Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the fore-ground is all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.
海鸟在啄一些小蟹、贝壳和海里的其它糖食和通心面，这些东西有时都搭在露脊鲸那为害匪浅的背上。那只厚嘴唇的大鲸始终在海里冲来冲去，撇下了无数汹涌的凝乳似的白浪，弄得那只纤弱的小艇在浪涛里晃来晃去，直象一叶轻舟快要被远洋大船的蹼轮绊住了似的。这样，前景是一片沸腾的骚乱；而背景呢，在使用令人赞叹的艺术对比下，却是海面风平浪静。平稳如镜、欲动乏力的大船上几张垂头丧气的篷帆，死鲸那个刚被攻下的要塞似的毫无生气的体躯，它的喷水口里，无精打采地挂着一面缚在鲸杆上的表示已被俘获的旗帜。
Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings in Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.
这位叫做卡纳里的画家是谁，现在是否健在，我都不知道。不过，我敢打赌，他不是实际上精通他所描绘的对象，就是受过富有经验的捕鲸者的出色的指导。法国人真是画战斗场面的能手。你看遍欧洲各种名画，哪里找得到象在凡尔赛宫的凯旋厅那样，有这么一个画廊，画布上尽是一派栩栩如生而充满骚动的气氛？在那里，观众们你挤我推，乱七八糟地争看法国的接二连三的大战场面；在那里，每一支剑都似乎有着一阵北极光的光芒，而那些不断地冲过来的。全副武装的帝王，却象在攻击那些顶饰冠戴的半人半马的怪物(半人半马的怪物——希腊神话中帖撒利名骑手，有一次，帖撒利王邀他们吃喜酒，他们吃醉了酒，竟想夺新娘和其他女宾，另一帖撒利人拉彼利起而攻击他们，把他们驱逐出境。拉斐尔有一幅名图即以此为题材。)。卡纳里的这两件海战的作品，在那画廊中并不完全是占不了一席之地的。