United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Clay rolled along the coast from Valencia to the mines in a paddle-wheeled steamer that had served its usefulness on the Mississippi, and which had been rotting at the levees in New Orleans, when Van Antwerp had chartered it to carry tools and machinery to the mines and to serve as a private launch for himself.
He read it a great many times; it was his only diversion while awaiting transportation at the old Hygeia Hotel, where, in company with hundreds of furloughed officers, he slept on the floors in his blanket; he read it on deck, as the paddle-wheeled transport weighed anchor, swung churning under the guns of the great Fortress so close that the artillerymen on the water-battery could have tossed a biscuit aboard and, heading north-east, passed out between the capes, where, seaward, the towering black sides of a sloop of war rose, bright work aglitter, smoke blowing fitfully from her single funnel.
These naval abortions are, for the nonce, handed over to the funny fellows on board, who proceed to elect a "captain," and appoint themselves to the various offices connected with the proper management of their craft. With great rapidity and no little skill these punts are metamorphosed into brigs, full-rigged ships, paddle-wheeled steamers, and ram-bowed ironclads.
The traders who were making the world smaller by bringing cotton prints to Chinde to cover her black nakedness, her British Majesty's consul at that port, and the boy lieutenant of the paddle-wheeled gunboat which patrols the Zambesi River, were the gentlemen who informed me that they were the only respectable members of Chinde society.
Word Of The Day