"Boatman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day there was still no message from the Villa Hafiz, and he did not see Mrs. Clarke. He took a row boat, with a big Albanian boatman for company, and rowed out on the Bosporus till they came in sight of the Black Sea. The wind got up; Dion stripped to his shirt and trousers, rolled his shirt sleeves up to the shoulders, and had a long pull at the oars. He rowed till ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... quiet pool, the snowy froth that masks the reefs seeming only the pretty fringe of sentient life to a sleeping sea; but presently an invisible hand reaches up and grasps him, an unseen power drags him exultingly out to the main— and he returns no more. Many a Jersey boatman, many a fisherman who has lived his whole life in sight of the Paternosters on the north, the Ecrehos on the east, the Dog's Nest on the south, or the Corbiere on the west, has in some helpless moment been caught ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... swordfish first!" One of the tuna boatmen gave me a harder jolt. He said: "Well, if you fish steadily for a couple of weeks, maybe you'll get a strike. And one swordfish caught out of ten strikes is good work!" But Danielson was optimistic and encouraging, as any good boatman ought to be. If I had not been fortunate enough to secure Captain Dan as my boatman, it is certain that one of the most wonderful fishing experiences on record would have fallen to some other fisherman, instead ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... railway station of St. Just, on the railway on the west side of the Rhne (see p.98). The landlord of the Louvre can procure either a guide for the Pont, 2frs., or for the caves, 5 frs., or the boatman for sailing down the Ardche. The Pont d'Arc is a natural bridge across the Ardche, composed of a calcareous rock, pierced with a span of 180 ft., through which the river flows majestically. The soffit of the arch is 100 ft. high, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... stores, were being towed alongside the ships of war, and the bustle and life of the scene were delightful indeed to Jack, accustomed only to the quiet sleepiness of a cathedral town like Canterbury. Inquiring which was the "Falcon," a paddle steamer moored in the stream was pointed out to them by a boatman. ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... old church on the Wilton road? How could a hurrying boat find the short way into harbor before a gale without sighting the big trees from point to point among the rocky shallows? It was a dangerous bit of coast in every way, and every fisherman and pleasure-boatman knew the pines on Packer's Hill. As for the Packers themselves, the first great adventure for a child was to climb alone to the great pines, and to see an astonishing world from beneath their shadow; and as the men ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... other haven shalt thou come to shore, Not by this passage; thee a nimbler boat Must carry." Then to him thus spake my guide: "Charon! thyself torment not: so 't is will'd, Where will and power are one: ask thou no more." Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks Of him the boatman o'er the livid lake, Around whose eyes glar'd wheeling flames. Meanwhile Those spirits, faint and naked, color chang'd, And gnash'd their teeth, soon as the cruel words They heard. God and their parents they blasphem'd, The human kind, the place, the time, and seed That did ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... was nearest, called aloud to him, asking if he had caught any fish that night. But the boatman still slept. Then Guthmund took up an arrow and fired it so that it struck the boat's mast. In an instant the man started to his feet, threw off his cloak, and stood up. The morning sunlight shone on his head of tangled gold hair and on part of his coat of chain mail. He looked very noble and beautiful, ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... One adventurous boatman, Mr. Matthew Gaffney, getting within some thirty feet, fired at him with his gun, carrying an eighteen-to-the-pound ball, and aiming full at his head. The monster turned, and sinking down like a rock, went directly under the boat, making his appearance ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... a cold chicken, some ham, a salad, with other accessaries for lunch, and the added luxury of a gipsy tea-set, having been duly put into a boat, we followed it, and taking our seats, were met with the following query of the boatman, who sat looking at us, his two oars poised ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... terradas at present in use among the Arabs of the Mesopotamian marsh districts. Such boats are represented upon the bas-reliefs as capable of holding from three to five armed men. On these the Assyrian foot-soldiers would embark, taking with them a single boatman to each boat, who propelled the vessel much as a Venetian gondolier propels his gondola, i.e., with a single long oar or paddle, which he pushed from him standing at the stern. They would then in these boats attack the vessels of the enemy, which are always represented as smaller than theirs, run ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... very like "Kiope 'oul kiopek,"—dog and son of a dog; the oarsmen grinned and pulled harder than ever, and the caique shot past the pier. Paul shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, but did not translate the Turkish ejaculation to his brother. A boatman stood lounging near them, leaning on a stone post, and following the retreating caique with ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... gondola, Coming from Malamocco And streaming toward Venice. It is black under the gondola hood, But the yellow of a satin dress Glares out like the eye of a watching tiger. Yellow compassed about with darkness, Yellow and black, Gorgeous—barbaric. The boatman sings, It is Tasso that he sings; The lovers seek each other beneath their mantles, And the gondola drifts over the lagoon, aslant to the coming dawn. But at Malamocco in front, In Venice behind, Fall the leaves, Brown, And yellow streaked with brown. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... to Cahersiveen town in a sail-boat up the water (not crossing at the ferry). I had accommodated my time to the wish of the boatman, who desired to be there in time for prayers: so that I had a long waiting at Cahersiveen for the mail car. In walking through the little town, I passed the chapel (a convent chapel) to which the people were going: and really the scene was very curious. The chapel appeared to be overflowing ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... throats, their bright-colored shirts, flaming belts, and gayly worked moccasins, formed a picture that can not be described. When the axes, powder, shot, dry goods, and provisions were packed in the canoes, when each voyager had hung his votive offering in the chapel of his patron saint, a boatman of experience stepped into the bow and another into the stern of each canoe, the crew took places between them, and at the word the fleet glided up the St. Lawrence on its way to the Ottawa, and thence on to Sault Ste. Marie, to Grand Portage (near the northeast corner of what is ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... shout of voices in the opposite direction; and presently two canoes, each containing two men, emerged into view from the fog hanging over the outlet, and, joining in a contest of speed, to which they seemed to perceive the single boatman was, by his movements, challenging them, rapidly made their way towards the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... scenery on the Rhine alone. The mountains approach each other at this point, and the Lorelei rock rises up for four hundred and forty feet from the water. This is the haunt of the water nymph Lorelei, whose song charmed the ear of the boatman while his bark was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. It is also celebrated for its remarkable echo. As we passed between the rocks, a guard, who has a little house on the roadside, blew a flourish on his bugle, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... the offing Professor Derrick appeared, fishing. I had seen him engaged in this pursuit once or twice before. His only companion was a gigantic boatman, by ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... had an interview with the master of the house, a short, stout Burman in silken kilt and headgear of flaming scarlet, and their business was put in hand at once. The Burman sent a native boatman off to see if ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... Chaudieu, as young Lecamus ended his speech, "this boatman is La Renaudie. And here is Monsiegneur the Prince de Conde," he added, motioning to the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... And the boatman who at twilight hour Once that magic vision shall have seen, Heedless how the crags may round him lour, Evermore will haunt the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Colquhoun George Walker shoemaker John Ewing do. John Mitchel do. Patrick Mitchel do. John Lindsay do. Patrick Colquhoun do. Peter Houston do. Elizabeth Lin Janet Donald Katharine Houston James Paterson sawer Robert Lata boatman John M'Alester wright Alexr. Williamson do. Alexander Brown do. Archibald Glen weaver James M'Niel do. John Houston do. Wm. Lang merchant Hugh Cameron do. Wm. Alexander wright John Webster baker Robert Lang farmer ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... hurried through the quaint Japanese streets to the harbor, and hired a sampan boatman to put him aboard a certain vessel whose familiar rigging had quickly caught his eye. Her gaskets were off, her sails unfurled; she was just starting back to the United States. As he came closer, a crowd ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... to a boatman near by and ordered the man to row him over as fast as he could to the vessel lying in the stream. He had no sooner reached the deck of the Swordfish than he asked for the young person who had just been put ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... boatman who had to scrape together painfully the few sovereigns of the price had the idea of putting that engine into his boat. But all these designers, directors, managers, constructors, and others whom we may include in the generic name of Yamsi, never ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... the little harbor, to bargain with the fishermen of the place for the boat which he needed While he was talking with an old Amalekite boatman, who, with his black-eyed sons, was arranging his nets, two riders came at a quick pace towards the bay in which a large merchant-ship lay at anchor, surrounded by little barks. The ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more of this in the evening, from the ancient boatman who rowed me out on the upper river. He had been to sea in his day. He knew enough to wonder about this thing, even to indulge in a little ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... to the little stone jetty, and the boatman, a younger shadow of the woodcutter—and, indeed, a nephew of that useful malcontent—saluted his territorial lord with the sullen formality of the family. The Squire acknowledged it casually and had soon forgotten all such things in shaking hands with the visitor who had just come ashore. The visitor ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... supreme moment my brother had the temerity to argue with the boatman over the fare. Being now in the last stage of tender-hooks, I adjured him to give the man double what he asked, if only to be free. But the brother was calm, and for once—he was right! His display of want of all anxiety quite diverted any kind of suspicion that might have attached to us, and in ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... ferryman to help him. Now this same ferry plied across a swift stream that ran into the sea about two and a half miles north of the place where he met the men. The current was so very strong that no boatman could possibly row from bank to bank: the boat would have been swept out to sea. So a strong chain had been run across the river, and the boat was fastened to a ring which ran along this chain. The ferryman simply stood in the bow of ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... 