United States or Bolivia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


They were riding on small, shaggy ponies, three abreast; were dressed in warm blue coats with sheepskin overcoats outside and crowned with the regulation coonskin caps; armed from head to foot. They rode with wild shouts and cheers, very greedily eyeing the Chinese shops and the houses of the Russian colonists.

And so it was that Hattie's wedding day came up like thunder. To the swift hiss of rain down soot-greasy window panes and through a medley of the smells of steam off wet overcoats and a pale stench of fish, a judge turned rather tired Friday-afternoon eyes upon the prisoner at the bar, a smallish man in a decent-enough salt-and-pepper suit and more salt than pepper in his hair and mustache.

These strapping fellows, with long simian upper lips, with brown leggings and patched, mud-colored overcoats, who are leaping and swinging their cudgels in that Pyrrhic round are as good Tipperary boys as ever mobbed an agent or pounded, twenty to one, a landlord to death.

"He won't wear anything when once the gloss is off it. But," with a sad smile, "I get the left-off overcoats." He took me across to see his daughter. She had married a tradesman and they were having a hard struggle in three rooms in a workman's dwelling. She was twenty-five, thin, yellow, and looking ten years older. There were other children who had died.

There were overcoats, buffalo robes, ladies' cloaks and furs, silk dresses, shawls, boxes of boots and shoes, cases of dry goods, and a miscellaneous assortment of articles sufficient to furnish out a large store. The goods in that room were worth several thousands of dollars.

That is the true life of dolce far niente, but such an ideal existence can only be indulged in during summer time or in late spring; to pass a winter at Sorrento the heaviest of clothing, abundance of overcoats and rugs, hot-water bottles, cough drops, ammoniated quinine and all the usual adjuncts of a northern yule-tide must be carefully provided before-hand by the traveller, who is bold enough to tempt Providence by turning what is essentially a warm weather retreat into a place of winter residence.

The battery fired about 2000 rounds, the distance being about one half mile and after the battle, the battery opposing us was seen knocked all to pieces, horses piled up and haversacks and canteens strewn over the ground, while in rear was a long line of knapsacks and overcoats laid down by the infantry before going into battle and left in their hurried retreat.

Big Ben is striking the hour as we commence our walk at Blackfriars; we have with us a sack of food and a number of second-hand overcoats. The night is cold, gusty and wet, and we think of our warm and comfortable beds and almost relinquish our expedition. The lights on Blackfriars Bridge reveal the murky waters beneath, and we see that the tide is running out.

After this conversation, uttered in whispers, for fear lest their presence should be disclosed to any Turks lurking in the neighbourhood, the two soldiers took shelter under the lee of a limestone crag, drew their overcoats tightly around them, and proceeded to eat their rations. The prospect of spending a night on the uplands of Judea in a driving mist did not dismay them.

The three Swedes, their rusty overcoats buttoned to their necks, goggled at him round-eyed over the tops of their new spelling books, then ducked and grinned at one another. The four Boyle children, also bundled in wraps, exchanged sidelong glances and pulled themselves up alert and expectant in their seats. "School, eh?"