Barca

“ In the intervals of the music there is something weird and frantic to both their labor and their language as they agonize to protect their beloved boats from scratches and smashes and at the same time retain positions of vantage in this ice-floe of a tangle as the barca struggles forward a few difficult yards to its next point of serenade. ”

“ Entrances right and left of parapet. Midway down, right, the door to a chamber.
Charilus stands on parapet and looks down toward Avesta. Barca waits within the hall.
Char. O, sea-washed city, must the hail of fire
Crimson thy milky walls, and salt winds strive
In vain to sweeten ditches dark with blood
From thy tapped heart? Come, Barca, be my eyes,
Who climbs the heights?
[Barca advances and looks over]
Barca. Lords Vigard and Biondel
Are on the pass.
Char. My sons so soon returned!
No other?
Barca. Farther down, my lord, I see
The knight, Sir Vairdelan. ”

“ BARILLA. An alkali procured by burning Salsola kali and other sea-shore plants. It forms a profitable article of Mediterranean commerce. (See Kelp.)
BARK. The exterior covering of vegetable bodies, many of which are useful in making paper, cordage, cloth, dyes, and medicines.
BARK, or Barque [from barca, Low Latin] . A general name given to small ships, square-sterned, without head-rails; it is, however, peculiarly appropriated by seamen to a three-masted vessel with only fore-and-aft sails on her mizen-mast.—Bark-rigged. Rigged as a bark, with no square sails on the mizen-mast. ”

“ Barcarolle, in G Major
Strictly speaking, the “barcarolle” is an Italian boat-song—“barca” being the Italian word for boat. But in musical terminology it has been localized and signifies distinctly a Neapolitan boat-song associated as exclusively with the Vesuvian bay as is the gondoliera with the lagoons and canals of Venice. In each case it is the song of the local boatman, sung to the rhythmical accompaniment of the swinging oar, and enhanced in poetic charm by the beauty and romantic atmosphere of the surroundings. ”

“ My Ardia.
Ard. You love me, yet would die. Thou'rt mine!
And I will hold thee, yea, on this warm earth,
Not in some strange and tearless world!
[While they speak Barca moves up the pass and listens]
Barca. My lord?
Ber. Ay, Barca?
Barca. Men are on the pass. ”

“ Barca (500) , a Turkish province in the N. of Africa, between Tripoli and Egypt; produces maize, figs, dates, and olives.
Barca, name of a Carthaginian family to which Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, and Hannibal belonged, and determinedly opposed to the ascendency of Rome; known as the Barcine faction.
Barcelo`na (280) , the largest town in Spain next to Madrid, on the Mediterranean, and its chief port, with a naval arsenal, and its largest manufacturing town, called the "Spanish Manchester," the staple manufacture being cotton; is the seat of a bishopric and a university ”

“ Barca. Will you walk on?
Ard. Yes, come.
Barca. [Listening] What's that?
A noise below!
Ard. Some one from Banissat!
I'll not be taken!
Barca. Come aside, my lady.
Here is good hiding.
[They go behind a great rock half hidden by cedars. Bertrand enters below. Ardia steps out and stands before him. He kneels]
Ber. Spirit, hast come for me? I'll join thee, love,
When I have climbed this peak and met the sword
That sets my honor free.
Ard. Nay, rise, my lord.
Ber. [Rising] Thy living self? Here in the night alone?
Ard. Barca is here, and Gaina. ”

“ Is the Barca harbor shallow?"
"Ten, fifteen feet at low tide," she informed him. "We're having a sort of dredge made there. Something to go down into the sea, take pictures, get samples of the bottom, and then come up again. There's an oceanographic ship due in Manila shortly, by the way. ”

“ Every thing perfectly calm, all sail set, and the heavens becoming gradually sprinkled with silver stars. The sky blue, and without a cloud, except where the sun has just set, the last crimson point sinking in the calm sea and leaving a long retinue of rainbow-colored clouds, deep crimson tinged with bright silver, and melting away into gray, pale vapor.
On goes the vessel, stately and swanlike; the water of the same turquoise blue, covered with a light pearly froth, and so clear that we see the large sponges at the bottom. Every minute they heave the lead. ”

“ There are ten or a dozen of these serenade-points, and at each the writhing flotilla pauses, and singers and orchestra provide the entertainment. It is finest to be afloat, but, oh, the land! Red-and-green fire throws into enormous relief fairylike towers and turrets that have figured in song and story for a thousand years; and in windows, terraces, balconies, and tops there throngs a multitude that none of us may number. Every face is turned toward the barca ”

“ Barett, n., ‘skull-cap, hood,’ adopted in the 15th cent. from Fr. barrette, MidLat. birrétta, a deriv. from Lat. birrus, birrum, ‘cloak, pallium.’
Barke, f., ‘barque, boat,’ from the equiv. MidHG. barke, f.; corresponds to Scand. barke, ‘barque’; not of Germ. origin. The cognates are based upon an equiv. Rom. class with the primit. forms barca-barica (found even in the 7th cent. in Isidore) ; comp. Fr. barque (besides OFr. barge, from MidLat. barica; whence E. barge, LG. Barse) , Ital. barca; OIr. barc is of similar origin. The ultimate source of the cognates (Spain?) is uncertain. ”

“ The norther continued to blow with unrelenting fierceness, and the ship to rock and roll amongst a tumult of foaming billows. The nights in this pitch darkness seemed interminable. The berths being constantly filled with water, we dragged our mattresses on the floor, and lay there wishing for the dawn. But the dawn brought no relief. The wind howled on like a fierce wild beast, roaring for its prey. I had made my way every day up stairs, and by dint of holding on, and with a chair tied with strong ropes, had contrived to sit on deck. ”

“ Think, dear maidens,
Peace everywhere! Avesta safe and free,
And Oswald's sword in sheath—
What is that chanting?
Gaina. [Looking from parapet] A train comes up the heights.
Mylitta. The English Lords!
[Enter Barca, left]
Ard. Barca, who comes?
Barca. Prince Banissat, my lady,
With all his court attending.
Mirimond. Banissat!
This is a Christian wedding.
Ard. We are at peace.
Barca. He brings you gifts. Your brothers go to meet him.
Ard. Where is Lord Bertrand?
Barca. Near at hand. He comes
This way. [Exit Barca, left]
Ard. ”

“ The ship reeled to and fro like a drunken man, and the passengers, as usual in such cases, performed various involuntary evolutions, cutting right angles, sliding, spinning round, and rolling over, as if Oberon's magic horn were playing an occasional blast amidst the roaring winds; whilst the stewards alone, like Horace's good man, walked serene amidst the wreck of crockery and the fall of plates. Driven from our strong hold on deck, indiscriminately crammed in below like figs in a drum ”

“ As we approached the wharf the noise and bustle increased. The passengers all crowded upon deck, and we had scarcely anchored, when various little boats were seen making for the Norma. First boat brought an officer with the salutations of the Captain-General to his Excellency, with every polite offer of service ”

“ So now we are alone, C——n and I, and my French femme-de-chambre; with her air of Dowager Duchess, and moreover sea-sick.
28th.—When I said I liked a sea life, I did not mean to be understood as liking a merchant ship, with an airless cabin, and with every variety of disagreeable odour. As a French woman on board, with the air of an afflicted porpoise, and with more truth than elegance, expresses it: "Tout devient puant, même I'eau-de-cologne." ”

“ At five, dinner, at which no one joins us but the captain and one officer; and after dinner on deck till bedtime, walking about, or gazing on the sky or sea, or listening to the songs of the sailors.
26th.—Little wind, but a day of such abominably cruel "balances" as they call them, that one is tempted to find rest by jumping overboard. Every thing broken or breaking. Even the cannons disgorge their balls, which fall out by their own weight.
28th.—We have had two days of perfect weather though very warm; the sky blue, without one cloud. ”

“ Vera Cruz, 18th. This morning, the sanguine hoped and the desponding feared, for the wind, though inclining to la brisa, seemed unlikely to prove sufficiently strong to enable us to reach Vera Cruz—this being the twenty-fifth day since we left Havana; a voyage that, with a steamer, might be performed in three days, and with a sailing vessel and a fair wind, is made in six or seven. About noon, the aspect of things became more favorable. The breeze grew stronger, and with it our hopes. ”

“ The wind is still contrary, and the Norma, beating up and down, makes but little way. We have gone seventy-four miles, and of these advanced but forty. Every one being sick to-day, the deck is nearly deserted. ”

“ Nothing can be more exhilarating and picturesque. The faintest outline of a ship possesses a nameless charm; suggests freedom, wide seas, infinite space: speaks of enterprise, danger, and courage, yet is an emblem of absolute repose; hours and days and weeks where the world cannot reach you, and its cares and worries are non-existent.
Nowhere is the element found under more favourable conditions than in Barcelona. Few harbours are so well placed. Climb the heights for a bird's-eye view of the port, and the scene is enchanting. Low-lying shores undulate towards the mouth of the harbour ”

“ A norther, not a very severe one, but what they call a Norte chocolatero, that is, its shock tore a sail in two, as I tear this sheet of paper. The most ingenious person I see is the "master of the sails." He sews most excessively quick and well. Towards evening the wind calmed, but the ship, tossed upon a horribly swelled sea, became a mortal purgatory. Still the wind is lulled, though Humboldt and others say that a Norte must last forty-eight hours, and we have only had it for twenty-four. ”

“ So slow was the motion of the barque that she was still floating into the bay with her anchors at the catheads, and a few heads of men along the yards furling the lighter canvas, when the boat dashed alongside of her. When the stranger was about a mile and a half distant from the point of pier which I watched her from, she let go her topsail halliards—she carried single sails—and a few minutes later her anchor fell, and she swung slowly, with her head to the swell and the light wind. ”

“ After journeying across the plain, we came about mid-day to the seaboard, and there we spied, lying in a sheltered bay, a long galley with three masts, each dressed with a single cross-spar for carrying a leg-of-mutton sail, and on the shore a couple of ship's boats with a company of men waiting to transport our goods and us aboard. And here our hearts quaked a bit at the thought of trusting ourselves in the hands of these same murderous-looking pirates. ”

“ Down the deserted wind-swept streets we drive steadily on, till house lights glinting behind the blinds and hurrying figures of a 'night-shift' show that we are near the river and the docks. A turn along the waterside, the dim outlines of the ships and tracery of mast and spar looming large and fantastic in the darkness, and the driver, questioning, brings up at a dim-lit shed, bare of goods and cargo—the berth of a full-laden outward-bounder. My barque—the Florence, of Glasgow—lies in a corner of the dock, ready for sea. ”

“ The Beach of la Brea
Trinidad
This ship at the pier was the first full-rigged merchant ship we had seen during the cruise—most merchantmen seeming now to be rigged as barks or barkentines—and was, even in spite of its black cargo, a beautiful sight. There is something in the look of a ship—its mass of rigging, its straight yard-arms, well set up, its black, drooping sails, half-furled, its inexplicable riddle of shrouds and stays and braces and halliards and sheets—that always stirs my soul mysteriously. ”

“ If I could have my heart’s desire, I should, I think, choose to spend my declining years sailing the Spanish Main in a swift and handy ship, cruising aimlessly, touching where fancy willed, free as one of the swift-winged frigate-birds, untrammeled as the leaping porpoises.
Being possessed of a passion for the sea and for the ships that sail thereon, and with an even greater [63] fondness for my familiar and beloved Caribbean, I can well understand why the buccaneers loved their wild life. ”

“ At the foot of a flight of broad stone steps leading to the water from a wharf on the quay near one of the bridges, a superior sort of ship’s boat was moored, where her crew, some resting on the benches, some lounging on the steps, were grouped in conversation, evidently directing their attention to a beautiful ship of small tonnage but perfect symmetry that lay at anchor at a short distance, easily distinguished from the numerous vessels in her neighbourhood by the smartness of her rigging and the elegance of her build. ”

“ The fleet was returning like a frightened herd in stampede, each boat plunging in the combers with the bellow of the tempest upon its heels. Would they make the lee of the Breakwater? The wind in devilish playfulness would here tear off a shred of canvas, there a yard, and there a mast or a tiller, till a rudderless craft, caught abeam by a mountain of greenish water, would seem surely to be swallowed up. ”