Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She carries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had come; they would only answer—"Well, boys, here's the ark!"
当然啦，他是会把船停下来装水的。不，那只在火热的圈子里，象赛马似的环奔了好久的太阳，除了全靠自己以外，是不需要什么接济的。亚哈就是这般情况。必须记住，这也是一般捕鲸船的情况。其它许多船只都装载大批外国货物，正要转运到外国码头去，这艘浪游世界的捕鲸船却除了装它自己、水手、武器以及他们的欲望以外，什么货物都没有。它有整个大湖的水量，装了瓶子，藏在它那宽大的舱里。它装足了许多用具，此外，还有一些不能用的生铅和压舱铁。它装有好几年的饮水，清澈、上好的陈年南塔开特水。南塔开特人在太平洋上飘荡三年的期间里，总喜爱先饮掉这些水后，才去喝昨天刚划木筏到秘鲁或者印第安的溪流用大桶装来的带有盐味的水。因此，其它船只也许已经从纽约到中国打了个来回，停靠了许多港埠，而捕鲸船在这整段期间内，也许连一块泥土都还没有见到；它的水手除了看到一些象他们一样的漂泊在海上的水手外，也看不到一个人。所以，如果你给他们捎个信儿说，第二次洪水又泛滥啦；他们准会回答："好吧，伙伴们，这里就是方舟！"
Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for cruising;
且说由于在爪哇海面的西边，在巽他海峡的附近，过去都曾捕到许多抹香鲸；更由于捕鲸人们一般都把大部分迂回曲折的地区认为是巡游的最好地带；