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BENITO CERENO-Part1_HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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seas.

Climbing the side, the visitor was at once surrounded by a



clamorous throng of whites and blacks, but the latter outnumbering the

former more than could have been expected, Negro transportation-ship



as the stranger in port was. But, in one language, and as with one

voice, all poured out a common tale of suffering; in which the



Negresses, of whom there were not a few, exceeded the others in

their dolorous vehemence. The scurvy, together with a fever, had swept



off a great part of their number, more especially the Spaniards. Off

Cape Horn, they had narrowly escaped shipwreck; then, for days



together, they had lain tranced without wind; their provisions were

low; their water next to none; their lips that moment were baked.



While Captain Delano was thus made the mark of all eager

tongues, his one eager glance took in all the faces, with every



other object about him.

Always upon first boarding a large and populous ship at sea,



especially a foreign one, with a nondescript crew such as Lascars or

Manilla men, the impression varies in a peculiar way from that



produced by first entering a strange house with strange inmates in a

strange land. Both house and ship, the one by its walls and blinds,



the other by its high bulwarks like ramparts, hoard from view their

interiors till the last moment; but in the case of the ship there is



this addition: that the living spectacle it contains, upon its

sudden and complete disclosure, has, in contrast with the blank



ocean which zones it, something of the effect of enchantment. The ship

seems unreal; these strange costumes, gestures, and faces, but a



shadowy tableau just emerged from the deep, which directly must

receive back what it gave.



Perhaps it was some such influence as above is attempted to be

described which, in Captain Delano's mind, heightened whatever, upon a



staid scrutiny, might have seemed unusual; especially the

conspicuous figures of four elderly grizzled Negroes, their heads like



black, doddered willow tops, who, in venerablecontrast to the

tumult below them, were couched sphynx-like, one on the starboard



cat-head, another on the larboard, and the remaining pair face to face

on the opposite bulwarks above the main-chains. They each had bits



of unstranded old junk in their hands, and, with a sort of stoical

self-content, were picking the junk into oakum, a small heap of



which lay by their sides. They accompanied the task with a continuous,

low, monotonous chant; droning and drooling away like so many



grey-headed bag-pipers playing a funeral march.

The quarter-deck rose into an ample elevated poop, upon the



forward verge of which, lifted, like the oakum-pickers, some eight

feet above the general throng, sat along in a row, separated by



regular spaces, the cross-legged figures of six other blacks; each

with a rusty hatchet in his hand, which, with a bit of brick and a



rag, he was engaged like a scullion in scouring; while between each

two was a small stack of hatchets, their rusted edges turned forward



awaiting a like operation. Though occasionally the four

oakum-pickers would briefly address some person or persons in the



crowd below, yet the six hatchet-polishers neither spoke to others,

nor breathed a whisper among themselves, but sat intent upon their



task, except at intervals, when, with the peculiar love in Negroes

of uniting industry with pastime, two-and-two they sideways clashed



their hatchets together, like cymbals, with a barbarous din. All

six, unlike the generality, had the raw aspect of unsophisticated



Africans.

But the first comprehensive glance which took in those ten



figures, with scores less conspicuous, rested but an instant upon

them, as, impatient of the hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in



quest of whomsoever it might be that commanded the ship.

But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case



among his sufferingcharge, or else in despair of restraining it for

the time, the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved-looking, and



rather young man to a stranger's eye, dressed with singular

richness, but bearing plain traces of recent sleepless cares and



disquietudes, stood passively by, leaning against the main-mast, at

one moment casting a dreary, spiritless look upon his excited






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