United States or British Indian Ocean Territory ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Fully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the great steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should know that not only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush the overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that would snatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and destroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam-boat and cargo in five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into the bargain.
Many boats have been stove in by "snags" and "sawyers," and sunk with all the passengers. At present there is a snag steam-boat stationed on the Mississippi, which has almost entirely cleared it of these obstructions. This boat consists of two hulks, with solid beams of timber uniting the bows.
I had just been speaking with the captain of the steam-boat and some of the passengers about the Swedish authors living in Stockholm, and I mentioned my desire to see and converse with Miss Bremer. "You will not meet with her," said the Captain, "as she is at this moment on a visit in Norway."
He is rushing wildly back again, to try if he can obtain any clue at the steam-boat pier, through the narrow, dirty street at the back of the Rhine Cavalier, when he is stopped short by a mighty German embrace, and a German kiss on either cheek, as the kiss of a housemaid's broom; while a jolly voice shouts in English: "Ah, my dear, dear friend! and you would pass me!
The garrulous old man made a grimace, and muttered something to himself but we were just by the bridge before the inn. The steam-boat glided through the opened way, every one hastened to get on board, and it directly shot away above the Fall, just as if no Fall existed. "And that can be done!" said the old man.
Other persons of his profession must, however, have been less scrupulous, for the book was read in city, town, village, and hamlet, steam-boat, and stage-coach, and a sort of war-whoop was sent forth perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon any occasion whatever.
The strangest thing of all was that if the devoted tutor had occasion to go abroad with one of his pupils the Red man was eligible for reception anywhere, while in a steam-boat dining-room, or at the clerk's desk of an hotel, the Black one was ostracised.
Skjärgaardens' wood-crowned rocks lie like a wreath down in the lake; the steam-boat comes see! down by the cliff under the red-roofed mansions, where the beech and walnut trees grow in the garden.
It was late when I opened my eyes and, lo! the sleepers were gone, with the boat, my boots, my coat, my hat, and, I soon found, with my money I had been left alone, with a greasy Mackinaw blanket, and as in my stupefaction I gazed all round, and up and down, I saw my pocket-book empty, which the generous general had humanely left to me to put other notes in, `when I could get any. I kicked it with my foot, and should indubitably have been food for cat-fish, had I not heard most a propos the puffing of a steam-boat coming down the river."
Watt's invention of the steam engine, and Symington's invention of the steam-boat, proved a source of wealth and power, not only to their own country, but to the world at large; while Telford, by his roads, bound England and Scotland, before separated, firmly into one, and rendered the union a source of wealth and strength to both.
Word Of The Day