the same time, they had the unspeakable anguish of beholding Wally, D'Arcy, Ashby, and Fisher minor, with their ball, having a ding-dong game of punt-about on the sacred Modern grass, under ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... that morning, had seen a human being in the water nearing the point where she herself so nearly lost her life. Without a moment's hesitation she made after him, and was fortunate enough to attract the attention of two men in a punt, who followed her. She came up just in time, and with their help Michael was saved. He was senseless, but after a few hours he recovered, and asked his wife, who was standing by his ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... I took a holiday on the river, starting down with my punt from Taplow Court, and bringing her down to Dockett Eddy, of which I now took possession, the little house ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... placed a barrel of gunpowder close to the captain's hut, intending to blow it up, but were dissuaded from doing this by one of their number. After wandering about the island for some time they went up one of the lagoons on a punt they had made, and were never heard ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... from the Divisional Commander that he wanted to see me at once at the broken bridge at Missy, a mile off through long wet grass in pitch darkness. It was not good "going," but we got there eventually and crossed the river, sliding down steep slippery banks into a punt, ferried across, and up the other side. Cuthbert eventually turned up from somewhere, and we had a pow-wow in the dark, resulting in fresh orders being given for the ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... if ever there was one! But I tell you, Count, sentiment gets rubbed off pretty quick when you come to a bankrupt Marquis writing three ill-spelled sheets to assure me of the disinterested affection inspired by my photograph, or a divorced Duke offering to read Tennyson to me if I'll hire a punt!" ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... know, thou lov'st retired ground! Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, deg. deg.74 Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75 As the punt's rope chops round; And leaning backward in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers And thine eyes resting ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... the promise Plunger had made—that he should punt the raft back. His only desire was that they should put the river between them and their pursuers as quickly as possible. In less than a moment he had undone the rope which bound the raft to the bank, and leapt ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... the residents in a body, and made them unship a five-barred gate. There were plenty of cushions in the boat, and he wasted no time in getting others. The helpers beaten up by the doctor worked with a will; and one ran off in advance and seized upon a punt belonging to the Campers Out, and set it at the end of the house-boat, towards the shore. Over this they bore Leland, and laid him on the cushions which the doctor had arranged upon the gate. Then they carried him into the 'Swan' and got him to ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... tumbling off if you don't look out—for hay is elastic as well as soft—you don't easily beat a ride on a hay-waggon for pleasure. But as I say, I'd rather put to sea on the duck-pond, though the best craft I could borrow was the pigstye-door, and a pole to punt with, and the village boys jeering when I got aground, which was most of the time—besides the duck-pond never having a wave on it worth the name, punt as you would, and so shallow you could not have got drowned in it to ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a river, in which we have a bathing-place. One morning when I was going to bathe I thought I would take Ruffle with me, as it would be a nice run for her, and I could leave her with my maid in the punt whilst I was in the water. She did not seem in the least afraid until I was in the water, and then she began to mew. She would not stay in the maid's lap, but ran to the side of the punt mewing piteously. I came to the ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... "Seems ter me I could ha' gone an' been back by now. An' hi guy! there's four sacks o' flour to take acrost the river to Tim Lakeby—an' I kyan't do it by meself—Ben knows that. Takes two' on us ter handle thet punt 'ith the river runnin' ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... that once did much service, and still does a little, is the white man's flat-bottomed boat, which could be {27} paddled, rowed, or sailed, according to build and circumstances. The common punt is the best known form of it; the dory by far the handiest all round; the cargo barge the biggest; and the old-fashioned 'bateau' the most characteristically Canadian. The modern 'bateau' is to be found only among ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... [EN46] Pun, or Punt, the region on both sides of the Red Seamouth, including El-Yemen and Cape Guardafui, was made holy by the birth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Dr. Brugsch-Bey shows that one of the titles of the he-god was Bass, the cat or the leopard (whence our "Puss"); whilst his wife, Bast ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... brilliant creations which ever left the hands of an Egyptian architect." The largest and most beautifully executed obelisk; still standing at Karnak, bears her name. On the walls of her unique and beautiful temple at Dayr el Baharee, we see a naval expedition sent to explore the unknown land of Punt, the Somali country on the East coast of Africa near Cape Guardafui 600 years before the fleets of Solomon, and returning laden with foreign woods, rare trees, gums, perfumes and strange beasts. Here we have 1. Queen Hatasu's ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... chaps as one would wish to see—regular bricks, afraid of nothing (except of doing anything that would be thought sneaking or shabby), ready to dare anything—to attack a seventy-four single-handed in a punt or a bumboat if need be; nevertheless, I've met boys, and a good many of them too, who would beat all the monkeys in Africa at sneaking and deceiving. I remember one rascal, who went to the same school with me, who was a wonderfully plausible deceiver. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... channel. The Molimo is the steersman at the helm, the Mokadamo is the head canoe- man, and he stands erect on the bows with a long pole in his hands, and directs the steersman where to go, aiding the rudder, if necessary, with his pole. The others preferred to stand and punt our boat, rather than row with our long oars, being able to shove her ahead faster than they could pull her. They are accustomed to short paddles. Our Mokadamo was affected with moon-blindness, and could not see at all at night. His comrades then led him about, and handed ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... sight than the gray, silent form of a pike, moving and motionless in the shallow water, a shadow more tangible than himself thrown by a jack-light on the mottled yellow rocks and sands of the bottom. A passing breath of wind, even the slightest motion of the punt, breaks every shadow and indentation into myriad fleeting ripples and waves of light, transforming the slender, silent fish into a sheaf of wriggling glimmers. With the stilling of the surface, the waiting pike and all the shadows and lights of the bottom ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... man. 'I and Clarke went on shore about an hour ago in the punt, just to get a nip of brandy this cold night, as you won't let us break bulk on board. When we returned, Tom went up the side first, was nabbed, and I had hardly time, upon hearing him sing out, to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... Macdonell's energies to the fullest test. The only craft available were bark canoes, and these would be too fragile for the heavy cargoes that must be borne. Stouter boats must be built. Macdonell devised a sort of punt or flat-bottomed boat, such as he had formerly seen in the colony of New York. Four of these clumsy craft were constructed, but only with great difficulty, and after much trouble with the workmen. Inefficiency, as well as misconduct, on the part of the ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... bales of tobacco, while the crew, soaked to the skin, held on for dear life. Tonet grew pale, and clenched his teeth. He didn't mind bad weather in the right boat; but it was fool business leaving shelter in that God-forsaken punt. But the Rector, pot-bellied numskull that he was, would not listen to reason! The driveling idiot seemed to grow fat on getting people into trouble! And in fact, Pascualo's moon-face was glowing in the excitement of this battle ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... it came about that Herbert Courtland found himself daily admiring the cleverness of Phyllis Ayrton when she had the punt pole in her hands. He also admired the gradual tinting of her fair face, through the becoming exertion of taking the punt up the lovely backwater or on to the placid reaches beyond. Sometimes the punt contained three or four of the party in addition to Herbert, but twice he was alone with ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... This punt, as shown in Fig. 1, is built 15 ft. long, about 20 in. deep and 4 ft. wide. The ends are cut sloping for about 20 in. back and under. The sides are each made up from boards held together with battens ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... work him into one of his famous passions. But they dared not so much as nudge him; he is too earnest, too vigorous. He lashed them off with his tongue. And when a dinghy capsized through trying to sail off the wind in a squall, it was the old man who was quickest at the water's edge with a punt, and first on the spot, although a four-oared boat ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... was still "haunting" Mona, and shortly was able to tell the other three that Fort had called, taking the surgeon out in a machine large enough to hold them both. They proceeded to a near-by park, where a game of aerial punt-ball was already in progress. [Footnote: The game is described more or less completely in ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... soon as he had attracted her attention he ceased to shout, and devoted all his attention to reaching her quickly. Nevertheless, the salt water was within a few feet of her when he drove his pole into the bottom, and brought the punt to a momentary standstill. She looked down at ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was worthy of its background. Much was required of him in a world where a high fantastical acrobatic mountebankery was almost a matter of ceremony, where riders stand on their heads in passing their rivals and cooks punt a casserole over their heads to the wall behind by way of giving notice: much was required of him and he proved worthy. He saw himself, I suppose, as a great imaginative master of fiction sees a hero. His attitude cannot be called ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... of West Creek village, New Jersey, a boat- builder and an expert shooter of wild-fowl, about the year 1836, conceived the idea of constructing for his own use a low-decked boat, or gunning-punt, in which, when its deck was covered with sedge, he could secrete himself from the wild-fowl while gunning in Barnegat and ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... nice of you! I should hate to suggest that you were not taking any risks. Of course, a punt moored ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... widespread insatiable maw of oblivion—if I had not dragged them out, as it were, by the very locks, just as the monster's adamantine fangs were closing upon them for ever! And here have I, as before observed, carefully collected, collated, and arranged them, scrip and scrap, "punt en punt, gat en gat," and commenced in this little work, a history to serve as a foundation on which other historians may hereafter raise a noble superstructure, swelling in process of time, until Knickerbocker's New York ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... broad and comparatively still, some seventy or eighty yards above a furious rapid. At this spot I had built my raft. I now launched it, made my swag fast to the middle, and got on to it myself, keeping in my hand one of the longest blossom stalks, so that I might punt myself across as long as the water was shallow enough to let me do so. I got on pretty well for twenty or thirty yards from the shore, but even in this short space I nearly upset my raft by shifting too rapidly from one side to the other. The water then became ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... above is worse than this. Devil takes care of his own; or they would have broken their necks long ago coming back and forward. We'll let 'em go down to the lake first. They'll go into the trap. It's a lake mostly ice this time of the year. There's an old punt sometimes used by hunters. It'll take them an hour to cross with their horses. We'll let them camp at the lake. We could pot them there, if we had a sheriff worth ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... dropped back to punt. Far and true the ball soared into the Princeton field, and the lithe Freshman had somewhat redeemed himself. But now, for their own part, the sons of Old Nassau found themselves unable to make decisive gains against the Yale defence. Greek met Greek in these early clashes, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... themselves in the watery winding mirror. And near the reedy island, at the shadowy point always haunted by three swans, whom I suspect of having been there ever since the days of Odin-faith, was the usual punt, with its elderly gentlemanly gudgeon-fishers. But far below me, along the dark line of the hedge, was a sight which completed the English character of the scene—a real Gipsy camp. Caravans, tents, waggons, asses, smouldering fires; while among them ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... he couldn't see it. But then poor old Tuppy has never been very hot on the finer shades. He's one of those large, tough, football-playing blokes who lack the more delicate sensibilities, as I've heard Jeeves call them. Excellent at blocking a punt or walking across an opponent's face in cleated boots, but not so good when it comes to understanding the highly-strung female temperament. It simply wouldn't occur to him that a girl might be prepared to give up her life's happiness ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... on Sundays during the summer the Young Guardsman is a conspicuous object. Robed in spotless flannels, with the Brigade Colours round his straw hat and his neck, he may be seen propelling a punt with much perseverance and some accuracy to Boulter's Lock and back. Afterwards he will dine with the comfortable conviction that he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... verses have been read with much pleasure, either at Whitehall or in a punt whilst fishing at Windsor. Their occasion was the setting up in the stocks-market in the City of London of a statue of the king by Sir Robert Viner, a city knight, to whom Charles was very heavily in debt. Sir Robert, having a frugal mind, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... and pretty tale; and then perhaps some graceful girl comes out of the house with a world of hopes and innocent desires in her wide-open eyes; or a tall and limber boy saunters out bare-headed and flannelled, conscious of life and health, and steps down to the punt that lies swinging at its chain—one hears it rattle as it is untied and flung into the prow; and then the dripping pole is plunged and raised, and the punt goes gliding away, through zones of glimmering light and shadow, to the bathing-pool. All that comes into one's mind; one ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Macfarlane had grown tired of waiting for their truant companions, and had taken the first clumsy wherry that presented itself, rowed by an even clumsier Norwegian boatman, whom they had been compelled to engage also, as he would not let his ugly punt out of his sight, for fear some harm might chance to befall it. Thus attended, they were on their way back to the yacht. With a few long, elegant strokes, Errington and Lorimer soon brought their boat alongside, and their friends gladly jumped into it, delighted to be ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... into a standing—a space with a turn-table—of unusual size, which I made my base of operations for exploring. Here was a very considerable number of punt-shaped putts on carriages, and also waggons, such as took the new-mined coal from putt to pit-mouth; and raying out from this open standing, several avenues, some ascending as guggs, some descending as dipples, and the dead here all arranged in groups, the heads of this group pointing up this ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... horse, "I shall take to the water. Thou shalt go thy will this night, and may heaven send thee the luck of thy master." So saying he unbridled him, took off his saddle and let him go, himself got into the punt and pushed out ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... birds around; while high overhead hung, motionless, hawk beyond hawk, buzzard beyond buzzard, kite beyond kite, as far as eye could see. Far off, upon the silver mere, would rise a puff of smoke from a punt, invisible from its flatness and its white paint. Then down the wind came the boom of the great stanchion-gun; and after that sound another sound, louder as it neared; a cry as of all the bells of Cambridge, and all the hounds of Cottesmore; and overhead rushed and whirled the skein of terrified ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... himself. But then he would have told me so, surely. I don't remember to have seen his face in chapel or hall; but then there is such a lot of new faces, and he may not sit near me. However I mean to find him out before long, whoever he may be." With which resolve Tom crossed in the punt into Christ's Church meadow, and strolled college-wards, feeling that he had had a good hard afternoon's exercise, and was much the better for it. He might have satisfied his curiosity at once by simply ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to the landing to see him off, Skipper Zeb, Mrs. Twig and Violet. He sat in the stern of the punt, as he did on the day Toby took him ashore, while Toby rowed him alongside and helped him on deck with his baggage, and then the boys grasped each other's ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... hidden from us. But is not our knowledge of them still incomplete? Are there not many stars still beyond our horizon—lights that are known only to the dwellers in the far south-land, among the spice-trees of Punt ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... stands out against the intense brightness of the western sky; now a tracery of fine trees shades for a time the dazzling light; then suddenly the fiery furnace is revealed again, reflected perhaps in the waters of some stream or amid the reeds and sedges of a mere, where a punt is moored containing anglers in broad wideawake hats. Gradually a dark purple shade steals over the long range of chalk hills; white, clean-looking roads stand out clearly defined miles away on the horizon; the smoke that rises straight up from some ivy-covered homestead half a ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... the appearance of "Teddy," the secretary, and the Indian young gentleman, damp and genial, as they explained, "from the boats." It seemed that "down below" somewhere was a pond with a punt and an island and a toy dinghy. And while they discussed swimming and boating, Mr. Carmine appeared from the direction of the park conversing gravely with the elder son. They had been for a walk and a talk together. There were proposals for a Badminton foursome. Mr. Direck emerged ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... spermaceti whale was seen in the harbour, and some boats from the transports went after it with harpoons; but, from the ignorance of the people in the use of them, the fish escaped unhurt. In a few days afterwards word was received that a punt belonging to Lieutenant Poulden had been pursued by a whale and overset, by which accident young Mr. Ferguson (a midshipman of the Sirius) and two soldiers were unfortunately drowned. The soldiers, with another of their companions, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... alternative? True, she had said that she was coming here because it was so ideally lazy a backwater, but Georgie did not take that seriously. She would soon see what Riseholme was when its life poured down in spate, whirling her punt along with it. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... All at once an old colonel observed the Chevalier, and cried out, 'The devil! Here we've got Chevalier Menars and his good-luck amongst us, and yet we can win nothing, since he has declared neither for the banker nor for the punters. But we can't have it so any longer; he shall at once punt for me.' ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the quay. He climbed over the dredger, which was lying alongside, and dropped from her into a small water-logged punt. In this he ferried himself out to the Tortoise. Priscilla bounded into Brannigan's shop. The sea dogs on the window sills eyed Frank and shook their heads. It was painfully evident that his self-confident tone ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... started, but I suppose it was worth it. I met a lot of pretty girls; but I was not after a pretty girl; I was after her. The river was a lot in my favour, I believe. It so happened that Belvoir's young brother, a Charterhouse boy, whom I knew slightly, nearly ran our punt down one Saturday with his launch. It made a big impression on Gladys, my knowing young Belvoir. You see she had been at school with Belvoir's cousin, so it all worked in. In a way I suppose I was happy ... yes, it's a wonderful thing, a tremendous ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... swallowed their rice, and were ready to seize their poles. All sprang aboard, the Shans and Me Dain grasped the boating-poles, and the craft was soon being driven steadily up stream. For some time Jack watched the boatmen with deep interest. They drove their craft along just as a punt is propelled in England. Each man handled a long stout pole, and, where the water was shallow enough, he set the bottom of his pole in the gravelly bed and urged the boat forward. Where the water was too deep the craft was turned ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... said he, accordingly, "we have had the pond dragged. No Mr. Sly. And the fisherman who keeps the punt assures us that he has not been ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... "Try her with a punt and a concertina after dinner," Lady Cynthia suggested. "After all, I came down here to better my acquaintance with my host. You flirted with me disgracefully when I was a debutante, and have never taken any notice of me since. I hate infidelity in a man. Sir Timothy, I shall devote myself to you. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who drew the wrapper for the first serial issue of "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club." Putney Church is seen in the distance, with its Henry VIII. Chapel, and in the foreground Mr. Pickwick is found dozing in his traditional punt,—that curious box, or coffin-like, affair, which, as a pleasure craft, is apparently indigenous ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... those who would find Venetian character by the waters of Mesopotamia, there are two features in Basra that do undoubtedly bring Venice to mind—the boats and the canals. The bellam is a long, flat-bottomed boat not unlike a punt but narrowing at each end to a point, the stem and stern-post alike ending in a high curved piece suggestive of a gondola. These craft are propelled by two men standing one at each end like gondoliers and punting the boat along by poles. If the ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... on one side, and the trees and shrubs were exceedingly rare; a little below the house the ground sloped rather steeply, and a succession of terraces and flower-beds led down to a miniature lake with a tiny island; here there were some swans and a punt, and the tall trees that bordered the water were the favourite haunt of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tame joy, had replaced Dan's gloomy expression, and one could see that, in a way, he was happy. Getting out his fishing-rod from its enveloping blanket he presently emerged, recrossed the stream, and soon could be seen pushing out into the midst of it, poling an old punt up stream. Anchoring presently in a small cove where the water was deep and cool, he sat in silent watchfulness, occasionally jerking out a perch bass, sometimes a pickerel, but for the most part so still he might have been the occupant of a "painted boat upon a painted" stream. Yet all the ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... belief that incense, which plays so prominent a part in the ritual for conferring vitality upon the dead, is itself replete with animating properties. "Glaser has already shown the anti incense of the Egyptian Punt Reliefs to be an Arabian word, a-a-netc, 'tree-eyes' (Punt und die Suedarabischen Reiche, p. 7), and to refer to the large lumps ... as distinguished from the small round drops, which are supposed to be ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... He did'nt know how many boats there were on the lake-side: they had a boat-house at the Hall, by the water's edge, and therefore he concluded something in it; really did'nt know; might be a boat, might be a punt, might ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... said to her mother. "I see of course that there are a few little whitecaps on the water, but I wouldn't be afraid to row across the lake in our old punt." ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... jovial day with him on the Thames,—fishing in a punt on the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft, though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... the railroads for carrying coals at Newcastle, &c. be constructed with iron handles. These may be made to hold one and a half, or two tons of coals (either of these weights, it is supposed, might be hoisted into a vessel without difficulty), and be all filled and placed on a raft or punt ready at each depot, thirty to sixty in number, according to its importance, awaiting the arrival of the packet steamer. The moment she comes into port, the punt will be alongside, and the whole ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... but my admirable qualities were highly praised, and it was decided that a brilliant fortune awaited me in Rome. After supper there was no talk of play, but giving way to my evil genius I loudly asked for my revenge. I was told that if I would take the bank everyone would punt. I took the bank, lost every sequin I had, and retired, begging the monk to pay what I owed to the landlord, which he promised ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... going down the field to get the quarterback who is receiving the punt Bob and Hugh leaped forward at the same time. They had both had experience in football and it stood them in good stead now. The man went down, both boys ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... all they knew, and while Tom Shanks went to jail his father got off. Afterwards Jones had a remarkable run of bad luck. The young pheasants died about the coops, his own ferret killed his hens, and he lost a fine setter he was training. Then he had an adventure one night in a shooting-punt that ought ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... back retreated for a punt. Fast and far the ball sailed into the scrub field, which proved that the back's feet were not nervous, no matter if his hands and arms had been a ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... in extent, where the green slime reached up to the saddle-flaps. On that day we came to a sluggish stream, bearing the name of "Aptikpangmakthlaingwainkyapaimpangkya" (The Place Where the Pots Were Struck When They Were About to Feast). There a punt was moored, into which we placed our saddles, etc., and paddled across, while the horses swam the almost stagnant water. Saddling up on the other side, we had a journey of thirty miles to make before arriving at a waterhole, where we camped for the second night. I don't know what ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... Punt," one of our artist's best-known prints, was engraved by Rowlandson, and has acquired a good deal of his characteristic drawing in the process; and I may mention briefly here some prints dealing with Cambridge life—"The Hope of the Family," "Admission ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... the more venturesome anglers would tuck up his trousers and walk into the shallow water, so as to be able to cast his bait under the opposite bank, where it was deep. Then an ancient and much battered punt was discovered aground in a field at some distance, and dragged to the pond. One end of the punt had quite rotted away, but by standing at the other, so as to depress it there and lift the open end above the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... river comes in sight. Near its brink an old boat-house may be seen fast crumbling to decay; and on the river itself lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... can punt best." He stepped back, balancing the ball in his right hand, took a long stride forward, swung his right leg in a wide arc, dropped the ball, and sent it sailing down the field toward the distant goal. A murmur of applause took the place of the derisive laugh, and Blair glanced curiously ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ferry-boat arrived. It was a heavy and cumbersome machine, and the ferry-boy was not a good punter. He admitted this frankly, which was creditable of him. But he made no attempt to improve himself; that is, where he was wrong. His method was to arrange the punt before starting in a line with the point towards which he wished to proceed, and then to push hard, without ever looking behind him, until something suddenly stopped him. This was sometimes the bank, sometimes another boat, occasionally ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... an' me put out in the punt t' land at Whoopin' Harbor, with the crew wishin' the poor cook well with their lips, but thinkin', God knows what! in their hearts. An' he was in a wonderful state o' fright. I never seed a man so took by scare afore. For, ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the water, the boat finally touched the shore, and the two detectives debarked and pulled the punt up on the bank. ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... As we drift up the river, eating our lunch, and letting the boat take care of herself, a huge, misshapen thing comes round a low point, emitting horrid groanings and wheezings. It is a steam stern-wheel punt, loaded with mighty logs of black-butt and tallow wood, from fifty feet to seventy feet in length, cut far up the Hastings and the Maria and Wilson Rivers, and destined for the sawmill ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... by kicking the ball after it has been placed on the ground; the Punt, made by kicking the ball as it falls from the hands and before it reaches the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... the chap that slipped into the water this morning. He is a persevering chap, to be sure. He says he is determined to learn to row, and to swim, and to punt, and to fish. And he went down this afternoon, and now he's gone up, and he is dead-beat already; and how he'll get home he can't tell for the life of him. Why, he knows just as much about boating as Juliet there. I'd like to see ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... stokers. The staff and the forward hands, with the exception of the cook, the carpenter and his mate, were on "watch and watch"—that is, four hours on deck and four hours below, or off duty. The carpenter was busy making a light punt, which might prove useful in the navigation of lanes and channels. At 11 a.m. we gave the engines a gentle trial turn astern. Everything worked well after eight months of frozen inactivity, except that the bilge-pump and the discharge proved to be frozen up; ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... from the opposite bank. An athletic aboriginal native, in an attitude that seemed studiedly graceful, was bending to the stout rope, which, attached to either side of the river, served to propel the punt. He had been spearing fish; for his wife, or gin, or queen—for she was born such, and contradicted in her person ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... queer craft, and the girls could now see that it was made for just such work as this. It was a small punt, capable of being rowed or paddled. And to enable it to slide over the ice two strips of iron, for runners, extended along the bottom from stem to stern, just under the lower and outer edges of the boat's sides. In other words it was a combined sled and boat. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... before sunset, offered to show the gentlemen the best pools. "The gentlemen" leaped at the offer more eagerly than ever trout leaped at an artificial fly; for they were profoundly ignorant of the gentle art, except as it is practised on the Thames, seated on a chair in a punt, and ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the book's origin, that the design on the green wrapper in which the monthly parts made their appearance, should have had a purely sporting character, and exhibited Mr. Pickwick sleepily fishing in a punt, and Mr. Winkle shooting at what looks like a cock-sparrow, the whole surrounded by a chaste arabesque of guns, rods, and landing-nets. To Seymour, too, we owe the portrait of Mr. Pickwick, which has impressed ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... to the matter of crossing the harbour, from the Northern Shore to the Quay, in the punt (they two sitting in the cart the while), they had found themselves called upon to pay a penny each for the passage over, which they had enjoyed amazingly. Betty paid both pennies, having the coppers, but she urged John to be quick ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... considerable extent, and bordered by reeds or flags, which form good cover. Possibly the lake may narrow at some part, and if so our host's dispositions are easy; he places his guns on either shore at the "neck," and if there is room he fastens a punt in the water, midway between the guns on land. A second line of guns might, of course, ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... were unnecessary. Mrs. Daintree would have got his story out of him if she thought he was really in need of sympathy, whether he sat in a chair all day or was able to row races in the lake in the gardener's punt. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... lightly on the beach. Here they found the two younger Macleod children, who had come to see the party off. Just as the latter arrived, the youth, Herbert, who had been amusing himself rocking a punt in a creek by the shore, managed to upset the craft and precipitate himself into deep water. The mishap had no more serious result—for the lad was a good swimmer—than to frighten Rose, and deprive her of the anticipated pleasure ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... remember how Leigh Hunt Enraged you once by writing MY DEAR BYRON?) Books have their fates,—as mortals have who punt, And YOURS have entered on an age of iron. Critics there be who think your satire blunt, Your pathos, fudge; such perils must environ Poets who in their time were quite the rage, Though now there's not a soul to ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... the punt struck a submerged sandbank and beached on it. Chips' little body bent on the pole, but except to swivel the punt on its axis it ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... she went on: "It's at Frinton. Friends of mine there keep a punt on Mozewater, and I let them store the sail and things in the tank-room. There's plenty of room. I give them the key because that's more satisfactory. The tank-room isn't wanted at all, you see, while ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... of rickety, wooden stairs pitched downward from the edge of the grassy bank to a wharf at the water's edge—the mere skeleton of a wharf now, outlined only by decaying stringpieces. But here the patched-up punt was moored; and above it, nailed to a dead tree, the sign with its ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... earlier members of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who have left us vivid representations of the potter's wheel employed in the process of man's creation. When the famous Hatshepsut, after the return of her expedition to Punt in the ninth year of her young consort Thothmes III, decided to build her temple at Deir el-Bahari in the necropolis of Western Thebes, she sought to emphasize her claim to the throne of Egypt by recording her own divine origin upon its walls. We have already noted the Egyptians' belief ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... to it, Nona. These conviction chaps, these booming politicians and honours-list chaps, these Bagshaw chaps—you know Bagshaw?—they go like a cannon ball. They go like hell and smash through and stick when they get there. My sort's like the footballs you see down at the school punt-about. Wherever there's a punt I feel it and respond to it. My sort's out to be kicked—" He laughed again. "But I couldn't ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... at my speech, because of that which was in his heart, for he said to me, 'Thou art not rich in perfumes, for all that thou hast is but common incense. As for me I am prince of the land of Punt, and I have perfumes. Only the oil which thou sayedst thou wouldest bring is not common in this isle. But, when thou shalt depart from this place, thou shalt never more see this isle; it ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... old writer, 'by reason of the several multiplications and advantages which it seemingly offered to the unwary punter, that a great many like it so well that they would play at small game rather than give out; and rather than not play at all would punt at six-penny, three-penny, nay, a twopenny bank,—so much did the hope of winning the quinze-et-le-va and the trente-et-le-va ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... ten miles farther. The boat expedition, consisting of three cutters from the Bellevite and one from the Bronx, moved towards the head of the bay. Christy, in the second cutter of the Bellevite, was at least two miles from any other boat, when a punt containing a negro put out ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... forest. We lay down in our boat and hid our heads. It was difficult for us to advance through the undergrowth as the spaces between the bushes were generally very narrow. We could not row, and we had to punt with our oars. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... was very still, and she could hear the clank of the chain as Sidney unmoored the old punt, rarely used except by the gardener to clean the moat when the weeds died down in autumn. The quiet was rendered more remarkable by the suddenness of its advent. All night it had been blowing a wild gale, which dropped at dawn, and from ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... having reached Sapor's winter quarters, was received with gladness; and being ennobled by the grant of a turban, an honour which gives admission to the royal table, and also that of assisting at and delivering one's opinion in the councils of the Persians, went onwards, not with a punt pole or a tar rope, as the proverb is (that is to say, not by any tedious or circuitous path), but with flowing sails into the conduct of state affairs, and stirring up Sapor, as formerly Maharbal roused the sluggish Hannibal, was always telling him that he knew how to conquer, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... would stop where we were while they went to search for the drift. Shortly after they returned and said they had found it, and we must come, which we did, eventually arriving at the junction of two rivers (Vaal and Klip), where we found the Vaal impassable, but a small punt, capable of holding only two passengers at most, by which they said we must cross. I pointed out that it was impossible to get my carriage or horses over by it, and that it was not the punt the General said we were to cross. The escort replied it was Pretorius's punt ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... The prow was held by stay-poles.—The ship was afloat, having been just dragged off the shore, bow forwards. The men were raising the anchor, and holding the prow steady by long punt-poles. The ladder seems to have been a rope-ladder; but the Greek is difficult, and I do not know of any mention of a rope- ladder elsewhere in ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... melodramatic plots; so that Hamlet has to be stimulated by the prejudices of a policeman and Macbeth by the cupidities of a bushranger. Dickens, without the excuse of having to manufacture motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously punt his crew down the stream of his monthly parts by mechanical devices which I leave you to describe, my own memory being quite baffled by the simplest question as to Monks in Oliver Twist, or the long lost parentage of Smike, or the relations between the Dorrit and Clennam families so ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... low before him, and promised to tell of him to Pharaoh, and to bring him ships full of all the treasures of Egypt; but he smiled at my speech, and said, 'Thou hast nothing that I need, for I am Prince of the Land of Punt, and all its perfumes are mine. Moreover, when thou departest, thou shalt never again see this isle, for it ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... th' bartender, said that he cashed in up at Laramie. Wasn't he th' cuss that built that boat out there on th' Arizona desert because he was scared that a flood might come? Th' sun shore warped that punt till it wasn't ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... right and left, gradually slackening his pace until Miss Drewitt's fears for his leg became almost contagious. At the old stone bridge, spanning the river at the bottom of the High Street, he paused, and, resting his arms on the parapet, became intent on a derelict punt. On the subject of sitting in a craft of that description in mid-stream catching fish he discoursed at such length that the girl eyed ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... of the passing woodsman, and craned their necks to watch him from the near-by branches. On every shallow mere and tranquil river-reach the flocks of wild ducks had fed boldly, suffering canoe or punt to come within easy gunshot. In the heavy grass of the wild meadows, or among the long, washing sedges of the lakeside, the red deer had pastured openly in the broad daylight, with tramplings and splashings, and had lifted large bright eyes of unterrified ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... off his bay, but the Recluse was not to be seen, nor was the punt that he used found, nor were there any recent signs of occupation about the exterior of the hut. In due course official search was instituted. We may neglect or be indifferent to a man while he is known to ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... guns to advance across the river, and Ogilvy told me off for that honour. By dint of hard work my right gun was finished by 11 a.m., and I inspanned and went off two hours afterwards. A very steep hill was the only thing to conquer going down, and we successfully crossed the Tugela in a Boer punt—guns, oxen, and my horse. We got the guns up to our new position by 6 p.m., and found ourselves about 4,200 yards from the enemy's trenches, with James's guns on our right. We had a cordial meeting with the Scottish Rifles; they had been a week in their clothes, with no tents or baggage, ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... coamings three hundred feet to the despatching-caisson whence voices boom upward. The light below is obscured to a sound of thunder, as our coach rises on its guides. It enlarges rapidly from a postage-stamp to a playing-card; to a punt and last a pontoon. The two clerks, its crew, do not even look up as it comes into place. The Quebec letters fly under their fingers and leap into the docketed racks, while both captains and Mr. Geary satisfy them selves that the coach is locked home. A clerk passes ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... that day. But what matter? Are Englishmen hedge-gnats, who only take their sport when the sun shines? Is it not, on the contrary, symbolical of our national character, that almost all our field amusements are wintry ones? Our fowling, our hunting, our punt-shooting (pastime for Hymir himself and the frost giants)—our golf and skating,—our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack and grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. We are a stern people, and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... Once more they unlocked the doors, and carried down everything required. She then bade a lad notify the boatwomen go to the dock and punt out two boats. But while all this bustle was going on, they discovered that dowager lady Chia had already arrived at the head of a whole company of people. Li Wan promptly went ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... can take you. It is a flat-bottomed punt, and there is a bridge too for foot-passengers, just opposite my house; and between this and Moleswich, where the stream widens, there is a ferry. The stone bridge for traffic is at the farther end of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... covered with people who came off in families, or in gangs, or two by two, or alone. They plucked blades of grass, went down to the water, remounted the path, and all having attained the same spot, stood still awaiting the ferryman. The clumsy punt plied incessantly from bank to bank, discharging its passengers on to the island. The arm of the river (named the Dead Arm) upon which this refreshment wharf lay, appeared asleep, so feeble was the current. Fleets of yawls, of skiffs, of canoes, of podoscaphs (a light boat propelled by wheels ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... bell rang, the fasts were cast off, and the great wheels of the steamer began to turn. Our hero, who had never been on the water in a steamboat, or indeed anything bigger than a punt on the river at home, was much interested and excited by his novel position. He seated himself on the promenade deck, and watched with wonder the boiling, surging waters astern ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid an' be done with it. God be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was, I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... all the sordidness and sorrow of earth, and never yet did I fail to ripple with my prow at least the outskirts of those magic waters. What spell has fame or wealth to enrich this midday blessedness with a joy the more? Yonder barefoot boy, as he drifts silently in his punt beneath the drooping branches of yonder vine-clad bank, has a bliss which no Astor can buy with money, no Seward conquer with votes,—which yet is no monopoly of his, and to which time and experience only add a more subtile and conscious charm. The rich years ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... by the Thames; I've seen it oft through beechen stems In leafy Summer weather; We've moored the punt its lawns beside Where peacocks strut in flaunting pride, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... thin layer of ice over a pan of water left exposed till daybreak, yet the midday sun was warm enough, especially after a walk, to make one long for leaves and shade and the like. It would be difficult, therefore, to convey the sensations with which we reclined at our ease in a flat-bottomed punt while an attendant poled us up toward the "Fall of Smoke," where the Nerbada leaps out eagerly toward the low lands he is to fertilize, like a young poet anxious to begin his work of grace in the world. On each side of us rose walls of marble a hundred feet in height, whose pure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... that the river was the boundary of the Hanyards on the side towards the village. About a hundred yards above the pocket of deep water where the jack had lain, I had built a little covered dock, and here I kept a craft, half boat and half punt, which I used for my fishing, and in which mother and Kate could lie on cushions while I rowed them on the river on warm summer nights. It was heavy and ungainly, but very comfortable, and as ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... it interferes with ease and comfort. We should rather incline to think it does. A black frost with no moon is not precisely the kind of weather that a degenerate sportsman would choose for lying in the frozen mud behind a bush, or pushing a small punt set on large skates across the ice to get at birds. Few attitudes can be more cramping than that of the gunner who skulks on one knee behind his canoe, pushing it with one hand, and dragging himself along by the aid ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... leads me. I prefer such spots as are most remote from the haunts of men, unknown to cockneys; and so long as there is a river within reach of my lodging, I can make myself tolerably happy with a punt and a fishing-rod, and contrive to ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... boat the path would take him to it. Through a break in the trees he caught the green sweep of marsh rice and his heart beat excitedly with hope. Where there was rice there were wild-fowl, and surely where there were wild-fowl, there would be a punt or a canoe! In his eagerness he ran, and where the path ended, the flags and rice beaten into the mud and water, he stopped with an exultant cry. At his feet was a canoe. It was wet, as though just drawn out of the water, and a freshly used ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... in a punt? One has to punt it. I will go with you; my pole is there—or else one can use a ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... it a feature of the district; and it had been deepened and extended; up rose the springs, many ran the ducts. Fredi's pretty little bathshed or bower had a space of marble on the three-feet shallow it overhung with a shade of carved woodwork; it had a diving-board for an eight-feet plunge; a punt and small row-boat of elegant build hard by. Green ran the banks about, and a beechwood fringed with birches curtained the Northward length: morning sun and evening had a fair face of water to paint. Saw man ever the like for pleasing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Beyond the punt the swallows go Like blue-black arrows to and fro, Now stooping where the rushes grow, Now flashing o'er a shallow; And overhead in blue and white High Spring and Summer hold delight; "All right!" the black-cap calls, "All right!" His mate says ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... a few more details. Angela was the daughter of a doctor at Surbiton, and apparently a damsel of accomplishments. She could punt, play tennis, dance, sing, and make her own blouses; in a word, a "ripper," "top-hole," and no mistake! Ajax slightly raised his brows when we learned that the course of true love had run smooth; but the doctor's blessing was adequately accounted ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell |
