The swarm10 of renegades — dock-masters, berthing-masters, gatemen, and such like — appear to nurse an immense distrust of the captive ship’s resignation. There never seem chains and ropes enough to satisfy their minds concerned with the safe binding11 of free ships to the strong, muddy, enslaved earth. “You had better put another bight of a hawser12 astern, Mr. Mate,” is the usual phrase in their mouth. I brand them for renegades, because most of them have been sailors in their time. As if the infirmities of old age — the gray hair, the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and the knotted veins13 of the hands — were the symptoms of moral poison, they prowl about the quays with an underhand air of gloating over the broken spirit of noble captives. They want more fenders, more breasting-ropes; they want more springs, more shackles14, more fetters15; they want to make ships with volatile16 souls as motionless as square blocks of stone. They stand on the mud of pavements, these degraded sea-dogs, with long lines of railway-trucks clanking their couplings behind their backs, and run malevolent17 glances over your ship from headgear to taffrail, only wishing to tyrannize over the poor creature under the hypocritical cloak of benevolence18 and care. Here and there cargo19 cranes looking like instruments of torture for ships swing cruel hooks at the end of long chains. Gangs of dock-labourers swarm with muddy feet over the gangways. It is a moving sight this, of so many men of the earth, earthy, who never cared anything for a ship, trampling20 unconcerned, brutal21 and hob-nailed upon her helpless body.
Fortunately, nothing can deface the beauty of a ship. That sense of a dungeon22, that sense of a horrible and degrading misfortune overtaking a creature fair to see and safe to trust, attaches only to ships moored23 in the docks of great European ports. You feel that they are dishonestly locked up, to be hunted about from wharf24 to wharf on a dark, greasy25, square pool of black water as a brutal reward at the end of a faithful voyage.
A ship anchored in an open roadstead, with cargo-lighters alongside and her own tackle swinging the burden over the rail, is accomplishing in freedom a function of her life. There is no restraint; there is space: clear water around her, and a clear sky above her mastheads, with a landscape of green hills and charming bays opening around her anchorage. She is not abandoned by her own men to the tender mercies of shore people. She still shelters, and is looked after by, her own little devoted26 band, and you feel that presently she will glide27 between the headlands and disappear. It is only at home, in dock, that she lies abandoned, shut off from freedom by all the artifices28 of men that think of quick despatch29 and profitable freights. It is only then that the odious30, rectangular shadows of walls and roofs fall upon her decks, with showers of soot31.
To a man who has never seen the extraordinary nobility, strength, and grace that the devoted generations of ship-builders have evolved from some pure nooks of their simple souls, the sight that could be seen five-and-twenty years ago of a large fleet of clippers moored along the north side of the New South Dock was an inspiring spectacle. Then there was a quarter of a mile of them, from the iron dockyard-gates guarded by policemen, in a long, forest-like perspective of masts, moored two and two to many stout wooden jetties. Their spars dwarfed32 with their loftiness the corrugated-iron sheds, their jibbooms extended far over the shore, their white-and-gold figure-heads, almost dazzling in their purity, overhung the straight, long quay2 above the mud and dirt of the wharfside, with the busy figures of groups and single men moving to and fro, restless and grimy under their soaring immobility.
At tide-time you would see one of the loaded ships with battened-down hatches drop out of the ranks and float in the clear space of the dock, held by lines dark and slender, like the first threads of a spider’s web, extending from her bows and her quarters to the mooring-posts on shore. There, graceful33 and still, like a bird ready to spread its wings, she waited till, at the opening of the gates, a tug34 or two would hurry in noisily, hovering35 round her with an air of fuss and solicitude36, and take her out into the river, tending, shepherding her through open bridges, through dam-like gates between the flat pier-heads, with a bit of green lawn surrounded by gravel37 and a white signal-mast with yard and gaff, flying a couple of dingy38 blue, red, or white flags.
