The next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring expedition, which recent events had rendered so necessary. In fact, things had so come about that the settlers in Lincoln Island no longer needed help for themselves, but were even able to carry it to others.
It was therefore agreed that they should ascend the Mercy as far as the river was navigable. A great part of the distance would thus be traversed without fatigue, and the explorers could transport their provisions and arms to an advanced point in the west of the island.
It was necessary to think not only of the things which they should take with them, but also of those which they might have by chance to bring back to Granite House. If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was supposed, there would be many things cast up, which would be lawfully their prizes. In the event of this, the cart would have been of more use than the light canoe, but it was heavy and clumsy to drag, and therefore more difficult to use; this led Pencroft to express his regret that the chest had not contained, besides "his halfpound of tobacco," a pair of strong New Jersey horses, which would have been very useful to the colony!
The provisions, which Neb had already packed up, consisted of a store of meat and of several gallons of beer, that is to say enough to sustain them for three days, the time which Harding assigned for the expedition. They hoped besides to supply themselves on the road, and Neb took care not to forget the portable stove.
The only tools the settlers took were the two woodmen’s axes, which they could use to cut a path through the thick forests, as also the instruments, the telescope and pocket-compass.
For weapons they selected the two flint-lock guns, which were likely to be more useful to them than the percussion fowling-pieces, the first only requiring flints which could be easily replaced, and the latter needing fulminating caps, a frequent use of which would soon exhaust their limited stock. However, they took also one of the carbines and some cartridges. As to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a small supply of it had to be taken, but the engineer hoped to manufacture an explosive substance which would allow them to husband it. To the firearms were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus supplied, the settlers could venture into the vast forest with some chance of success.
It is useless to add that Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, thus armed, were at the summit of their happiness, although Cyrus Harding made them promise not to fire a shot unless it was necessary.
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早上六点钟,平底船离岸了;包括托普在内,全体都上了船,他们开始向慈悲河口驶去。
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At six in the morning the canoe put off from the shore; all had embarked, including Top, and they proceeded to the mouth of the Mercy.
The tide had begun to come up half an hour before. For several hours, therefore, there would be a current, which it was well to profit by, for later the ebb would make it difficult to ascend the river. The tide was already strong, for in three days the moon would be full, and it was enough to keep the boat in the center of the current, where it floated swiftly along between the high banks without its being necessary to increase its speed by the aid of the oars. In a few minutes the explorers arrived at the angle formed by the Mercy and exactly at the place where, seven months before, Pencroft had made his first raft of wood.
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过了这个突出的拐角以后,河面开阔多了,船从高大的常绿枞树浓荫下驶过。
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After this sudden angle the river widened and flowed under the shade of great evergreen firs.
The aspect of the banks was magnificent. Cyrus Harding and his companions could not but admire the lovely effects so easily produced by nature with water and trees. As they advanced the forest element diminished. On the right bank of the river grew magnificent specimens of the ulmaceae tribe, the precious elm, so valuable to builders, and which withstands well the action of water. Then there were numerous groups belonging to the same family, among others one in particular, the fruit of which produces a very useful oil. Further on, Herbert remarked the lardizabala, a twining shrub which, when bruised in water, furnishes excellent cordage; and two or three ebony trees of a beautiful black, crossed with capricious veins.
From time to time, in certain places where the landing was easy, the canoe was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft, their guns in their hands, and preceded by Top, jumped on shore. Without expecting game, some useful plant might be met with, and the young naturalist was delighted with discovering a sort of wild spinach, belonging to the order of chenopodiaceae, and numerous specimens of cruciferae, belonging to the cabbage tribe, which it would certainly be possible to cultivate by transplanting. There were cresses, horseradish, turnips, and lastly, little branching hairy stalks, scarcely more than three feet high, which produced brownish grains.
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“你知道这是什么植物吗?”赫伯特向水手问道。
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Do you know what this plant is?" asked Herbert of the sailor.
