Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
They are half-decked, will sail in any weather, and can be easily managed by two men. About ten o'clock we went ashore again in the whale-boat, which Tom had engaged to wait on us during our stay, and made the best of our way to a warehouse to look at some ponchos, which are the speciality of this part of South America. Everybody wears one, from the beggar to the highest official.
It might be a letter; he did not know whence it had come, nor whose it was, and he certainly did not wish to be guilty of opening someone else's letter. He even went so far as to put it solemnly on the table, like a skipper on whose deck the phantom whale-boat of the Flying Dutchman has deposited a packet of mails.
The next step was to drag up both man and octopus into the whale-boat, and this done, the unfortunate Malay was at length seized by his legs, and dragged by sheer force out of the frightful embrace, more dead than alive, as you may suppose. However, we soon revived him by putting him into a very hot bath, the water being at such a temperature as actually to blister his skin.
His manners and attitude towards the universe were the same, whether tossing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sketching the trade-wind from a whale-boat in the blast of sea-sickness, or drinking the cha-no-yu in the formal rites of Japan, or sipping his cocoanut cup of kava in the ceremonial of Samoan chiefs, or reflecting under the sacred bo-tree at Anaradjpura.
So far as Harvey knew, every one of them, from the captain to the humblest seaman, had perished, either by the bolt from the clouds or in the mad waters. It was barely possible that the mate or passenger had escaped from the wreck on which they had taken refuge, as they had the whale-boat with them.
After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew.
And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine tree.
When daylight had sufficiently advanced Curtis mounted the mast, and looked around for the missing raft; but it was nowhere to be seen. The sea was far too rough for the men to venture to take out the whale-boat in search of it, and there was no choice but to set to work and to construct a new raft immediately. Since the sea has become so much rougher, Mrs.
Fanning along against light, vagrant airs, the Rattler worked in. Calling the whale-boat on board, Grief searched out the shore with his binoculars. There was no life. In the hot blaze of tropic sun the place slept. There was no sign of welcome. Up the beach, on the north shore, where the fringe of cocoanut palms concealed the village, he could see the black bows of the canoes in the canoe-houses.
Down here they call such escapes, 'pier-head jumps. There is suddenly a roar from the beach, and a nigger runs down to the water pursued by clouds of spears and arrows. Of course, Johnny Be-blowed's whale-boat is lying ready to pick him up. In his last days Johnny got nothing but pier-head jumps. "And the first owners of Berande bought his recruits a hard-bitten gang of murderers.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking