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


After borrowing money enough from an old school-mate, I paid my board bill and bought a ticket for home. I had been away less than four weeks. I first met Mr. Keefer at the barn and explained to him "just how it all happened," and how the soap dried up, and how I had become stranded at Toledo and borrowed money to get home with.

But it became necessary to put a period to my wandering, unless I wished to find myself stranded in Vienna with "neither cross nor pile." The references to money-matters have been designedly slight throughout these pages. It is not my habit to keep accounts.

Onward went the miserable blacks, the line becoming thinner and thinner; still the headmost were flying, when an enormous sea, dashing on the shore, enfolded the stranded dhow in its embrace.

With the aid of powerful glasses, the Heliumite saw that they were green warriors, and that they were repeatedly charging down upon the crew of the stranded airship. The nationality of the latter he could not make out at so great a distance.

But all was in vain our endeavours had no effect; the sails were split in a thousand pieces, and the ship was stranded; several of the merchants and seamen were drowned and the cargo was lost. I had the good fortune, with several of the merchants and mariners, to get upon some planks, and we were carried by the current to an island which lay before us.

That many more had been left stranded, and then taken away, was very evident by the disturbed state of the sand and the numerous footmarks. Suddenly a harsh sound of many voices fell upon their ears, and Jacky came to a dead stop.

Some of 'em don't suit my liver, some disagrees with my stomach, and the rest of 'em has vibrations; so here I set, high an' dry on the banks of life, you might say, like a stranded log." As this well-known simile fell upon the ear, there was a general stir in the group, for Turrible Wiley, when rhetorical, sometimes grew tearful, and this was a mood not to be encouraged.

Then, taking with him a companion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he expected to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead, he at once cut out the place where the death-wound had been inflicted. If the whale was not dead, he again returned to his home and continued washing himself until the whale died.

To the right, a low ridge of coral rocks rose almost as a wall from the sea, and joined the herbage and brushwood at about a hundred paces, while the wreck of the Pacific, lying like some huge stranded monster, formed the prominent feature in the landscape.

This, and other remarkable exploits, related by the native chroniclers, so discouraged the Hollanders that they abandoned the siege on the 2d of November, leaving behind them one of their largest ships, stranded, and over 400 dead. The fleet repaired to la Aguáda to refit.