Drifting

“ It seems to me that we must be drawing nearer to the land, and before evening we may be close enough to see what sort of a country it is. If the worst comes to the worst, we can launch the boat, and go ashore. It’s a little rough, but, after all, not too rough for the boat. I’ve been out in an open boat when the water was quite as rough as this. It seems rough to us, because the ship is water-logged, and is drifting every way—end on, side on, and so forth.”
“I wonder what land it is,” said Phil.
“If we only knew how the wind has been, we might guess how we have been drifting,” said Bruce ”

“ We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. ”

“ Five days and nights had we been drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves; all our small stock of food had been devoured—though we had hoarded every crumb, as the miser hoards his gold. Even the rain water, as well as the water we had brought with us, we had drained to the last drop.
The weather continually alternated from a dead calm to a light breeze: the wind frequently shifted, but I had no strength left to attend to the sail—the boat was abandoned to its own guidance, or rather to that of the wind. ”

“ Drifting I suppose is work which you never saw much of. The Bank we are working in is twelve feet to the bed rock. We commence on the bed rock and drift out three feet and leave the other nine feet over our heads. ”

“ Wind of the upper spaces. Snuff it deep, drink in the intoxication of our speed. Hark how the music swells and rings. . . . sphery music, music of every vagabond planet, every rooted star; sound of winds and seas and all the simmering millions of life. Moving, singing . . . so with a roar and a rush round we go and round, for ever whirling on a ceaseless Bank Holiday of drunken life and speed.
But I happened to look inwards among the machinery of our roundabout, and there I saw a slobbering cretin grinding at a wheel and sweating as he ground, and grinding eternally. ”

“ A solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep across a drift, now scudding over the bare ground, while his cloak is swollen with the wind. And now the jingling of bells, a sluggish sound, responsive to the horse's toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts, announces the passage of a sleigh, with a boy clinging behind, and ducking his head to escape detection by the driver. ”

“ We do nothing all day but drift, or try to drift, against the north wind, not making a mile an hour, constantly turning about, floating from one side of the river to the other. It is impossible to row, for the steersman cannot keep the boat’s bow to the current. ”

“ The day when a drift is to take place is kept a profound secret till it is proclaimed early in the morning. Then a messenger on a fleet horse is sent round very early to announce it. On certain tors are holed stones, and through these horns were formerly passed and blown on such occasions. There are drifts for ponies, and drifts for bullocks. A drift is an animated and striking scene. Horsemen and dogs are out, the farmers identifying their cattle, the drivers and dogs sending the frightened beasts plunging, galloping in one direction towards the place of gathering. ”

“ The open places amid the drift were faintly shimmering, reflecting the feeble light that shone through the clouds from the stars; the drift itself loomed in fantastic shapes of pure black on the water. There were logs and patches of sticks and grass; lumps of straw-stacks; the rectangles and triangles of sides of buildings; barrels and hogs heads; tangles like jackstraws of lumber and trees. It was as if everything that will float had its kind in the masses, around which were straits and ponds and open waterways as smooth as blown glass. ”

“ Drift is that motion and direction, by which a vessel is forced to leeward sideways, when she is unable any longer to carry sail; or, at least, is restrained to such a portion of sail, as may be necessary to keep her sufficiently inclined to one side, that she may not be dismasted by her violent labouring produced by the turbulence of the sea.
Page 77, l. 10.
And try beneath it the sidelong in the sea.
To try, is to lay the ship with her side nearly in the direction of the wind and sea, with her head somewhat inclined to windward ”

“ It is no wonder, however, that we were impatient, and that both body and soul suffered when the drift was slow, or when a protracted contrary wind and back-drift seemed to make it highly improbable that we should be able to reach home by the time we were expected. ”

“ Breaks and stops, falls and plunges into drift after drift; through the glasses the workers below could see that a man was in the lead, with something strapped to his back, which the woman in the rear adjusted now and then, when it became partially displaced by the plunging journey. ”

“ There have been drifts from east to west and west to east, from north to south and back again, drifts that have criss-crossed one another, and drifts colliding and recoiling and caroming off in new directions. ”

“ You have begun to fall like a rocket, faster, faster, ever faster, through the black-bordered lane. The wind blinds your eyes, the wind stops your breath, the wind sings in your ears, like an oriflamme stream and strain your tippet-ends, and the snow-crystals spin in your wake. ”

“ Away like the wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon—a speck amid a cloud of dust! ”

“ Exquisite motion! more maddening than the smooth floating stride of the race-horse, or the crash of the thorn-hedges before the stalwart hunter, or the swaying of the fir-boughs in the gale, when we used to climb as schoolboys after the lofty hawk’s nest; but not so maddening as the new motion of our age—the rush of the express-train, when the live iron pants and leaps and roars through the long chalk cutting; and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky and vanish ”

“ A drift is really a crossing place over a river, which latter is called a sluit, if it has water in it, or a spruit if it is dry; and whether the drift is easy or difficult for wagons to cross depends on the banks and the bottom. Thus, a shallow drift gives no trouble at all; but if the banks are steep, the mules and oxen go down one side with a run, even if the brake be well screwed up on the wagons, and invariably get mixed up at the bottom, getting their legs over the traces and pole chain: or perhaps one is pulled down, when there is much confusion and delay. ”

“ Drift described.—There is a movement of the waters of the ocean which, though it be a translation, yet it does not amount to what is known to the mariner as "current," for our nautical instruments and the art of navigation have not been brought to that state of 'perfection which will enable navigators generally to detect as currents the flow to which I allude as drift. ”

“ And as I watched its evolutions, my blood chilled, for I thought to myself that the body of a falling man would turn in just that way—that my body would be performing similar aerial evolutions, should our car slew off the road in the course of some mad charge against a drift. ”

“ Having passed the first drift, we retained our momentum and kept on through those that followed, hitting them as a power dory hits succeeding waves in a choppy sea, churning our way along with a rocking, careening, crazy motion, now menaced by great boulders at the inside of the road, now by the deadly drop at the outside, until at last we managed, somehow, to navigate the turning, after which we stopped in a place comparatively clear of snow. ”

“ While we pass through the belt of drift ice we have a watchman continually on the lookout for these projections—with a wave of the hand he warns the man at the wheel each time it is necessary to change our course ”

“ IN the first place, the Drift fell upon a fair and lovely world, a world far better adapted to give happiness to its inhabitants than this storm-tossed planet on which we now live, with its endless battle between heat and cold, between sun and ice. ”

“ In that thar bay I’d ventoor to cal’late the exact point to which this here ship would drift. But this ain’t the Bay of Fundy, and, what’s more, I don’t understand the currents of these here waters,—more’s the pity, bein as I’m a pilgerrim an a stranger. As to driftin, why, we’ll drift, course, as long as we’re aboard; but where we may drift to it would take a man with a head as long as a horse to tell. ”

“ Being tossed from side to side in the roomy coach, now and then grabbing a [Pg 76] fellow passenger with desperation, gazing down from lofty peaks to yawning chasms below, hearing the crack of the long-lashed whip urging the noble steeds to faster speed, turning the rough, ragged, serpent-shaped drive, thundering through clouds and mist with lightning rapidity, and always in constant terror of a breakdown or error on the part of the fearless driver, gave one a sensation that would nearly make his hair stand on end. ”

“ These migratory movements of peoples have been called drifts, and the word is apposite. Unplanned, blind, automatic, spurred on by the pain of hunger, man has literally drifted his way around the planet. ”

“ I remember that, while driving through the beautiful natural park that masks the approach to the one-third-way town from the south, I as much as reproached myself because I allowed Nature to interfere with my grim purpose of speed. Half intentionally I conjured up the vision of an infinitely lonesome old age for myself, and again the sudden palpitation in my veins nearly prompted me to send my horses into a gallop. But instantly I checked myself. Not yet, I thought. On that long stretch north, beyond the bridge, there I was going to drive them at their utmost speed. ”

“ We have just given ourselves a good shake, like a Newfoundland dog, when four bells (2 a.m.) strike, and the man at the wheel is of course relieved, his time being up. It happens to be our turn, or 'trick,' at the wheel, and we must at once take to it, all dripping and exhausted as we are. ”

“ You travel along for many rods over excellent, dry, solid sleighing where the road is perfectly level, not thinking but you are within a foot of the ground, then suddenly descend four or five feet, and find, to your surprise, that you had been traversing the broad back of a drift. ”

“ Bill brought the little car to a stop.
Well I know that sort of sand! You plunge rashly into it on low gear; you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you slow down, slow down; your driving wheels begin to spin—that finishes you. Every revolution digs a deeper hole. ”

“ If a carriage, a horse, or a boat, moving with speed, be suddenly retarded or stopped, by any cause which does not at the same time affect passengers, riders, or any loose bodies which are carried, they will be precipitated in the direction of the motion; because by reason of their inertia, they persevere in the motion which they shared in common with that which transported them, and are not deprived of that motion by the same cause. ”

“ Wherever they drift, Frank, we too shall drift, but the send of the current or sea beneath us is, I believe, northward now; and if the wind blows in winter as it must in spring, it will bear us towards the north-west. ”

“ Roger, from this evening we will compare our log books day by day, so that you may learn where it is that you have gone wrong. But I can guess how it is. The wind is blowing chiefly from the east, and you will never make allowance enough for drift; and I have told you over and over again that, with a light wind on our beam, we drive a mile to leeward for every two we go on our course. There are many ships which will drift nigh a mile for every mile they sail, in light winds. ”

“ The chase lay through the brake for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into a dense thicket, which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in a crowd together,—fronds flicking into our faces, ropy creepers catching us under the chin or gripping our ankles, thorny plants hooking into and tearing cloth and flesh together. ”

“ Dip and drift like satin moons,
Drift like silken butterflies;
Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust. ”

“ Occasionally the peals of thunder grew louder, but they were not yet loud enough to drown the never-ending grind and rumble of wheels, the faint rattle of harness and clinking of chains, or the voices of drivers yelling commands to their skittish horses. ”

“ The keen air of a frosty morning, or driving, rain at top speed, will not increase the accuracy of your aim, let alone the chance in the early autumn of a gnat in your eye, than which nothing can sometimes be more painful, or, later on in the year, a speck of gravel which may cut you like a knife. ”

“ Imagine to yourself a human being on board, and the awful sensations he must have experienced on her striking the rapid, which appeared for a moment to the beholders to be her last; but, as I observed before, on her masts giving way, she again righted, and was turned sideways, in which course she proceeded to the second rapid, where she struck and stuck about a minute, and it seemed as though the elements made their last and desperate effort to drive her over this rapid. ”

“ Have you ever felt the shuddering of a wagon with brake hard on, as it poised in air the instant before it dropped a foot or two to the next level, from hard rock to hard rock? Have you ever tried to keep four horses away from under a wagon, and yet sufficiently near it not to precipitate the crash? ”

“ Voices could not be heard unless raised to a shout. The rigging of the dirigible creaked and groaned as the great bag swayed, and added to the distracting turmoil.
Paralyzed by the very suddenness and utter unexpectedness of it all, the adventurers for a time merely clung to the rails of their swaying, madly careening craft. ”