Leap

“ The long leap without a run.—The long leap may be marked out from four to eight feet, according to the agility and strength of the leaper; and the object to be cleared, a small block of wood, which should in this kind of leap be never more than six inches high, placed midway. In leaping the body is bent forward, the feet are closed, the arms first sway forwards, then backwards, and then forwards at the moment of taking the leap. ”

“ We stand on the brink of a precipice.134 To say that Englishmen are asked to take a leap in the dark is far to understate the peril of the moment. We are asked to leave an arduous but well-known road, and to spring down an unfathomed ravine filled with rocks, on any one of which we may be dashed to pieces. ”

“ They are also able to alter the direction of a leap while actually springing, or to cut it suddenly short by seizing a branch and clinging to it—swinging, rocking, and finally climbing up by it, either to rest for a little, or to begin the old game anew. ”

“ A couple or three leaps so executed are quite enough in a school, because nothing so worries most horses as to keep them continually jumping at the same place, and if the leap is too often repeated, they are apt to sulk or blunder at it.
Within the walls of a good riding house almost every kind of obstacle can be represented which can be met with out of doors. ”

“ When leaping a favorite trick is to throw the body around until the dorsal fin is forward, with a resulting splash that sends the spray quite out on the floor. A high leap by one of them is usually a signal that starts them all to leaping. ”

“ But if you watch them in the water you will see at once that they do not really swim at all, but leap along, just as they leap along the ground. And each leap carries them through the water for some little distance. ”

“ All are familiar with the ordinary leap-frog where the players stand side by side, in which case the leaper goes over them side-wise, or they stand in file, in which case he leaps from their backs over their heads. ”

“ Horses leap in different ways; the best leapers being those which just glide over the object without touching it,—they appear to measure the height required for the leap, and, whether the object be high or low, they skim close to it. ”

“ The rock seems to be a clay formation, rotten and colored. As we approach Warm Springs the scenery becomes a little bolder, and we emerge into the open space about the Springs through a narrower defile, guarded by rocks that are really picturesque in color and splintered decay, one of them being known, of course, as the "Lover's Leap," a name common in every part of the modern or ancient world where there is a settlement near a precipice, with always the same legend attached to it. ”

“ Leaping Contests.—But near at hand is a more pleasing contest. Youths of the ephebus age are practicing leaping. They have no springboard, no leaping pole, but only a pair of curved metal dumb-bells to aid them. One after another their lithe brown bodies, shining with the fresh olive oil, come forward on a lightning run up the little mound of earth, then fly gracefully out across the soft sands. There is much shouting and good-natured rivalry. As each lad leaps, an eager attendant marks his distance with a line drawn by the pickaxe. ”

“ In the first of these the legs and feet are closed, the knees are bent till the calves nearly touch the thighs, and the arms are thrown in the direction of the leap, which increases the impulse. This leap may be practised at the following progressive heights,—eighteen inches, twenty-four inches, thirty-two inches, forty-eight inches, which last is perhaps what few lads would attain. ”

“ In the deep leap, the pole being placed the depth you have to leap, the body should be lowered forward, and then, the feet being cast off, swing round the pole in the descent. The [Pg 49] long leap, with the pole, is performed much in the same manner.
CLIMBING.
In climbing the rope, the hands are to be moved one above the other alternately ”

“ If chased or forced to flight it ascends to the highest branch and performs the most enormous leaps, sweeping from tree to tree with wonderful address; a slight elevation gives its body an impetus which with the expansion of its membrane enables it to pass to a considerable distance, always ascending a little at the extremity of the leap ”

“ It will, for example, dash at the face of a perpendicular precipice that looks as smooth as a brick wall, for the purpose of reaching a tiny ledge which is hardly perceptible, and which is some fifteen feet or so above the spot whence the animal sprang. Its eye, however, has marked certain little cracks and projections on the face of the rock, and as the animal makes its leap, it takes these little points of vantage in rapid succession, just touching them as it passes upwards, and by the slight stroke of its foot keeping up the original impulse of its leap. ”

“ A bound, leap, or skip, such as a flat piece of stone makes, when thrown obliquely along the surface of a pond: The bounds, which are made by balls, fired with small charges, and under angles of little elevation, either upon land, or water: Fire-works, which leap or roll on the ground. ”

“ In this kind of leap, the shocks will be diminished by retaining the air in the chest, which may be done by closing the glottis.
Persons who have long toes, powerful calves, and prominent heels, are the best adapted for leaping. ”

“ A sort of horizontal swing is then achieved, by which the leaper’s head is little higher than his feet, and his whole figure is almost parallel with the ground; and, in this case, to alight on the toes is impossible. Care must here be taken not to throw the feet so much forward as to cause the leaper to fall backward at the moment of descent. The ground must be cleared, or the leap is imperfect and unfair. ”

“ For here is the tropic sea, blue as a sapphire, gleaming like a diamond, glancing and throbbing with such jewels of light that it looks as though thousands of silver fishes were jumping in the meshes of a golden net, flung down by the sun from the sky. All at once, from amidst these myriads of sparkles a number flash higher, leap into the air, and fly, like bright arrows, towards you. Onwards they come, and from being light only, they pass into form and substance, begin to live, to move with sense and volition, and, all at once, they are fishes, flying with wings over their home of the sea. ”

“ Darting on all sides, diving, nestling, leaping,
Swift as a mullet coursing the sea hare,
And strong, as when within the shore-hauled net
It searches, like a keen hound, to and fro,
And no gap finding, bounds o'er the high-drawn line:
One leaps—all follow, like a flock of sheep
Over a wattle. ”

“ What is the reason for the strange leaps they make into the air, falling back on to the water with a thudding splash that can be heard a mile away? It is usually done by night, a circumstance that adds to the strangeness of this sudden obtrusion upon our minds of the existence of a scarcely known world beneath the water, which we, in our preoccupation with our own half of the world, had almost forgotten. ”

“ I surveyed the conspiring waters rushing against the rocky ledge to overthrow it at one mad plunge, till, like toppling ambition, o'erleaping themselves, they fall on t'other side, expanding into foam ere they reach the deep channel where they creep submissively away. ”

“ I had reached the brink of a cavity whose depth it was impossible to ascertain: it might be a few inches beyond my reach, or hundreds of feet; by leaping down I might incur no injury, or might plunge into a lake, or dash myself to pieces on the points of rocks. ”

“ At the instant when the noble hero leaps into the cage and drags out the little victim—child of the woman he loves—while every eye is riveted on this deed of daring, the invisible partition is drawn back from behind, the lions rush in, roaring and leaping about, wild at being deprived of their prey, for at that very instant, too, the cage door is slammed shut. ”

“ As we climbed with the tips of our fingers in some small crevice, and the tips of our toes just resting on some painfully minute ledge, probably covered with ice or snow, one question gradually forced itself upon us, almost to the exclusion of the previously absorbing one, whether we should get to the top of the mountain, and this was, how on earth we should ever get down again—get down, that is to say, in any other state than that of débris. ”

“ To the watch, bending over the yard with nought between them and oblivion but a slender foot rope, this was no easy task even in a moderate wind. In a gale, with wet or frozen sails, the stowing of this huge expanse of thrashing canvas can be better imagined than described. ”

“ Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; we fought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark air above the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hear escaping through some vent-hole or other. ”

“ As soon as thy feet are on the moss, cut the rope, stop not to untie it, fall on thy breast, and crawl into that hole—my finger shows it now—where slab of stone leans unto stone, and the body of a large heart may lie hidden. ”

“ The black cloud and the red flame fought, serpent against serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from the fire, and the sudden assaults of the sparks seemed to drive the snow-flakes before them. The ledge, blurred at first in outline, now stood out in bold relief,—a medley of rocks with peaks, crests, and vertebræ. ”

“ I cried the next moment, my look raised up to the vaulted roof, "what does that mean? Good heaven, what next?"
The light, which was brightest up along the roof—in fact, it seemed pressed up against the rock canopy like glowing, diaphanous mist—was changing, fading. The wonderful opalescence of it was disappearing before our eyes. ”

“ Fasten the leather string, and let us take out water from this deep and goodly well which never dries up.
"The troughs have been prepared for the animals; the leather string shines in the deep and goodly well which never dries up, and the water is easily got. ”

“ As a precaution, we extended a rope from man to man, which was held in the hands of each in their progress across the ice, and which served for drawing those out of the water who happened to break through. ”

“ Sometimes the soft white mist would steal through the glen, and creeping up the mountain would cover it with a veil so dense that the children could not see it, and then they would say to each other: "Our mountain is gone away from us." ”

“ The lepero is emphatically the child of nature, the shining sun, the murmuring breeze, the smiling face of nature is his birthright and his property. Other men have houses, haciendas and lands. The world belongs to the lepero. ”

“ Curb and bucket and sweep are there to-day, similar in form and appearance no doubt and equally useful for the drawing of water, as near like those of which the poet wrote as is the water of to-day like that of his time. Even at the well itself the lapse of a century has left but one thing permanent. ”

“ If one pauses to listen, he will hear a gurgling of running water down in the leviathan's inside, not unlike that made when its living namesake pours a draught of water from his trunk down into his throat. Here, as everywhere else in active spring formations, the sound of running water can be heard beneath the surface incrustation. ”

“ In the salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the cities, and eat their food with the dogs. Canst thou make these things not to be? Wilt thou take the leper for thy bedfellow, and set the beggar at thy board? Shall the lion do thy bidding, and the wild boar obey thee? Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art? ”

“ By standing on a jutting ledge of the soft cretaceous rock, and holding on by another ledge, which appeared not unlikely to come down and crush you, one could peep into the hole and comfort oneself with the thought that one was nearer a kingfisher's nest than is usually vouchsafed to mortal man. ”

“ Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is set—As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget! Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each minute fainter. ”

“ I have known men cut off very suddenly in a land like this. A slip would do it sometimes—a single slip, and down you go through a crack, and only a bubble on the green water to show where it was that you sank. ”

“ While eulogizing a place so well adapted for a refuge from the intenseness of the heat, we made a halt, and sat down at the foot of an elm, where sleep required very little cunning to entangle two high-fed, half-tipsy blades, just risen from so voluptuous and voracious a repast. ”

“ The dwarf rode on and on, until he came to a bridle-path, and following this, it led him up [163] through winding lanes, bordered with golden furze that filled the air with fragrance, and brought him to the summit of the green hills that girdled and looked down on the Mystic Lake. Here the horse stopped of his own accord, and the dwarf's heart beat quickly as his eye rested on the lake, that, clipped round by the ring of hills, seemed in the breezeless and sunlit air—
"As still as death. ”

“ As the girls grew used to the thunderous sounds they delighted to speculate from which bastion, or ledge, or flowering bush, would come that little puff of smoke, to be followed by the lightning and thunder of man's invention, scarcely less terrible than those of nature's cloud contests. ”

“ We distinguish again between a ‘direct belay,’ where the rope in action connects directly on to or round rock, and an ‘indirect belay,’ where some form of human spring is interposed between the active rope and the solid rock. ”