雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界地理11 河流之父

THE biggest bay in the United States I told you is called “the Mother of Waters.” The biggest river in the United States is called “the Father of Waters.” Although the river is called a “father,” he is not a Mr. He is a “Miss.” In the Indian language he is Miss—issippi, and is spelled in this jingly way:
我介紹過美國最大的海灣叫做“眾水之母”。美國最大的河叫做“眾水之父”。這條河就是密西西比河，雖然它被稱為“父親河”，但是按照印第安語的發(fā)音，它卻是“西比小姐”，英語拼寫出來是：Miss-issippi，你能看出中間哪個部分是對稱的嗎？
M
M
i double s
下面的i后面有一對ss
i double s
再下面的i后面又有一對ss
i double p
再下面的i后面有一對pp
i
最后是i
which is very easy to learn.
這樣就好記好學(xué)。
If I asked you to draw a picture of a river, and also of a tree without any leaves on it, you would probably draw the tree this way—a main stem, with big branches, and big branches with little branches, and little branches with tiny branches—like the picture to the left. And you would probably draw the picture of the river as just a wiggly line—now wouldn’t you? As a matter of fact, the picture of a tree and the picture of a river should be drawn exactly the same way, for they each have a main stem with big branches, big branches with little branches, and little branches with tiny branches—although you may not see all the branches in the picture of a river on the map.
如果我讓你畫一條河，再畫一棵沒有葉子的樹，你或許會這樣畫這棵樹——先畫一根樹干，然后畫上大的樹枝，大樹枝上再畫小樹枝，最后在小樹枝上加上更細(xì)小的樹枝——就像左邊這幅圖一樣。而你或許會把一條河就畫成一條波浪形的線——是不是？其實，畫一棵樹和畫一條河應(yīng)該按同樣的方法，因為它們同樣都有一個主干，上面有大的分支，大分支上有小分支，小分支上還有更細(xì)小的分支——不過你可能在地圖上看不到一條河流所有的支流。


But there is this big difference between a tree and a river:
但是樹和河最大的不同在于：
A tree grows from the bottom to the top of its branches.
一棵樹從下往上長，從樹干到樹枝。
A river flows from the top of its branches to the bottom. The sap runs up a tree, water runs down a river. If a river were just a single line and had no branches at all, it would be just as big at the finish as at the start. It’s the river’s branches that make it bigger and bigger. The biggest river in the United States, the Mississippi, starts almost at the top of our country, at a little lake called Itasca, in the State of Minnesota, and flows all the way to the bottom of our country, getting bigger and bigger all the time as its branches flow into it, until at last it reaches a corner of the ocean we call the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River really cuts our country into two parts, but the two parts are not the same size. The part west of the Mississippi is about twice as big as the part east of the Mississippi.
一條河自上向下流，從支流到干流。樹液順著樹干往上升，河水則順著河道向下流。如果一條河就是一條線的話，沒有任何支流，那么從源頭到盡頭整條河都一樣寬了。正是有了支流河才變得越來越寬。美國最大的河流密西西比河起源于明尼蘇達州境內(nèi)一個叫做艾塔斯卡的小湖，幾乎就在美國的最北部。密西西比河一路流向美國的最南部，途中隨著支流河水的不斷注入而變得越來越寬，最后匯入大洋的一角，我們稱之為墨西哥灣。密西西比河實際上把美國分成了大小不同的兩部分。河西的這一部分大約是河?xùn)|的那一部分的兩倍大。
The Mississippi River hardly gets a good running start on its long journey south to the Gulf of Mexico before it falls down, and where it falls men have built big mills, the wheels of which are turned by the falling water. These mills, however, are not like those in New England. They do not make things. They grind wheat to make flour to make bread, for more and better wheat grows near where the Mississippi starts and the States near-by than anywhere else in the whole World.
在密西西比河向南流入墨西哥灣的長途行程中，地勢都比較平緩，沒有很大落差。在墨西哥灣的入?？冢铀畠A瀉而下，這里人們修建了很多巨大的磨坊，磨坊的輪子是由落下的河水推動的。然而這些磨坊和新英格蘭的磨坊不一樣。這些磨坊并不生產(chǎn)東西。它們把小麥磨成做面包的面粉，因為密西西比河的發(fā)源地和附近各州產(chǎn)出的小麥比世界上任何地方的小麥都要多，質(zhì)量也更好。
An acre seems to me, who lives in a city, a large piece of ground, a hundred acres seems immense, and a thousand acres seems enormous, but some farms in Minnesota where they raise wheat have as many as ten thousand acres of wheat in a single farm! The farmers would never get through planting or gathering the wheat if they did so by hand or even with a horse. So they plow with an engine and often with ten plows in a row, and they use machines for gathering the wheat and for separating the grains of the wheat from the straw, which has to be done before it can be ground into flour.
在我這樣的城里人看來，一英畝好像是很大一塊地，一百英畝更像是大得無邊無際，一千英畝就像大得無法想象了。但是明尼蘇達州有些種植小麥的農(nóng)場僅一個農(nóng)場就有多達一萬英畝的小麥田！要是光靠雙手或者即使用馬干活，這些農(nóng)民永遠(yuǎn)種不完或割不完小麥。因此他們用機械犁具耕地，經(jīng)常一排十個犁具同時開動，還使用機器收割小麥，并把麥穗和麥稈分開，這是把小麥磨成面粉之前必須完成的農(nóng)活。
On opposite sides of the Mississippi near these falls two large cities of almost the same size have grown up. These two cities are connected by a bridge, and they are so nearly the same size they are called Twin Cities. One of them is named Minneapolis, which means “Water City,” as Annapolis means “Anna’s City”; and the other is named St. Paul. Notice that almost all names around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi are named either after saints or after Indians. That’s because priests were among the first to come to this country to make the Indians Christians, and they named places either after the Indians or after the Christian saints.
沿密西西比河?xùn)|西兩岸，離瀑布很近的地方建起了兩個面積幾乎一樣的大城市。這兩個城市由一座橋連接起來，它們大小幾乎相同，所以被稱做“雙子城”。其中一個叫做明尼阿波利斯，意思是“水城”，就像安娜納波利斯的意思是“安納之城”一樣[1]；另一個叫做圣保羅。請注意看，五大湖區(qū)和密西西比河附近幾乎所有地名都是以基督教圣徒或印第安語的名字而命名的。那是因為最早來美國的人中有一些牧師，他們在印第安人中傳播基督教，于是他們用印第安人的名字或者基督教圣徒的名字來給一些地方命名。
The water city—Minneapolis—is the greatest flour-making place in the whole World. I have to say “in the whole World” so often, I’m going to use only the first letters from now on—i for “in,” t for “the,” w for “whole,” W for “World”—thus: i.t.w.W. Minneapolis is the greatest flour-making place i.t.w.W. Minnesota and the States near it are the greatest wheat-raising States i.t.w.W.
水城——明尼阿波利斯——是全世界最大的面粉產(chǎn)地。明尼蘇達州和附近各州是全世界最大的小麥種植地。
As the Mississippi River flows south toward the Gulf of Mexico it passes other cities, but the biggest one is St. Louis, about half-way down. St. Louis—another saint—is near the two biggest branches of the Mississippi River—the Missouri, which comes in from the west, and the Ohio, which comes in from the east—both rivers named after States and both States named after the Indians. The Missouri is such a big branch that it is hard to tell whether it is a branch of the Mississippi or the Mississippi is a branch of it. Indeed, if you can find where the Missouri River begins you will see that from that point to the end of the Mississippi the river is much longer than the Mississippi itself—it is over 4,000 miles—so the Missouri- Mississippi together is the longest river i.t.w.W.
密西西比河一路向南流往墨西哥灣，沿途還經(jīng)過其他城市，其中最大的就是中途的圣路易斯。圣路易斯——也是一位圣者之名——靠近密西西比河最大的兩條支流——由西匯入的密蘇里河和由東匯入的俄亥俄河——兩條河都是以所在的州命名的，這兩個州又都是來自印第安語。密蘇里是一條非常大的支流，以至于很難分清它是密西西比河的支流還是密西西比河是它的支流。甚至，如果你能找到密蘇里河的源頭，你就會發(fā)現(xiàn)從源頭到密西西比河的盡頭，這樣一條河要比密西西比河本身長很多——有4,000多英里——因此密蘇里河和密西西比河加在一起，就是全世界最長的河流。
The Mississippi gets bigger and bigger as it gets more and more branches, and in the spring when the snow melts and the rain rains so hard and flows down into the branches, the river swells and swells until it finally bursts over its banks and floods the country. So, down where this is likely to happen, men have built banks along the river on each side, to hold the water in. These banks are called levees; but sometimes the river grows too big and strong even for these levees to hold it in, and the river breaks through or over the top and floods the country. If there happen to be any farms or houses or towns with people in them, the water washes houses away and drowns people and animals, and destroys thousands upon thousands of farms and other property.