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“烟草!”潘克洛夫大声说,显然,除了在他的烟斗里以外,他从来也没有见过这种他所心爱的植物。
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"Tobacco!" cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favorite plant except in the bowl of his pipe.
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“不是!潘克洛夫,”赫伯特说,“这不是烟草,是芥菜。”
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"No, Pencroft," replied Herbert; "this is not tobacco, it is mustard."
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“管它什么芥菜!”水手说;“可是孩子,假如你碰到烟草,可千万别放过它!”
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"Mustard be hanged!" returned the sailor; "but if by chance you happen to come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don’t scorn that!"
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“总有一天我们会找到的!”吉丁·史佩莱说。
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"We shall find it some day!" said Gideon Spilett.
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“好吧!”潘克洛夫大声说,“等到那时候,我就想不出我们的岛上还缺些什么了!”
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"Well!" exclaimed Pencroft, "when that day comes, I do not know what more will be wanting in our island!"
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他们把各种各样的植物小心翼翼地连根挖起来,带回了平底船,这时,赛勒斯·史密斯还在那里想心事。
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These different plants, which had been carefully rooted up, were carried to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had remained buried in thought.
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通讯记者、赫伯特和潘克洛夫就这样不断地上岸,有时上慈悲河的右岸,有时上左岸。
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The reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft in this manner frequently disembarked, sometimes on the right bank, sometimes on the left bank of the Mercy.
The latter was less abrupt, but the former more wooded. The engineer ascertained by consulting his pocket-compass that the direction of the river from the first turn was obviously southwest and northeast, and nearly straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be supposed that this direction changed beyond that point, and that the Mercy continued to the north-west, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the river rose.
During one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two couples of living gallinaceae. They were birds with long, thin beaks, lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail. Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamous, and it was resolved that they should be the first tenants of their future poultry-yard.
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直到这时候,他们还没有开过枪,第一声枪响是在远西森林中发出的,他们发现了一只类似鱼狗的美丽飞鸟。
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But till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher.
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“我认识它!”潘克洛夫喊道,他的枪不由自主地从肩膀上滑了下来。
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"I recognize him!" cried Pencroft, and it seemed as if his gun went off by itself.
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“你认识什么?”通讯记者问道。
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"What do you recognize?" asked the reporter.
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“我们第一次打猎的时候逃走的那只飞鸟,我们曾用它来给那一带的森林命名。”
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"The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and from which we gave the name to that part of the forest."
It was indeed a Jacamar, of which the plumage shines with a metallic luster. A shot brought it to the ground, and Top carried it to the canoe. At the same time half a dozen lories were brought down. The lory is of the size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings crimson, and its crest bordered with white. To the young boy belonged the honor of this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lories are better food than the jacamar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was difficult to persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds. It was ten o’clock in the morning when the canoe reached a second angle of the Mercy, nearly five miles from its mouth. Here a halt was made for breakfast under the shade of some splendid trees. The river still measured from sixty to seventy feet in breadth, and its bed from five to six feet in depth. The engineer had observed that it was increased by numerous affluents, but they were unnavigable, being simply little streams. As to the forest, including Jacamar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far West, it extended as far as the eye could reach. In no place, either in the depths of the forests or under the trees on the banks of the Mercy, was the presence of man revealed. The explorers could not discover one suspicious trace. It was evident that the woodman’s axe had never touched these trees, that the pioneer’s knife had never severed the creepers hanging from one trunk to another in the midst of tangled brushwood and long grass. If castaways had landed on the island, they could not have yet quitted the shore, and it was not in the woods that the survivors of the supposed shipwreck should be sought.
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29
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因此工程师急于要到林肯岛的西海岸去,据他估计,这段距离至少还有五英里。
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The engineer therefore manifested some impatience to reach the western coast of Lincoln Island, which was at least five miles distant according to his estimation.
