"Aground" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Seymour with the squadron from the Thames, weighed their anchors and stood off after them, while Howard with his division remained off Calais, where, in the morning, the largest of the four galleasses was seen aground on Calais Bar. Lord Howard wasted many precious hours in capturing her before he set off to join Drake and Seymour, who were thundering against the Spanish fleet. The wind had got up during the night, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the ship was aground, and the island continued to increase so rapidly, that in two months she was raised high and dry out of the water, about half a mile from the beach. The vegetation seemed to advance as regularly and as rapidly as the island, and after the rainy season the trees had grown ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... high "bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head—and then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" the bar, and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her bows vanished, a great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under way, and in this instant she leaned far over on her side, shied from the bar and fled ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... musquetry, and causing so much havoc, that, shrieking and yelling, they made for the nearest shore without returning a single shot. We followed her, firing into her as fast as possible. On coming up with her we found her aground, with six dead and one mortally wounded; the remainder of the crew had saved themselves by wading to the shore. After getting this prahu afloat, we brought the other prahu, which we had just before captured (No. 4.), alongside. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... shave or trim their wild red beards, and where there is a fight ever on foot. I have seen them at a boat-race fall foul of each other, and after much loud Gaelic, strike each other with oars. The first boat had gone aground, and by dint of hitting out with the long oars kept the second boat from passing, only to give the victory to the third. One day the Sligo people say a man from Roughley was tried in Sligo for breaking ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... which do put me into good quiet of mind. So by water with Sir Wm. Pen to White Hall; and, with much ado, was fain to walk over the piles through the bridge, while Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes were aground against the bridge, and could not in a great while get through. At White Hall we hear that the Duke of York is gone a-hunting to-day; and so we returned: they going to the Duke of Albemarle's, where I left them (after I had observed a very good picture or two there), and so home, and there did ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... self-defence,' without express instructions. At the mouth of St. Lucar he found some great ships, but they lay so near shore that he could not approach them, and finally they escaped in a mist, Raleigh very nearly running his own vessel aground. Meanwhile Essex and Charles Howard, a little in front of him, came to the conclusion in his absence that it would be best to land the soldiers and assault the town, without attempting ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... drifted slowly with the flood-tide, and I, lying on the bottom, fell to thought of what the day had brought me. The setting sun touched the single spire of Christ Church, and lit up yellow squares of light in the westward-looking windows of the rare farm-houses on the Jersey shore. Presently I was aground on the south end of Petty's Island, where in after-years lay rotting the "Alliance," the remnant ship of the greatest sea-fight that ever was since Grenville lay in the "Revenge," with the Spanish fleet ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... canoe ran aground in a few inches of water. Thad sprang ashore, and holding the painter, drew the boat in closer. Relieved of his weight in the bow its keel grated on the dry sand, and the other two were able to step out ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... of an hour—speed having been meanwhile reduced so as to lessen the danger of their running aground—the San-chau arrived abreast of the other craft, which proved indeed to be a cruiser, and laid off at a distance of about half a cable's length, her screw revolving slowly, so as to keep her from drifting down upon the wreck. Then, seizing a megaphone, Wong-lih ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... branches of the trees. Niheu flung upward a stone. It struck. The branches came rattling down, and the mast was free. On they went till the canoes gently stood still. On this, Niheu cried out, "Here you are, asleep again, O Kana, and the canoes are aground!" ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... battle of the Nile. "The merits of that ship and her gallant captain," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, "are too well known to benefit by anything I could say. Her misfortune was great in getting aground, while her more fortunate companions were in the full tide of happiness." This is a notable expression, and depicts the whole great-hearted, big-spoken stock of the English Admirals to a hair. It was to be "in the full tide of happiness" for Nelson to destroy five thousand five hundred ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for Tortuga, and after some trouble L'Olonnois succeeded in getting his vessel out of the harbor where it had been anchored, and sailed for the islands of de las Pertas. Here he had the misfortune to run his big vessel hopelessly aground. ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... at the rain-cloaks on which we were sitting, but our boatmen remained as dry as ever, to our mystification. In the middle of the storm, our unworthy vessel sprung a fresh leak, the water poured in, and we were forced to run aground on a sand-bank for repairs. These were speedily effected, with a wad of paper, by Piotr, who, with a towel cast about his head and shoulders, looked more like an ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... tons, in order to evade the double duties in England, to which American vessels are now subject. He cleared out from Baltimore for Liverpool, the 11th of June, 1785, with eight hogsheads of tobacco and sixty barrels of flour, but ran aground at Smith's point, sprung a leak, and was obliged to return to Baltimore to refit. Having stopped his leak, he took his cargo on board again, and his health being infirm, he engaged Captain William M'Neil* to go with him, and on the 20th ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... if the narrative relates to the smaller species of the whale, a similar catch may still, at the present day, be made on the coasts of the Polar countries. For various small species go together in great shoals; and, as they occasionally come into water so shallow that they are left aground at ebb, they can be killed with ease. Sometimes, too, a successful attempt is made to drive them into shallow water. That whales visit the coast of Norway in spring in large shoals dangerous to ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... on the enemy three hundred two-ounce balls from each of its guns, soon threw the Turks into confusion; and the boats were manned, and sent to board the transports. Five vessels being heavily laden, though they had been run aground, were not close to the shore, and these were soon captured; but two brigs being empty, were placed close under the fire of the troops in the intrenchments. Though they were attacked by all the boats of the squadron, they were not taken until after an obstinate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Unfortunately, the steamer ran aground some four miles below the usual place of rendezvous, and we waited till near four o'clock for the scow. When it made its appearance, we found, to our discomfort, the rowers (eight in number, and all Irishmen) were under the exciting influence ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... increased from the almost impassable condition of the flats in Lake St. Clair. Here steamboats and vessels are daily compelled in all weather to lie fast aground, and shift their cargoes, passengers, and luggage into lighters, exposing life, health, and property to great hazard, and then by extraordinary heaving and hauling are enabled to get over. Indeed, so bad has this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... narrowed, however, the trip began to be enlivened by the constant danger of getting aground on the shifting sand-bars which are so numerous in this mighty river. Jack Mellon was then the most famous pilot on the Colorado, and he was very skilful in steering clear of the sand-bars, skimming over them, or working his boat ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... old woman, feller," Tim refused, and hopped aground unassisted. McKay and Knowlton followed. But Jose, after moving languidly forward and contemplating the sharp slope, hesitated and then shrugged ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... the Second and Fourteenth of the legions, which he had brought in ships, to Publius Vitellius to conduct them by land, that his fleet, thus lightened, might sail on the shoally sea, or run aground with safety when the tide ebbed. Vitellius at first marched without interruption while the ground was dry or the tide flowed within bounds. Presently the ocean beginning to swell by the action of the northwest wind upon it, and also ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... pearl-fishing, embarked in a vessel with a design to coast along the shores of his kingdom in search of pearls. An unexpected storm drove the ship into the open sea. It became the sport of the winds and the waves, and, stripped of all its rigging, ran aground on an unknown shore, and was dashed to pieces against the rocks which surrounded it. The whole crew perished. Baharkan alone was saved from shipwreck by a plank which he had had the good fortune to seize. Fortunately, he landed on the dominions ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... excitement of a voyage of exploration into far and unknown regions. The river just above Sherman's Bridge, in time of flood "when the wind blows freshly on a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and sober billows," was like Lake Huron, "and you may run aground on Cranberry Island," and "get as good a freezing there as anywhere on the North-west coast." He said that most of the phenomena described in Kane's voyages could ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the handle of a sword in silver that bore the print of characters engraved on the hilt. The Lascar pretended that six years before, during a stay at Vanikoro, he had seen two Europeans that belonged to some