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It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?
一點也不錯,這是一個油水富足的地方,雖然不象迦南那樣;卻也是一個遍地玉米美酒的地方。街上并不是遍地牛奶;春天也不是滿街鋪滿鮮蛋。然而,盡管如此,人們走遍全美洲,也找不到一個象新貝德福這樣盡是貴族宅邸。華麗非凡的公園和花園的地方.那么,這些都是打哪里來的呢?這些是怎樣在這塊一度是瘦瘠的。火山巖渣似的地方上生起來的呢?
Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.
那么,請你走到那邊那座高樓大廈去瞧瞧那些具有象征意義的鐵標槍,你的疑問就可以獲得解答。不錯,所有這些富麗堂皇的房屋和花花草草的庭園都是從大西洋。太平洋和印度洋撈來的.每一樣東西,都是從海底里用標槍戳起。拉起的。阿歷山大先生可變得來這樣的戲法嗎?據說,在新貝德福,做父親的都拿大鯨給他們的女兒。分幾條小鯨給他們的侄女兒做嫁妝。你必須去看一看新貝德福的闊綽的婚禮;因為,據說,每份人家都有油池,每夜都毫不在乎地通宵點起鯨腦燭。
In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples-long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day.
夏季里,這城市看了真叫人愛;盡是些美麗的楓樹...形成一條條翠綠金黃的幽道。而到了八月里,那些華麗豐盛的七葉樹聳入云霄,象華表一般給路人獻出它們那筆直有如尖頂的簇開的花朵。這是多雄偉的天工!在新貝德福就有許多創世末日所遺留下來的。荒蕪不毛的巖石,重新長出許多燦爛奪目的花壇來。
