United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The cables were brought up, but it needed a very short examination only to show Stephen that they were old and worn from end to end. “It will go hard with us if we have to rely upon these,” he said. “They would not hold a bluff-bowed craft like this two minutes; the very first roller that struck her would snap them like pack-threads.
When the company were tired of the tree, and had gained an appetite by the hard exercise of stretching to high branches, blowing out "dangerous" tapers, and cutting ribbon and pack-threads in all directions, supper came, with its welcome cakes, and furmety, and punch.
The engineer relates that the work was 'a good lesson in the school of patience, because the delays were frequent and galling, while every storm which got up and expended its rage upon the reef left its mark indelibly among the engineer's stock in trade. Cranes and other materials were swept away as if they were corks; lashings, no matter how strong, were snapped like pack-threads.
He began his experiments by fixing common pack-threads lengthwise on a sort of frame for the warp, and then passing the weft threads between them by common plyers, delivering them to other plyers on the opposite side; then, after giving them a sideways motion and twist, the threads were repassed back between the next adjoining cords, the meshes being thus tied in the same way as upon pillows by hand.
Had the mizzen been standing an effort might have been made to show a little sail upon it, and bring her head up into the wind to anchor; but even could this have been done the cables would have snapped like pack-threads. There was nothing for it but destruction.
Word Of The Day