Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
You have only to picture an old, two-masted, well-decked tramp with smokestack and foul clutter of bridge-house amidships, and fore and aft a miserable bit of a deck broken by hatches and capstans and donkey-engines and stanchions and chains and other unholy stumbling blocks and offences to the casual promenader.
He was girded to ships' masts and funnels of steamers, like a forester to a great oak, scraping and painting; he was lying out on yards, furling sails that tried to beat him off; he was dimly discernible up in a world of giant cobwebs, reefing and splicing; he was faintly audible down in holds, stowing and unshipping cargo; he was winding round and round at capstans melodious, monotonous, and drunk; he was of a diabolical aspect, with coaling for the Antipodes; he was washing decks barefoot, with the breast of his red shirt open to the blast, though it was sharper than the knife in his leathern girdle; he was looking over bulwarks, all eyes and hair; he was standing by at the shoot of the Cunard steamer, off to-morrow, as the stocks in trade of several butchers, poulterers, and fishmongers, poured down into the ice-house; he was coming aboard of other vessels, with his kit in a tarpaulin bag, attended by plunderers to the very last moment of his shore-going existence.
We have a pier a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence. Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it.
You see also the row of great capstans at the foot of the cliff by which the boats are hauled as far out of reach of the waves as possible, though sometimes not far enough. Through the other end of the tunnel you look into the Creux Road, which leads straight up to the life and centre of the Island.
Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence.
The belfry was hauled by three cables that wound around three capstans, each of which was actuated by ten men. The removal was effected in less than an hour. "It should be remarked that during the operation the son of the mason Serra, standing in the belfry, continued to ring peals, the bells not having been taken out. "Done at Crescentino, in the year and on the day mentioned."
"Yes," said I, "and I should be mighty thankful if some of your men would see all clear aloft for me, that we might start with running rigging that will travel, capstans that'll revolve, and sails that'll spread." "Oh, we'll manage that for you," said he. "Tru-ly, she's been bad froze, very bad froze. Durned if ever I see a worse freeze."
I'll take the main." The first mate was content to remain out of the proceedings for the present. Murphy and Hennesey went aloft, performed their part, and came down; then, when the two falls of the halyards were led to the two capstans, Murphy, with his hand in his pocket and his heart in his mouth, went among them.
When they arrived on deck, Cavendish considered, upon inspection, that the tide would serve, as it was now rising rapidly; he therefore immediately gave orders that the winches and capstans should be manned, and the ships hove in towards the beach until their keels touched bottom. This was done, and soon the two vessels had been hauled in until they grounded gently.
The city's hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the clattering of wheels, tingled in the listening ear.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking