With loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,the poor little Indian's skeleton.

那婴孩的父母高声恸哭地眼看他们的小孩被拖过了辽阔的海洋而消逝了。他们决定循着那个方向去找。他们坐着独木小舟出发,经过千难万险的航行后,发现了这个小岛,他们在这里找到了一只空的象牙盒子似的东西...那个可怜的小印第安人的骸骨。

What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quahogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults!

那么,这些南塔开特人,生在河滩,出海谋生,就不足为奇了!他们起先在沙滩上捉蟹摸蛤,后来胆子逐渐大了,就涉过浅水滩,用网去捕青花鱼;等到阅历较深,他们就划起小艇出去捕捉鳘鱼了;最后,就在海上驶着一队队的大船,去探索这个水族世界,绕着它不断地兜来巡去;悄悄地窥探一下白令海峡;一年四季都在各大洋里跟那些在大洪水时代幸存下来的最富生气的水族;跟那些最可怕。最巨大的水族作永无尽止的斗争!而那种不知赋有多大的威力,高大如喜马拉雅山的古盐海的乳齿象,它之所以叫人惧怕,与其说是由于它那最无畏最凶残的暴行,不如说是由于它的形体!

And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's.

于是,从他们那海洋上的蚁冢中就不断地涌现出这些赤身裸体的南塔开特人,这些海洋的隐士,他们象那许多阿力山大王一样,把水族世界侵占与征服了,不断地瓜分了大西洋。太平洋和印度洋的利益,正如三个海盗国瓜分波兰一般。那么,随你美国把墨西哥给加在得克萨斯州上,把古巴给叠加在加拿大上去吧;随你英国把整个印度都挤得密密麻麻,把你们那灿烂的国旗挂在阳光里吧;这个水陆世界的地球可有三分之二是属于南塔开特人的。