But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, for him, who for the first time beholds this species of the leviathans on the sea. And even when recognized at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.
不过，只在它们吃小鱼而发出声音来时，才使人想到刈草人。如果从桅顶上一眼望去，尤其是在它们停下来，歇一会儿的时候，它们的巨大的黑身躯，越看越象是一堆呆石块了。而且，象在印度那种大狩猎区一样，外来客在经过平原时，虽然有时老远就看到那些躺着的大象，却不知道它们原来就是大象，只当它们是个光秃秃的黑土堆；同样的，初次看到这种海里的大海兽的人，也往往是这般情况。即使最后弄明白了，可它们那巨大的身躯还是难以教人置信：这样长得又笨又大的东西，从各方面说来，究竟能否跟一条狗和一匹马那样富有生气。
Indeed. in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.
不错，在其它一些方面说来，你可不能用看陆上生物的那种眼光来看海里的任何生物。因为，虽说有若干老博物学家认为，海陆各种生物都是一样的；虽说就广泛的一般见地说来，这说法也许很对；然而，说到特性方面，比如说，在癖性方面说来，海洋中可有一种鱼跟狗一样具有敏锐的感觉吗？就一般情况说来，只有那种可恶的鲨鱼，才可以说是具有跟狗相似的癖性。