'Stop that murderer!'—they called me a murderer! Then I was dragged down the steps by the waiters, and flung into the ferry boat. The boatmen rowed me to within fifty feet of the Canada shore—into Canada water—when the head boatman in the other boat gave the word to row back. They did accordingly,—but they could not land me at the usual place on account of the waiters. So they had to go down to Suspension Bridge; they landed me, opened a way through the crowd—shackled ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... a boatman as there is in these parts, Marion. It was kind, and he ought to be rewarded ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... thickened again, but the skipper never took way off her while he could make out a ship ahead of us. We drifted stern first on the flood, with half-turns of the propeller for steering purchase, till a boatman, whom we hailed, cried that we were off Gravesend. And was there any one ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... Presently the boatman clutched his arm and pointed to the bank. He looked. One of the coolies was chasing a huge hairy monster. The ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... kept their gaze riveted on the captain's figure. With the skill of a veteran boatman, Rob brought the Flying Fish round in a graceful curve and ran her cleanly up to the wharf without the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... boat touched the schooner's side. One of the men leaped on board, securing the boat, and the other followed immediately. They were both dressed like all the Acadians, but the second boatman had a slouched hat, which concealed his face. Zac, who carelessly regarded him, noticed that he was a smooth-faced boy, while the first boatman was a ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... and thicker," proceeded the boatman's daughter. "And the wind rode down upon father, too. Wind and fog together are not usual; but when the two combine it is much worse than either alone. You see, the thick mist swirling into father's eyes, driven head-on by the wind, blinded him. He steered ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... he sat in the stocks the whole evening; but Mr. Pinkethman giving security that he should do nothing this ensuing summer, he was set at liberty. The most melancholy part of all, was, that Diana was taken in the act of fornication with a boatman, and committed by Justice Wrathful, which has, it seems, put a stop to the diversions of the theatre of Blackheath. But there goes down another Diana and a patient Grissel ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... coastguard station a mile away the bearded occupant on duty was finishing his tea. The skeleton of a herring lay on the side of his plate, the centre of which the boatman was scouring with a piece of bread (preparatory to occupying it with damson jam), when the telephone bell rang. A man of economical habits, he put the bread in his mouth, and, rising from the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... saint is sublime, good sir!" cried the young man in a loud voice, waking from a deep reverie. "These figures, the saint and the boatman, have a subtile meaning which the Italian painters cannot give. I do not know one of them who could have invented ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... about their son, but nothing could they hear of him. At last, that very morning, a waggon had brought them to Poole, and seeing a ship in the offing, which was no other than the Royal Charlotte, they had got a boatman to take them out ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... crossing the Lake of Rieti. The boatman in whose bark he was making the passage offered him a tench of uncommon size. Francis accepted it with joy, but to the great amazement of the fisherman put it back into the water, bidding ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... cried a boatman, and "Shut up, you fool!" said a man near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud—the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... forest folded them deeper, John found a wonderful solace in Bateese's company, although the two seldom exchanged a word unless alone together, and after a day or two Barboux took a whim to carry off the little boatman on his expeditions and leave Muskingon in charge of the camp. He pretended that John, as he mended of his wound, needed a stalwart fellow for sentry; but the real reason was malice. For some reason he hated Muskingon; and knowing Muskingon's delight in every form of ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... turning to Sibyll, "even though we may escape the Tower, no boatman now can be found on the river. The way through the streets is dark and perilous, and beset ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... limited to the river boatman, and on dark nights, when there is no moon, the river seems limitless. A sailor has not the same feeling for the sea. It is often remorseless and cruel, it is true; but it shrieks, it roars, it is honest, the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of storm and darkness. No boatman would venture on the Rhine, but Gerbert, anxious to pay the last respects to the body of his beloved, was not to be deterred. With his own hands he unmoored a vessel and sailed across to Oberwoerth. Having landed at that part of the island furthest from the convent, he was obliged to pass the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... hours. A scorching sun was blazing overhead, and absolutely forbade me to leave the house. I stood for a while in the verandah, looking down at the few small vessels which were moored to the quay, but there was no life in them; not a sail was set, not a boatman or a sailor was to be seen, and the very water looked as though it were hot. I could fancy the glare of the sun was cracking the paint on the gunwales of the boats. I was the only visitor in the house, and during all the long hours of the morning ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... duke's valet; of his master there was no trace whatever: it was then thought, not without reason, that he had probably been thrown into the Tiber, and they began to follow along its banks, beginning from the Via della Ripetta, questioning every boatman and fisherman who might possibly have seen, either from their houses or from their boats, what had happened on the river banks during the two preceding nights. At first all inquiries were in vain; but when they had gone up as high as the Via ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... your nephew, Christopher Smoke Bellew! He's got a job! He's a gentleman's man! He's got a job at a hundred and fifty per month and grub. He's going down to Dawson with a couple of dudes and another gentleman's man—camp-cook, boatman, and general all-around hustler. And O'Hara and The Billow can go to the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... on mechanically, and though by reflex action he may repel attack unconsciously, still the first affirmation of the system was that man was essentially a thinking being; and, while we retain this original dictum, it must not be supposed that the mind is a mere spectator, or like the boatman in the boat. Of course a unity of nature is impossible between mind and body so described. And yet there is a unity of composition, a unity so close that the compound is "really one and in a sense indivisible." You cannot in the actual man cut soul and body asunder; they interpenetrate in every ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... reassured her when she reached his side. "I was dragged a bit and jammed among the boulders." He sank down, and his lips were white with pain, but his gray eyes smiled bravely. The boatman removed his chief's boot and fell to rubbing the injury, while the girls looked ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... that he has been since his boyhood a boatman, and has worked for some years with a trader, who used to go up the creeks, and trade with ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... have a chance of knowing that presently," said the earl, as he and his page descended to the river, where the little gilded barge lay moored, and the boatman waiting. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... always beautiful to my mind, but that evening she was la Superba, as the citizens love to call her. Right round the bay the harbour lights twinkled, and above them the lights of the city seemed like a necklace of diamonds, hung against the night. As the boatman rowed me ashore I felt satisfied with myself. I was going to see my girl, and if I thought of my brother at all—well, I'd done the right thing by him. I wished him well. I intended, since he had made good, to give him some ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... as he was counselled. An old tower was there standing By the shore, half in the river; And where through a secret wicket To the strand came down the fisher, Was a quiet hidden inlet, Where lay boat and rudder ready. As the boatman kept the feast-day, So without permission Werner Took possession of the boat there. In the meantime evening crept on: Here and there rang from the mountains Clear and sharp, a shouting from some Tipsy peasant going homeward. O'er those ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... wild. He ran along the high road, took the path he had before taken, and reaching the ferry, interrogated the boatman. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... together; one of the village worthies, from whom small craft were to be hired, had, at Verena's request, sent his little son to Miss Chancellor's cottage with that information. She had not understood whether they had taken the boatman with them. Even when the information came (and it came at a moment of considerable reassurance), Olive's nerves were not ploughed up by it as they had been, for instance, by the other expedition, in New York; and she could measure the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... time in port, makes it worse. Mr. Wheeler, at Akron, is the only man on the Ohio canal, that we know of, that has been in the business longer than we have on our canal, and we defy you to find a boatman on our canal or river that will say we ever detained them beyond a reasonable time; and there is no need of it if men do as they would be done by, and the situation our river has been in this geason has been vexatious ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... by small bows of wood: Yet in a vessel of this construction we once saw three people. In shallow water they are set forward by a pole, and in deeper by paddles, about eighteen inches long, one of which the boatman holds in each hand; mean as they are, they have many conveniencies; they draw but little water, and they are very light, so that they go upon mud banks to pick up shell-fish, the most important use to which they can be applied, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... pool. A monstrous breaker curls over the prow—there is no hope; the boat is swamped, and all drowned in that strangling vortex. No! the boat, which appeared to have the buoyancy of a feather, skipped over the threatening horror, and the next moment was out of danger, the boatman—a true boatman of Cockaigne that—elevating one of his sculls in sign of triumph, the man hallooing, and the woman, a true Englishwoman that—of a certain class—waving her shawl. Whether any ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... smiling. The sun seemed a lake of glory and I a boatman, fair and free, sailing vast distances upon it with just one stroke of my wand-oar—and here I began ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... close to the river bank, and the tiny dwelling belonged to the Prior of Berchtesgaden's fisherman and boatman, who kept the distinguished prelate's gondolas and boats in order, and acted as rower to the occupants of the little Prebrunn castle. She had often met this man when he brought fish for the kitchen, and he had gone ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in her cheek, at having distressed Phoebe, and . . . Not that she had deigned any notice of Robert after the first cold shake of the hand, and he sat rowing with vigorous strokes, and a countenance of set gravity, more as if he were a boatman than one of the party; Lucilla could not even meet his eye when she peeped under her eyelashes to recover defiance by the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not necessary, Ben; she is better, I think," said the young man, looking half-timidly into the boatman's face. "Don't you think she looks beauti——I mean, don't you think she looks better, a ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual moment more than was necessary—almost as though we had agreed tacitly to avoid discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor the boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention, though ordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater part of the evening. They were, of course, distinct events in ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... mother had fallen no longer seemed strange and solitary to him. At night one of the boatmen sang. That voice reminded him of his mother's songs, when she had lulled him to sleep as a little child. On the last night, when he heard that song, he sobbed. The boatman interrupted his song. Then he cried, "Courage, courage, my son! What the deuce! A Genoese crying because he is far from home! The Genoese make the circuit of the world, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... exception of two or three, whose salvation adds to the absurdity), mingles the hell of Virgil with that of Tertullian and St. Dominic; sets Minos at the door as judge; retains Charon in his old office of boatman over the Stygian lake; puts fabulous people with real among the damned, Dido, and Cacus, and Ephialtes, with Ezzelino and Pope Nicholas the Fifth; and associates the Centaurs and the Furies with the agents of diabolical ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... front there, laddie," said Uncle Jack. "Can't you see? She's just about making-sail, so we'd better get on board as soon as possible. Hi, boatman, seen any one belonging ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... all great and obstinate thoughts, monotonous like the desert, and growing up among those primeval forests, which, with their fragrance, send a cloud of incense, and, with their murmurs, a cloud of prayers to heaven; a boatman at eight years in the impetuous current of the Ohio, and at seventeen in the vast and tranquil waters of the Mississippi; later, a woodman, with axe and arm felling the immemorial trees, to open a way to unexplored regions for his tribe ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... conveyed himself and his portmanteau to the edge of the lake. Singling out one from the tiny fleet of pleasure boats always to be found at the Bowness landing-stage, Captain Ducie seated himself in the stern and lighted his cigar. The boatman's sinewy arms soon pulled him out into the middle of the lake, when the head of the little craft was set for ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... called Borysthenes, passes by Kiow, and the old tradition of the country affirms, that it was a boatman, who in crossing it found its waters so pure that he was led to found a town on its banks. In fact, the rivers are the most beautiful natural objects in Russia. It would be difficult to find any small streams, their course would be so much obstructed by the sand. There is scarcely ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... Lebeau, the boatman, the trapper, the hunter, the fighter, From the unlucky French of Gallipolis he descended, Heir to Old World want and New World love of adventure. Vague was the life he led, and vague and grotesque were the rumors Through which he loomed on ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... caused me to speak to our boatman one day, as I was annoyed by the noise, having always had a dislike for sudden explosions. "Why don't you worship something good and beautiful," I said; "some god that would detest such things as firecrackers?" "So we do," said he, "in our hearts, but this is not worship; ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... in New York: "He selected the razors himself and is a fine judge of them though he does not use a razor." If the person who sent this important dispatch wanted to secure an Old Master he, doubtless, would hire a canal boatman to pass judgment upon the painting before he put his ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... so firmly rooted in Celtic opinion, the tourist or angler who 'has no Gaelic' is not likely to hear much of it. But, when trout refuse to rise, and time hangs heavy in a boat on a loch, it is a good plan to tell the boatman some ghostly Sassenach tales. Then, perhaps, he will cap them from his own store, but point-blank questions from an inquiring southron are of very little use. Nobody likes to be cross-examined on such matters. Unluckily ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... excite her, and that afternoon she left; and the next I heard of her was a paragraph in the newspaper, headed—"Death of the Marchioness of Appleford. Sad accident." It seemed she had gone for a row on one of the Italian lakes with no one but a boatman. A squall had come on, and the boat had capsized. The boatman had swum ashore, but he had been unable to save his passenger, and her body had never been recovered. The paper reminded its readers that she had formerly been the celebrated ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... the fishermen, promising them double and treble the value of the fish I want, but they all tell me they catch nothing except pike. I have been to Cudrefin for lampreys, but found nothing. Rodolphe* (* An experienced old boatman.) has been paddling in the brook every day without success. I went to Sauge, —no eels, no anything but perch and a few little cat-fish. Two mortal Sundays did I spend, rod in hand, trying to catch bream, chubs, etc. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... A tug met the steamer in the Narrows about a quarter to twelve that morning, and her captain, on being questioned, declared that all seemed well with her. The prisoners were grouped forward, guarded by eight officers and a sergeant. A little after twelve o'clock a Battery boatman observed her coming, and hied him around to the police dock to have a look at the murderous pirates he had heard about, only to see her heading up the North River, past the Battery. A watchman on the elevator docks at Sixty-third ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... these Stygian shores the bones of some are still dug up in our day: they have remained unsepulchred for more than thirty times their predestined century. Even to wicked kings a burial had thus been denied. But, if the verdict of the assessors was favourable, a coin was paid to the boatman Charon for ferriage; a cake was provided for the hippopotamus Cerberus; they rowed across the lake in the baris, or death-boat, the priest announcing to Osiris and the unearthly assessors the good deeds ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Charteris was no less manifested towards his fair guest. She was placed under the charge of a duenna who managed the good knight's household, and was compelled to remain several days in Kinfauns, owing to the obstacles and delays interposed by a Tay boatman, named Kitt Henshaw, to whose charge she was to be committed, and ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the river Lists to the song, spell-bound; Oh! what shall him deliver From danger threat'ning round? The waters deep have caught them, Both boat and boatman brave; 'Tis Loreley's song hath brought them Beneath the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... to fire guns and hoist signals of distress. At daybreak a pilot boat put off from Dover, and nearing the Melville Castle, advised the captain to put back to Deal or Hythe, and wait for calmer weather, or, said the boatman, "all hands will assuredly be lost." But the captain would not act on his recommendation; he thought the pilot boat exaggerated the danger, hoped the wind would abate as the day opened, and that he should avoid the demands ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... and, letting him pass me before I threw off the rope, sculled the little dug-out into the middle of the river. No boatman on the Sandy was more skilful than I in the management of the little vessel, for in it most of my leisure time had been passed for the last year or two. My step-mother had scolded, my father grumbled, and the farmers' wives and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... near Kentucky's clime Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry, And I'll give thee a silver dime To row ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... they were all seated in the boat, with their few belongings carefully balanced, and Jacqueline safely reposing in Pierrette's lap. The boatman pushed them away from the pier. "Au revoir," called Mother Meraut as the boat slid into the stream. "We will come back again when the Germans are gone, and in some way I shall have a chance to send your boat to you, I know. Meanwhile we ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... wood, the whole season through. Whether talking together about the shipping in the Channel, or gruffly unbending over mugs of beer at the public- house, you would consider them the slowest of men. The chances are a thousand to one that you might stay here for ten seasons, and never see a boatman in a hurry. A certain expression about his loose hands, when they are not in his pockets, as if he were carrying a considerable lump of iron in each, without any inconvenience, suggests strength, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... boating early became absolute passions with me; I was never quite happy unless I happened to be either in or on the water; then, indeed, all other pleasures were less than nothing to me. As a natural consequence, I soon became the intimate companion of every boatman in the harbour; I acquired, to a considerable extent, their tastes and prejudices, and soon mastered all the nautical lore which it was in their power to teach me. I could sail a boat before I could read; ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... in saving labor even in talking," said he, "but I am not complaining, for he has brought us this far in safety. I'm willing to say he's as good a boatman as I ever saw, and more careful than I feared he would be. Most of these Indians are too lazy to line down, and will take all sorts of chances to save a little work. But I must say Leo has been careful. It has been very rarely we've even shipped a ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... little boat crossing the river, the majestic and careworn City, and the steamers homecoming with their treasury, or starting in search of it, so that infinite leisure would be necessary for the proper disentanglement of one from the other. He stopped, moreover, and began inquiring of an old boatman as to the tides and the ships. In thus talking he seemed different, and even looked different, she thought, against the river, with the steeples and towers for background. His strangeness, his romance, his power to leave her ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... me, love, and gladsome oars shall make A music on the parting wave for you,— Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue: Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung, Come with me, love, for Oh, my love is true!" This is the song that on the lake was sung, The boatman sang it over when ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... answered. The boat dropped alongside and the Earl climbed upon deck. Turning at the top of the ladder, he gave his boatman the order to wait for half an hour, and acknowledging the sentry's salute, made his way aft, and down the companion-stairs to the cabin set ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... swift In his big bass, them fitly answered, And on the rock the waves, breaking aloft, A solemn mean unto them measured, The whiles sweet Zephyrus loud whisteled His treble, a strange kind of harmony Which Guyon's senses softly tickeled That he the boatman bade row easily And let him hear some part ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... 'Good boatman, prithee haste thee, I seek my father-land.'— 10 'Say, when I there have placed thee, Dare I demand thy hand?' 'A maiden's head can never So hard a point decide; Row on, row on, for ever 15 I'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Dumfries, he would have shrunk from the idea of violating the sanctuary of St. Kenneth. But to his mind there was no breach whatever of that sanctuary in aiding one kept there against her will to make her escape. Having ascertained all that he wished to know, he bade the boatman return to shore. ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... nor even get a cup of coffee. Paget made a capital sailor, and, though the old Maltese captain of former days was dead, his two sons, lads then, were dexterous sailors in the rough-and-ready, rule-of-thumb manner of the Levantine boatman, knowing nothing of navigation and little more of geography than Ulysses himself. We had no charts, and only a very primitive compass, but we all had the antique love of adventure and indifference to danger. Leaving Cerigotto, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... boatman hastily explained. Two ladies had been capsized in a boat—they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of the old town; they had driven down there that afternoon—they had alighted, and it was so fine, that, after walking about a little while, ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... ounces[FN314] of sugar- candy and two small jugs which do thou fill with wine; also a cup. Lay all these in a budget[FN315] and to-morrow, after the morning-prayers, take boat with them, saying to the boatman, 'I would have thee row me down the river below Bassorah.' An he say to thee, 'I cannot go farther than a parasang' do thou answer, 'As thou wilt;' but, when he shall have come so far, lure him on with money to carry thee farther; and the first flower-garden ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... with soft, dark eyes, appeared once not far from Muircarrie, and he married a boatman's daughter. He was very restless one night, and got up and left her, and she never saw him again; but a few days later a splendid dead seal covered with wounds was washed up near his cottage. The fishers say that his people ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... companions. Nothing seemed to give us a chance of being saved, except holding on till daylight, and as it was terribly cold, this seemed next to impossible. At last it struck me I might be able to swim ashore to procure assistance, and I got permission from the others to do so. Our boatman, a Creole, who also said he would go, started with me to make the attempt. I left them with a hearty 'God bless you!' from all. After swimming some time, I lost sight of the boatman, and was left to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... as good French as he could command, that he wanted a boat, to take him and the gentleman who was travelling with him to Lucerne, and asked what the price would be. The landlord named the regular price, and Rollo engaged the boat. The landlord then sent for a boatman. In a few minutes the boatman was seen coming. He was followed by two rather pretty-looking peasant girls, each bringing an oar on her shoulder. These two girls were the boatman's daughters. They were going with their father in the ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... particular item of information was cramped. We finally compromised on "Sin religion," and I was allowed to leave the country. A boatman tugged and poled some twenty minutes before we could scramble up the steep, jungle-grown bank beyond. At the top of it were scattered a dozen childish looking soldiers in the most unkempt and disheveled array of rags and lack thereof a cartoonist could picture. They formed in a ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... must remember that though, if possible, I will come to you, I may not be able to do so; and in case you hear of any tumult going on, you must take Baby, and go down at once to the port. You know enough of the language, now, to be able to tell a boatman to take you off to one of the steamers in the port. As soon as I get away I shall go round the port, and shall find you without difficulty. Still, I do not anticipate any trouble arising without our having sufficient warning to allow me to ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... be quite a good boatman, Hal, to gang all that way under sail," said Mansie; and then he turned to my father, saying, "When are we to hae the lad aboard ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... while after that incident Chin-Fan kept at a respectful distance from the side of the boat, and he did not show any desire to make the acquaintance of strange babies in the water. His mother taught him how to swim, and he became a boatman at Canton, and afterward he was a sailor on one of the great steamers that run between San Francisco and China. He did a great many brave things in and on the water, and his mother was very proud of him; she said ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... gone out to the end of one of the slips from the Common Hard, when two seamen and a sailor lad came down, carrying baskets, evidently full of provisions, and directed one of the boatmen who had just refused him to take them on board the old —-. As they were stepping into the wherry, the boatman beckoned to Ned, and told him that he could now go. He took his seat next to the lad, who, in spite of his own clean white trousers, and blue shirt with worked collar, and fresh straw hat, seemed in no way to despise his ragged dress. In a kind tone he asked Ned why he was going on ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... beach for the scene of the wreck Manned by Simeon Edwards, the oldest boatman in LLANDUDNO, and by members of the rescued ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... last agreed to, the camels were led down and placed on board, and the boat pushed off. The sheik made a peremptory sign to Edgar to lie down and cover his head with his cloth, and Edgar heard him say to the boatman, "My slave is ill." The river was now at its shallowest, and the men were able to pole the boat across. Edgar was hurried ashore with the camels, while the sheik remained behind settling with the boatman. They were now, he knew, between the two Niles, which joined their ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... then a native, and for hardihood, skill, and reliability, cannot be surpassed by any other similar class of men the world over. They are usually men of many parts, can act equally well as guide, boatman, baggage-carrier, purveyor, and cook. They are respectful and chivalrous: no woman, be she old or young, fair or faded, fails to receive the most polite and courteous treatment at their hands, and with these qualities ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the Highlands bound, Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry! And I'll give thee a silver pound To ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... house a light was burning, and as the giant drew near, he caught a fragment of a flat-boatman's song. He made no noise, but a dog inside scented his approach and announced it with a whimsical bark. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... seen the boat that was made fast to the stern of the steamer, it had no significance to him. He had never been a boatman; and the little craft was not suggestive to him as it was to Deck, who had spent much of his time on the waters of Bar Creek and Green River since his father moved from New Hampshire to Kentucky. He had not spoken of his plan to his associate, partly ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... Coke, smiling; 'they are accustomed to the management of the boat, and Thomas shall go with them. He knows the coast well, and is a first-class boatman.' ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... passage across the river in a leaky little boat, rowed by a painfully inexperienced servant, was almost too much for her. To see him fumbling with the oars, made her tingle to take them herself; she could not abide the irritation of a return journey with such a boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of the three-decker steamer of her native land, the ferry at Wittisham was just like an ordinary row-boat; that one rang a bell hanging from a picturesque tower; that a nice young man with a sprig of wallflower ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... through her heart, she lifted her head and saw the red rim of the sun suddenly break through the sea, and started lest the white light of day had revealed her to some passing boatman hurrying to his nets. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... vigilant servants were always stationed at the gates. Milza proposed to disguise herself as much as possible, and, with a basket on her head, go thither to offer fish for sale. Geta, being afraid to accompany her, hired an honest boatman to convey her to the island, and wait till she was ready to ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... of the boatman who rows you, "How can you pull all day against the current of the Nile?" And he smiles, and lifting his brown arm, he says to you: "Look! I am strong ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... one-story stone dwelling, with a long piazza in front of it, close to the weedy sidewalk of a crooked and straggling street. It was apparent that this was not in the aristocratic quarter of the city, if it had one. A door in the middle of the house swung open as they arrived, and the boatman who carried Ned's bag put it down on the threshold. The lanterns went away with him and his fellow rowers, but other lights made their appearance quickly,—after the door had closed behind Ned and Colonel Tassara. Not one of the boat's crew had obtained a peep into the ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... to the unbounded gratification of Broadstairs. They came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize—which, I suppose after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the bodies as they lay on the pier: 'Couldn't sassages be made on it?' but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... time some distance out. The wind had carried him along finely, the boat scudding, as he expressed it. He was congratulating himself on the success of his trial trip, when all at once a flaw struck the boat. Not being a skillful boatman he was wholly unprepared for it, and ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... for a passage. Now the boatman stern Takes these, now those, then thrusts the rest away, And vainly for the distant bank they yearn. Then spake AEneas, for with strange dismay He viewed the tumult, "Prithee, maiden, say What means this thronging to the river-side? What seek the souls? Why separate, do they Turn back, while ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Arlington, and, descending, he made a great curve around the earthworks, coming to the river north of Arlington. His next problem was the passage of the Potomac. He did not dare to try Long Bridge, which he knew would be guarded strictly, but he thought he might find some boatman who would take him over. As the capital was so crowded, the farmers were continually crossing with loads of provisions, and now that an uncommonly hot July had come the night would be a ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Moldau—Johann of Nepomuk, Saint so called, if he is not a fable altogether; whose Statue stands on Bridges ever since, in those parts. Wenzel's Bohemians revolted against him; put him in jail; and he broke prison, a boatman's daughter helping him out, with adventures. His Germans were disgusted with him; deposed him from the kaisership; chose Rupert of the Pfalz; and then, after Rupert's death, chose Wenzel's own brother Sigismund in his stead—left Wenzel to jumble about in his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... you," said the boatman. "We're bad enough without that. Give us peace to think a bit. If they were drowned they would ha' been washed in by this. The early tide would ha' brought them, for the boat couldn't ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland |
