Spires and gables and lengthy façades were reflected in the water, blended with the shadows of boats, and interspersed with the mirrored flames of innumerable windows on land, or of lanterns suspended from the masts or sterns of the vessels.

" Hence the Greek is somewhat of a sailor to this day, and in many a Mediterranean port lie sharp and smartly-rigged brigantines with classic names of old Heathendom gilt in pure Greek type upon their sterns.

They were built with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals.

For example, perhaps one Gentleman's metaphorical knack of preaching comes of the sea; and then we shall hear of nothing but "starboard" and "larboard," of "stems," "sterns," and "forecastles," and such salt-water language: so that one had need take a voyage to Smyrna or Aleppo, and very warily attend to all the sailors' terms, before I shall in the least understand my teacher.

He embarked in three small vessels, the largest of which was less than one hundred tons, and two without decks, but having high poops and sterns inclosed.

The keels were somewhat flatter than those of our ships, whereby they could more easily encounter the shallows and the ebbing of the tide: the prows were raised very high, and in like manner the sterns were adapted to the force of the waves and storms [which they were formed to sustain].

But the son of Aktor and Aigina, Menoitios, he honoured above all settlers, him whose son went with the Atreidai to the plain of Teuthras and stood alone beside Achilles, when Telephos had turned the valiant Danaoi to flight, and drove them into the sterns of their sea-ships; so proved he to them that had understanding that Patroklos' soul was strong.

Cogeal directed a floating castle to be built of timber on two boats or lighters, which were firmly secured by two beams at their heads and sterns.

The Moorish ships were all drawn on the beach in a close line, having their sterns to the shore, and were well armed with ordnance, and had many soldiers on board armed with bows and arrows, a considerable number of them being men of a fair complexion.

The prows joined together remained stationary, while the sterns were moved round by the force of their adversaries' oars.

Small boats with narrow sterns (Fr. pinque).

The name painted on the two smashed boats had been ripped from their sterns, and everything that would float was locked securely in cabins or made fast.

This dog's antecedents were very questionable, and his breeder is given as Mr. Stevenson, of Chester, most of whose dogs were Bull-terriers pure and simple, save that they had drop ears and short sterns, being in this respect unlike old Trap, whose sire is generally supposed to have been a Black and Tan Terrier.

The graceful Greek sloops, with their bellying sails and turned-up stems and sterns, come sailing in much as they must have come when the Persians, instead of the English and the French, were battering away at the Hellespont.

Caligula, not satisfied with building ships of cedar with sterns inlaid with gems, had a pearl-collar made for a favorite horse!

Over the sterns of the boats there are long baskets.

What vapour did not escape in this manner, found its way through between the sterns of the trees which adjoin these buildings, and through the palace windows.

The passage was of course rapid, and, as the two vessels, for an instant, lay with heads and sterns nearly equal, Wilder thought it was to be made without the slightest notice from the imaginary slaver.

Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear, And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send: Close by their fire ships, like jackals appear Who on their lions for the prey attend.

Many of them, too, were adorned and decorated in the most sumptuous manner, with gilded sterns, purple awnings, and silver-mounted oars.

The fruit of the fig tree appears not only before the leaves, but without any sign of blossoms, the flowers being small and hidden in the little buttons which first shoot out from the points of the sterns, and around which the outer and firm part of the fig grows.

Taking one of a great number of lively little boats with gay-striped awnings, we rowed away, under the sterns of great ships, under tow-ropes and cables, against and among other boats, and very much too near the sides of vessels that were faint with oranges, to the "Marie Antoinette," a handsome steamer bound for Genoa, lying near the mouth of the harbor.

Any variation of speed between them would have been instantly noticeable, as one forged ahead or lagged; but the distance between bows and sterns did not change.

The models which figure in old pictures, with high sterns and bows, proved too clumsy for war, and modern forms were adopted.

Samuel Sterns said, "His countenance commonly carries the impression of a serious cast;" Maclay, that "the President seemed to bear in his countenance a settled aspect of melancholy;" and the Prince de Broglie wrote, "His pensive eyes seem more attentive than sparkling, but their expression is benevolent, noble and self-possessed."