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Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, falls over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.
這時(shí)，在船頭兩側(cè)、相距兩三英里的海面上，有一個(gè)大半圓形，環(huán)抱著半個(gè)水平面，原來是絡(luò)繹不絕的一串大鯨的噴水，正在午刻的空中光閃閃的向上迸射著。它跟露脊鯨的筆直的雙噴水不同，露脊鯨的雙噴水噴出來后，就在上邊分成兩支又淌下來，活象尖裂垂掛的柳枝。抹香鯨那種向前斜沖的單噴水，卻現(xiàn)出一叢稠密纏繞。有如灌木的白霧，不斷往上冒著，又不斷落向后邊。
Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.
這時(shí)，站在"裴廓德號(hào)"的甲板上看去，這艘船好象就要攀上一座高山似的海洋，那堆霧蒙蒙的噴水，一串串地裊裊升向空際，透過那層交混著淺藍(lán)色的霧障看去，有如一個(gè)站在高崗上的騎者，在一個(gè)令人神往的秋晨，突然看到一個(gè)人煙稠密的大都市的無數(shù)令人高興的煙囪。
As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.
好象一支在山間行進(jìn)的大軍走到了一條曲折的隘路，立刻都加速步伐，急于要走出那條險(xiǎn)徑，想再度舒暢地走在比較安全的平原上；這一大隊(duì)現(xiàn)在似乎在急忙穿過海峽的鯨群，就正是這般情況；它們慢慢地縮小著那半圓形的兩翼，緊密地?cái)D在一起，但還象一小彎蛾眉新月似的，繼續(xù)向前游去。
