Those were glorious days! Never again, I think, will there be such a happy time as that in Paris. The boulevards were crowded, the tables filled under every awning12 in front of the cafés; and yet there seemed to be a deep silence everywhere, a silence intensified13 by the faint rustling14 of autumn leaves and the tramping of innumerable feet. One heard the sound of voices, of laughter, of singing, the subdued15, continuous rumble16 of traffic; but not a harsh cry, not a discordant17 note. All the world seemed to be making holiday at the passing of a solemn, happy festival.
Well, we had kept it with the others—Nordhoff and I—and have the memory of it now, to be enjoyed over and over again as the years pass. But there was danger that we might outstay the freshness of that period. We were anxious to avoid that for the sake of our memories, if for nothing else. While we were not yet free to order our movements as we chose, we pretended that we were, and so one rainy evening in the December following the armistice18 we decided19 to call that chapter of experience closed and to go forward with the making of new plans.
For we meant to have further adventure of one kind or another—adventure in the sense of unexpected incident rather than of hazardous20 activity. That had been a settled thing between us for a long time. We had no craving21 for excitement, but turned to plans for uneventful wanderings which we had sketched23 in broad outlines months before. They had been left, of necessity, vague; but now that any of them might be made realities, now that we had leisure and a 5 reasonable hope for the fulfillment of plans—well, we had cause for a contentment which was something deeper than happiness.
The best of it was that the close of the war found us with nothing to prevent our doing pretty much as we chose. We might have had houses or lands to anchor us, or promising24 careers to drag us back into the bewilderments of modern civilization; but, fortunately or unfortunately, there were none of these things. The chance of war had given us a freedom far beyond anyone's desert. We had some misgivings25 about accepting so splendid a gift, which the event sometimes proves to be the most doubtful of benefits. Viewed in the light of our longings27, however, our capacity for it seemed incalculable, and so, by degrees, we allowed our minds to turn to an old allurement—the South Pacific. It became irresistible29 the more we talked of it, longing26 as we then were for the solitude30 of islands. The objection to this choice was that the groups of islands which we meant to visit have been endowed with an atmosphere of pseudoromance displeasing31 to the fastidious mind.
But there was not the slightest chance of our being pioneers wherever we might go. We could not hope to see with the eyes of the old explorers who first came upon those far-off places. We must expect great changes. But much as we might regret for the purposes of this adventure that we had not been born two hundred years earlier, comfort was not wanting to our situation. Had we been contemporaries and fellow-explorers with De Quiros, or Cook, or Bougainville we should have missed the Great War.
We came within view of Tahiti one windless February 6 morning—such a view as Pedro Fernandez de Quiros himself must have had more than three hundred years before. The sky to the west was still bright with stars and but barely touched with the very ghost of light, giving it the appearance of a great water, with a few clouds, like islands, immeasurably distant. Half an hour later the islands themselves lay in full sunlight, jagged peaks falling away in steep ridges32 to the sea. Against sheer walls still in shadow in upland valleys one could see a few terns; but there was no other movement, no sound, nor any sign of a human habitation—nothing to shatter the illusion of primitive33 loveliness.
It was illusion, of course, but the reality was nothing like so disappointing as I had feared it would be. Outwardly, two hundred years of progress have wrought34 no great amount of havoc35. There is a little port, a busy place on boat days. But when the steamer has emptied the town of her passengers, the silence flows down again from the hills. Off the main harbor-front thoroughfare streets lie empty to the eye for half hours at a time. Chinese merchants sit at the doorways36 of their shops, waiting for trade. Now and then broad pools of sunlight flow over the gayly flowered dresses of a group of native women, scarcely to be seen otherwise as they move slowly through tunnels of moist green gloom; or a small schooner37, like a detail gifted with sudden mobility38 in a picture, will back away from shore, cross the harbor, bright with the reflections of clouds, and stand out to sea. In the stillness of the noon siesta39 one hears at infrequent intervals40 the resounding41 thud of ripe fruits as they tear their way to the ground through barriers of foliage42; and at night the melancholy43 thunder of the surf on the reef outside 7 the harbor, and the slithering of bare feet in the moonlit streets.
Coming from a populous44 exile, doubly attracted for that reason by the lure28 of unpeopled places, Nordhoff and I sought here an indication of what we might find later elsewhere. The few thousands of natives, whites, Orientals, half-castes, live in a charmed circle of low land fronting the sea, conscious of their mountains, no doubt, but the whites without curiosity, the Orientals without desire, the natives without remembrance. There must have been a maze45 of trails in the old days, leading down from the rich valleys. Now they are overgrown, untraveled, lost. Since the old life is no more than a memory, one is glad for the desolation, and grateful to the French lack of enterprise which surely is the only way to account for it.
No, we couldn't have chosen a better jumping-off place for our unpremeditated wanderings. We had the whole expanse of the Pacific before us, or, better, around us, and there was, as I have said, a harbor full of shipping46. Boats with pleasing names, like the Curieuse, the Avarua, the Potii Ravarava, the Kaeo, the Liane—and self-confident, seagoing aspect. Some tidy and smart with new paint and rigging; others with decks warped47 and sides blistered48, bottoms foul49 with the accumulation of a six months' cruise, reeking50 with the warm odor of copra. Boats newly arrived from remote islands, with crowds of bare-legged natives on their decks, their eyes beaming with pleasure in anticipation51 of the delights of the great capital; outward-bound to the Marquesas, the Australs, the Cooks, the Low Archipelago, despite the fact that it was the middle of the hurricane season. Among these latter there was 8 one whose name was like a friendly hail from Gloucester, or Portland, Maine. But it was not this which attracted me to her, for all its assurance of Yankee hospitality. She was off to the Paumotus, the Cloud of Islands, and a longing to go there persisted in the face of a number of vague discouragements. There were no practical difficulties. Easy enough to get passage by one schooner or another. Paumotu copra is famous throughout the Southern Pacific. There is a good deal of competition for it, boats racing52 one another for cargo53 to the richer islands. The discouragements weren't so vague, either, now that I think of them. They came from men kindly54 disposed, interested in the islands in their own way. But their concerns were purely55 commercial. I heard a deal of talk about copra—in kilos, in tons, in shiploads; its market value in Papeete, in San Francisco, in Marseilles, until the stately trees which gave it lost for a time their old significance. Talk, too, of coconut56 oil and its richness in butter-fat. Butter-fat! There was a word to bring one back to a workaday world. To meet it at the outset of a long-dreamed-of journey was disheartening. It followed me with the shrill57 insistence58 of a creamery whistle, and I came very near giving up my plans altogether. Nordhoff did change his. He said that it was silly, no doubt, but he didn't like the idea of wandering, however lonely, in a cloud of butter-fat islands. Therefore we said good-by, having arranged for a rendezvous59 at a distant date, and set out on diverging60 paths.
I ought to leave Crichton, the English planter, out of this story altogether. He doesn't belong in a commonplace record of travel such as this one set out 9 to be. He had very little to do with the voyage of the Caleb S. Winship among the atolls. But when I think of that vessel61 he comes inevitably62 into mind. I see him sitting on the cabin deck with his freckled63 brown hands clasped about his knees, looking across a solitude of waters; and in my mental concept of the Low Archipelago he is always somewhere in the background, standing64 on the sun-stricken reef of a tiny atoll, his back to the sea, almost as much a part of the lonely picture as the sea itself.
But one can't be wholly matter of fact in writing of these islands. They are not real in the ordinary sense, but belong, rather, to the realm of the imagination. And it is only in the imagination that you can conceive of your ever having been there, once you are back again in a well-plowed sea track. As for the people, whether native or alien, in order to focus them in a world of reality it is necessary to remember what they said or did; what they ate; what sort of clothing they wore. Otherwise they elude65 you just as the islands do.
This point of view isn't, perhaps, commonly held among the few white men who know them—captains of small schooners66, managers of trading companies, resident agents, whose interest, as I have said, is in what they produce rather than in what they are. As one old skipper of my acquaintance put it, in speaking of the atolls, "Take them by and large, they are as much alike as the reef-points on that sail." Findlay's South Pacific Directory, a supposedly competent authority, bears him out in this: "They are all of similar character," adding, for emphasis, no doubt, "and they exhibit very great sameness in their features." He does, 10 however, make certain slight concessions67 to what may be his own private conception of their peculiar68 fascination69, "This vast collection of coral islands; one of the wonders of the Pacific," and later, in his account of them, "The native name, 'Paumotu,' signifies a Cloud of Islands, an expressive70 term." But he doesn't forget that he is writing for practical-minded mariners71 who want facts and not fancies, however truthful72 these may be to reality.
"Now, there's Tikehau," one of them said to me before I had been out there. "That's a round atoll; and Rahiroa is sort o' square like, an' so on. Some with passes and a good anchorage inside the lagoon73. Others you got to lay outside an' take your cargo off the reef in a small boat."
But, to go back to Crichton, no one knew who he was or where he came from. The manager of the Inter-Island Trading Company had lived in Papeete for years and had never seen him until the day when he turned up at the water front trundling a wheelbarrow loaded with four crates74 of chickens and an odd lot of plantation75 tools and fishing tackle. Following him were two native boys carrying a weather-blackened sea chest, and an old woman with an enormous roll of bedding tied loosely in a pandanus mat. That was about an hour before the schooner weighed anchor. He stacked his gear neatly76 on the beach and then went on board, asking for passage to Tanao.
"No, sir," the manager said, in telling about it afterward77, "I never laid eyes on him until that moment, and I don't know anyone who had. Where's he been hiding himself? And why in the name of common sense does he want to go to Tanao? There's no copra or 11 pearl shell there—not enough, anyway, to make it worth a man's while going after it."
Tino, the supercargo, was equally puzzled.
"I know Tanao from the sea," he said. "Passed it once coming down from the Marquesas when I was supercargo of the Tiare Tahiti. We were blown out of our course by a young hurricane. Didn't land. There's no one on the God-forsaken place. Now here's this Englishman, or Dane, or Norwegian—whatever he is—asking to be set down there with four crates of chickens and an old Kanaka woman for company!" He shook his head with a give-it-up expression, adding a moment later: "Well, you meet some queer people down in this part of the world. I don't believe in asking them their business, but it beats me sometimes, trying to figure out what their business is."
He was not able to figure it out in this case. The old woman was talkative; but the information he gathered from her only stimulated78 his curiosity the more. She owned Tanao, an atom of an atoll miles out of the beaten track even of the Paumotu schooners. There had never been more than a score of people living on it, she said, and now there was no one. Crichton had taken a long lease on it, and was going out there—as he told me afterward—"to do my writing and thinking undisturbed."
I didn't know this until later, however. When I first heard him spoken of we were only a few hours out from Papeete. We had left the harbor with a light breeze, but at four in the afternoon the schooner was lying about fifteen miles offshore79, lazy jacks80 flapping against idle sails with a mellow81, crusty sound. After a good deal of fretting82 at the fickleness83 of land 12 breezes, talk had turned to Crichton, who was up forward somewhere looking after his chickens. I didn't pay much attention then to what was being said, for I had just had one of those moments which come rarely enough in a lifetime, but which make up for all the arid84 stretches of experience. They give no forewarning. There comes a flood of happiness which brings tears to the eyes, the sense of it is so keen. The sad part of it is that one refuses to accept it as a moment. You say, "By Jove! I'm not going to let this pass!" and it has gone as unaccountably as it came, half lost through foreboding of its end. One prepares for it unknowingly, I suppose, through months, sometimes years, of longing for something remote and beautiful—such as these islands, for example. And when you have your islands, the moment comes, sooner or later, and you see them in the light which never was, as the saying goes, but which is the light of truth for all that. Brief as it is, no one can say that the reward isn't ample. And it leaves an afterglow in the memory, tempering regret, fading very slowly; which one never wholly loses since it takes on the color of memory itself, becoming a part of that dim world of worth-while illusions.
All of which has very little to do with what was passing aboard the Caleb S. Winship, except that I was prevented from taking an immediate85 interest in my fellow passengers; but this being my first near view of a Polynesian trading schooner, the scene on deck had all the charm of the unusual. Our skipper was a Paumotuan, a former pearl diver, and the sailors—six of them, including the mate—Tahitian boys. In addition to these there were Crichton, the 13 planter; the supercargo, master of three major languages and half a dozen Polynesian dialects; the manager of the Inter-Island Trading Company; William, the engineer; Oro, the cabin boy; a Chinese cook and two Chinese storekeepers—evidence of the leisurely86, persistent87 Oriental invasion of French Polynesia; thirty native passengers; a horse in an improvised88 stall amidships; a monkey perched in the mainmast rigging; Crichton's four crates of chickens, and five pigs. In addition to the passengers and live stock, we were carrying out a cargo of lumber89, corrugated90 iron, flour, rice, sugar, canned goods, clothing, and dry goods. Each of the native passengers brought with him as much dunnage as an Englishman carries when he goes traveling, and his food for the voyage—limes, oranges, bananas, breadfruit, mangoes, canned meat. With all of this, a two months' supply of gasoline for the engines, and fresh water and green coconuts91 for both passengers and crew, we made a snug92 fit. Even the space under the patient little native horse was used to stow his fodder93 for the long journey.
The women, with one exception, were barefooted, bareheaded, but otherwise conventionally dressed according to European or American standards. This, I suppose, is an outrageous94 betrayal of a trade secret, if one may say that writers of South Sea narratives95 belong to a trade. Those seriously interested in the islands have, of course, known the truth about them for years; but I believe it is still a popular misconception that the women who inhabit them—no one seems to be interested in the men—are even to this day half-savage, unself-conscious creatures who display 14 their charms to the general gaze with na?ve indifference96. Half-savage they may still be, but not unself-conscious in the old sense. There are a few, to be sure, who, by means of the bribes97 or the entreaties98 of itinerant99 journalists and photographers, may be persuaded to disrobe before the camera for a moment's space; and in this way the primitive legend is preserved to the outside world. But, as I told Nordhoff, although we are itinerant, we may as well be occasionally truthful and so gain, perhaps, a certain amount of begrudged100 credit.
The one exception was a girl of about nineteen. She came on board balancing unsteadily on high French heels, her brown legs darkening the sheen of her white-cotton stockings. I had seen her the day before as she passed below the veranda101 of Le Cercle Bougainville, the everyman's club of the port. She walked with the same air of precarious102 balance, and her broad-brimmed straw hat was set at the jaunty103 angle American women affect.
"Voilà! L'indigène d'aujourd'hui," my French companion said. Then, breaking into English: "The old Polynesia is dead. Yes, one may say that it is quite, quite dead." A memory he called it. "Maintenant je vous assure, monsieur, ce n'est rien que ?a." He rang changes on the word, in a soft voice, with an air of enforced liveliness.
I was rather saddened at the time, picturing in my mind the scene on the shore of that bright lagoon two hundred years ago, before any of these people had been forced to accept the blessings104 of an alien civilization. But the girl with the French heels wasn't a good illustration of l'indigène d'aujourd'hui, even in the 15 matter of surface changes. Most of the women dress much more simply and sensibly, and it was amusing as well as comforting to see how quickly she got rid of her unaccustomed clothing once we had left the harbor. She disappeared behind a row of water casks and came out a moment later in a dress of bright-red material, barefooted and bareheaded like the rest of them. She had a single hibiscus flower in her hair, which hung in a loose braid. I don't believe she had ever worn shoes before. At any rate, as she sat on a box, husking a coconut with her teeth, I could see her ankle calluses glinting in the sun like disks of polished metal.
There was another girl sitting on the deck not far from me, with an illustrated105 supplement of an American paper spread out before her. It was an ancient copy. There were pictures of battlefields in France; of soldiers marching down Fifth Avenue; a tennis tournament at Longwood; aeroplanes in flight; motor races at Indianapolis; actresses, society women, dressmakers' models making a display of corsets and other women's equipment—pictures out of the welter of modern life. The little Paumotuan girl appeared to be deeply interested. With her chin resting on her hands and her elbows braced106 against her knees, she went from picture to picture, but looked longest at those of the women who smiled or posed self-consciously, or looked disdainfully at her from the pages. I would have given a good deal to know what, if anything, was passing in her mind. All at once she gave a little sigh, crumpled107 the paper into a ball, and threw it at the monkey, who caught it and began tearing it in pieces. She laughed and clapped her hands at this, called the 16 attention of the others, and in a moment men, women, and children had gathered round, laughing and shouting, throwing bits of coconut shell, mango seeds, banana skins, faster than the monkey could catch them.
The spontaneity of the merriment did one's heart good. Even the old men and women laughed, not in the indulgent manner of parents or grandparents, but as heartily108 as the children themselves. Unconscious of the uproar109, one of the Chinese merchants was lying on a thin mattress110 against the cabin skylight. Although he was sound asleep, his teeth were bare in a grin of ghastly suavity111, and his left eye was partly open, giving him an air of constant watchfulness112. He was dreaming, I suppose, of copra, of pearl shell—in kilos, tons, shiploads; of its market value in Papeete, in San Francisco, in Marseilles, etc. Well, the whites get their share of these commodities and the Chinamen theirs; but the natives have a commodity of laughter which is vastly more precious, and as long as they do have it one need not feel very sorry for them.
Dusk gathered rapidly while I was thinking of these things. Heavy clouds hung over Tahiti and Moorea, clinging about the shoulders of the mountains whose peaks, rising above them, were still faintly visible against the somber113 glory of the sky. They seemed islands of sheer fancy, looked at from the sea. It would have been worth all that one could give to have seen them then as De Quiros saw them, or Cook, or the early missionaries114; to have added to one's own sense of their majesty115, the solemn and more childlike awe116 of the old explorers, born of their feeling of utter isolation117 from their kind with the presence of the unknown on every hand. It is this feeling of awe, 17 rarely to be known by travelers in these modern days, which pervades118 many of the old tales of wanderings in remote places; which one senses in looking at old sketches119 made from the decks of ships, of the shores of heathen lands.
The wind freshened, then came a deluge120 of cool water, blotting121 out the rugged122 outlines against the sky. When it had passed it was deep night. The forward deck was a huddle123 of shelters made of mats and bits of canvas, but these were being taken down now that the rain had stopped. I saw an old woman sitting near the companionway, her head in clear relief against a shaft124 of yellow light. She was wet through and the mild misfortune broke the ice between us, if one may use a metaphor125 very inapt for the tropics. With her face half in shadow she reminded me of the typical, Anglo-Saxon grandmother, although no grandmother of my acquaintance would have sat unperturbed through that squall and indifferent to her wet clothing afterward. She didn't appear to mind it in the least, and now that it was over fished a paper of tobacco and a strip of pandanus leaf out of the bundle on which she was sitting. She rolled a pinch of tobacco in the leaf, twisting it into a tight corkscrew, and lit it at the first attempt. Then she began talking in a deep, resonant126 voice, and by a simplicity127 and an extraordinary lucidity128 of gesture conveyed the greater part of her meaning even to an alien like myself. It was not, alas129! a typical accomplishment130. I have not since found others similarly gifted.
She was Crichton's landlady131, the owner of Tanao. "Pupure" she called him, because of his fair hair. I couldn't make out what she was driving at for a 18 little while. I understood at last that she wanted to know about his family—where his father was, and his mother. I suppose she thought I must know him, being a white man. They have queer ideas of the size of our world. He was young. He must have people somewhere. She, too, couldn't understand his wanting to go to Tanao; and I gathered from her perplexity that he hadn't confided132 his purposes to her to any extent. I couldn't enlighten her, of course, and at length, realizing this, she wrapped herself in her mat to preserve the damp warmth of her body, and dozed133 off to sleep.
I went below for a blanket and some dry clothing, for the night air was uncomfortably cool after the rain. The cabin floor was strewn with sleeping forms. Three children were curled up in a corner like puppies in a box of sawdust. Little brown babies lay snugly134 bedded on bundles of clothing, the mothers themselves sleeping in the careless, trustful attitudes of children. The light from a swinging lamp threw leaping shadows on the walls; flowed smoothly135 over brown arms and legs; was caught in fault gleams in masses of loose black hair. And to complete the picture and make it wholly true to fact, cockroaches136 of the enormous winged variety ran with incredible speed over the oilcloth of the cabin table, or made sudden flying sallies out of dark corners to the food lockers137 and back again.
On deck no one was awake except Maui at the wheel. There was very little unoccupied space, but I found a strip against the engine-room ventilator where I could stretch out at full length. By that time the moon was up and it was almost as light as day. I was not at all sleepy, and my thoughts went forward 19 to the Paumotus, the Cloud of Islands. We ought to be making our first landfall within thirty-six hours. I didn't go beyond that in anticipation, although in the mind's eye I had seen them for months, first one island and then another. I had pictured them at dawn, rising out of the sea against a far horizon; or at night, under the wan22 light of stars, lonely beyond one's happiest dreams of isolation; unspoiled, unchanged, because of their very remoteness. Well, I was soon to know whether or not they fulfilled my hopeful expectations.
Some one came aft, walking along the rail in his bare feet. It was Oro, the cabin boy, who is taken with an enviable kind of madness at the full of the moon. He looked carefully around to make sure that everyone was asleep, then stood clasping and unclasping his hands in ecstasy138, carrying on a one-sided conversation in a confidential139 undertone. Now and then he would smile and straightway become serious again, gazing with rapt, listening attention at the world of pure light; nodding his head at intervals in vigorous confirmation140 of some occult confidence. At length his figure receded141, blurred142, took on the quality of the moonlight, and I saw him no more.
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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muzzles
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| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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tilted
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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slant
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pebbles
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mechanism
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hesitation
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sinister
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awning
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intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rustling
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subdued
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rumble
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discordant
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armistice
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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hazardous
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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sketched
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promising
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misgivings
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longing
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longings
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lure
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irresistible
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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31
displeasing
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| 不愉快的，令人发火的 | |
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32
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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33
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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34
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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35
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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36
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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37
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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38
mobility
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| n.可动性，变动性，情感不定 | |
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39
siesta
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| n.午睡 | |
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40
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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41
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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42
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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43
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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44
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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45
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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46
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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47
warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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48
blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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49
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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50
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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51
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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52
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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53
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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54
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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55
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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56
coconut
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| n.椰子 | |
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57
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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58
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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59
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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60
diverging
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| 分开( diverge的现在分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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61
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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62
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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63
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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65
elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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66
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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67
concessions
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| n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权 | |
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68
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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69
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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70
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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71
mariners
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| 海员，水手（mariner的复数形式） | |
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72
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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73
lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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74
crates
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| n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
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75
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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76
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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77
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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78
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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79
offshore
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| adj.海面的，吹向海面的；adv.向海面 | |
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80
jacks
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| n.抓子游戏；千斤顶( jack的名词复数 )；（电）插孔；[电子学]插座；放弃 | |
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81
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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82
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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83
fickleness
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| n.易变；无常；浮躁；变化无常 | |
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84
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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85
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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86
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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87
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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88
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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89
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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90
corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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91
coconuts
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| n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果 | |
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92
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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93
fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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94
outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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95
narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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96
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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97
bribes
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| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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98
entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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99
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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100
begrudged
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| 嫉妒( begrudge的过去式和过去分词 )； 勉强做； 不乐意地付出； 吝惜 | |
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101
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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102
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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103
jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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104
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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105
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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106
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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107
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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108
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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109
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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110
mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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111
suavity
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| n.温和；殷勤 | |
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112
watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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113
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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114
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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115
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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116
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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117
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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118
pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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119
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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120
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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121
blotting
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| 吸墨水纸 | |
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122
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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123
huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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124
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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125
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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126
resonant
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| adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的 | |
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127
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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128
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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129
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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130
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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131
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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132
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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133
dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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134
snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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135
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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136
cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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137
lockers
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| n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 ) | |
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138
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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139
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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140
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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141
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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142
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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