The voyage was continued, and as the Mercy appeared to flow not towards the shore, but rather towards Mount Franklin, it was decided that they should use the boat as long as there was enough water under its keel to float it. It was both fatigue spared and time gained, for they would have been obliged to cut a path through the thick wood with their axes. But soon the flow completely failed them, either the tide was going down, and it was about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this distance from the mouth of the Mercy. They had therefore to make use of the oars. Herbert and Neb each took one, and Pencroft took the scull. The forest soon became less dense, the trees grew further apart and often quite isolated. But the further they were from each other the more magnificent they appeared, profiting, as they did, by the free, pure air which circulated around them.
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这一带的植物是多么茂盛美丽啊!植物学家看了这些花草树木,一定可以毫不犹豫地说出林肯岛的纬度来的。
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What splendid specimens of the flora of this latitude! Certainly their presence would have been enough for a botanist to name without hesitation the parallel which traversed Lincoln Island.
They were, in fact, those splendid trees, the giants of the extratropical zone, the congeners of the Australian and New Zealand eucalyptus, both situated under the same latitude as Lincoln Island. Some rose to a height of two hundred feet. Their trunks at the base measured twenty feet in circumference, and their bark was covered by a network of farrows containing a red, sweet-smelling gum. Nothing is more wonderful or more singular than those enormous specimens of the order of the myrtaceae, with their leaves placed vertically and not horizontally, so that an edge and not a surface looks upwards, the effect being that the sun’s rays penetrate more freely among the trees.
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有加利树底下是一片绿茵,一群小鸟从灌木丛中逃出来,它们在阳光里振翼飞翔,象长了翅膀的红宝石。
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The ground at the foot of the eucalypti was carpeted with grass, and from the bushes escaped flights of little birds, which glittered in the sunlight like winged rubies.
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“好象是一种乔木!”纳布喊道;“可是它有用吗?”
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"These are something like trees!" cried Neb; "but are they good for anything?"
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“嘿!”潘克洛夫答道。“这些大树就好象大胖子似的,中看不中用。”
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"Pooh!" replied Pencroft. "Of course there are vegetable giants as well as human giants, and they are no good, except to show themselves at fairs!"
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“我认为你错了,潘克洛夫,”吉丁·史佩莱说,“有加利树是制造家具的上等木料。”
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"I think that you are mistaken, Pencroft," replied Gideon Spilett, "and that the wood of the eucalyptus has begun to be very advantageously employed in cabinet-making."
"And I may add," said Herbert, "that the eucalyptus belongs to a family which comprises many useful members; the guava-tree, from whose fruit guava jelly is made; the clove-tree, which produces the spice; the pomegranate- tree, which bears pomegranates; the Eugeacia Cauliflora, the fruit of which is used in making a tolerable wine; the Ugui myrtle, which contains an excellent alcoholic liquor; the Caryophyllus myrtle, of which the bark forms an esteemed cinnamon; the Eugenia Pimenta, from whence comes Jamaica pepper; the common myrtle, from whose buds and berries spice is sometimes made; the Eucalyptus manifera, which yields a sweet sort of manna; the Guinea Eucalyptus, the sap of which is transformed into beer by fermentation; in short, all those trees known under the name of gum-trees or iron-bark trees in Australia, belong to this family of the myrtaceae, which contains forty-six genera and thirteen hundred species!"
The lad was allowed to run on, and he delivered his little botanical lecture with great animation. Cyrus Harding listened smiling, and Pencroft with an indescribable feeling of pride.
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“很好!赫伯特,”潘克洛夫说,“可是我敢打赌,这些大树决不是你刚才提到的那些有用的品种!”
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"Very good, Herbert," replied Pencroft, "but I could swear that all those useful specimens you have just told us about are none of them giants like these!"
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“不错,潘克洛夫。”
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“这就证实我刚才的话不错了,”水手接着说,“这些大树皮有什么用处!”
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“那你就错了,潘克洛夫,”工程师说,“我们头上这些高大的有加利树是有些用处的。”
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“有什么用处?”
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"And what is that?"
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45
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“保持当地的环境卫生。你知道澳洲和新西兰的居民把它们叫做什么吗?”
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"To render the countries which they inhabit healthy. Do you know what they are called in Australia and New Zealand?"