Pit

“ Endlessly, ceaselessly the Pit, enormous, thundering, sucked in and spewed out, sending the swirl of its mighty central eddy far out through the city's channels. Terrible at the centre, it was, at the circumference, gentle, insidious and persuasive, the send of the flowing so mild, that to embark upon it, yielding to the influence, was a pleasure that seemed all devoid of risk. ”

“ Though each pair of birds excavate their own tunnel, yet the whole community, or, at any rate, a large proportion of it, will sometimes work together, sweeping on to the pit's face in a body, clinging there and burrowing, with a constant twittering, then darting off silently in a cloud and sailing and circling round in the pit's amphitheatre, making, when the sky is blue and the sun bright, a warm and delicious picture such as the Greeks must have loved to gaze on. ”

“ Creep silently, against the wind, to the chalk-pit's edge, and in summer or winter, sunshine or shower, on a still day or a windy, you will catch a glimpse of some wild creature, a visitor, or one of those who have made their home in the pit for the sake of sustenance or shelter. ”

“ I had fortunately arrived in time to see the blastings. Those in the great pit are the most interesting; for its mouth is so very large, that it is not necessary to descend in order to see the pit-men work; all is visible from above. This is a very peculiar and interesting sight. The pit, 480 feet deep, with its colossal doors and entrances leading into the galleries, looks like a picture of the lower world, from which bridges of rocks, projections, arches and caverns formed in the walls, ascend to the upper world. ”

“ In the villages I saw the veterans of the pit, a strong-legged race, with their combs cropped smooth to the head, the feathers plucked from every part of the body except their wings, and the tail docked like that of a coach horse, picking up their food in the lanes among the chickens. ”

“ A yawning pit, partially concealed by a screen of hurdles and bracken, lay across the narrow way, while a score of paces beyond was a tree trunk, which, having been skilfully cut through close to its base, needed but little effort to fall into its present position, effectually barring the road to any but unmounted men. ”

“ The pit is about twelve feet deep and ten feet in width, and its outside edge is lined with a hedge five or six feet in height. As the fierce brute steals upon his intended prey, he nears the hedge and at one spring its highest branch is cleared. He reaches the earth only to find himself at the bottom of a deep pit, from which there is no hope of escape, and where he speedily becomes the merciless victim of a shower of deadly arrows and bullets. ”

“ The wind is howling and whistling through the trees which form a background to the pit-bank, and the rain is coming hissing down in sheets. In a hovel close to the pit shaft sit the bereaved and disconsolate mourners, hoping against hope, and watching for those who will never return. ”

“ Again, in pleasant weather, towards spring, I have heard individuals answering each other, singing in a less solemn strain not unlike sparrows, a lively pit, pit, pit, tr, r, r, r, r, r, but, if disturbed, they at once resumed their usual scold. ”

“ They may not laugh, or the sides of the pit would fall in. They may eat no salt, prepare no fodder for swine, and in the pit they may not scratch themselves, for if they did, the earth would be loosened and would collapse. And the night after digging the pit they may have no intercourse with a woman, or all their labour would be in vain. ”

“ The boxes are filled with lords and ladies, who give money to see their follies exposed by fellows as wicked as themselves. And the pit, which lively represents the pit of hell, is crammed with those insignificant animals called beaux, whose character nothing but wonder and shame can compose; for a modern beau, you must know, is a pretty, neat, fantastic outside of a man, a well-digested bundle of costly vanities, and you may call him a volume of methodical errata bound in a gilt cover. ”

“ Instead of chattering about roses and rainbows, you ought to be thinking of the awful black pit at the end of the road.”
His words chilled the young men and maidens, like wind from a cavern. They looked at each other thoughtfully, and said, “Why does he try to spoil our sport with stories of pitfalls and invisible giants? We don’t know where the pitfalls are; and if we go poking on the ground for them, how can we see the sunshine and the birds?” Some of the more merry began to laugh at the solemn traveller, and soon they were all dancing again, or hurrying after the rainbow castles. ”

“ Sometimes they excavate, in the animal’s ordinary route, a tolerably deep pit, beset with sharp pointed poles, and concealed by a covering of leafy branches: sometimes, in the shade of the evening, they lie in ambuscade among the bushes, and aim at his huge bulk the deadly bullet, as he comes up from the water, labouring and bellowing. ”

“ But here, out in the open, it seems a shame not to be up with the birds to breathe the scent of the fields and watch the sun send his heralds ahead of him to proclaim his coming and then climb from the bottomless pit into the sky and take possession of it. ”

“ A pit is dug in the earth, which is lined with heated stones, on which the hog is placed, having hot stones in its belly, and is covered with other hot stones, when the pit is covered up like a grave. ”

“ He took a handsome watch from the gentleman's fob.
PIT. To lay pit and boxes into one; an operation in midwifery or copulation, whereby the division between the anus and vagina is cut through, broken, and demolished: a simile borrowed from the playhouse, when, for the benefit of some favourite player, the pit and boxes are laid together. The pit is also the hole under the gallows, where poor rogues unable to pay the fees are buried. ”

“ If you are looking into a deep pit in your dream, you will run silly risks in business ventures and will draw uneasiness about your wooing.
To fall into a pit denotes calamity and deep sorrow. To wake as you begin to feel yourself falling into the pit, brings you out of distress in fairly good shape. ”

“ The ground, especially on the margin of the wood, was full of inequalities—here a pit, there a hillock surmounted with a bush of furze. It was a place where many bodies might lie concealed, and they beat it like pointers after game. ”

“ Those which are exhibited in menageries have generally been caught in pits. The pit is dug where traces have been discovered of a Lion’s path; and it is then covered with sticks and turf. He is deceived by the appearance of solidity presented by the turf, and attempts to walk over it; but the moment he sets his foot upon the covering of the trap, it breaks beneath his weight, and he falls into the pit. ”

“ With a hissing, full-arm swing of his quirt he sent his horses plunging fetlock-deep through the loose sand—sent them shaking and rearing on till they stood even knee-deep in the sand of the pit itself. ”

“ The smell of the blood went out of the pit and travelled around the island like a sandwich man saying: "Fine supply of fresh meat about to come out of Right Bower's pet pitfall; second on the left."
When I'd shinned to the top of the second pole I built and crawled over the rim of the pit—there was a tiger sitting, waiting, very patient. I could just make him out in the starlight. He was mighty lean and looked like a hungry gutter-cat on a big scale. Some people are afraid to be alone in the dark. I'm not. ”

“ The pit was reached, and in spite of his cries strong hands pushed him forward and over the edge. Down, down he fell into the blackness, until with a terrible thud he reached the bottom. There was no water to break his fall, for the pit was dry. ”

“ The inhabitants of the pit really deserve a study. It may be said that they are sometimes more interesting than the play itself. There is a tradition that wisdom lies in the pit as Truth at the bottom of a well. Many articles have been written pointing out that the judgment of the pit is sounder than the opinion of other parts of the house, that the pitites are the real, serious, reflective, critical playgoers whose views are worth more than those of the playgoers either in the gallery or the most costly seats. ”

“ It was, indeed, one of the most singular-looking places imaginable, and we could scarcely bring ourselves to believe it altogether the work of nature. The pit, from its eastern to its western extremity, was about five hundred yards in length, when all its windings were threaded; the distance from east to west in a straight line not being more (I should suppose, having no means of accurate examination) than forty or fifty yards. ”

“ Some with laden baskets on their backs climbed many times a day up steep ascents. Some stood ankle-deep in water from morning till night in the depths of the pit, wearing out their little lives at the hand- pumps. ”

“ That woman of gigantic proportions residing in the forest is identified by the wise with Decrepitude which destroys complexion and beauty. That which has been spoken of as the pit is the body or physical frame of embodied creatures. The huge snake dwelling in the bottom of that pit is time, the destroyer of all embodied creatures. It is, indeed, the universal destroyer. The cluster of creepers growing in that pit and attached to whose spreading stems the man hangeth down is the desire for life which is cherished by every creature. ”

“ The walk from home to pit mouth, always performed at dead of the night, was the period when omens were mostly to be looked for. The supernatural appearance of a little white animal like a rabbit, which was said to cross the miner’s path, was another warning not to descend. Sometimes the omens were rather mental than visual. The pitmen in the midland counties have, or had, a belief, unknown in the north, in aerial whistlings, warning them against the pit. ”

“ The people who are half or maybe two thirds the way [214] out of the pit and the mire and the slough and the shadow so thick you can cut it! They are rising still, and their garments are getting clean and white, and they can see the wonderful round landscape, and they look at it with calm, wide eyes. They're nearly out; they're more or less spectators. ”

“ When a pit of more than the average depth is encountered, both horses will jump it in preference to running down to the bottom and up again, and at such a moment the fate of the passenger in the cart behind is melancholy. ”

“ When a large quantity is prepared the horse is brought into requisition, the ears being thrown into a circular shallow pit, round and round which six or seven horsemen urge their steeds, shouting and yelling as if mad. ”

“ The green can be reached easily enough with one honest blow, but there is a huge tree immediately to the right of the green, and a still more huge and infinitely more alarming pit immediately under the tee. The pit is very deep and its sides precipitous, and it is altogether a very formidable affair. Our opponents drove off, I remember, and perpetrated an ordinary ‘fluff’ or foozle, which left the ball on grass, it is true, but at the very bottom of the pit. ”

“ The Covered Pit is in a little branch to the left; this pit is twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, covered with a thin rock, around which a narrow crevice extends, leaving only a small support on one side. There is a large rock resting on the centre of the cover. The sound of a waterfall may be heard from the pit but cannot be seen. ”

“ Pit.—To dream of falling into a pit, shows that in some way heavy misfortune is about to attend you; that your sweetheart is false, and prefers another. To a sailor, it forebodes some sad disaster at the next port you touch at. To dream you are in a pit, and that you climb out of it, foreshows that you will have many enemies and experience much trouble, but that you will overcome them, marry well, and become rich ”

“ The mouth of each pit is then covered over with a quantity of sticks, rubbish, and grass, to attract the animal, and no sooner does he begin to bore into it with his snout, than the whole gives way, and he is plunged, head foremost, into the pit, from which it is quite impossible for him to extricate himself, and he is either drowned or becomes an easy prey to the Chinese. ”

“ Every one whose relatives had not yet been found, rushed to the pit in the fond hope of their yet being alive. The most exaggerated reports were spread, and the crowd of anxious inquirers thronged about the top of the pit so, as materially to impede the operations for the recovery of their relatives, which they were but too anxious to hasten. ”

“ They have a very ingenious method of taking game by pitfalls. They dig four or five pits eight feet deep, ten long and four wide, fifty or sixty and sometimes 100 feet from each other, not in a straight line, but so placed that when they make a fence from one to the other it would form the letter V; at the point would be the pit, and no hedge, so that an animal wanting to pass through would walk down to the opening, and as the pit would be beautifully covered over with small sticks and grass, made a very inviting road to walk over. ”

“ The Pit is taking heart, that's the truth of it. Those fellows are not so scared of us as they were a while ago. It's the new crop, as I've said over and over again. We've put wheat so high, that all the farmers have planted it, and are getting ready to dump it on us. The Pit knows that, of course. Why, just think, they are harvesting in some places. These fellows we've caught in the corner will be able to buy all the wheat they want from the farmers if they can hold out a little longer. ”

“ Into this pit they threw the corpse, then tying a rope of palm-fibres under the husband’s armpits, they let him down into the cavern, and with him a great pitcher of fresh water and seven scones by way of viaticum. [FN#49] When he came to the bottom, he loosed himself from the rope and they drew it up; and, stopping the mouth of the pit with the great stone, they returned to the city, leaving my friend in the cavern with his dead wife. When I saw this, I said to myself, “By Allah, this fashion of death is more grievous than the first!” ”