Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
The vessel goes so steadily that you would hardly know that she was moving were it not for the creaking of the cordage, the bellying of the sails, and the long white furrow in our wake. Walked the quarter-deck all morning with the Captain, and I think the keen fresh air has already done my breathing good, for the exercise did not fatigue me in any way.
Red Lancers came in, and the Head Chaprassi, who speaks English, came in, and mace-bearers came in, and ladies ran downstairs screaming "fire;" for the smoke was drifting through the house and oozing out of the windows, and bellying along the verandahs, and wreathing and writhing across the gardens.
Fast and far they flew from the stormy glory in the west, lighting up the pale surfaces of cloud, and tinging the grey waters of that majestic sea with a lurid hue of blood. They kissed the bellying sails, and seemed to rest upon the vessel's lofty trucks, and then travelled on and away, and away, through the great empyrean of space till they broke and vanished upon the horizon's rounded edge.
The large triangular sail of the sampan was now bellying out in the south wind. A figure stood up in the stern of the boat and shook a menacing arm at the couple on the beach. It was the Malay chief, cursing them with the rude eloquence of his barbarous tongue. And Jenks well knew what he was saying. They looked long and steadfastly at the retreating boat.
But while we stood admiring the cloud-capped peaks and the lowlands robed in misty gloom a finer picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a magnet a stately ship, with canvas piled on canvas till she was one towering mass of bellying sail! She came speeding over the sea like a great bird. Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was for the beautiful stranger.
There were no more squalls, naught but fine weather, a fair wind, and a whirling log, with sheets slacked off and with spinnaker and mainsail swaying and bellying on either side. The trade backed more and more, until it blew out of the northeast, while we steered a steady course to the southwest.
Augustine had once and again seen her harbor filled with the huge, cumbrous hulls, and whitened by the bellying sails, of the Spanish war vessels, when the fleets of the Catholic king gathered there, before setting out against the seaboard towns of Georgia and the Carolinas; and she had to suffer from and repulse the retaliatory inroads of the English colonists.
A thing like a black snake went down from the mizen-top, bellying towards the yawning sea, and soon lost to sight: it was seen rising again among some lanterns on the rock ashore: but what became of it in the middle? The darkness seemed to cut it in two; the sea to swallow it.
Jacopo awaited at the water-gate. In less than a minute he was driving his gondola across the port, following the course of the felucca, whose white sail was visible in the moonlight, now bellying in the breeze, and now flapping as the mariners checked her speed.
Cannon were fired. Cheer on cheer set the echoes rolling among the white domed mountains. There was a rattling of anchor chains, a creaking of masts and yard-arms. The sails fluttered out bellying full; and with a last, long shout, the ships glided out before the wind to the lazy swell of the Pacific for the discovery of new worlds. And why not new worlds?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking