Harbor

“ Then ships and boats, a vast number of them, become visible in the harbor, and as the light grows stronger, the city and land lose something of their beauty, but the sky grows more softly fiery till the sun breaks through. The city lies low along the flat coast, and seems at first like a brownish white streak, with fine lines of masts, palm-trees, and minarets above it. ”

“ A splendid harbor frames itself out of the mellow uncertainty—a harbor whereof the long white arms are stretched out to welcome the commerce of all the known world; and under the white fronts, and at the temple steps of that ancient city, Commerce poured into the lap of Luxury every commodity that could gratify cupidity or minister to human pleasure. ”

“ In a moment, there is heard in the silent bay a sound of a rush and ripple, different from the lap of the many-tongued waves on the shore; and, silently as a cloud, with white wings spread, a little vessel glides into the harbor.
A little craft is she—not larger than the fishing-smacks that ply their course along our coasts in summer; but her decks are crowded with men, women, and children, looking out with joyous curiosity on the beautiful bay, where, after many dangers and storms, they first have found safe shelter and hopeful harbor. ”

“ Back of them rose splendid elms and the delicate spire of a church, and from the unruffled surface of the harbor the masts of many fishing-boats. Across the water, on a grass-grown point, a whitewashed light-house blushed in the crimson glory of the sun. Except for an oyster-man in his boat at the end of the wharf, and the smoke from the chimney of his cottage, the little village slept, the harbor slept. It was a picture of perfect content, confidence, and peace. "Oh!" cried the Lady Moya, "how pretty, how pretty!" ”

“ Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, thou countless fleet of stately galleys, which bind one quarter of the globe to another, inspiring terror, compelling obedience, and gaining boundless treasures by peaceful voyages and with shining blades. ”

“ Birds are making the air melodious with their songs; flowers blooming by the roadside, are distilling their perfumes; a bright and serene sky, tinged in the East with soft, azure clouds, gives a clear, delicate outline to the foliage, so luxuriant and brilliant of color, skirting the western edge of the harbor, and reflecting itself in the calm, glassy water. A soft whispering wind comes fragrant from the west; it does indeed seem as if nature were blending her beauties to make the harmony perfect. ”

“ What if there are no feluccas or painted sails in our harbor; one has but to cross the river on the ferry-boat at sunrise or sunset to see wonderful picturesqueness and beauty in our sloops and schooners, our shipping thronging the piers, all smitten by the glory of the rosy light, or over-canopied by scowling gray masses of storm-driven scud. ”

“ The harbor is not only one of the safest known to navigators from all parts of the world, affording in its hollow rock-bound cup entire shelter from sudden storms to vessels of all burthens, large and small crafts of every imaginable size and color, but it is in itself a bit of landlocked water unrivalled in picturesqueness, furnishing a variety of beautiful views at every point, and, one might almost say, at every passing moment. ”

“ You have been walking away from the sea, with your back to the harbor, and here is another, but minute, harbor nestling under a great fortress wall above which, in a garden, some young soldiers are idly leaning and laughing under trees with leaves of gold and red-brown. ”

“ The boat turned into a pretty little harbor among the rocks, and the settlement was discovered: a long, low, old-fashioned hotel with piazzas, and a few cottages, perched on the ledges, the door-yards of which were perfectly ablaze with patches of flowers, masses of red, yellow, purple-poppies, marigolds, nasturtiums, bachelor's-buttons, lovely splashes of color against the gray lichen-covered rock. At the landing is an interior miniature harbor, walled in, and safe for children to paddle about and sail on in tiny boats. ”

“ If he turn to the front, your capacious harbor, studded with green islands of ever varying light and shade, and enlivened by all the stirring evidences of commercial activity, offer him the mingled charms of busy life and nature’s calm repose. A few miles further, and he may site upon the quiet shore to listen to the murmuring wave until the troubled spirit sinks to rest, and in the little sail that vanishes on the illimitable sea, we may find the type of the voyage which he is so soon to take, when, his ephemeral existence closed, he embarks for that better state which lies beyond the grave. ”

“ The harbor is a picture at high tide or low, with the boats anchored in the roadstead or moored to the wharves; or the [Pg 12] sun slanting across the sandflats where a dory is stranded by the tide, and its master, dark-ringletted, slouch-hatted, a red kerchief knotted at his throat, a red flower in his shirt, strides shorewards with his catch dripping in its creel. The fish-wharves make a painter’s fingers itch to be at work, and many are those who respond to the impulse. ”

“ It seems at first sight as if standing solitary, a huge hermit-like erection, at the bottom of a low bay,—for its humbler companions do not make themselves visible until we have entered the harbor by a mile or two more, when we begin to find that it occupies, not an uninhabited tract of shore, but the middle of a gray straggling town, nearly a mile in length. ”

“ The Organ Mountains to the west and north, the ocean to the east, the city of Rio with its red-tiled houses at our feet, and the entire harbor like a map spread out, with innumerable bright valleys, make up a landscape that cannot be described by mere words. ”

“ Poor naked hills and rocks, the salty sea air, old wharves, rocking boats, ships that have been on long voyages and are now laid up in the harbor,—all such things are the pleasantest to be found anywhere in the world. ”

“ As you sail along the straight coast line, there seems no break or indentation, when suddenly, as if by magic, the rocky shore opens for about twenty yards, at a spot marked by several caves in the face of the cliff, and lets you see into a circular harbor of very small dimensions, with an amphitheatre of rich and well-built houses rising up all round the bay. ”

“ Roar on roar rose the boisterous chorus: "Blow the man down, bullies, blow him right down!" The big patched, dirty sails went jerking and flapping up toward the stars, which from here were so faint they could barely be seen. And the ship moved out on the harbor. ”

