Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for someone having authority, in order to propose myself asa candidate for the voyage, at first I saw nobody;

我站在它的甲板上，想找个当头的，好自荐。

but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent,or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast.

可不但没见着当头的，一个人影也没见着。

It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. Itwas of a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber blackbone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale.

主桅后面一顶临时帐篷引起了我的注意，它呈圆锥形，是用一只露脊鲸的头部的几大片骨头搭成的。

Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutuallysloped towards each other,

把鲸鱼那些宽大的骨板插在甲板上，围成一个圆，用绳子相连，

and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like thetop-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head.

系紧，在顶部形成一个尖儿。向朝头的这一面开了一个三角形的入口，坐在里面，可以看到大船行驶的方向。

A triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded acomplete view forward.

这帐篷似乎是船靠岸以后才搭的。里面坐着个人，似乎是个头目。