Nothing more happened on the passage worthy1 the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it-- a mere2 hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting3 paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis4, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams5 will sometimes be found adhering as to the backs of sea turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.
Look now at the wondrous6 traditional story of how this island was settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle swooped7 down upon the New England coast and carried off an infant Indian in his talons8. With loud lament9 the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous10 passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,-- the poor little Indian's skeleton.
What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood11! They first caught crabs12 and quahogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded13 out with nets for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod14; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery15 world; put an incessant16 belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting17 war with the mightiest18 animated19 mass that has survived the flood; most monstrous20 and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness21 of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded22 than his most fearless and malicious23 assaults!
And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits24, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen25 having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road. they but plunder26 other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation27. There is his home; there lies his business which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull28, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds29 of walruses30 and whales.
1 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 blotting | |
吸墨水纸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 oasis | |
n.(沙漠中的)绿洲,宜人的地方 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 clams | |
n.蛤;蚌,蛤( clam的名词复数 )v.(在沙滩上)挖蛤( clam的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 swooped | |
俯冲,猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 talons | |
n.(尤指猛禽的)爪( talon的名词复数 );(如爪般的)手指;爪状物;锁簧尖状突出部 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 lament | |
n.悲叹,悔恨,恸哭;v.哀悼,悔恨,悲叹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 livelihood | |
n.生计,谋生之道 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 crabs | |
n.蟹( crab的名词复数 );阴虱寄生病;蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 waded | |
(从水、泥等)蹚,走过,跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 cod | |
n.鳕鱼;v.愚弄;哄骗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 incessant | |
adj.不停的,连续的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 mightiest | |
adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 );巨大的;强有力的;浩瀚的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 animated | |
adj.生气勃勃的,活跃的,愉快的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 monstrous | |
adj.巨大的;恐怖的;可耻的,丢脸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 portentousness | |
Portentousness | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 dreaded | |
adj.令人畏惧的;害怕的v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 malicious | |
adj.有恶意的,心怀恶意的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 hermits | |
(尤指早期基督教的)隐居修道士,隐士,遁世者( hermit的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 seamen | |
n.海员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 plunder | |
vt.劫掠财物,掠夺;n.劫掠物,赃物;劫掠 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 plantation | |
n.种植园,大农场 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 gull | |
n.鸥;受骗的人;v.欺诈 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 herds | |
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 walruses | |
n.海象( walrus的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |