quotes_aug16_2020.htm

One swam forth, trying to copy the roll, rise and dig- out of The Reverend John’s side-stroke, and manoeuvred to meet them so that they should crash on one’s head, when for an instant one glanced down arched perspectives of beryl, before all broke in fizzy, electric diamonds, and the pulse of the main surge slung one towards the beach.

This is from “The Propagation of Knowledge” in Debits and Credits. The boys are swimming off the Pebble Ridge with the Reverend John.

There is very little chance of anything getting off again when once she touches in the furious Hugli current, loaded with all the fat silt of Bengal, where the soundings change two feet between tides, and new channels make and unmake themselves in one rainy season.

This is from “An Unqualified Pilot” in Land and Sea Tales. It describes the hazards of navigation in the Hugli, down which young Jim illicitly manoeuvred.

Here we saw whales, and fish on the shape of shields, but longer than our ship. Some slept, some opened their mouths at us, and some danced on the hot waters. The water was hot to the hand, and the sky was hidden by grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust that whitened our hair and beards of a morning. Here, too, were fish that flew in the air like birds. They would fall in the laps of the rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.

This is from “The Knights of the Joyous Venture in Puck of Pook’s Hill, describing the journey of Sir Richard and Hugh in Witta’s lonship, down the coasy of West Africa