holystones

The decks themselves were as white as holystones, sand, and much elbow grease could make them, and, with her white hull with its encircling green riband and cherry-red waterline, her yellow lower masts and funnel, and a brand-new pendant flying from the main-truck and large White Ensign flapping lazily from its staff on the poop, the

Stand By! Naval Sketches and Stories 1925

Her decks were as clean as scrubbers, holystones, sand, and perspiring blue-jackets could make them, and woe betide the careless sailor who defiled their sacred whiteness with a spot of paint, or the stoker who left the imprint of a large and greasy foot on emerging into the fresh air from his labours in the engine-room or stokehold.

Stand By! Naval Sketches and Stories 1925

Her decks were wide and roomy, (there being no poop, or house on deck, which disfigures the after part of most of our vessels,) flush, fore and aft, and as white as snow, which the crew told us was from constant use of holystones.

Chapter XXII. Life on Shore-The Alert 1909

The Rev.Mr. Calthrop thanked him with becoming gratitude and departed to get the new holystones.

The Cruise of the Jasper B. Don Marquis 1907

Port, starboard, and masthead lights; teak gratings; sliding sashes of the deckhouse; the captain's chest of drawers, with charts and chart-table; photographs, brackets, and looking-glasses; cabin doors; rubber cuddy mats; hatch-irons; half the funnel-stays; cork fenders; carpenter's grindstone and tool-chest; holystones, swabs, squeegees; all cabin and pantry lamps; galley-fittings en bloc; flags and flag-locker; clocks, chronometers; the forward compass and the ship's bell and belfry, were among the missing.

The Day's Work - Volume 1 Rudyard Kipling 1900

Floods of water and the heavy holystones took from the decks the stains of blood.

The Naval History of the United States Volume 1 (of 2) Willis J. Abbot 1898

He arranged the weights carefully at the feet; two holystones, an old anchor-shackle without its pin, some broken links of a worn-out stream cable.

The Nigger of the Narcissus 1897

At four bells (six o'clock) we mustered holystones and scrubbing-brushes, attached the hose to the fire hydrant, and industriously washed, scrubbed, and holystoned the decks and cleaned paintwork for an hour, after which the planks were thoroughly squeegeed and dried.

The First Mate The Story of a Strange Cruise Harry Collingwood 1886

The sounds of water being freely sluiced along the deck overhead, and of the vigorous use of holystones and scrubbing-brushes immediately following thereupon, awoke me on the following morning, and I opened my eyes to find the rays of the newly risen sun flashing off the heaving surface of the ocean through the open scuttle of the state-room which I occupied.

A Middy of the Slave Squadron A West African Story Harry Collingwood 1886

Her decks were wide and roomy, (there being no poop, or house on deck, which disfigures the after part of most of our vessels,) flush, fore and aft, and as white as snow, which the crew told us was from constant use of holystones.

Two years before the mast, and twenty-four years after: a personal narrative 1869