This New South Dock (it was its official name), round which my earlier professional memories are centred, belongs to the group of West India Docks, together with two smaller and much older basins called Import and Export respectively, both with the greatness of their trade departed from them already. Picturesque39 and clean as docks go, these twin basins spread side by side the dark lustre40 of their glassy water, sparely peopled by a few ships laid up on buoys41 or tucked far away from each other at the end of sheds in the corners of empty quays, where they seemed to slumber42 quietly remote, untouched by the bustle43 of men’s affairs — in retreat rather than in captivity44. They were quaint45 and sympathetic, those two homely46 basins, unfurnished and silent, with no aggressive display of cranes, no apparatus47 of hurry and work on their narrow shores. No railway-lines cumbered them. The knots of labourers trooping in clumsily round the corners of cargo-sheds to eat their food in peace out of red cotton handkerchiefs had the air of picnicking by the side of a lonely mountain pool. They were restful (and I should say very unprofitable), those basins, where the chief officer of one of the ships involved in the harassing48, strenuous49, noisy activity of the New South Dock only a few yards away could escape in the dinner-hour to stroll, unhampered by men and affairs, meditating (if he chose) on the vanity of all things human. At one time they must have been full of good old slow West Indiamen of the square-stern type, that took their captivity, one imagines, as stolidly50 as they had faced the buffeting51 of the waves with their blunt, honest bows, and disgorged sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, or logwood sedately52 with their own winch and tackle. But when I knew them, of exports there was never a sign that one could detect; and all the imports I have ever seen were some rare cargoes53 of tropical timber, enormous baulks roughed out of iron trunks grown in the woods about the Gulf54 of Mexico. They lay piled up in stacks of mighty55 boles, and it was hard to believe that all this mass of dead and stripped trees had come out of the flanks of a slender, innocent-looking little barque with, as likely as not, a homely woman’s name — Ellen this or Annie that — upon her fine bows. But this is generally the case with a discharged cargo. Once spread at large over the quay, it looks the most impossible bulk to have all come there out of that ship along-side.
They were quiet, serene56 nooks in the busy world of docks, these basins where it has never been my good luck to get a berth6 after some more or less arduous57 passage. But one could see at a glance that men and ships were never hustled58 there. They were so quiet that, remembering them well, one comes to doubt that they ever existed — places of repose59 for tired ships to dream in, places of meditation60 rather than work, where wicked ships — the cranky, the lazy, the wet, the bad sea boats, the wild steerers, the capricious, the pig-headed, the generally ungovernable — would have full leisure to take count and repent61 of their sins, sorrowful and naked, with their rent garments of sailcloth stripped off them, and with the dust and ashes of the London atmosphere upon their mastheads. For that the worst of ships would repent if she were ever given time I make no doubt. I have known too many of them. No ship is wholly bad; and now that their bodies that had braved so many tempests have been blown off the face of the sea by a puff62 of steam, the evil and the good together into the limbo63 of things that have served their time, there can be no harm in affirming that in these vanished generations of willing servants there never has been one utterly64 unredeemable soul.
In the New South Dock there was certainly no time for remorse65, introspection, repentance66, or any phenomena67 of inner life either for the captive ships or for their officers. From six in the morning till six at night the hard labour of the prison-house, which rewards the valiance of ships that win the harbour went on steadily68, great slings69 of general cargo swinging over the rail, to drop plumb70 into the hatchways at the sign of the gangway-tender’s hand. The New South Dock was especially a loading dock for the Colonies in those great (and last) days of smart wool-clippers, good to look at and — well — exciting to handle. Some of them were more fair to see than the others; many were (to put it mildly) somewhat over-masted; all were expected to make good passages; and of all that line of ships, whose rigging made a thick, enormous network against the sky, whose brasses71 flashed almost as far as the eye of the policeman at the gates could reach, there was hardly one that knew of any other port amongst all the ports on the wide earth but London and Sydney, or London and Melbourne, or London and Adelaide, perhaps with Hobart Town added for those of smaller tonnage. One could almost have believed, as her gray-whiskered second mate used to say of the old Duke of S— — that they knew the road to the Antipodes better than their own skippers, who, year in, year out, took them from London — the place of captivity — to some Australian port where, twenty-five years ago, though moored well and tight enough to the wooden wharves72, they felt themselves no captives, but honoured guests.
