Latest Post


Bairro de Alfama e sua gente com tradições, Lisboa





Escrever conteúdos para Radio Allis.

   É uma ideia aliciante, escrever conteúdos à sua escolha só tem que estar ligado com o bairro,        exemplo, vivenciais do passado, Noticias, Poesia, etc etc.
  Terá aqui uma pagina onde pode interagir com seus fãs.

  Envie já o seu conteúdo para e-mail radiollis@gmail.com


Estamos abertos a ideias novas deixe a baixo em Comentários a sua ideia/opinião

Esta é uma das novidades do festival que chega no fim do verão e apresenta 40 fadistas espalhados por dez palcos ao longo de dois dias, 15 e 16 de setembro. Entre os cabeças-de-cartaz, Gisela João, António Zambujo, Marina Mota e Marco Rodrigues. Vão atuar no Palco Caixa, já com o Terminal de Cruzeiros inaugurado, "espera" o diretor da Música no Coração. Mais nomes serão anunciados semana a semana.
Luís Montez, que durante seis anos viveu no Beco da Formosa, ali ao lado, ia ao Sportivo Adicense ouvir o fado, contou que o presidente da junta tanto pediu que teve de lhe "dar um palco". Miguel Coelho, o autarca local, diz que "Alfama está pejada de grandes fadistas" e que o festival é "muito mais do que uma mera iniciativa", pois foi "assumido pela população como seu". Mas, nos últimos anos, o bairro tornou-se também dos turistas estrangeiros, que ali se alojam nas casas de arrendamento de curta duração ou que ali se passeiam diariamente, a pé ou de bicicleta.
Fernando Medina, fã do festival - "não há nada que se compare à riqueza de ouvir cantar o fado em Alfama" -, também presente na apresentação, disse não recear que em edições futuras o bairro não tenha fadistas residentes devido à pressão imobiliária. O autarca deu como exemplo o "friso" de novos fadistas que estavam sentados à sua frente "e toda uma geração que está a renovar o fado". Disse ainda, otimista, que "é provável que tenhamos filhos de franceses que possam vir a cantar o fado", lembrando os filhos de estrangeiros residentes que já estudam em escolas portuguesas.

Entrevista a Miguel Coelho, no Expresso
Presidente da Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior
Tomámos o Elevador da Baixa para nos sentarmos frente-a-frente com Miguel Coelho, Presidente da Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior. A entrevista que se segue revela a sua avaliação pessoal da reforma administrativa da cidade de Lisboa, a sua visão sobre a Freguesia criada por essa reforma e um balanço do trabalho desenvolvido ao longo do último ano.
Expresso do Oriente – Para começar, pedimos-lhe que faça um balanço da reforma administrativa da cidade, do ponto de vista global.
Miguel Coelho – O balanço é positivo. Esta é de facto uma verdadeira reforma. Em certa medida pode mesmo vir a ser uma boa revolução, porque contrariamente ao que se passou no país, com o Governo de direita a fazer uma junção de freguesias, este foi um processo que começou em 2008 e que não tinha como mero objetivo agregar territórios: pretendia entregar poderes às Juntas de Freguesia. Isto é, a Câmara de Lisboa, poder centralizado, abdicava de grande parte dos seus poderes para os entregar às JF’s, por considerar que estas estariam em melhores condições para os exercer. Nessa perspectiva, esta reforma é de facto uma revolução naquilo que acontecia até aqui, desde o Portugal democrático, mas também em relação às tradições anteriores ao 25 de Abril, em que houve sempre uma grande tendência para a centralização do poder.

