Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth and here they come!
The tugs backed and filled in the stream, to hold the ship steady at the dock-gates; from her bows two lines went through the air whistling, and struck at the land viciously, like a pair of snakes. A bridge broke in two before her, as if by enchantment; big hydraulic capstans began to turn all by themselves, as though animated by a mysterious and unholy spell.
It was two o'clock on the morning of the 24th of April, when the Confederates on the parapets of their forts might have heard the shrill notes of fifes, the steady tramp of men, the sharp clicking of capstans, and the grating of chain cables passing through the hawse-holes on the ships below.
Olaf at once mans two big ships, steers through the narrow mouth of the said fjord, moors one ship on the north shore, another on the south; fixes a strong cable, well sunk under water, to the capstans of these two; and in all quietness waits for Hakon.
What say, boys? heave 'im shoulder high?" The proposal was unanimously agreed to, and the party went towards an object which lay recumbent on the ground, near to one of those large capstans which are used on this part of the Kentish coast to haul up the boats. The object turned out to be a man, bound hand and foot, and with a handkerchief tied round the mouth to insure silence.
When the anchors were thus placed in position, the ends of the cables still remaining on board the ship were passed around capstans, and by means of the donkey-engine drawn taut.
We were forced by a heavy tempest to depart on the 25th, before we had completed our water; and the tempest came on so suddenly that my lord himself had to raise the people from their beds to weigh the anchors, himself assisting at the capstans, and cheering the men with wine.
If she won't budge for all the anchors and capstans aboard, after we have lightened her, by cutting away her masts, and heaving our guns and cargo overboard, why then, mayhap a brisk gale of wind, a tide, or current setting from shore, may float her again in the blast of a whistle.
Let me mention the newest of patent capstans I put this into her myself cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red morocco, two suits of sails, besides a big spinnaker that does not belong to her present rig, a serviceable dinghy well, you can see for yourselves without my saying more, that, even to break up, she is worth quite double the money.
Enormous capstans showed through the twilight their cogged and rusty wheels, their levers and ropes like forgotten instruments of torture. This was the hidden machinery belonging to the great religious festivals; by these artifices the magnificent canopy of the holy week was raised and fastened.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking