The water-front swarms with craft, scows and canoes, birch, canvas, peterboro; the great bateaux of the northern lumberman, neat little skiffs, clumsy rafts; heavy "double-enders," whip-sawed from green timber, with capacity of two to five tons; lighters and barges carrying as much as forty tonsall having come through the perils of the upper lakes and shot the canon rapids.

And down from marble terraces Veiled ladies slowly pass, And, entering antique barges, Glide down the streets of glass; And eyes filled with the dew and fire Of their own midnight sky, Gleam full on me, as silently The gondolas float by.

The Britons assailed them in this fastness, and so long as it was day, harassed them with arrows and quarrels, with ships and with barges.

The sun was now high in the sky, and one could see signs of activity on the various barges that were hanging about the neighbourhood waiting for the tide.

Ninety-seven pieces of cannon now defended the bridge; besides which thirty large barges at each side of the river guarded its extremities; and forty ships of war formed a fleet of protection, constantly ready to meet any attack from the besieged.

Here and there over the broad clay-colored water moved other boatstow-boats, a string of government auto-barges, a snag-boat, another packet.

Some of these barges have apartments fitted up for the accommodation of a family, with a stove, beds, tables, &c. You may sometimes see in them ladies, servants, cows, horses, sheep, dogs, and poultry,all floating on the same bottom.

Huge trams swam past him like glass houses, and hansoms shot past the trams and automobiles past the hansoms; and phantom barges swirled down on the full ebb, threading holes in bridges as cotton threads a needle.

Men of rank have their barges tugged by war-boats, common watermen not being admitted into the same boat with them.

As we float away through the watery streets, old Shylock shuffles across the bridge,black barges glide by us in the silent canals,groups of unfamiliar faces lean from the balconies,and we hear the plashing waters lap the crumbling walls of Venice, with its dead Doges and decaying palaces.

*** A number of women are doing good work as mates on Medway sailing barges.

But, for the rest, the monsters waited motionless in the sunlight, their state-cloths, hung as from the old barges, from stem to stern, as motionless as themselves, except when now and again the summer breeze stirred from the south-west, lifting the lazy streamers, wafting softly the heavy embroideries, and stirring, even as the wind stirs the wheat, the glittering giants that waited to do their Lord honour.

And so down the line the eye of the watcher went again and again, fascinated by the beauty and the glory, down past where the great ducal barges hung, each in order, past the officers of state, past the Parliament barges, down to where the boats, in numbers beyond all reckoning, faded away into the haze.

And so down the line the eye of the watcher went again and again, fascinated by the beauty and the glory, down past where the great ducal barges hung, each in order, past the officers of state, past the Parliament barges, down to where the boats, in numbers beyond all reckoning, faded away into the haze.

There, then, the watcher saw two by two, first the barges of the Papal Orders, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre with its five-fold cross, and the Golden Spur, leadinghuge medieval galleons, carved at prow and stern, each bearing its insignia; then came couple after couple bearing the Papal Court, followed closely by great barges, each with its canopy and throne, and the coat of the Cardinal whom each bore flying overhead.

There, then, the watcher saw two by two, first the barges of the Papal Orders, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre with its five-fold cross, and the Golden Spur, leadinghuge medieval galleons, carved at prow and stern, each bearing its insignia; then came couple after couple bearing the Papal Court, followed closely by great barges, each with its canopy and throne, and the coat of the Cardinal whom each bore flying overhead.

In obedience to the royal precept, the mayor and common council not only ordered the company of haberdashers, of which the lord mayor was a member, to prepare a magnificent state barge; but enjoined all the city corporations to provide themselves with barges, and to adorn them in the most superb manner, and especially to have them supplied with good bands of music.

At one they went on board the city barge at Billingsgate, which was most magnificently decorated, and attended by fifty noble barges, belonging to the several companies of the city, with each its own corporation on board; and, for the better regulation of this procession, it was ordered, that each barge should keep twice their lengths asunder.

The other barges followed, in regular order, till they came below Greenwich.

About this time the ship Liverpool Packet, Ricker, of Portsmouth, N.H., was boarded off Cape St. Antonio, Cuba, by two piratical schooners; two barges containing thirty or forty men, robbed the vessel of every thing movable, even of her flags, rigging, and a boat which happened to be afloat, having a boy in it, which belonged to the ship.

They, being skilled Royal Engineers, were clearing undergrowth and putting up huts in Ripilly woods for a division due to arrive, and my scorned rabble were unloading the huts in sections from barges at Ripilly canal wharf and loading them on to lorries for transport to the woods.

Till far into the night gay crowds parade the streets to music or float on the river in gondolas decked with flowers.[440] So long ago in ancient Rome barges crowned with flowers and crowded with revellers used to float down the Tiber on Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of June, and no doubt the strains of music were wafted as sweetly across the water to listeners on the banks as they still are to the throngs of merrymakers at Riga.

Sir Francis, who had brought a boat from Westminster, where he dwelt, experienced some difficulty in landing at the stairs, invested as they were with barges, wherries and watermen, all of whom had evidently brought customers to the Three Cranes.

"Our business is over," he added, to the nobles and gallants around him; "so we may to our barges.

Many boats were moored off the shore, with a couple of barges close at hand; and the watermen and oarsmen standing up in their craft, listened to what was going forward with much apparent amusement.