Some of these jellyfish were shaped like very smooth, semispheric parasols with russet stripes and fringes of twelve neat festoons.
有時,它們顯出半球形,像很光滑的一把傘,上面有紅褐色的條紋,下面垂著十二朵挺有規(guī)則的花彩。
Others looked like upside-down baskets from which wide leaves and long red twigs were gracefully trailing.
有時又是一個翻過來的花籃,很美觀地從籃中散出紅色大片的葉和紅色的細(xì)枝。
They swam with quiverings of their four leaflike arms, letting the opulent tresses of their tentacles dangle in the drift.
它們游行的時候,搖動它們的四只葉狀胳膊,讓自己的豐富觸須漂搖四散,隨便掛住。
I wanted to preserve a few specimens of these delicate zoophytes, but they were merely clouds, shadows, illusions, melting and evaporating outside their native element.
我很想保留起這種精美植蟲動物的一些品種,但它們不過是煙云、光影、空架,一離開原來的海水,就消敝得無影無蹤。
When the last tips of the Falkland Islands had disappeared below the horizon,
當(dāng)福克蘭群島的最后高地在水平線上隱沒不見的時候,
the Nautilus submerged to a depth between twenty and twenty-five meters and went along the South American coast.
諾第留斯號潛到二十至二十五米深的水層,沿著美洲海岸行駛。
Captain Nemo didn't put in an appearance.
尼摩船長一直沒有露面。
We didn't leave these Patagonian waterways until April 3, sometimes cruising under the ocean,sometimes on its surface.
一直到4月3日,我們都沒有離開巴塔戈尼亞海岸,船有時在海底下,有時在洋面上。
The Nautilus passed the wide estuary formed by the mouth of the Rio de la Plata,
諾第留斯號駛過拉普拉塔河。
and on April 4 we lay abreast of Uruguay, albeit fifty miles out.
4月2日,它橫過了烏拉圭,但是在距五十海里的海面上。
Keeping to its northerly heading, it followed the long windings of South America.
它的方向總是往北,它沿著南美洲彎曲延長的海岸行駛。
By then we had fared 16,000 leagues since coming on board in the seas of Japan.
我們自從日本海上出發(fā)以來,到現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)走了一萬六千里了。
Near eleven o'clock in the morning, we cut the Tropic of Capricorn on the 37th meridian, passing well out from Cape Frio.
早晨十一點左右,南回歸線在西經(jīng)37度上切過。我們走過了佛利奧呷海面。