vessels that had run aground on the reefs ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... where the usual rise and fall of the tide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that small boats at their anchorage were left aground—a thing that had never been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-half minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and, beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... mighty emperor; yet the tourists flung down guide-books and left their tea to shout encouragement and wave their handkerchiefs to Ben Kelham and Sybil Sidmouth, who were also having tea on the slanting deck of their private steamer, which had run aground ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... is told of the steamer, "Fire Canoe." (I will not mention the captain's name.) The water was low and the boat got aground a good many times causing much delay. For a meal or two, the passengers were without meat but soon there seemed to be a plentiful supply of nice fresh veal—one of the passengers who, with his family and stock of young calves, was moving to Minnesota, complimented ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... the Triton was within a few miles of her destination; when off the coast of Pinar del Rio she ran aground. ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, November 4, 1897, No. 52 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... me—the reason why. HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP HER. He could steer first rate, being used to sailboats, but an electric auto launch was a new ideal for him, and he didn't understand her works. And he dastn't run her aground at the speed she was making; 'twould have finished her and, more'n ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... we could, for even these waters were infested, though, not so thickly, by savage reptiles. I ordered sufficient water let into the diving-tanks to lower us about a foot, and then I ran the bow slowly toward the shore, confident that should we run aground, we still had sufficient lifting force to free us when the water should be pumped out of the tanks; but the bow nosed its way gently into the reeds and touched the shore ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... came aground on the mountain of Ararat, in Armenia, a sacred spot to this day; and here God made His covenant with Noah, renewing His first blessing to Adam, permitting the use of animal food; promising that the course of nature ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... nothing but a waste of waters strewed with floating corpses and wreck, wept over the destruction of his land and people. Far away, the mountains of Nizir were visible; the ship was steered for them and ran aground upon the higher land. Yet another seven days passed by. On the seventh, Hasisadra sent forth a dove, which found no resting place and returned; then he liberated a swallow, which also came back; finally, a raven was let loose, and that sagacious bird, ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... In the year 1596, a Spanish ship, the San Felipe, on its way from Manila to Acapulco, was becalmed off the coast of Japan. The local Daimyo insisted on sending men to tow it into his harbour, and gave them instructions to run it aground on a sandbank, which they did. He thereupon claimed the whole cargo, valued at 600,000 crowns. However, Hideyoshi, who was rapidly acquiring supreme power in Japan, thought this too large a windfall for a private citizen, and had the Spanish pilot interviewed by a man named Masuda. The ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... natives, who sat in the canoe with us, kept licking the blood from the wound with his tongue. Meantime, a number of women who had been left in the ship had jumped overboard, and were swimming to the shore, after having cut her cable, so that she drifted, and ran aground on the bar near the mouth of the river. The natives had not sense to shake the reefs out of the sails, but had chopped them off along the yards with their tomahawks, leaving ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... on the south side of Port Bowen, in the entrance of the inlet that extends to the southward within the projection of Cape Clinton; but in doing this we were unfortunate enough to get aground, and receive very serious damage. After passing the Cape and hauling round its inner trend towards the sandy bay, we had to beat to windward to reach the anchorage, and, in the act of tacking on the western side of the inlet, the tide swept ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... thoughts were now in two places at once, and he was not far enough from the shore not to be able to cast a glance towards the Aimable, and to say to his lieutenants, as he saw the vessel drifting near shoal water, "If she keeps on in that course, she will soon be aground." Still, no time was to be lost. The parley with the Indians did not hinder them long, and soon they were on the way towards the village whither the captive had been taken. Just as they entered its precincts and looked upon its inhabitants, clustered in groups among the dome-shaped huts, the loud ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... California, and once established a world's record of being one hundred and eleven days at sea without catching a single fish. The captain, piloting the boat from previous general knowledge of the waters rather than by chart, unfortunately ran aground. The fishing vessel was stranded on a submerged ledge ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... He was evidently in difficulties, and the Fifth Form fellows, who looked round occasionally from their English Literature papers, were elated to see their own men writing steadily and hard, while the Sixth man looked all aground. There was one boy, however, who had no time for such observations. That was Simon. He had got hold of a question which was after his own heart, and demanded every second of his attention—"Describe, in not more than twelve lines of blank verse, the natural beauties of the River ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... cards and dogs, to the best of their ability; while erratic currents bore them from sandbank to sandbank; each collision involving an interlude of shouting, shoving, coaxing, and upbraiding on the part of four assiduous boatmen; and when, by the mercy of God and the river, they managed to run aground on the farther side, it was nearing four o'clock in ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... down the Essequibo was quick and pleasant till we reached the sea-coast: there we had a trying day of it; the wind was dead against us, and the sun remarkably hot; we got twice aground upon a mud- flat, and were twice obliged to get out, up to the middle in mud, to shove the canoe through it. Half-way betwixt the Essequibo and Demerara the tide of flood caught us, and, after the utmost exertions, it was half-past six in ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... tug stuck her nose into a fire-ship, pushed it squarely against Farragut's Hartford and slipped between his guns in the smoke and flame unharmed. The Flagship ran aground. Her sailors bravely stuck to their post and from their pumps threw a deluge of water on the flames and extinguished them. The engines of the Hartford, working with all their might, pulled her off the shore under her own steam. The Louisiana, the new gunboat ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... expedition continued up the river to Isle Mettis, or Grimross Island. The pilots now refused to take charge of the vessels any higher, as they did not think there was sufficient water to pass. The accuracy of their judgment was soon evident. In attempting to proceed Capt. Cobb ran his sloop aground, and several of the transports had a like experience, but the bottom being sandy all soon got off again without damage. Monckton sent Capt. Rogers, late of the sloop "Ulysses," and a mate of the man-of-war "Squirrel," who had accompanied the expedition, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... enormous dolphin, he agitated the waters to such a degree, that the ship was tossed violently to and fro, to the great alarm of the mariners; at the same time he raised a mighty wind, which drove the ship into the harbour of Crissa, where she ran aground. The terrified sailors dared not set foot on shore; but Apollo, under the form of a vigorous youth, stepped down to the vessel, revealed himself in his true character, and informed them that it was he who had driven them to Crissa, in order that they might become his priests, and serve ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... re-embarked, though still unwell. Their second start was followed by immediate disaster. Leaving the mouth of the harbour, two leagues distant from Port Royal, they were carried out of the channel by the tide and went aground. 'At the first blow of our boat upon the rocks the rudder broke, a part of the keel and three or four planks were smashed and some ribs stove in, which frightened us, for our barque filled immediately; and all that we could do was to wait until the ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... the lake of truth— Mayest thou sail upon it with a fair wind; May thy mainsail not fly loose. May there not be lamentation in thy cabin; May not misfortune come after thee. May not thy mainstays be snapped; Mayest thou not run aground. May not the wave seize thee; Mayest thou not taste the impurities of the river; Mayest thou not ...
— Egyptian Literature
... once held flowers along a window-sill. We had painted ports upon her sides, and we had rigged her with a single square sail. With a strong southwesterly wind blowing up the valley, she would sail for nearly a mile whenever the floods were out, and though she often ran aground, we could always get her off, as the water was ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... got more cables, and dropt a fifth anchor. The King himself then took to his long-boat, and rowing out to the islands, ordered mass to be sung. The fleet in the meantime was forced up the channel; and the tempest that day was so furious that some vessels cut away their masts, others ran aground. The King's ship also drove into the sound, tho' seven anchors, including that taken from the transport, had been used. They then let go an eighth, which was the sheet anchor; the ship still drove, but the anchors ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson
... of 700 tons, the day previous to her being struck by lightning, found the French frigate Magicienne aground and deserted on the Bombay shoal; Captain Page boarded her, and discovered every thing as it had been left by the crew—provisions, water, &c., in abundance. The day after, the Sultana met with a worse fate, being struck, and the cotton ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... captains reached the shoal, they found there a cat-boat aground, with one man aboard. His tale was quickly told. He had expected to run into the little bay that afternoon, but the wind had fallen, and in trying to get in after dark, and being a stranger, he had run aground. If he had not been so cold, he said, he ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... prayed for the success of the undertaking. It was a lovely broad river on which they now embarked, with shining sands showing through the clear water, making shallows like tumbling discs of brilliant metal,—a river in which the canoes might sometimes run aground, but one that deceived the eye pleasantly, with islands all vine covered, so when a boat clove a way between two it was a guess how far the Wisconsin spread away on each side to shores of a fertile land. ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... set her into a little creek that opened out suddenly, and there Arngeir saw her first, aground on a sandbank, with the lift of each wave that crept into the haven she had found sending her higher on it. And my father cried to us that we had best follow her; and he put the helm over, while we sheeted home and stood by for ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... resist such persuasive words, and Becky soon yielded to the little siren who was luring her out of her safe, small pool into the deeper water that looks so blue and smooth till the venturesome paper boats get into the swift eddies, or run aground upon the rocks ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... the English pilot had run a Spanish ship aground, as nearly as possible, and only the two anchors kept her from going hard on. The two Englishmen found that the vessel had five feet of water in her, and, in their plain, matter-of-fact way, they set to work. Ugly washes were coming over, but ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... Tinker went to the galley, and made tea. He had brought it to the cabin, and he and Elsie were making a well-earned and hearty meal, and discoursing with gusto of their blood-dyed career during the afternoon, when Alphonse, very sad and glum, came and told them that the yacht was aground, and Adolphe was getting up full steam to get her off. Tinker with great readiness said he ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... this quiet day, The hills of Newbury rolling away, With the many tints of the season gay, Dreamily blending in autumn mist Crimson and gold and amethyst. Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, A stone's toss over the narrow sound. Inland, as far as the eye can go, The hills curve round, like a bended bow; A silver arrow from out them sprung, I see the shine of the Quasycung; And, round and round, over valley and hill, Old roads winding, as old roads ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... hailed him and ran along the bank, while the boat drifted down and the boatman steered in towards Morano. Somehow Morano persuaded him to come in to see what he wanted; and in a creek he ran his boat aground, and there he and Morano argued and bargained. But Rodriguez remained where he was, wondering why it took so long to turn his servant's mind from that curious ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing the blacks to slavery again? for I am told that whenever the rebels take any black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction them off. They did so with those they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For instance, when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from Washington under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who went ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... life-belt may be made of holland, ticking, canvas, or similar materials, in the following manner, and might be used with advantage by the crew of a vessel aground some way from the mainland, who are about to swim for their lives:—Cut out two complete rings, of 16 inches outer diameter and 8 inches inner diameter; sew these together along both edges, with as fine a needle ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... off. Good! Now listen! Do not—repeat, do not!—acknowledge this call or respond to any call from anyone else! There is a drastic situation aground. You must not—repeat, must not—fall into the hands of the people now occupying Government Center. Go into orbit. We will try to seize the spaceport so you can be landed. But do not acknowledge this call or respond to any answer ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Hooker had caught the drift of their talk first, and had motioned to him to listen. Fragments of the conversation were inaudible and fragments incomprehensible. A Spanish galleon from the Philippines hopelessly aground, and its treasure buried against the day of return, lay in the background of the story; a shipwrecked crew thinned by disease, a quarrel or so, and the needs of discipline, and at last taking to their boats never to be heard of again. Then Chang-hi, only a year since, wandering ashore, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... mountain and forest, looked like a temporary encampment; passed under the Pacific Railroad; and then for twelve miles followed the windings of the Truckee River, a clear, rushing, mountain stream, in which immense pine logs had gone aground not to be floated off till the next freshet, a loud-tongued, rollicking stream of ice-cold water, on whose banks no ferns or trailers hang, and which leaves no greenness along its ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... was now thirty or forty yards from the rough bank, and drifting fast. Driscoll obviously meant to land on a patch of shingle lower down, which was the only safe spot for some distance. At low-water one could run a canoe aground among the ledges that bordered the slack inner edge of the rapid, but when the Shadow rose in flood the current broke and boiled furiously among the rocks. One faces forward when paddling, and while Thirlwell watched ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... cockles, yet containing a fish not unlike the latter in appearance, and the former in flavour. We had not exactly calculated the effect of the tide so far up the harbour as Cocoa-nut Island, consequently we got aground in the outer channel, at a considerable distance from the shore. The sailors pushed me over one flat bank in the gig, and then carried me to the beach; the midshipmen waded, and the officers and boats with the crews, went in search of a deeper passage, where ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... the Wabash River (Indiana), when, as it happens nine times out of ten, the steam-boat got aground, and that so firmly, that there was no hope of her floating again till the next flood; so I took my wallet, waded for two hundred yards, with the water to my knees, till I got safe on shore, upon a thick-timbered bank, full of rattle-snakes, thorns ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... "—why—why, Fair, that's a mighty handsome offer to come from such a prudent business man as you. My George! sir, men don't often put such valuable freight into a boat that's aground. Why—why, you spoil my talk; I positively don't know what—what to say!" There was a choke in his voice. Fair made some answer ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... were set at liberty to go where they pleased, the rascally seamen scattering about as though they had a mind to see the place; and so long did they negligently ramble, that the tide had ebbed so low, as to leave the boat aground. Nor were the two men who were in her more circumspect; for having drunk a little too much liquor, they fell fast asleep; but one of them waking before the other, and perceiving the boat too fast aground for his ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... "She's aground, sir," cried the coxswain. "A rope has caught our rudder—unship it, man," answered the captain, who was as cool as if about to go ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... it is reported, 'She's getting herself off the beach; she'll soon be off!' but it does not appear to hasten the powers that be, who apparently have decided that, as it will not be high tide till nearly one P. M., she is safely aground till then. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a fleet of lilies We go scudding round,— Bumblebees for sailors,— And they're fast aground. Here's a drowning fly In her satin dress. All hands, about ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Fortress Monroe, reporting the appearance of the rebel ironclad Merrimac, and the havoc she had wrought the previous afternoon—the Cumberland sunk, the Congress surrendered and burned, the Minnesota aground and about to be attacked. There was a quick gathering of officials at the Executive Mansion—Secretaries Stanton, Seward, Welles, Generals McClellan, Meigs, Totten, Commodore Smith, and Captain Dahlgren—and a scene of excitement ensued, unequaled ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... jerseys and great sea-boots to be worn out. Neddy and Teddy, his two fine donkeys, were soon fitted with "steering gear," among the intricacies of which their active heels often got "foul." They "ran aground" with alarming frequency, scraping their pack-saddles against the walls of narrow lanes. Their master knew no peace of mind till, having passed the narrows, he found on some moor or common "plenty o' sea-room," notwithstanding the danger ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... within sight of Grande Terre, drew up in line of battle, and started for the entrance to Barataria Bay. Within this the pirate fleet, ten vessels in all, was in line to receive them. Soon there was trouble for the assailants. Shoal water stopped the schooner, and the two larger gunboats ran aground. But their men swarmed into boats and rowed on in the wake of the other vessels, which quickly made their way through the pass and began a ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... picked up in waiting canoes. Next day when Columbus sent to Guacanagari to demand their return, the king and his whole village had disappeared. It would appear that this simple savage had grown into a far shrewder person than his European host since that Christmas night when the Santa Maria ran aground. ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... not strange that the crews were frightened at such a sight. It seemed uncanny and weird, and revived ancient fancies about mysterious impassable seas and overbold mariners whose ships had been stuck fast in them. The more practical spirits were afraid of running aground upon submerged shoals, but all were somewhat reassured on this point when it was found that their longest plummet-lines failed to ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... gloomy character. Nor is this change, occasioned by the tide in the state of the sea, merely in appearance terrific, it is so in reality: for we never durst cast anchor in less than eight or nine fathoms water, lest at ebb-tide we should find ourselves aground, ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... "Fast aground till a squall comes along and breaks you up," he said, as if speaking to the vessel. "It's all there was left for either of us to do, for we are death, it seems, to every ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... chub-fishing, we took the boat a mile or so up-stream, and then let it drift down with the current near a bank that was fringed with willows and acacias. Although we needed only six inches of water, the depth was sometimes miscalculated, and we went aground on a bank of pebbles. Then the Otter, whose bare feet were always ready for such emergencies, stepped out into the sparkling current, and hauled or pushed the boat over the obstacle. What with rapids and ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... flutters, don't it? Henry, go mind the sweep and see we don't get aground! Keppel, you start a fire and warm some water! Connie, you tear up my other petticoat for bandages now, stir around, all of you!" And then began a period of breathless activity. They first lifted ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... this in a cuple of days, and I must, tho, with reluctance, aquent you, my dear Papa, that my long stay here, together with my illness, has runn me quite aground, which forct me to borow very near 150l. St. and Mr. Woulf, Banquier, has my note payable the 5th of Aprile to his correspondent at Boulogne. As for the remaining 50, its not so pressing, as I had it from my Collegian friends [Scots ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... faces; and here and there from their tops trickled little steams, plashing into the waves at their feet. Passing through a natural arch in a rock, lofty and narrow, called the Devil's Bridge, and turning a little promontory, they were soon aground ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... discernible a few miles' distance. Jerbah, from this appearance, as from reality, deserves the name of the "Isle of Palms." After crossing the channel, which runs between the island and the continent, whose waters were deep and rough, we got aground in the Shallows, off Zarzees. This place is a round tower (burge) on the continent, with a few houses and plantations of olives and dates. Here commences the shoal-water, or bassa-fondo, as our semi-Italian boatmen called it, which continues east along the coast for eighty miles, as far as Rais-el-Makhbes. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... last to a point where navigation was impeded because of a large vessel aground, and after skilful manoeuvring and some minutes' delay, our launch proceeded on the homeward way. Night was upon us before we left the canal, and as the twilight faded, the gleaming of the lights in the little homes ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... clock moves round; So slowly that no human eye hath power To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower The painted ship above it, homeward bound, Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground; Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour, A mellow, measured, melancholy sound. Midnight! the outpost of advancing day! The frontier town and citadel of night! The watershed of Time, from which the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... stars. So the Cerberus had sent a message-torp and was crawling to a refuge-planet, more or less surveyed a hundred years before. There she would land by emergency rockets, because her drive couldn't take the strain. Once aground, the Cerberus should wait for help. There was nothing else to be done. But everything was nicely in hand. The squad ship headed briskly for the planet Procyron III, and Sergeant Madden would take the data for a proper, official, emergency-call traffic report on the incident, and in time the Aldeb ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a good band must limp along with a cornetist who always takes three strikes to hit a high note, and Ed Smith says Cooney wants to be leader and will not be satisfied until he can play the solo and bass parts at once on his clarionet. I can see Ed Smith now, after the band has run aground in practice, taking his horn down ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... ships." Before long he cried, "I see a forest of masts and sails." On the 29th of September, St. Michael's day, the expedition arrived off the coast of England, at Pevensey, near Hastings, and "when the tide had ebbed, and the ships remained aground on the strand," says the chronicles the landing was effected without obstacle; not a Saxon soldier appeared on the coast. William was the last to leave his ship; and on setting foot on the sand he made a false step and fell. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... quickly against the baby's cold cheek. It was the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. As she was yet wondering the tree suddenly rolled a little, dragged a little, and then seemed to lie quiet and still. She put out her hand and the current gurgled against it. The tree was aground, and, by the position of the light and the noise of the surf, aground upon the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Defect in our Poetry, and I think the greatest it is liable to, is, that we study Form, and neglect Matter. We are often very flowing, and under a full Sail of Words, while we leave our Sense fast aground, as too weighty to float on Frothiness; We run on, upon false Scents, like a Spaniel, that starts away at Random after a Stone, which is kept back in the Hand, though It seem'd to fly before him. To speak with Freedom on this Subject, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... the strangers who had dispossessed them of their country. They even attributed to their incantations the misadventure which befell the renowned Hendrick Hudson, when he sailed so gallantly up this river in quest of a north-west passage, and, as he thought, run his ship aground; which they affirm was nothing more nor less than a spell of these same wizards, to prevent his getting to China in ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... river where the ship was—this is all the service that my leg, much wounded, could render me; for there was surely a good quarter of a league of road to make. I found the boat as they had told me, but, the water having subsided, it was aground. I push it, in order to set it afloat; not being able to effect this, on account of its weight, I call to the ship, that they bring the skiff to ferry me, but no news. I know not whether they heard me; at all events no one appeared. The daylight meanwhile was beginning to discover to ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... when the anchor was almost apecke, the Cable broke, by meanes whereof we lost another Anchor, wherewith we droue so fast into the shoare, that wee were forced to let fall a third Anchor: which came so fast home that the Shippe was almost aground by Kenricks mounts: so that we were forced to let slippe the Cable ende for ende. And if it had not chanced that wee had fallen into a chanell of deeper water, closer by the shoare then wee accompted of, wee could neuer ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... was composed of sand-banks which ran out into the sea, and were more dangerous to approach than rocky shoals. The sand-banks irritate the waves, and make the sea so particularly rough, that in heavy weather vessels that run aground there are invariably dashed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... 3 in the morning, and brought up at 5, in a narrow muddy creek on the island of Sidhee. The waters retired along channels scooped several fathoms deep in black mud, leaving our vessel aground six or seven feet below the top of the bank, and soon afterwards there was no water to be seen; as far as the eye could reach, all was a glistening oozy mud, except the bleak level surfaces of the islands, on which neither shrub nor tree grew. Soon after 2 p.m. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... a council straight. Brief and bitter the debate: "Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow, For a prize to Plymouth Sound? Better run the ships aground!" (Ended Damfreville his speech). Not a minute more to wait! "Let the Captains all and each Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach! ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 'Makes a beautiful gown for evening or summer wear.' Summer! Why, by the big dipper, we're aground again! Bos'n don't want summer clothes. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... port in the dry; the men were gone from them ashore. Then took they two of the three ships at the outer part of the port, and killed the men, and the other ship escaped; in that also the men were killed except five; they got away because the other ships were aground. They also were aground very disadvantageously, three lay aground on that side of the deep on which the Danish ships were aground, and all the rest upon the other side, so that no one of them could get to the others. But when the water had ebbed many furlongs ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... busy. There were twenty-five new men to be guided as they applied what they'd been taught aground about life in space. It was three full Earthdays before the stores intended for the journey to the Moon and the maintenance of a base there really began to move. The tug and the space wagons had to be moored outside and reached only by space ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... this easterly breeze and smooth water, they will get there, crippled as they are, in some twenty-four hours. There the wounded will be cared for, and the prisoners drafted off. The Blonde, the corvette which is aground, surrendered, as you know, when she found herself helpless, and within range of our new battery. Stubbard's men longed to have a few shots at her; but of course we stopped any such outrage. Nearly all her officers and most of her crew are on board the Leda, having given ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... float down the Kennebec on one of these rafts, letting the river conduct you onward at its own pace, leisurely displaying to you all the wild or ordered beauties along its banks, and perhaps running you aground in some peculiarly picturesque spot, for your longer enjoyment of it. Another object, perhaps, is a solitary man paddling himself down the river in a small canoe, the light, lonely touch of his paddle in the water making the silence seem deeper. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