点击收听单词发音
1 quays | |
码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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2 quay | |
n.码头,靠岸处 | |
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3 warehouses | |
仓库,货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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4 meditating | |
a.沉思的,冥想的 | |
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6 berth | |
n.卧铺,停泊地,锚位;v.使停泊 | |
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7 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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8 watchful | |
adj.注意的,警惕的 | |
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9 fetter | |
n./vt.脚镣,束缚 | |
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10 swarm | |
n.(昆虫)等一大群;vi.成群飞舞;蜂拥而入 | |
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11 binding | |
有约束力的,有效的,应遵守的 | |
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12 hawser | |
n.大缆;大索 | |
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13 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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14 shackles | |
手铐( shackle的名词复数 ); 脚镣; 束缚; 羁绊 | |
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15 fetters | |
n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 );束缚v.给…上脚镣,束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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16 volatile | |
adj.反复无常的,挥发性的,稍纵即逝的,脾气火爆的;n.挥发性物质 | |
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17 malevolent | |
adj.有恶意的,恶毒的 | |
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18 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
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19 cargo | |
n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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20 trampling | |
踩( trample的现在分词 ); 践踏; 无视; 侵犯 | |
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21 brutal | |
adj.残忍的,野蛮的,不讲理的 | |
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22 dungeon | |
n.地牢,土牢 | |
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23 moored | |
adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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24 wharf | |
n.码头,停泊处 | |
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25 greasy | |
adj. 多脂的,油脂的 | |
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26 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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27 glide | |
n./v.溜,滑行;(时间)消逝 | |
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28 artifices | |
n.灵巧( artifice的名词复数 );诡计;巧妙办法;虚伪行为 | |
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29 despatch | |
n./v.(dispatch)派遣;发送;n.急件;新闻报道 | |
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30 odious | |
adj.可憎的,讨厌的 | |
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31 soot | |
n.煤烟,烟尘;vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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32 dwarfed | |
vt.(使)显得矮小(dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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33 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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34 tug | |
v.用力拖(或拉);苦干;n.拖;苦干;拖船 | |
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35 hovering | |
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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36 solicitude | |
n.焦虑 | |
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37 gravel | |
n.砂跞;砂砾层;结石 | |
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38 dingy | |
adj.昏暗的,肮脏的 | |
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39 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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40 lustre | |
n.光亮,光泽;荣誉 | |
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41 buoys | |
n.浮标( buoy的名词复数 );航标;救生圈;救生衣v.使浮起( buoy的第三人称单数 );支持;为…设浮标;振奋…的精神 | |
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42 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
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43 bustle | |
v.喧扰地忙乱,匆忙,奔忙;n.忙碌;喧闹 | |
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44 captivity | |
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚 | |
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45 quaint | |
adj.古雅的,离奇有趣的,奇怪的 | |
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46 homely | |
adj.家常的,简朴的;不漂亮的 | |
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47 apparatus | |
n.装置,器械;器具,设备 | |
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48 harassing | |
v.侵扰,骚扰( harass的现在分词 );不断攻击(敌人) | |
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49 strenuous | |
adj.奋发的,使劲的;紧张的;热烈的,狂热的 | |
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50 stolidly | |
adv.迟钝地,神经麻木地 | |
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51 buffeting | |
振动 | |
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52 sedately | |
adv.镇静地,安详地 | |
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53 cargoes | |
n.(船或飞机装载的)货物( cargo的名词复数 );大量,重负 | |
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54 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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55 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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56 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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57 arduous | |
adj.艰苦的,费力的,陡峭的 | |
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58 hustled | |
催促(hustle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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59 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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60 meditation | |
n.熟虑,(尤指宗教的)默想,沉思,(pl.)冥想录 | |
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61 repent | |
v.悔悟,悔改,忏悔,后悔 | |
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62 puff | |
n.一口(气);一阵(风);v.喷气,喘气 | |
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63 limbo | |
n.地狱的边缘;监狱 | |
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64 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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65 remorse | |
n.痛恨,悔恨,自责 | |
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66 repentance | |
n.懊悔 | |
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67 phenomena | |
n.现象 | |
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68 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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69 slings | |
抛( sling的第三人称单数 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往 | |
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70 plumb | |
adv.精确地,完全地;v.了解意义,测水深 | |
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71 brasses | |
n.黄铜( brass的名词复数 );铜管乐器;钱;黄铜饰品(尤指马挽具上的黄铜圆片) | |
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72 wharves | |
n.码头,停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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