For a long time after the course of the steamer Sofala had been altered for the land, the low swampy1 coast had retained its appearance of a mere2 smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea — seemed to shatter themselves upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor3 of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady brightness.
Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his Serang, approaching the roomy cane4 arm-chair which he filled capably, had informed him in a low voice that the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and had remained on his feet, face forward, while the head of his ship swung through a quarter of a circle. He had not uttered a single word, not even the word to steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert, little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the helmsman. And then slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the arm-chair on the bridge and fixed5 his eyes on the deck between his feet.
He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea. He had been on these coasts for the last three years. From Low Cape6 to Malantan the distance was fifty miles, six hours’ steaming for the old ship with the tide, or seven against. Then you steered7 straight for the land, and by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential8 criticism of the dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber9 strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with it obliquely10, would show several clean shining fractures — the brimful estuary11 of a river. Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water and one part black earth, on and on between the low shores, three parts black earth and one part brackish12 water, the Sofala would plow13 her way up-stream, as she had done once every month for these seven years or more, long before he was aware of her existence, long before he had ever thought of having anything to do with her and her invariable voyages. The old ship ought to have known the road better than her men, who had not been kept so long at it without a change; better than the faithful Serang, whom he had brought over from his last ship to keep the captain’s watch; better than he himself, who had been her captain for the last three years only. She could always be depended upon to make her courses. Her compasses were never out. She was no trouble at all to take about, as if her great age had given her knowledge, wisdom, and steadiness. She made her landfalls to a degree of the bearing, and almost to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, as he sat on the bridge without looking up, or lay sleepless14 in his bed, simply by reckoning the days and the hours he could tell where he was — the precise spot of the beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous15 huckster’s round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and its sights and its people. Malacca to begin with, in at daylight and out at dusk, to cross over with a rigid16 phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East. Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black sky, perhaps the lights of a home steamer keeping her unswerving course in the middle, or maybe the elusive17 shadow of a native craft with her mat sails flitting by silently — and the low land on the other side in sight at daylight. At noon the three palms of the next place of call, up a sluggish18 river. The only white man residing there was a retired19 young sailor, with whom he had become friendly in the course of many voyages. Sixty miles farther on there was another place of call, a deep bay with only a couple of houses on the beach. And so on, in and out, picking up coastwise cargo20 here and there, and finishing with a hundred miles’ steady steaming through the maze21 of an archipelago of small islands up to a large native town at the end of the beat. There was a three days’ rest for the old ship before he started her again in inverse22 order, seeing the same shores from another bearing, hearing the same voices in the same places, back again to the Sofala’s port of registry on the great highway to the East, where he would take up a berth23 nearly opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office till it was time to start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry Whalley, otherwise Dare-devil Harry24 — Whalley of the Condor25, a famous clipper in her day. No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms, who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of them his own); who had made famous passages, had been the pioneer of new routes and new trades; who had steered across the unsurveyed tracts26 of the South Seas, and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty years at sea, and forty out in the East (“a pretty thorough apprenticeship,” he used to remark smilingly), had made him honorably known to a generation of ship-owners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear over to where the East merges27 into the West upon the coast of the two Americas. His fame remained writ28, not very large but plain enough, on the Admiralty charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the celebrated29 clipper had hung stranded30 for three days, her captain and crew throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with the other, as it were, keeping off her a flotilla of savage31 war-canoes. At that time neither the island nor the reef had any official existence. Later the officers of her Majesty’s steam vessel32 Fusilier, dispatched to make a survey of the route, recognized in the adoption33 of these two names the enterprise of the man and the solidity of the ship. Besides, as anyone who cares may see, the “General Directory,” vol. ii. p. 410, begins the description of the “Malotu or Whalley Passage” with the words: “This advantageous34 route, first discovered in 1850 by Captain Whalley in the ship Condor,” &c., and ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels35 leaving the China ports for the south in the months from December to April inclusive.
This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing could rob him of this kind of fame. The piercing of the Isthmus36 of Suez, like the breaking of a dam, had let in upon the East a flood of new ships, new men, new methods of trade. It had changed the face of the Eastern seas and the very spirit of their life; so that his early experiences meant nothing whatever to the new generation of seamen37.
In those bygone days he had handled many thousands of pounds of his employers’ money and of his own; he had attended faithfully, as by law a shipmaster is expected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners, charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship or consented to a shady transaction; and he had lasted well, outlasting38 in the end the conditions that had gone to the making of his name. He had buried his wife (in the Gulf39 of Petchili), had married off his daughter to the man of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than an ample competence40 in the crash of the notorious Travancore and Deccan Banking41 Corporation, whose downfall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he was sixty-five years old.
收听单词发音 |
1
swampy
|
|
| adj.沼泽的，湿地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
vapor
|
|
| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
cane
|
|
| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
cape
|
|
| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
steered
|
|
| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
confidential
|
|
| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
somber
|
|
| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
obliquely
|
|
| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
estuary
|
|
| n.河口，江口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
brackish
|
|
| adj.混有盐的；咸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
plow
|
|
| n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
sleepless
|
|
| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
monotonous
|
|
| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
elusive
|
|
| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
sluggish
|
|
| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
cargo
|
|
| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
maze
|
|
| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
inverse
|
|
| adj.相反的，倒转的，反转的；n.相反之物；v.倒转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
berth
|
|
| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
harry
|
|
| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
condor
|
|
| n.秃鹰；秃鹰金币 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
tracts
|
|
| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
merges
|
|
| （使）混合( merge的第三人称单数 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
writ
|
|
| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
stranded
|
|
| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
vessel
|
|
| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
adoption
|
|
| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
advantageous
|
|
| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
isthmus
|
|
| n.地峡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
seamen
|
|
| n.海员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
outlasting
|
|
| v.比…长久，比…活得长( outlast的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
39
gulf
|
|
| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
competence
|
|
| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
banking
|
|
| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |