Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, falls over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.
这时，在船头两侧、相距两三英里的海面上，有一个大半圆形，环抱着半个水平面，原来是络绎不绝的一串大鲸的喷水，正在午刻的空中光闪闪的向上迸射着。它跟露脊鲸的笔直的双喷水不同，露脊鲸的双喷水喷出来后，就在上边分成两支又淌下来，活象尖裂垂挂的柳枝。抹香鲸那种向前斜冲的单喷水，却现出一丛稠密缠绕。有如灌木的白雾，不断往上冒着，又不断落向后边。
Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.
这时，站在"裴廓德号"的甲板上看去，这艘船好象就要攀上一座高山似的海洋，那堆雾蒙蒙的喷水，一串串地袅袅升向空际，透过那层交混着浅蓝色的雾障看去，有如一个站在高岗上的骑者，在一个令人神往的秋晨，突然看到一个人烟稠密的大都市的无数令人高兴的烟囱。
As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.
好象一支在山间行进的大军走到了一条曲折的隘路，立刻都加速步伐，急于要走出那条险径，想再度舒畅地走在比较安全的平原上；这一大队现在似乎在急忙穿过海峡的鲸群，就正是这般情况；它们慢慢地缩小着那半圆形的两翼，紧密地挤在一起，但还象一小弯蛾眉新月似的，继续向前游去。