United States or North Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To the opening through which the Endeavour had passed, our commander, with a proper sense of gratitude to the Supreme Being, gave the name of Providential Channel. In the morning of the 17th, the boats had been sent out, to see what refreshments could be procured; and returned in the afternoon with two hundred and forty pounds of the meat of shell fish, chiefly of cockles.
He found here some cockles of so enormous a size, that one of them was more than two men could eat, and a great variety of other shell-fish, of which he brought us a plentiful supply: In the evening he had also landed in a bay about three leagues to the northward of our station, where he disturbed some of the natives who were at supper; they all fled with the greatest precipitation at his approach, leaving some fresh sea-eggs, and a fire ready kindled, behind them, but there was neither house nor hovel near the place.
"There, now, master, there's a glass o' grog for you that would float a marline-spike. See if that don't warm the cockles of your old heart." "Ay," added Tom, "and set all your muscles as taut as weather backstays." "Master Tom, with your leave, I'll mix your grog for you myself. Hand me back that bottle, you rascal."
The next morning, therefore, I sent him out again, with proper instruments for taking them, and Mr Banks went with him; but the success did not at all answer our expectations, for, by the unaccountable conduct of the officer, not a single turtle was taken, nor could he be persuaded to return: Mr Banks, however, went ashore upon the reef, where he saw several of the large cockles, and having collected many shells and marine productions, he returned at eleven o'clock at night in his own small boat, the master still continuing with the large one upon the rock.
On April 16 he wrote again as follows: Dear Sir, Your communication gladdened the cockles of my heart. I lost no time in presenting myself to Moxon, but no sooner was Mr. Clarke's letter perused than the Moxonian visage loured exceedingly thereat the Moxonian accent grew dolorous thereupon: 'Artevelde' has not paid expenses by about thirty odd pounds.
They were of all types: skiffs and wherries and canoes and snub-nosed punts, with a great number of short, sharply rounded craft, new to my American observance, and called cockles, very precisely adapted to contain one girl, who had to sit with her eyes firmly fixed on the young man with the oars, lest a glance to this side or that should oversee the ticklishly balanced shell.
They coast along the East side of Celebes, and between it and other Islands and Sholes, with great difficulty. Shy Turtle. Vast Cockles. A wild Vine of great Virtue for Sores. Great Trees; one excessively big. Beacons instead of Buoys on the Sholes. A Spout: a Description of them, with a Story of one. Uncertain Tornadoes. Turtle. The Island Bouton, and its chief Town and Harbour Callasusung.
Moderate breezes at North-North-West, and hazey weather with rain in the night. P.M. I went to another part of the Bay to haul the Sean, but meet with as little Success as before; and the Master did not get above 1/2 a Bucket full of Shells with the Drudge. The Natives brought to the Ship, and sold to our People, small Cockles, Clams, and Mussels, enough for all hands.
Poor little Mauryeen! She was a child with social instincts, and often, often she used to wonder in those lonely hours why she might not be out with the other children, playing at shop in the crevices of the rocks, or wading for cockles, or dancing round in a ring to the sing-song of 'Green Gravel, or playing at 'High Gates. Her mother coldly discouraged any friendship with the children of her foes; and little Mauryeen grew up a silent child, with something more delicate and refined about her than the other children, with somehow the air of a little lady.
I met a fine old fellow, who might have sat as the father in "The Cottar's Saturday Night," and who swore most heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a little after I scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather cockles.
Word Of The Day