For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.
因为多年以前，由于我参加了阿尔及尔的商船"德号"，曾经到了托朗魁，而且被邀到托朗魁王在蒲贝拉的退隐的棕榈别墅里，同托朗魁王一起度过几天阿萨西提的假日。这是一个海边的幽谷，跟那个我们做水手的管它叫竹城，就是他的京城的地方，相距并不很远。
Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.
我这位王族朋友托朗郭，除了具有其它许多高尚的品质以外，天生还酷爱各式各样的具有蛮风的骨董，因此，只要是他治下的人民所能发明的各种奇珍异物，他都收藏到蒲贝拉来；那些东西大多是一些木雕的希奇古怪的东西，镌刻的贝壳，镶嵌的枪矛，奢华的划桨，芳香的独木舟；除了这些东西以外，还有许多天然的奇珍异物，即那些由来奇珍，送来贡礼的海浪冲到他岸边来的东西。
Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.
由海浪送来的这些贡品中，大多是大抹香鲸。在一阵非常猛烈而刮了好久的大风后，人们就会发现抹香鲸搁了浅，死了，它头抵着一株椰木树，嘴上挂着一簇羽毛似的东西，象是它的葱翠的喷水。等到人们最后把它那庞大的身躯那层有六英尺厚的皮肉给剥光后，骨胳经太阳一晒干，人们就把那个骷髅仔细地搬到蒲贝拉幽谷里来，在那里，便由一株雄伟的庙宇似的参天大棕榈树遮蔽着。
The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout;
那些肋骨被当作战利品挂了起来；脊椎骨则都以一些奇形怪状的象形字刻上阿萨西提的年表；僧人们在它的头骷髅里燃起一盏终年不息、气味芬芳的灯火，因此，那只神秘的脑袋又散发出它那迷蒙蒙的喷水；