To-day the air was beautifully clear, and the sea no longer dark and stormy, though the waves still broke with foam17 along the beach, but sparkling and full of life. Already that morning I had seen the day break over the sea as if it came out of its bosom:—
“The saffron-robed Dawn rose in haste from the streams
The sun rose visibly at such a distance over the sea that the cloud-bank in the horizon, which at first concealed19 him, was not perceptible until he had risen high behind it, and plainly broke and dispersed21 it, like an arrow. But as yet I looked at him as rising over land, and could not, without an effort, realize that he was rising over the sea. Already I saw some vessels22 on the horizon, which had rounded the Cape24 in the night, and were now well on their watery25 way to other lands.
We struck the beach again in the south part of Truro. In the early part of the day, while it was flood tide and the beach was narrow and soft, we walked on the bank, which was very high here, but not so level as the day before, being more interrupted by slight hollows. The author of the Description of the Eastern Coast says of this part, that “the bank is very high and steep. From the edge of it west, there is a strip of sand a hundred yards in breadth. Then succeeds low brushwood, a quarter of a mile wide, and almost impassable. After which comes a thick, perplexing forest, in which not a house is to be discovered. Seamen28, therefore, though the distance between these two hollows (Newcomb’s and Brush Hollows) is great, must not attempt to enter the wood, as in a snowstorm they must undoubtedly29 perish.” This is still a true description of the country, except that there is not much high wood left.
There were many vessels, like gulls30, skimming over the surface of the sea, now half concealed in its troughs, their dolphin-strikers ploughing the water, now tossed on the top of the billows. One, a bark standing31 down parallel with the coast, suddenly furled her sails, came to anchor, and swung round in the wind, near us, only half a mile from the shore. At first we thought that her captain wished to communicate with us, and perhaps we did not regard the signal of distress32, which a mariner34 would have understood, and he cursed us for cold-hearted wreckers who turned our backs on him. For hours we could still see her anchored there behind us, and we wondered how she could afford to loiter so long in her course. Or was she a smuggler36 who had chosen that wild beach to land her cargo37 on? Or did they wish to catch fish, or paint their vessel23? Erelong other barks, and brigs, and schooners38, which had in the mean while doubled the Cape, sailed by her in the smacking39 breeze, and our consciences were relieved. Some of these vessels lagged behind, while others steadily40 went ahead. We narrowly watched their rig, and the cut of their jibs, and how they walked the water, for there was all the difference between them that there is between living creatures. But we wondered that they should be remembering Boston and New York and Liverpool, steering41 for them, out there; as if the sailor might forget his peddling42 business on such a grand highway. They had perchance brought oranges from the Western Isles44; and were they carrying back the peel? We might as well transport our old traps across the ocean of eternity45. Is that but another “trading-flood,” with its blessed isles? Is Heaven such a harbor as the Liverpool docks?
Still held on without a break, the inland barrens and shrubbery, the desert and the high sand bank with its even slope, the broad white beach, the breakers, the green water on the bar, and the Atlantic Ocean; and we traversed with delight new reaches of the shore; we took another lesson in sea-horses’ manes and sea-cows’ tails, in sea-jellies and sea-clams46, with our new-gained experience. The sea ran hardly less than the day before. It seemed with every wave to be subsiding48, because such was our expectation, and yet when hours had elapsed we could see no difference. But there it was, balancing itself, the restless ocean by our side, lurching in its gait. Each wave left the sand all braided or woven, as it were, with a coarse woof and warp49, and a distinct raised edge to its rapid work. We made no haste, since we wished to see the ocean at our leisure; and indeed that soft sand was no place in which to be in a hurry, for one mile there was as good as two elsewhere. Besides, we were obliged frequently to empty our shoes of the sand which one took in in climbing or descending50 the bank.
As we were walking close to the water’s edge this morning we turned round, by chance, and saw a large black object which the waves had just cast up on the beach behind us, yet too far off for us to distinguish what it was; and when we were about to return to it, two men came running from the bank, where no human beings had appeared before, as if they had come out of the sand, in order to save it before another wave took it. As we approached, it took successively the form of a huge fish, a drowned man, a sail or a net, and finally of a mass of tow-cloth, part of the cargo of the Franklin, which the men loaded into a cart.
Objects on the beach, whether men or inanimate things, look not only exceedingly grotesque51, but much larger and more wonderful than they actually are. Lately, when approaching the seashore several degrees south of this, I saw before me, seemingly half a mile distant, what appeared like bold and rugged53 cliffs on the beach, fifteen feet high, and whitened by the sun and waves; but after a few steps it proved to be low heaps of rags,—part of the cargo of a wrecked54 vessel,—scarcely more than a foot in height. Once also it was my business to go in search of the relics55 of a human body, mangled56 by sharks, which had just been cast up, a week after a wreck35, having got the direction from a light-house: I should find it a mile or two distant over the sand, a dozen rods from the water, covered with a cloth, by a stick stuck up. I expected that I must look very narrowly to find so small an object, but the sandy beach, half a mile wide, and stretching farther than the eye could reach, was so perfectly57 smooth and bare, and the mirage58 toward the sea so magnifying, that when I was half a mile distant the insignificant59 sliver60 which marked the spot looked like a bleached61 spar, and the relics were as conspicuous62 as if they lay in state on that sandy plain, or a generation had labored63 to pile up their cairn there. Close at hand they were simply some bones with a little flesh adhering to them, in fact, only a slight inequality in the sweep of the shore. There was nothing at all remarkable64 about them, and they were singularly inoffensive both to the senses and the imagination. But as I stood there they grew more and more imposing65. They were alone with the beach and the sea, whose hollow roar seemed addressed to them, and I was impressed as if there was an understanding between them and the ocean which necessarily left me out, with my snivelling sympathies. That dead body had taken possession of the shore, and reigned66 over it as no living one, could, in the name of a certain majesty67 which belonged to it.
We afterward68 saw many small pieces of tow-cloth washed up, and I learn that it continued to be found in good condition, even as late as November in that year, half a dozen bolts at a time.
We eagerly filled our pockets with the smooth round pebbles69 which in some places, even here, were thinly sprinkled over the sand, together with flat circular shells (Scutellæ?); but, as we had read, when they were dry they had lost their beauty, and at each sitting we emptied our pockets again of the least remarkable, until our collection was well culled71. Every material was rolled into the pebble70 form by. the waves; not only stones of various kinds, but the hard coal which some vessel had dropped, bits of glass, and in one instance a mass of peat three feet long, where there was nothing like it to be seen for many miles. All the great rivers of the globe are annually72, if not constantly, discharging great quantities of lumber73, which drifts to distant shores. I have also seen very perfect pebbles of brick, and bars of Castile soap from a wreck rolled into perfect cylinders74, and still spirally streaked75 with red, like a barber’s pole. When a cargo of rags is washed ashore52, every old pocket and bag-like recess76 will be filled to bursting with sand by being rolled on the beach; and on one occasion, the pockets in the clothing of the wrecked being thus puffed77 up, even after they had been ripped open by wreckers, deluded78 me into the hope of identifying them by the contents. A pair of gloves looked exactly as if filled by a hand. The water in such clothing is soon wrung79 out and evaporated, but the sand, which works itself into every seam, is not so easily got rid of. Sponges, which are picked up on the shore, as is well known, retain some of the sand of the beach to the latest day, in spite of every effort to extract it.
I found one stone on the top of the bank, of a dark gray color, shaped exactly like a giant clam47 (Mactra solidissima), and of the same size; and, what was more remarkable, one-half of the outside had shelled off and lay near it, of the same form and depth with one of the valves of this clam, while the other half was loose, leaving a solid core of a darker color within it. I afterward saw a stone resembling a razor clam, but it was a solid one. It appeared as if the stone, in the process of formation, had filled the mould which a clam-shell furnished; or the same law that shaped the clam had made a clam of stone. Dead clams, with shells full of sand, are called sand clams. There were many of the large clamshells filled with sand; and sometimes one valve was separately filled exactly even, as if it had been heaped and then scraped. Even, among the many small stones on the top of the bank, I found one arrow-head.
Beside the giant clam and barnacles, we found on the shore a small clam (Mesodesma arctata), which I dug with my hands in numbers on the bars, and which is sometimes eaten by the inhabitants, in the absence of the Mya arenaria, on this side. Most of their empty shells had been perforated by some foe81.—Also, the
Astarte castanea.
The Edible82 Mussel (Mytilus edulis) on the few rocks, and washed up in curious bunches of forty or fifty, held together by its rope-like byssus.
The Scollop Shell (Pecten concentricus), used for card-racks and pin-cushions.
Cockles, or Cuckoos (Natica heros), and their remarkable nidus, called “sand-circle,” looking like the top of a stone jug83 without the stopple, and broken on one side, or like a flaring84 dickey made of sand-paper. Also,
Cancellaria Couthouyi (?), and
Periwinkles (?) (Fusus decemcostatus).
We afterward saw some other kinds on the Bay-side. Gould states that this Cape “has Hitler proved a barrier to the migrations85 of many species of Mollusca.”—“Of the one hundred and ninety-seven species [which he described in 1840 as belonging to Massachusetts], eighty-three do not pass to the South shore, and fifty are not found on the North shore of the Cape.”
Among Crustacea, there were the shells of Crabs86 and Lobsters88, often bleached quite white high up the beach; Sea or Beach Fleas89 (Amphipoda); and the cases of the Horse-shoe Crab87, or Saucepan Fish (Limulus Polyphemus), of which we saw many alive on the Bay side, where they feed pigs on them. Their tails were used as arrow-heads by the Indians.
Of Radiata, there were the Sea Chestnut90 or Egg (Echinus granulatus), commonly divested91 of its spines92; flat circular shells (Scutella parma?) covered with chocolate-colored spines, but becoming smooth and white, with five petal-like figures; a few Star-fishes or Five-fingers (Asterias rubens); and Sun-fishes or Sea-jellies (Aureliæ).
There was also at least one species of Sponge.
The plants which I noticed here and there on the pure sandy shelf, between the ordinary high-water mark and the foot of the bank, were Sea Rocket (Cakile Americana), Saltwort (Salsola kali), Sea Sandwort (Honkenya peploides), Sea Burdock (Xanthium echinatum), Sea-side Spurge (Euphorbia poylgonifolia); also, Beach Grass (Arundo, Psamma, or Calamagrostis arenaria), Sea-side Golden-rod (Solidago sempervirens), and the Beach Pea (Lathyrus maritimus).
Sometimes we helped a wrecker turn over a larger log than usual, or we amused ourselves with rolling stones down the bank, but we rarely could make one reach the water, the beach was so soft and wide; or we bathed in some shallow within a bar, where the sea covered us with sand at every flux93, though it was quite cold and windy. The ocean there is commonly but a tantalizing94 prospect95 in hot weather, for with all that water before you, there is, as we were afterward told, no bathing on the Atlantic side, on account of the undertow and the rumor96 of sharks. At the lighthouse both in Eastham and Truro, the only houses quite on the shore, they declared, the next year, that they would not bathe there “for any sum,” for they sometimes saw the sharks tossed up and quiver for a moment on the sand. Others laughed at these stories, but perhaps they could afford to because they never bathed anywhere. One old wrecker told us that he killed a regular man-eating shark fourteen feet long, and hauled him out with his oxen, where we had bathed; and another, that his father caught a smaller one of the same kind that was stranded97 there, by standing him up on his snout so that the waves could not take him. They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long. I should add, however, that in July we walked on the bank here a quarter of a mile parallel with a fish about six feet in length, possibly a shark, which was prowling slowly along within two rods of the shore. It was of a pale brown color, singularly film-like and indistinct in the water, as if all nature abetted99 this child of ocean, and showed many darker transverse bars or rings whenever it came to the surface. It is well known that different fishes even of the same species are colored by the water they inhabit. We saw it go into a little cove27 or bathing-tub, where we had just been bathing, where the water was only four or five feet deep at that time, and after exploring it go slowly out again; but we continued to bathe there, only observing first from the bank if the cove was preoccupied100. We thought that the water was fuller of life, more aerated101 perhaps than that of the Bay, like soda-water, for we were as particular as young salmon102, and the expectation of encountering a shark did not subtract anything from its life-giving qualities.
Sometimes we sat on the wet beach and watched the beach birds, sand-pipers, and others, trotting103 along close to each wave, and waiting for the sea to cast up their breakfast. The former (Charadrius melodus) ran with great rapidity and then stood stock still remarkably104 erect105 and hardly to be distinguished106 from the beach. The wet sand was covered with small skipping Sea Fleas, which apparently107 make a part of their food. These last are the little scavengers of the beach, and are so numerous that they will devour108 large fishes, which have been cast up, in a very short time. One little bird not larger than a sparrow,—it may have been a Phalarope.—would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming110 crest111 of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs. There was also an almost uninterrupted line of coots rising and falling with the waves, a few rods from the shore, the whole length of the Cape. They made as constant a part of the ocean’s border as the pads or pickerel-weed do of that of a pond. We read the following as to the Storm Petrel (Thalassidroma Wilsonii), which is seen in the Bay as well as on the outside. “The feathers on the breast of the Storm Petrel are, like those of all swimming birds, water-proof; but substances not susceptible112 of being wetted with water are, for that very reason, the best fitted for collecting oil from its surface. That function is performed by the feathers on the breast of the Storm Petrels as they touch on the surface; and though that may not be the only way in which they procure113 their food, it is certainly that in which they obtain great part of it. They dash along till they have loaded their feathers and then they pause upon the wave and remove the oil with their bills.”
Thus we kept on along the gently curving shore, seeing two or three miles ahead at once,—along this ocean side-walk, where there was none to turn out for, with the middle of the road the highway of nations on our right, and the sand cliffs of the Cape on our left. We saw this forenoon a part of the wreck of a vessel, probably the Franklin, a large piece fifteen feet square, and still freshly painted. With a grapple and a line we could have saved it, for the waves repeatedly washed it within cast, but they as often took it back. It would have been a lucky haul for some poor wrecker, for I have been told that one man who paid three or four dollars for a part of the wreck of that vessel, sold fifty or sixty dollars’ worth of iron out of it. Another, the same who picked up the Captain’s valise with the memorable114 letter in it, showed me, growing in his garden, many pear and plum trees which washed ashore from her, all nicely tied up and labelled, and he said that he might have got five hundred dollars’ worth; for a Mr. Bell was importing the nucleus115 of a nursery to be established near Boston. His turnip-seed came from the same source. Also valuable spars from the same vessel and from the Cactus116 lay in his yard. In short the inhabitants visit the beach to see what they have caught as regularly as a fisherman his weir117 or a lumberer his boom; the Cape is their boom. I heard of one who had recently picked up twenty barrels of apples in good condition, probably a part of a deck load thrown over in a storm.
Though there are wreck-masters appointed to look after valuable property which must be advertised, yet undoubtedly a great deal of value is secretly carried off. But are we not all wreckers contriving118 that some treasure may be washed up on our beach, that we may secure it, and do we not infer the habits of these Nauset and Barnegat wreckers from the common modes of getting a living?
The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks119 of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit120 up. It lets nothing lie; not even the giant clams which cling to its bottom. It is still heaving up the tow-cloth of the Franklin, and perhaps a piece of some old pirate’s ship, wrecked more than a hundred years ago, comes ashore to-day. Some years since, when a vessel was wrecked here which had nutmegs in her cargo, they were strewn all along the beach, and for a considerable time were not spoiled by the salt water. Soon afterward, a fisherman caught a cod121 which was full of them. Why, then, might not the Spice-Islanders shake their nutmeg trees into the ocean, and let all nations who stand in need of them pick them up? However, after a year, I found that the nutmegs from the Franklin had become soft.
You might make a curious list of articles which fishes have swallowed,—sailors’ open clasp-knives, and bright tin snuff-boxes, not knowing what was in them,—and jugs122, and jewels, and Jonah. The other day I came across the following scrap80 in a newspaper.
“A Religious Fish.—A short time ago, mine host Stewart, of the Denton Hotel, purchased a rock-fish, weighing about sixty pounds. On opening it he found in it a certificate of membership of the M. E. Church, which we read as follows:—
Member
Methodist E. Church.
Founded A. D. 1784.
Quarterly Ticket.
18
Minister.
‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’—2 Cor. iv. 17.
‘O what are all my sufferings here,
If, Lord, thou count me meet
With that enraptured123 host t’ appear,
And worship at thy feet!’
“The paper was of course in a crumpled124 and wet condition, but on exposing it to the sun, and ironing the kinks out of it, it became quite legible.—Denton (Md.) Journal.”
From time to time we saved a wreck ourselves, a box or barrel, and set it on its end, and appropriated it with crossed sticks; and it will lie there perhaps, respected by brother wreckers, until some more violent storm shall take it, really lost to man until wrecked again. We also saved, at the cost of wet feet only, a valuable cord and buoy109, part of a seine, with which the sea was playing, for it seemed ungracious to refuse the least gift which so great a personage offered you. We brought this home and still use it for a garden line. I picked up a bottle half buried in the wet sand, covered with barnacles, but stoppled tight, and half full of red ale, which still smacked125 of juniper,—all that remained I fancied from the wreck of a rowdy world,—that great salt sea on the one hand, and this little sea of ale on the other, preserving their separate characters. What if it could tell us its adventures over countless126 ocean waves! Man would not be man through such ordeals127 as it had passed. But as I poured it slowly out on to the sand, it seemed to me that man himself was like a half-emptied bottle of pale ale, which Time had drunk so far, yet stoppled tight for a while, and drifting about in the ocean of circumstances; but destined128 erelong to mingle129 with the surrounding waves, or be spilled amid the sands of a distant shore.
In the summer I saw two men fishing for Bass130 hereabouts. Their bait was a bullfrog, or several small frogs in a bunch, for want of squid. They followed a retiring wave and whirling their lines round and round their heads with increasing rapidity, threw them as far as they could into the sea; then retreating, sat down, flat on the sand, and waited for a bite. It was literally131 (or littorally) walking down to the shore, and throwing your line into the Atlantic. I should not have known what might take hold of the other end, whether Proteus or another. At any rate, if you could not pull him in, why, you might let him go without being pulled in yourself. And they knew by experience that it would be a Striped Bass, or perhaps a Cod, for these fishes play along near the shore.
From time to time we sat under the lee of a sand-hill on the bank, thinly covered with coarse Beach-grass, and steadily gazed on the sea, or watched the vessels going south, all Blessings132 of the Bay of course. We could see a little more than half a circle of ocean, besides the glimpses of the Bay which we got behind us; the sea there was not wild and dreary133 in all respects, for there were frequently a hundred sail in sight at once on the Atlantic. You can commonly count about eighty in a favorable summer day and pilots sometimes land and ascend134 the bank to look out for these which require their services. These had been waiting for fair weather, and had come out of Boston Harbor together. The same is the case when they have been assembled in the Vineyard Sound, so that you may see but few one day, and a large fleet the next. Schooners with many jibs and stay-sails crowded all the sea road; square-rigged vessels with their great height and breadth of canvas were ever and anon appearing out of the far horizon, or disappearing and sinking into it; here and there a pilot-boat was towing its little boat astern toward some distant foreigner who had just fired a gun, the echo of which along the shore sounded like the caving of the bank. We could see the pilot looking through his glass toward the distant ship which was putting back to speak with him. He sails many a mile to meet her; and now she puts her sails aback, and communicates with him alongside,—sends some important message to the owners, and then bids farewell to these shores for good and all; or, perchance a propeller135 passed and made fast to some disabled craft, or one that had been becalmed, whose cargo of fruit might spoil. Though silently, and for the most part incommunicatively, going about their business, they were, no doubt, a source of cheerfulness and a kind of society to one another.
To-day it was the Purple Sea, an epithet136 which I should not before have accepted. There were distinct patches of the color of a purple grape with the bloom rubbed off. But first and last the sea is of all colors. Well writes Gilpin concerning “the brilliant hues137 which are continually playing on the surface of a quiet ocean,” and this was not too turbulent at a distance from the shore. “Beautiful,” says he, “no doubt in a high degree are those glimmering138 tints139 which often invest the tops of mountains; but they are mere140 coruscations compared with these marine33 colors, which are continually varying and shifting into each other in all the vivid splendor141 of the rainbow, through the space often of several leagues.” Commonly, in calm weather, for half a mile from the shore, where the bottom tinges142 it, the sea is green, or greenish, as are some ponds; then blue for many miles, often with purple tinges, bounded in the distance by a light almost silvery stripe; beyond which there is generally a dark-blue rim143, like a mountain-ridge in the horizon, as if, like that, it owed its color to the intervening atmosphere. On another day it will be marked with long streaks144, alternately smooth and rippled145, light-colored and dark, even like our inland meadows in a freshet, and showing which way the wind sets.
Thus we sat on the foaming shore, looking on the wine-colored ocean,—
Φίν’ ἔφ’ ἁλὸς πολιῆς, ὁρόων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον.
Here and there was a darker spot on its surface, the shadow of a cloud, though the sky was so clear that no cloud would have been noticed otherwise, and no shadow would have been seen on the land, where a much smaller surface is visible at once. So, distant clouds and showers may be seen on all sides by a sailor in the course of a day, which do not necessarily portend146 rain where he is. In July we saw similar dark-blue patches where schools of Menhaden rippled the surface, scarcely to be distinguished from the shadows of clouds. Sometimes the sea was spotted147 with them far and wide, such is its inexhaustible fertility. Close at hand you see their back fin7, which is very long and sharp, projecting two or three inches above water. From time to time also we saw the white bellies148 of the Bass playing along the shore.
It was a poetic149 recreation to watch those distant sails steering for half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our ears: Fayal, and Babelmandel, ay, and Chagres, and Panama,—bound to the famous Bay of San Francisco, and the golden streams of Sacramento and San Joaquin, to Feather River and the American Fork, where Sutter’s Fort presides, and inland stands the City de los Angeles. It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished150 in a prosaic151 mood. The heroes and discoverers have found true more than was previously152 believed, only when they were expecting and dreaming of something more than their contemporaries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a frame of mind fitted to behold153 the truth. Referred to the world’s standard, they are always insane. Even savages154 have indirectly155 surmised156 as much. Humboldt, speaking of Columbus approaching the New World, says: “The grateful coolness of the evening air, the ethereal purity of the starry157 firmament158, the balmy fragrance159 of flowers, wafted160 to him by the land breeze, all led him to suppose (as we are told by Herrara, in the Decades) that he was approaching the garden of Eden, the sacred abode161 of our first parents. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four rivers which, according to the venerable tradition of the ancient world, flowed from Paradise, to water and divide the surface of the earth, newly adorned162 with plants.” So even the expeditions for the discovery of El Dorado, and of the Fountain of Youth, led to real, if not compensatory discoveries.
We discerned vessels so far off, when once we began to look, that only the tops of their masts in the horizon were visible, and it took a strong intention of the eye, and its most favorable side, to see them at all, and sometimes we doubted if we were not counting our eyelashes. Charles Darwin states that he saw, from the base of the Andes, “the masts of the vessels at anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, although not less than twenty-six geographical163 miles distant,” and that Anson had been surprised at the distance at which his vessels were discovered from the coast, without knowing the reason, namely, the great height of the land and the transparency of the air. Steamers may be detected much farther than sailing vessels, for, as one says, when their hulls164 and masts of wood and iron are down, their smoky masts and streamers still betray them; and the same writer, speaking of the comparative advantages of bituminous and anthracite coal for war-steamers, states that, “from the ascent165 of the columns of smoke above the horizon, the motions of the steamers in Calais Harbor [on the coast of France] are at all times observable at Ramsgate [on the English coast], from the first lighting166 of the fires to the putting out at sea; and that in America the steamers burning the fat bituminous coal can be tracked at sea at least seventy miles before the hulls become visible, by the dense167 columns of black smoke pouring out of their chimneys, and trailing along the horizon.”
Though there were numerous vessels at this great distance in the horizon on every side, yet the vast spaces between them, like the spaces between the stars, far as they were distant from us, so were they from one another,—nay, some were twice as far from each other as from us,—impressed us with a sense of the immensity of the ocean, the “unfruitful ocean,” as it has been called, and we could see what proportion man and his works bear to the globe. As we looked off, and saw the water growing darker and darker and deeper and deeper the farther we looked, till it was awful to consider, and it appeared to have no relation to the friendly land, either as shore or bottom,—of what use is a bottom if it is out of sight, if it is two or three miles from the surface, and you are to be drowned so long before you get to it, though it were made of the same stuff with your native soil?—over that ocean, where, as the Veda says, “there is nothing to give support, nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling to,” I felt that I was a land animal. The man in a balloon even may commonly alight on the earth in a few moments, but the sailor’s only hope is that he may reach the distant shore. I could then appreciate the heroism168 of the old navigator. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of whom it is related that, being overtaken by a storm when on his return from America, in the year 1583, far northeastward from where we were, sitting abaft169 with a book in his hand, just before he was swallowed up in the deep, he cried out to his comrades in the Hind20, as they came within hearing, “We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land.” I saw that it would not be easy to realize.
On Cape Cod, the next most eastern land you hear of is St. George’s Bank (the fishermen tell of “Georges,” “Cashus,” and other sunken lands which they frequent). Every Cape man has a theory about George’s Bank having been an island once, and in their accounts they gradually reduce the shallowness from six, five, four, two fathoms170, to somebody’s confident assertion that he has seen a mackerel-gull sitting; on a piece of dry land there. It reminded me, when I thought of the shipwrecks171 which had taken place there, of the Isle43 of Demons172, laid down off this coast in old charts of the New World. There must be something monstrous173, methinks, in a vision of the sea bottom from over some bank a thousand miles from the shore, more awful than its imagined bottomlessness; a drowned continent, all livid and frothing at the nostrils174, like the body of a drowned man, which is better sunk deep than near the surface.
I have been surprised to discover from a steamer the shallowness of Massachusetts Bay itself. Off Billingsgate Point I could have touched the bottom with a pole, and I plainly saw it variously shaded with sea-weed, at five or six miles from the shore. This is “The Shoal-ground of the Cape,” it is true, but elsewhere the bay is not much deeper than a country pond. We are told that the deepest water in the English Channel between Shakespeare’s Cliff and Cape Grinéz, in France, is one hundred and eighty feet; and Guyot says that “the Baltic Sea has a depth of only one hundred and twenty feet between the coasts of Germany and those of Sweden,” and “the Adriatic between Venice and Trieste has a depth of only one hundred and thirty feet.” A pond in my native town, only half a mile long, is more than one hundred feet deep.
The ocean is but a larger lake. At midsummer you may sometimes see a strip of glassy smoothness on it, a few rods in width and many miles long, as if the surface there were covered with a thin pellicle of oil, just as on a country pond; a sort of stand-still, you would say, at the meeting or parting of two currents of air (if it does not rather mark the unrippled steadiness of a current of water beneath), for sailors tell of the ocean and land breeze meeting between the fore26 and aft sails of a vessel, while the latter are full, the former being suddenly taken aback. Daniel Webster, in one of his letters describing blue-fishing off Martha’s Vineyard, referring to those smooth places, which fishermen and sailors call “slicks,” says: “We met with them yesterday, and our boatman made for them, whenever discovered. He said they were caused by the blue-fish chopping up their prey175. That is to say, those voracious176 fellows get into a school of menhaden, which are too large to swallow whole, and they bite them into pieces to suit their tastes. And the oil from this butchery, rising to the surface, makes the ‘slick.’”
Yet this same placid177 Ocean, as civil now as a city’s harbor, a place for ships and commerce, will erelong be lashed178 into sudden fury, and all its caves and cliffs will resound179 with tumult180. It will ruthlessly heave these vessels to and fro, break them in pieces in its sandy or stony181 jaws182, and deliver their crews to sea-monsters. It will play with them like sea-weed, distend183 them like dead frogs, and carry them about, now high, now low, to show to the fishes, giving them a nibble184. This gentle Ocean will toss and tear the rag of a man’s body like the father of mad bulls, and his relatives may be seen seeking the remnants for weeks along the strand98. From some quiet inland hamlet they have rushed weeping to the unheard-of shore, and now stand uncertain where a sailor has recently been buried amid the sandhills.
It is generally supposed that they who have long been conversant185 with the Ocean can foretell186 by certain indications, such as its roar and the notes of sea-fowl, when it will change from calm to storm; but probably no such ancient mariner as we dream of exists; they know no more, at least, than the older sailors do about this voyage of life on which we are all embarked187. Nevertheless, we love to hear the sayings of old sailors, and their accounts of natural phenomena188, which totally ignore, and are ignored by, science; and possibly they have not always looked over the gunwale so long in vain. Kalm repeats a story which was told him in Philadelphia by a Mr. Cock, who was one day sailing to the West Indies in a small yacht, with an old man on board who was well acquainted with those seas. “The old man sounding the depth, called to the mate to tell Mr. Cock to launch the boats immediately, and to put a sufficient number of men into them, in order to tow the yacht during the calm, that they might reach the island before them as soon as possible, as within twenty-four hours there would be a strong hurricane. Mr. Cock asked him what reasons he had to think so; the old man replied that, on sounding, he saw the lead in the water at a distance of many fathoms more than he had seen it before; that therefore the water was become clear all of a sudden, which he looked upon as a certain sign of an impending189 hurricane in the sea.” The sequel of the story is that, by good fortune and by dint190 of rowing they managed to gain a safe harbor before the hurricane had reached its height; but it finally raged with so much violence that not only many ships were lost and houses unroofed, but even their own vessel in harbor was washed so far on shore that several weeks elapsed before it could be got off.
The Greeks would not have called the ocean ἀτρύγετος, or unfruitful, though it does not produce wheat, if they had viewed it by the light of modern science; for naturalists191 now assert that “the sea, and not the land, is the principal seat of life,”—though not of vegetable life. Darwin affirms that “our most thickly inhabited forests appear almost as deserts when we come to compare them with the corresponding regions of the ocean.” Agassiz and Gould tell us that “the sea teems192 with animals of all classes, far beyond the extreme point of flowering plants”; but they add that “experiments of dredging in very deep water have also taught us that the abyss of the ocean is nearly a desert”;—“so that modern investigations,” to quote the words of Desor, “merely go to confirm the great idea which was vaguely193 anticipated by the ancient poets and philosophers, that the Ocean is the origin of all things.” Yet marine animals and plants hold a lower rank in the scale of being than land animals and plants. “There is no instance known,” says Desor, “of an animal becoming aquatic194 in its perfect state, after having lived in its lower stage on dry land.” but as in the case of the tadpole195, “the progress invariably points towards the dry land.” In short, the dry land itself came through and out of the water in its way to the heavens, for, “in going back through the geological ages, we come to an epoch196 when, according to all appearances, the dry land did not exist, and when the surface of our globe was entirely197 covered with water.” We looked on the sea, then, once more, not as ἀτρύγετος, or unfruitful, but as it has been more truly called, the “laboratory of continents.”
Though we have indulged in some placid reflections of late, the reader must not forget that the dash and roar of the waves were incessant198. Indeed, it would be well if he were to read with a large conch-shell at his ear. But notwithstanding that it was very cold and windy to-day, it was such a cold as we thought would not cause one to take cold who was exposed to it, owing to the saltness of the air and the dryness of the soil. Yet the author of the old Description of Wellfleet says: “The atmosphere is very much impregnated with saline particles, which, perhaps, with the great use of fish, and the neglect of cider and spruce-beer, may be a reason why the people are more subject to sore mouths and throats than in other places.”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
shrub
|
|
| n.灌木，灌木丛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
twigs
|
|
| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
concord
|
|
| n.和谐；协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
spicy
|
|
| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
creeks
|
|
| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
brittle
|
|
| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
fin
|
|
| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
transparent
|
|
| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
incense
|
|
| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
pints
|
|
| n.品脱( pint的名词复数 )；一品脱啤酒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
prominences
|
|
| n.织物中凸起的部分；声望( prominence的名词复数 )；突出；重要；要事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
creased
|
|
| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
savory
|
|
| adj.风味极佳的，可口的，味香的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
broth
|
|
| n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
kernel
|
|
| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
foam
|
|
| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
immortals
|
|
| 不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 )； 永生不朽者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
concealed
|
|
| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hind
|
|
| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
dispersed
|
|
| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
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： |
|
|
|
|
23
vessel
|
|
| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
cape
|
|
| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
watery
|
|
| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
fore
|
|
| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
cove
|
|
| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
seamen
|
|
| n.海员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
gulls
|
|
| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
distress
|
|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
marine
|
|
| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
mariner
|
|
| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
wreck
|
|
| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
smuggler
|
|
| n.走私者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
cargo
|
|
| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
schooners
|
|
| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
smacking
|
|
| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
steadily
|
|
| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
steering
|
|
| n.操舵装置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
peddling
|
|
| 忙于琐事的，无关紧要的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
isle
|
|
| n.小岛，岛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
isles
|
|
| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
eternity
|
|
| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
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： |
|
|
|
|
47
clam
|
|
| n.蛤，蛤肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
subsiding
|
|
| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
warp
|
|
| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
descending
|
|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
ashore
|
|
| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
rugged
|
|
| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
wrecked
|
|
| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
relics
|
|
| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
mangled
|
|
| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
mirage
|
|
| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
insignificant
|
|
| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
sliver
|
|
| n.裂片，细片，梳毛；v.纵切，切成长片，剖开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
bleached
|
|
| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
labored
|
|
| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
imposing
|
|
| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
reigned
|
|
| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
majesty
|
|
| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
pebbles
|
|
| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
pebble
|
|
| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
culled
|
|
| v.挑选，剔除( cull的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
annually
|
|
| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
lumber
|
|
| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
cylinders
|
|
| n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
streaked
|
|
| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
recess
|
|
| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
puffed
|
|
| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
deluded
|
|
| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
wrung
|
|
| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
scrap
|
|
| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
foe
|
|
| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
edible
|
|
| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
jug
|
|
| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
flaring
|
|
| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
migrations
|
|
| n.迁移，移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
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： |
|
|
|
|
87
crab
|
|
| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
lobsters
|
|
| 龙虾( lobster的名词复数 )； 龙虾肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
fleas
|
|
| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
chestnut
|
|
| n.栗树，栗子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
divested
|
|
| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
spines
|
|
| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
flux
|
|
| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
tantalizing
|
|
| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
rumor
|
|
| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
stranded
|
|
| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
strand
|
|
| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
abetted
|
|
| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
preoccupied
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
aerated
|
|
| v.使暴露于空气中，使充满气体( aerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
salmon
|
|
| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
trotting
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
remarkably
|
|
| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
erect
|
|
| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
devour
|
|
| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
buoy
|
|
| n.浮标；救生圈；v.支持，鼓励 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
foaming
|
|
| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
crest
|
|
| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
susceptible
|
|
| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
procure
|
|
| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
memorable
|
|
| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
nucleus
|
|
| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
cactus
|
|
| n.仙人掌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
weir
|
|
| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
contriving
|
|
| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
wrecks
|
|
| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
vomit
|
|
| v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
cod
|
|
| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
jugs
|
|
| （有柄及小口的）水壶( jug的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
enraptured
|
|
| v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
crumpled
|
|
| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
smacked
|
|
| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
ordeals
|
|
| n.严峻的考验，苦难的经历( ordeal的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
mingle
|
|
| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
bass
|
|
| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
blessings
|
|
| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
ascend
|
|
| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
propeller
|
|
| n.螺旋桨，推进器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
epithet
|
|
| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
hues
|
|
| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
glimmering
|
|
| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
tints
|
|
| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
splendor
|
|
| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
tinges
|
|
| n.细微的色彩，一丝痕迹( tinge的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
rim
|
|
| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
streaks
|
|
| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
rippled
|
|
| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
portend
|
|
| v.预兆，预示；给…以警告 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
spotted
|
|
| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
bellies
|
|
| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
prosaic
|
|
| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
behold
|
|
| v.看，注视，看到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
savages
|
|
| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
indirectly
|
|
| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
surmised
|
|
| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
starry
|
|
| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
firmament
|
|
| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
fragrance
|
|
| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
wafted
|
|
| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
abode
|
|
| n.住处，住所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
adorned
|
|
| [计]被修饰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
geographical
|
|
| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
hulls
|
|
| 船体( hull的名词复数 )； 船身； 外壳； 豆荚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
ascent
|
|
| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
lighting
|
|
| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
dense
|
|
| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
heroism
|
|
| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
abaft
|
|
| prep.在…之后；adv.在船尾，向船尾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
fathoms
|
|
| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
shipwrecks
|
|
| 海难，船只失事( shipwreck的名词复数 )； 沉船 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
demons
|
|
| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
voracious
|
|
| adj.狼吞虎咽的，贪婪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
placid
|
|
| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
lashed
|
|
| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
resound
|
|
| v.回响 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
tumult
|
|
| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
stony
|
|
| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
jaws
|
|
| n.口部；嘴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
distend
|
|
| vt./vi.（使）扩大，（使）扩张 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
nibble
|
|
| n.轻咬，啃；v.一点点地咬，慢慢啃，吹毛求疵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
conversant
|
|
| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
foretell
|
|
| v.预言，预告，预示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
embarked
|
|
| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
phenomena
|
|
| n.现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
impending
|
|
| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
dint
|
|
| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
naturalists
|
|
| n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
teems
|
|
| v.充满( teem的第三人称单数 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
aquatic
|
|
| adj.水生的，水栖的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
tadpole
|
|
| n.[动]蝌蚪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
epoch
|
|
| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
incessant
|
|
| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |