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For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.
因為多年以前，由于我參加了阿爾及爾的商船"德號"，曾經(jīng)到了托朗魁，而且被邀到托朗魁王在蒲貝拉的退隱的棕櫚別墅里，同托朗魁王一起度過幾天阿薩西提的假日。這是一個海邊的幽谷，跟那個我們做水手的管它叫竹城，就是他的京城的地方，相距并不很遠。
Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.
我這位王族朋友托朗郭，除了具有其它許多高尚的品質(zhì)以外，天生還酷愛各式各樣的具有蠻風(fēng)的骨董，因此，只要是他治下的人民所能發(fā)明的各種奇珍異物，他都收藏到蒲貝拉來；那些東西大多是一些木雕的希奇古怪的東西，鐫刻的貝殼，鑲嵌的槍矛，奢華的劃槳，芳香的獨木舟；除了這些東西以外，還有許多天然的奇珍異物，即那些由來奇珍，送來貢禮的海浪沖到他岸邊來的東西。
Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.
由海浪送來的這些貢品中，大多是大抹香鯨。在一陣非常猛烈而刮了好久的大風(fēng)后，人們就會發(fā)現(xiàn)抹香鯨擱了淺，死了，它頭抵著一株椰木樹，嘴上掛著一簇羽毛似的東西，象是它的蔥翠的噴水。等到人們最后把它那龐大的身軀那層有六英尺厚的皮肉給剝光后，骨胳經(jīng)太陽一曬干，人們就把那個骷髏仔細(xì)地搬到蒲貝拉幽谷里來，在那里，便由一株雄偉的廟宇似的參天大棕櫚樹遮蔽著。
The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout;
那些肋骨被當(dāng)作戰(zhàn)利品掛了起來；脊椎骨則都以一些奇形怪狀的象形字刻上阿薩西提的年表；僧人們在它的頭骷髏里燃起一盞終年不息、氣味芬芳的燈火，因此，那只神秘的腦袋又散發(fā)出它那迷蒙蒙的噴水；
