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The very name of our yacht was suggestive of the Orient. The sun was setting; the sky deeply flushed; the distance highly idealized; homeward hastened a couple of Italian fishing boats, with their lateen sails looking like triangular slices cut out of the full moon; this sort of thing was very soothing.
Vessels large and small, with white or gayly-painted lateen sails gleaming in the evening glow, large galleys, light skiffs, and restless, skimming pleasure-boats, were flitting to and fro; and among them, like loaded wagons among chariots and horsemen, the low corn-barges scarcely seemed to move, piled as they were with pyramids of straw and grain as high as a house.
In the orange colored dawn which always comes through the mists of that bay, the fishing fleet would crawl in under triangular lateen sails; for the fishermen of San Francisco Bay are all Neapolitans who have brought their customs and sail with lateen rigs stained an orange brown and shaped, when the wind fills them, like the ear of a horse. Along the waterfront the people of these craft met.
Presently a little vessel, with a huge shining lateen sail, and bearing the blue and white Portuguese flag, was seen playing a sort of leap-frog on the jolly waves, jumping over them, and ducking down as merry as could be.
Anyone with an eye for sea-going craft can distinguish that topsail-schooner there, well ahead of the rest of the tiny fleet, skimming the water with swift grace, and immediately behind her the three-masted polacca hm! have we not seen her in these waters before? and the two graceful feluccas whose lateen sails look so like the outspread wings of a bird!
The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England by rowing boats was a topic of burning interest. It is evident from this that long voyages, trusting to the oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we have seen, the galley was also provided with motive power in the shape of two masts carrying the lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many Mediterranean craft.
The effect was picturesque, and this hill was the delight of painters. It was all more like Italy than anything in the Italian quarter of New York and Chicago the very climate and surroundings, the wine country close at hand, the bay for their lateen boats, helped them.
From the nature of the course, which was not in the direction of the open sea, for they had to double Cape Passaro, the speronaro was out of the sight of the villa in a few minutes. They rowed only till they had doubled the cape, and then set the lateen sail, the breeze being light, but steady and favorable. They were soon in open sea, no land in sight.
The boat instantly fell off into the wind, and, as she went round, David stood up in the stern-sheets and waved his cap to the men on board the lugger, who were watching him. The old man was seen to shake his head in answer to the signal, and point to his lug-sail standing flat as a board, and the next moment they parted company, and the lateen was running close-reefed before the wind. Mr.
When she and Robert stepped into Tonie's boat, with the red lateen sail, misty spirit forms were prowling in the shadows and among the reeds, and upon the water were phantom ships, speeding to cover. The youngest boy, Etienne, had been very naughty, Madame Ratignolle said, as she delivered him into the hands of his mother.
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