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Your most usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called thet' gallant crosstrees.
你的最平常的安身之處,就是那上桅的桅頂,在那里,你站在那管它叫上桅的桅頂橫木的兩根細小平行的木桿上(可說是捕鯨船所特有的)。
Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns.
在這里,聽任海浪顛來簸去,生手倒有點象是站在一只公牛角上那樣舒服的感覺。
To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of a watch-coat;
當然,在天冷的時候,你可以把你那個房子,也就是那件更衣一起帶上去;
but properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body;
不過,嚴格地說,那件非常厚重的更衣既不象一個房子,也不象個一絲不掛的身體;
for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter);
因為當你被膠住在它那肉體似的臨時屋子里的時候,困在里面既不能自由轉動,甚至也別想不用冒著喪命的大危險(象一個無知的進香人,在冬天經過那積雪的阿爾卑斯山一樣)就能從那里頭出來;
so a watch-coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you.
因此,一件更衣與其說是象間房子,倒不如說是只封套,
You cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenience closet of your watch-coat.
或者不如說,只是給你再裹上一層皮而已。你當然無法在你身上放個櫥,或者放只五斗柜,同樣地,你也不能把那件更衣弄成一間合宜的小房間。
Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which the look-outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas.
關于這一切,尤其使人遺憾的是,一只南海捕鯨船的桅頂,并不象格陵蘭的捕鯨船一樣,在望臺上為了防備冰凍的海洋上的寒冷天氣,設有那種值得羨慕的小篷帳。
In the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled "A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;"
或者小講壇的叫做"守望處"的東西。斯立特船長有一篇爐邊文章。題為《在搜索格陵蘭大鯨的冰島航行中,偶然重新發現古格陵蘭一些已滅失的冰島部落記》,
in this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow's-nest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft.
在這本皇皇巨著中,斯立特船長對于他那艘名為"格拉西爾"的快船,為一切桅頂望者裝置了當時才發明不久的"守望處",有了一番引人入勝的詳盡記載。
