United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Finally all of us went to the break of the poop, where we could get a better view, and just as we arrived, a monstrous form came over the knight-heads and stood forth on deck. The fellow had a beard fully a fathom long, and he stood nearly two fathoms high, his feet being hoof-shaped.
Conning the craft intelligently, he took her in behind the island on which the cape stands, luffed her up into a tiny cove, and made a cast of the lead. There were fifty fathoms of water, with a bottom of mud.
There is no time to lose, for in all probability she will not hold together long." The signal made us hasten on even faster than before. "There she is! there she is!" cried the lieutenant, just as we reached the summit of a cliff. We could see the brig about a hundred fathoms off on the rocks, the sea making a fearful breach over her.
We here anchored in fifteen fathoms on clean hard sand, two miles from the shore. Soon afterwards Rajah Laut came on board, accompanied by one of the sultan's sons, and asked in Spanish, Who we were?
As the shoals in that part had not been sufficiently examined, we proceeded to do so in the evening, and two channels were discovered; one between a bank, dry at low-water, and a covered patch of one and a half and two fathoms, and the other between the covered bank and the east shore; the latter, although the narrower, I found to be the better.
Its shining surface was absolutely without a speck. With a disappointed air, the captain of the Catamaran descended from his post of observation; and once more turned his attention to the dead cachalot from which they were now separated by less than a hundred fathoms, a distance that was constantly decreasing, as the raft, under sail, continued to drift nearer.
The particular conformation of the rocks also tends to augment the force and height of the seas, for they not only stretch across the channel in a north and south direction to the length of above one hundred fathoms, but they lie in a sloping manner toward the south-west quarter.
It was apparent now, indeed, that the Plantagenet herself must pass within a hundred fathoms of the Scipio, and that in less than two minutes. The delay in issuing the orders for this evolution was in favour of its success, inasmuch as it did not give the enemy time for deliberation.
And when the fourteenth day was spent it seemed to the sailors that they were close upon land. Upon sounding they found fifteen fathoms, and afraid they were upon rocks, they cast out anchors.
The banks of the river, on the lowest part, had many mangrove trees along it; higher up, reeds grew along its margin, and behind these reedy banks were immense perpendicular hills of barren, rocky lands, with trees growing from between the rocky cliffs; the depth of the river, when we were highest up, was six and seven fathoms.
Word Of The Day