评论
打印
At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.
最后，待到装完了最后一桶，所有的油都冷却了的时候，就打开许多大舱口，让这艘船的肚皮敞开来，把许多大桶给滚到它们海里的最后的休憩所去。这样做完以后，又关上舱口，而且象是一间堵塞的储藏室一般，给密封起来。
In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is deafening.
在捕抹香鲸业中，这桩事情，也许是各种捕鲸工作中最为重大的事件之一。今天，船板上都涌着奔流似的血和油；在那神圣不可侵犯的后甲板上，也大韪不敬地堆起许多硕大的鲸头块；到处散置着许多生锈的大桶，好象一个酿酒厂的作场；炼油间的浓烟把所有的舷墙都熏黑了；水手们满身浸透油质，走来走去；整艘船就象是只大鲸；各方面的轰轰嚷嚷声弄得耳朵都要聋了。
But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this self-same ship! and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it.
可是，一两天后，你往四下一瞧，在这艘船里竖起耳朵来听吧！要不是还有那种小艇和炼油间的物证的话，你准会断定是走上了一艘冷清清的商船，船里还有一个极其整洁的船长呢。未加工的抹香鲸油本身就有一种非常干净的特点。这也就是在他们做完了所谓油事后，甲板显得比前更加雪白的道理了。此外，烧过了的鲸渣灰就是现成的富有效力的硷水；随时发现船舷上还粘有鲸脊的残渣，硷水就立刻把它消灭了。