“ Ever there was some ascending shore, some towering island or prodigious cliff, some enticing bird, some magnificence of morning or evening; and besides all these and a hundred attractions more, there were the beauty and terror of berg and floe-field, the marvel of the ice. For a time, therefore, all was enchantment. If we made a harbor, if we left one, expectation sailed with us; we fancied new scenes, new adventures,—the delight of exploration yet fierce in our souls. ”

“ The change from land to water, from narrow and stony streets to the wide, free outlook and uplook of a great river, the varied life of a crowded ferry-boat and of a busy harbor, the magnetic sympathies of a multitude let loose from toil and perforce at a stand-still for the time,—all this insures a transition of mind as well as transfer of body. I could appreciate the exclamation of an impulsive English girl while waiting one sultry day on a North-River pier, as she spread open her arms and rushed to the edge of the dock: "I feel as if I'd like to take a barth!" ”

“ Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a man—and—by Heaven! is a man—that's the harbor-master. Ask any quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of every cat-boat in the cove at night! ”

“ The eye behind the monocle was premonitory of some great loss to me. I hurried on deck, to thank his artistic and managerial instinct instantly I arrived there. Before me was Fishguard and the Welsh coast, and to my dying day I shall never forget it. Imagine, if you please, a land-locked harbor, as green as grass in this semi-cloudy, semi-gold-bathed afternoon, with a half-moon of granite scarp rising sheer and clear from the green waters to the low gray clouds overhead. ”

“ Now, a mile or so from the shore there was an island, very fair and fertile, but no man dwells there or tills the soil, and in the island a harbor where a ship may be safe from all winds, and at the head of the harbor a stream falling from the rock, and whispering alders all about it. ”

“ There beneath us lay the harbor, shut in by mountains, except at the entrance from Trinity Bay; and there, too, lay the steamers of the two greatest maritime nations of the world. On every side lies an unbroken wilderness, and, if we except the telegraph station, at which we will soon arrive, not a single habitation to tell that man has ever lived here. ”

“ There is a wonderful soft strength in the peaceful brightness of the sun. In such an atmosphere the 23 harbor was flecked with brilliantly decked craft of every description, all in a flutter of flags and carrying a host of passengers in gala dress. ”

“ There was movement enough upon the water to satisfy one's lazy longing for life, the waves lapped soothingly along the shore, and the broad bay, sparkling in the sun, was animated with boats, which all had a holiday air. Was it not enough to come down to breakfast and sit at the low, broad windows and watch the shifting panorama? All about the harbor slanted the white sails; at intervals a steamer was landing at the wharf or backing away from it ”

“ He found a harbor that welcomed young men, where cabin boys rose to be captains, and clerks became owners of hundreds of ships. To work! To rise! To own yards like these, build ships like these and send them rushing on their courses out to all parts of the ocean world! ”

“ This harbor isn't like a hotel, or an evening gown or Weber and Fields. I love pretty gowns, and my father and I wouldn't miss Weber and Fields for worlds. But they're all on top, this is down at the bottom, it's one of those deep places that seem to make the world go 'round. It's right where the ocean bumps into the land. ”

“ This harbor “is about a thousand paces or a quarter of a league wide at the mouth, without a bank or a shoal, but exceedingly deep to the edge of the beach. It extends almost three thousand paces, with a fine clear bottom. Any ship may enter it and anchor without the least hazard. Here are two small streams, and opposite the mouth of the harbor several plains, the most beautiful in the world, resembling those of Castile, except that they surpass them. On this account the admiral named the island Española.” ”

“ Some say that while the government is planting beach-grass behind the town for the protection of the harbor, the inhabitants are rolling the sand into the harbor in wheelbarrows, in order to make house-lots. ”

“ Upon the 11th of November we came to anchor in the bay, which is a good harbor and pleasant bay, circled round except in the entrance, which is about four miles over from land to land, compassed about to the very sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may safely ride. There we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people, while our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for an habitation. ”

“ What is denominated a harbor by this system does not necessarily mean a bay, inlet, or arm of the sea on the ocean or on our lake shores, on the margin of which may exist a commercial city or town engaged in foreign or domestic trade, but is made to embrace waters, where there is not only no such city or town, but no commerce of any kind. ”

“ We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water's edge. ”

“ It is less than a hundred miles in length, but so numerous are the branches into which it divides, and so many its bays, harbors, and islands, that its entire shoreline is said to measure more than eighteen hundred miles. Throughout its whole vast extent ships move in safety, and find shelter from every wind that blows, the entire mountain-girt sea forming one grand unrivaled harbor and center for commerce. ”

“ It does not take the visitor long to recognize, however, that the capacious harbor, the converging rivers and numerous adjacent arms of the sea combine all the requisites of a great port, and they could not have been better planned if human hands had fashioned them. ”

“ Though the water is deep, and there is plenty of room in this harbor, it is too much exposed to winds from all points of the compass to be a good one, or to compare favorably with very many others on the Sound. ”

“ They had spoken thus of many other harbor towns in the centuries that men have gone down to the sea. I think they have been wrong almost as often as they had predicted. The ships have ceased to sail over the bar. No one heeds the rotting planking of the wharves. ”

“ Two large rivers, which take their rise in mountains two or three hundred miles to the east, and run through a country unsurpassed for soil and climate, empty themselves into the harbor. The country around affords admirable timber for ship-building. ”

“ The harbor is the southeastern arm of the bay, and is completely sheltered, with regular soundings and excellent holding ground. It is formed by a bold-peaked promontory, standing well out from the high land of the main, with which it is connected by a low sandy isthmus, and which, appearing at a distance as an island, may be easily recognised. ”