隨著支流的不斷增多，密西西比河越來越寬，春季，白雪消融，雨水豐富，大量的水流入到各支流中去，密西西比河河水上漲，直到最終漫過河岸淹沒鄉(xiāng)村。于是，在下游有可能發(fā)生洪水泛濫的地方，人們沿著河流兩岸修建了堤岸，攔住河水。這些堤岸叫做防洪大堤；但有時河水上漲過猛，水勢太兇，就連這些大堤也攔不住，河水沖垮或是漫過大堤，造成洪水災(zāi)害。如果碰巧這里有農(nóng)田或房屋或者是有人居住的小鎮(zhèn)，河水就會沖走房屋，淹死人和動物，毀掉成千上萬的農(nóng)田和其他財產(chǎn)。
The Mississippi near its end passes the city called New Orleans and at last flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The end of a river where it flows into the sea is called its mouth. I never knew why, because a mouth is where water flows in, not where it flows out. At any rate, the Mississippi has several mouths instead of one mouth, for the water in the river brings along with it so much mud that it settles right in the way of the river’s mouth and forms mud islands which the river has to go round, so the river blocks itself.
密西西比河流入墨西哥灣前經(jīng)過的最后一個城市叫新奧爾良。河流盡頭入海處叫做河口。我一直不知道為什么叫“河口”，因為“口”是水流入的地方，而不是流出的地方。不管怎樣，密西西比河有好幾個河口，而不是只有一個，因為河水帶來大量的淤泥，淤泥正好在河口堆積下來形成了好幾個島，這樣河流必須繞過小島流入大海，因此河流自己堵住了自己前行的路，形成了好幾個河口。
Where the Mississippi begins in the far north of the United States it is very cold in winter, but as the river flows farther and farther south it gets warmer and warmer and warmer. This warm country is nicknamed “Dixie.” When the river is near its end at New Orleans, flowers bloom even at Christmas and it is warm all the year round. Where the river begins you see white people in the fields and on the shores, but when it gets down south in Dixie Land you see more and more colored people working in the fields. The chief thing they are doing is growing cotton, for “Dixie Land,” as the song says, is way down south “in the land of cotton,” and more cotton is grown here than anywhere else i.t.w.W. Strange to say, there was no cotton in America at first. A cotton plant was brought first to Maryland from the other side of the world and grown only for its pretty flowers.
在美國遙遠(yuǎn)的北方密西西比河起源的地方，冬季非常寒冷，但是隨著河水往南流，氣候開始暖和起來，越往南流就越暖和。南方這塊溫暖的土地俗稱“迪克西”。當(dāng)河流快要走完行程，在新奧爾良，即使在圣誕節(jié)也有各種鮮花綻放，一年四季都很溫暖。在密西西比河源頭附近你可以看到白人在田間岸邊勞作，但是隨著河流進入南部迪克西地區(qū)，你會看到越來越多的黑人在田里勞動。他們最主要的農(nóng)作物就是棉花，因為就像歌里唱的那樣，遠(yuǎn)在南方的“迪克西的土地，就在滿是白棉花盛開的地方”，這里是全世界棉花產(chǎn)量最多的地方。說來也怪，最初美國并沒有棉花。第一顆棉花秧是從世界另一面帶到馬里蘭州的，種棉花只是為了觀賞它漂亮的花朵。
Cotton grows on a low bush in little white balls, and inside each white ball are troublesome little seeds. The cotton is picked off the bush and then these seeds have to be picked out of the cotton before it can be made into cotton thread, and then into cotton cloth, and then into cotton clothes, sheets, towels—can you think of anything else made out of cotton ? Things made of cotton were once very expensive, because it took such a long time to pick the seeds out of the cotton, but a school-teacher—a man—invented a way to pick the seeds out by a machine—an “engine” which the colored people called “a gin,” for short, and now cotton goods can be made very cheaply. Indeed, it is now hard to understand how we ever got along without cotton, for this little plant that was once grown only for its flowers is used in more things and in more ways than anything that grows out of the ground. This is why it is often called “King Cotton.”
棉花成熟后，變成一個個白色的小球長在像灌木一樣的植株上，每個小棉球里有很細(xì)小的種子，要把種子弄出來是很麻煩的。棉花采摘后，必須去籽，才能將棉花紡成棉線，棉線再織成棉布，然后做成棉布衣服、棉床單、棉毛巾——你能想到其他用棉花做成的東西嗎？從前棉花做的東西非常昂貴，因為把棉籽從棉花里摘出來要花很長的時間，但是一所學(xué)校的男教師發(fā)明了一種機器，很快就能把棉籽取出來——黑人把這種機器叫做“軋棉機”，所以現(xiàn)在棉制品的生產(chǎn)成本就很低了。確實，現(xiàn)在很難理解沒有棉花的時候人們是怎樣過日子的呢。因為最初人們種這棵小植物只為了觀其花朵，現(xiàn)在用棉花制作的東西之多和它的用途之廣超過任何一種地里長的植物。因此棉花常被稱為“棉花大王”。

[1] 英語polis有“城市”之意——譯者注。