📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 60
1The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm Whales, and there was also then given the probable
2cause inducing those vast aggregations. Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must have been
3seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty
4individuals each. Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those composed almost entirely of
5females, and those mustering none but young vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated. In cavalier
6attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any
7alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a
8luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of
9the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest
10leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized
11male. They are comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen yards round the waist.
12Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the whole they are hereditarily entitled to en bon point. It is very
13curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move
14in leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial feeding season,
15having just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant
16weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for the
17Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other excessive temperature of the year. When
18serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye
19on his interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to draw confidentially
20close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! High times, indeed,
21if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the
22Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed; for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore,
23the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come
24to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so
25striving for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not a few are captured having the deep
26scars of these encounters,--furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and dislocated
27mouths. But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at the first rush of the harem's lord, then
28is it very diverting to watch that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there awhile,
29still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines.
30Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand
31Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the sons and the daughters they
32beget, why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For like
33certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for
34the bower; and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the world; every baby an exotic. In
35good time, nevertheless, as the ardour of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends her solemn
36pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for
37maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and
38grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and
39warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors. Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school,
40so is the lord and master of that school technically known as the schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character,
41however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad inculcating not what he
42learned there, but the folly of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed
43upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have
44read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his
45younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils. The same
46secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged
47Sperm Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale--as a solitary Leviathan is called--proves an ancient one. Like venerable
48moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness
49of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets. The schools composing none but young
50and vigorous males, previously mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while those female whales
51are characteristically timid, the young males, or forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious
52of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled
53whales, sometimes met, and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout. The Forty-barrel-bull
54schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness,
55tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them any more
56than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, and when about
57three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems. Another point of
58difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a
59Forty-barrel-bull--poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions
60swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.
🎉 全部完成！共 60 行