EO – Quais são as principais vantagens obtidas com a reforma?
MC – Todas as reformas têm obstáculos mas aquilo que, passado um ano, podemos constatar é que temos maior capacidade de intervenção, porque temos mais meios e mais recursos. Temos maior capacidade de dar sentido à proximidade, porque não nos limitamos a ouvir as pessoas a lamentarem-se… Conseguimos resolver, atenuar ou combater muitas das dificuldades que as pessoas nos apresentam. Também conseguimos agir muito mais rapidamente na intervenção no espaço público porque estamos menos burocratizados do que a CML. Dou-lhe um exemplo muito concreto: na Rua de São Pedro, em Alfama, era necessário fazer trabalhos de reperfilamento relativamente simples. A rua estava toda aos altos e baixos, com as pedras levantadas. Há mais de 15 anos que se ouviam queixas para que a CML fizesse a intervenção. A JF de Santa Maria Maior concretizou esse trabalho em dois meses, porque agora é uma competência nossa. Conseguimos reabilitar uma rua pedonal que ninguém pensava já que fosse possível reabilitar. Esta capacidade que nós temos de agir praticamente de imediato é uma grande revolução na forma de funcionar do poder local em Lisboa, e espero até que este exemplo passe para o resto do país.
EO – Quais são os principais desafios que a reforma coloca às Juntas de Freguesia?
MC – É evidente que tivemos dificuldades neste processo. Por exemplo na componente da higiene urbana, não é de um dia para o outro que assumimos competências de lavar e varrer e que somos capazes de fazer tão bem feito como antigamente se fazia na CML, mesmo ficando com alguns dos seus trabalhadores. Há a necessidade de adaptarmos uma macro-escala a uma micro-escala de intervenção. Foi necessário ultrapassar algumas dificuldades e estamos agora a recuperar os níveis de qualidade do serviço que se prestava até aqui, senão mesmo a melhorá-lo num caso ou noutro. Haverá sempre dificuldades para vencer, mas cá estaremos para as enfrentar. Uma segunda observação que é importante que todos percebam é que, sendo a estrutura da CML uma estrutura pesada e uma máquina muito grande, ainda há por vezes ao nível dos seus departamentos técnicos alguma incompreensão sobre as competências das JF’s, e portanto às vezes temos alguns choques que são naturais mas que temos vindo a resolver com o diálogo, afirmando o princípio da reforma administrativa.
EO – Esta é a freguesia que agrega o maior número de antigas freguesias da cidade de Lisboa. É um sinónimo de heterogeneidade ou de homogeneidade? Como vê a sua Freguesia?


MC
 – Há as duas coisas, felizmente. Se olhar para aquele mapa percebe que esta é uma freguesia que nasceu a partir do Castelo e cresceu até ao interior da Muralha Fernandina. Isto é o centro histórico. Quando alguém diz “o Chiado não tem nada a ver com Alfama”, engana-se, porque tem. Foi no Chiado que os Templários acamparam para ajudar D. Afonso Henriques a tomar o Castelo aos mouros. Quem visita uma capital ou uma cidade de relevo quer conhecer o seu centro histórico. Esta Freguesia é o sítio mais visitado da cidade de Lisboa. Moram em Santa Maria Maior sensivelmente 15.000 pessoas, mas temos diariamente cerca de 200.000 pessoas que gastam os passeios, trazem automóveis, fazem lixo, e que reclamam com a JF, comportando-se como fregueses… e muito bem! E os bairros não são iguais, o que é sem dúvida um factor de riqueza, de diversidade e uma oportunidade. Se nós soubermos potenciar as características específicas de cada bairro, estaremos a suscitar maior interesse nas pessoas em visitar-nos, conhecer-nos, estabelecerem-se aqui, em usufruir das possibilidades de lazer e culturais que oferecemos. Queremos que os visitantes venham ajudar a sustentar a economia local, com as tascas, os restaurantes, o pequeno negócio orientado para o turismo, as colectividades locais… Somos um território único. Santa Maria Maior não é uma freguesia monótona.
EO – Gostávamos de o ouvir falar sobre o nome da Freguesia.


MC – É um nome fantástico. A origem está na Igreja da Sé, que já se chamou Santa Maria Maior, e de facto é um nome agregador. Naturalmente que os bairros têm rivalidades históricas e porventura não aceitariam referência a um nome que reforçasse o pendor bairrista de um determinado bairro. Aquilo que constatamos é que todas as pessoas de Alfama, da Mouraria, da Baixa, do Chiado e do Castelo se revêem no nome de Santa Maria Maior. Não poderia ter havido melhor escolha.
EO – Falamos agora dos trabalhos que este Executivo já desenvolveu. O que gostaria de destacar de obra feita neste primeiro ano de mandato?
MC – A primeira coisa que gostava de destacar é um trabalho que não se vê mas que é indispensável e essencial e que estava na matriz do nosso programa de candidatura: a ação social. Em Santa Maria Maior não há ninguém aflito que não tenha apoio da JF. Medicamentos, livros para as crianças, manutenção da casa, água, luz e gás em casa, bens alimentares… Esta é a nossa primeira prioridade e estamos felizmente a conseguir corresponder às dificuldades que as pessoas estão a atravessar, muito agravadas pelas asneiras que este Governo faz todos os dias. É o que mais orgulho nos traz. Em segundo lugar, estamos a intervir no espaço público, na tentativa de o reabilitar e de o valorizar como palco dos diversos bairros e praças da Freguesia. Em Alfama reabilitámos a Rua de São Pedro, tirámos os carros do Largo do Chafariz de Dentro, vamos reabilitar a Rua dos Remédios… Na Mouraria, numa operação de grande envergadura, estamos a retirar os automóveis do Largo da Severa e da Rua da Guia, um dos pontos mais extraordinários da Mouraria, aumentando ao lado a oferta de estacionamento para residentes. Sem um espaço público de qualidade não há turismo. Estamos a investir na higiene urbana, não só na aquisição de meios para não permitir que o lixo se vá acumulando durante o dia. Temos equipas permanentemente a apanhar o lixo e a limpar as papeleiras. Temos consciência que se os turistas vão comer a uma tasca e vêem lixo ao lado não voltam lá certamente.
EO – E no que diz respeito à dinamização cultural?
MC – Estamos a investir muito no conceito da cultura como ocupação do espaço público. Temos acarinhado muito o fado popular, porque faz parte da cultura deste território, além de ser Património Imaterial da Humanidade. Temos grandes intérpretes e compositores, letristas e poetas populares. Queremos dar-lhes a oportunidade de mostrar a sua qualidade. Vamos lançar este ano a primeira edição da Grande Noite de Fado de Santa Maria Maior, para suscitar o aparecimento de novos valores. Estamos a investir muito na multiculturalidade. O grande equipamento cultural que a Freguesia tem são as praças e os largos. Não temos nenhum teatro, auditório… Estamos a ocupar as nossas praças com uma sucessão de eventos que evidenciem tudo o que de bom se faz cá dentro. Por fim, estamos a apostar na vertente do empreendedorismo. Vamos criar a nossa start up, vocacionada para as pessoas da Freguesia, e estamos a criar uma série de instrumentos, como novas feiras, que possibilitem aos artesãos da Freguesia exporem os seus produtos e conseguirem mais rendimentos. Criámos a nova Feira do Castelo, que correu muito bem, em parceria com uma entidade local.
EO – Alguma grande obra que queira ver concluída em breve, neste ou num eventual próximo mandato?
MC – Em termos de espaço público, a grande prioridade é recuperar os espaços degradados. Temos definido um conjunto de praças e ruas que queremos reabilitar neste mandato e estamos a fazê-lo. Há outro objetivo, que é deste e do próximo mandato, ao qual naturalmente me apresentarei. É a reabilitação da Praça da Figueira. É preciso devolver a esta Praça o esplendor e a dignidade que ela já teve. É preciso recolocar a Praça da Figueira no mapa da cidade de Lisboa.
EO – Para terminar, pedimos-lhe que comente sobre a nova imagem da JF e o novo logotipo, bem como sobre a importância das novas instalações.
MC – A nossa imagem foi inspirada na Igreja da Sé e no fado, face mais visível da nossa cultura popular. Os criativos que nos propuseram este logotipo foram muito felizes porque conseguiram conjugar nesta rodinha não só a rosácea da Sé mas também a guitarra e a viola do fado, que dizem tanto ao nosso território. As novas instalações têm uma carga simbólica muito importante, porque estão aqui no centro da Freguesia. Se olharmos para este lado, vemos a Baixa e alcançamos o Chiado. Se sairmos por este outro lado estamos na Rua da Madalena, na Mouraria e no Castelo, prontos para alcançar Alfama. Estamos no ponto nevrálgico da Freguesia. Isso tem uma carga simbólica muito importante, porque estamos aqui para servir todos os bairros da Freguesia. "Copia de Entrevista ao expresso do oriente"

Escrever conteúdos para Radio Allis.

É uma ideia aliciante, esta um prémio em jogos desconto em Perfume em 5% e 3 capas para Telemóvel. Escrever conteúdos à sua escolha só tem que estar relacionado diretamente ou indiretamente com o bairro de Alfama, exemplo, vivenciais de vida, Noticias, Poesia, etc etc.Terá aqui no Blog uma pagina onde pode interagir com seus fãs.


Envie já o seu conteúdo para e-mail radiollis@gmail.com


Estamos abertos a ideias novas,  deixe a baixo em Comentários.            Volte sempre, Obrigado.


Chapter 1


The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.



Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship.



Already several fatalities had attended his chaseAlready several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.



Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale's direful wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal.

[next]


Chapter 2


His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil;—Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.



It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismembermentIt is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object.

[next]


Chapter 3


At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small.



Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if SHE could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar of pickles for the steward's pantry; another time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a roll of flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity—Aunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars.



But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on boardBut it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam.

[next]


Chapter 4


In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit.



The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock his head against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway embankment.



Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking village and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water bubbling out like a spring upon the road.



That was the story I got from him, bit by bitThat was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew calmer telling me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about us came darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose trees outside the window grew distinct. It would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also.

[next]


Chapter 5


It seemed to me that the pit had been enlargedWhen we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley had become a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. Yet here and there some object had had the luck to escape--a white railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh amid the wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were surveying the desolation they had made.



It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the brightening dawn--streamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished.



Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day.



As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.



The enormous broad tires of the chariots and the padded feet of the animals brought forth no sound from the moss-covered sea bottom; and so we moved in utter silence, like some huge phantasmagoria, except when the stillness was broken by the guttural growling of a goaded zitidar, or the squealing of fighting thoats. The green Martians converse but little, and then usually in monosyllables, low and like the faint rumbling of distant thunder.



[img featured="1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik9nv9DfozkcIpqC5IidL_Aykns_atObdN9__gF0-4IpA8OVaAB1ILwewYSBHSXXcAOgw1P4MkSr3XY9rGVnpaf8ApzhPEAmw2x_NMBORBFsXR5WpR5e0gtRH5dlaZRMmbLlbQeMmwf4E/s1600/foods_2.jpg"/]

[youtube featured="1" src="ELUn_L_a8aY"/] 

[img featured="1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn2NJj3Sh7BplUldhWS_gNRRA4ebND2CbI0fGKDDd3l2I7iR4z5VcWFEP_5qs1zLmXc_MSIKAj02wKm5bTrH0tUcaQ5YwGa9cAWkc0iQ0em6j25Oe72zbboKXEypVcJiu8ednOY276pDo/s1600/city_4.jpg"/]

[img featured="1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMOQDGly18yR9lXVamzO-tOo44_2u36dMrQPYM_qhRq1xyJrPssdIFlkhglxme9E3ZJjGsf_p26-o2iIMvJ7dGftqMNJSxpmRCj7q9bMTw9SaUsoPbYip3IGz6FGjmrb-kS_eM99sszuCn/s1600/Night+City+Glow+Wallpapers+6.jpg"/]

MacBook charging peacefully beside my PC desktop
My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the houses in front of them, and veiling the white facade of a terrace beyond the road that appeared between the backs of the villas. Mrs. Elphinstone suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards from the crossroads.

"Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Elphinstone. "What is this you are driving us into?"
My brother stopped.

For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of human beings rushing northward, one pressing on another. A great bank of dust, white and luminous in the blaze of the sun, made everything within twenty feet of the ground grey and indistinct and was perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense crowd of horses and of men and women on foot, and by the wheels of vehicles of every description.
"Way!" my brother heard voices crying. "Make way!"
It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting point of the lane and road; the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust was hot and pungent. And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa was burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road to add to the confusion.

It was like riding into the smoke
Macbook Accessories
Two men came past them. Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy bundle and weeping. A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue, circled dubiously round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my brother's threat.

So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses to the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent in between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded forms, grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust.
"Go on! Go on!" cried the voices. "Way! Way!"

One man's hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the pony's head. Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace, down the lane.

"To think of it! I've seen this beach alive with men, women, and children on a pleasant Sunday. And there weren't any bears to eat them up, either. And right up there on the cliff was a big restaurant where you could get anything you wanted to eat. Four million people lived in San Francisco then. And now, in the whole city and county there aren't forty all told. And out there on the sea were ships and ships always to be seen, going in for the Golden Gate or coming out. And airships in the air—dirigibles and flying machines. They could travel two hundred miles an hour. The mail contracts with the New York and San Francisco Limited demanded that for the minimum. There was a chap, a Frenchman, I forget his name, who succeeded in making three hundred; but the thing was risky, too risky for conservative persons. But he was on the right clew, and he would have managed it if it hadn't been for the Great Plague. When I was a boy, there were men alive who remembered the coming of the first aeroplanes, and now I have lived to see the last of them, and that sixty years ago."

I have lived to see the last of them
Macbook Gaming
The old man babbled on, unheeded by the boys, who were long accustomed to his garrulousness, and whose vocabularies, besides, lacked the greater portion of the words he used. It was noticeable that in these rambling soliloquies his English seemed to recrudesce into better construction and phraseology. But when he talked directly with the boys it lapsed, largely, into their own uncouth and simpler forms.

"But there weren't many crabs in those days," the old man wandered on. "They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too. And now crabs are accessible the whole year around. Think of it—catching all the crabs you want, any time you want, in the surf of the Cliff House beach!"

A sudden commotion among the goats brought the boys to their feet. The dogs about the fire rushed to join their snarling fellow who guarded the goats, while the goats themselves stampeded in the direction of their human protectors. A half dozen forms, lean and gray, glided about on the sand hillocks and faced the bristling dogs. Edwin arched an arrow that fell short. But Hare-Lip, with a sling such as David carried into battle against Goliath, hurled a stone through the air that whistled from the speed of its flight. It fell squarely among the wolves and caused them to slink away toward the dark depths of the eucalyptus forest.

It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the brightening dawn--streamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished.
In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit.

Night city and bridge best photography
Night City
The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock his head against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway embankment.

Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking village and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water bubbling out like a spring upon the road.

That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew calmer telling me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about us came darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose trees outside the window grew distinct. It would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also.

Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury
When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley had become a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. Yet here and there some object had had the luck to escape--a white railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh amid the wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were surveying the desolation they had made.

Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day.

As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.

The enormous broad tires of the chariots and the padded feet of the animals brought forth no sound from the moss-covered sea bottom; and so we moved in utter silence, like some huge phantasmagoria, except when the stillness was broken by the guttural growling of a goaded zitidar, or the squealing of fighting thoats. The green Martians converse but little, and then usually in monosyllables, low and like the faint rumbling of distant thunder.

We traversed a trackless waste of moss which, bending to the pressure of broad tire or padded foot, rose up again behind us, leaving no sign that we had passed. We might indeed have been the wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet for all the sound or sign we made in passing. It was the first march of a large body of men and animals I had ever witnessed which raised no dust and left no spoor; for there is no dust upon Mars except in the cultivated districts during the winter months, and even then the absence of high winds renders it almost unnoticeable.

We camped that night at the foot of the hills we had been approaching for two days and which marked the southern boundary of this particular sea. Our animals had been two days without drink, nor had they had water for nearly two months, not since shortly after leaving Thark; but, as Tars Tarkas explained to me, they require but little and can live almost indefinitely upon the moss which covers Barsoom, and which, he told me, holds in its tiny stems sufficient moisture to meet the limited demands of the animals.

After partaking of my evening meal of cheese-like food and vegetable milk I sought out Sola, whom I found working by the light of a torch upon some of Tars Tarkas' trappings.[right-post] She looked up at my approach, her face lighting with pleasure and with welcome.

Doubt can eat away at the best of competitors



This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on.



Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.



These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.



[pgallery] [img alt="fashion" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjED4_lx10XMEUagpzMANpdJTQdFS74tU55xIyASn5InweJDzGn77Th3-YbpNBE62PPvrhAeXjY6bqcPnJ_3wEYyGcNsqfa9t3yitOJRGdCKXOOHW9smBOzxw2LXRJtMmVg5qfSpnbRg6s1/s300/fashion4-700x357.jpg"][/img] [img alt="Wedding" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9_JXPpYV_2GLZB_ugCFW8VRZ5saUOIz5Wr2Uas2A9E7_bVI5b3nNFIpMgNwLxPf_fP0TpCfrK0bmPZtVjvS7_em2-dr1_4l0NdLvVgkaouTm7lCa4d_XZwVDJhO2JAnnoq2g6d-yz1GtT/s300/blog-511-700x466.jpg"][/img] [img alt="Interior" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZRApj8C_P0kdeNv_mviTEfSB9oQ10v3nraUYfhD-LJBfArehtzEGU7ONoneCe9hcJPqefg_F8AxJzBGObvN9D4spoPo76byqboVN3ZnW6g6Qyv9g6qXlr8OoWrncoKJCAOT8xgnS1u56/s300/4878276416_647837094f_b-702x336.jpg"][/img] [img alt="flower" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWsxm2XSfIQe8e0c7Sjd4Wtnsh1HSVkzbhS6s1WZxbRWULZLUwY03bdV0MXfl5mpr9R9YRQUYu_Q-cW2fTSiImIcYdXTgNX0pFxLkcvoVP7jJNoY70xNvnDRS9usSmTjfBr3J_58S_Gxup/s300/cape-cod-wedding-pink-hydreanga-aisle-runners-700x458.jpg"][/img] [img alt="other fashion" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtIYnE6u6aPpTUBFoLz_0CeMQH6u8LHL1aKyGmN-LMbbDjG7RvfDJZsf0NRZ2lyrcT_svj46jScKaikoUd6xa1YsXrA0cw3gGOdahJvdDD0mhS26oCqZu_2AQ0hrUFGNDtekodfvvnCu4T/s300/fashion3-326x235.jpg"][/img] [img alt="cars" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9y-4y_mVQ98sSVS-OEPZiBdOJQ-Kv0o_NWqBZEIe_xrPyh2PPYUEtZ0E4ZsNWLyweo8DmK18xWuN3br6i8jqBI1Nhj4H5S-A5li15B7XEQ3rG0cGSjCnynCDxpAyfO9saJJRMQRQMw4Ja/s300/Bmw-I8-Concept-Spyder-HD-Wallpaper-1080p.jpg"][/img] [/pgallery]



But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.



Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.



Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried.



During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for the time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling.* [right-side]

MKRdezign

{facebook#YOUR_SOCIAL_PROFILE_URL} {twitter#YOUR_SOCIAL_PROFILE_URL} {google-plus#YOUR_SOCIAL_PROFILE_URL} {pinterest#YOUR_SOCIAL_PROFILE_URL} {youtube#YOUR_SOCIAL_PROFILE_URL} {instagram#YOUR_SOCIAL_PROFILE_URL}

Formulário de Contacto

Nome

Email *

Mensagem *

Com tecnologia do Blogger.
Javascript DisablePlease Enable Javascript To See All Widget