The terrain consisted mostly of thick slime mixed with petrified branches, but it changed little by little near four o'clock in the afternoon;

下午四点左右，地面上夹带有化石枝叶的厚泥土渐渐改变了；

it grew rockier and seemed to be strewn with pudding stones and a basaltic gravel called "tuff," together with bits of lava and sulfurous obsidian.

石头愈来愈多，有好些变质岩，玄武石凝灰岩，同时又有硫磺火石和黑暇石散在中间。

I expected these long plains to change into mountain regions, and in fact, as the Nautilus was executing certain turns, I noticed that the southerly horizon was blocked by a high wall that seemed to close off every exit.

我想山岳地带不久就要接上辽阔的平原。真的，在诺第留斯号更往前驶的时候，我望见南方的天际水平线，被一带高墙挡起来，好像完全没有出路似的。

Its summit obviously poked above the level of the ocean.

很显然，墙顶是超出大洋水面了。

It had to be a continent or at least an island, either one of the Canaries or one of the Cape Verde Islands.

那可能是大陆，至少也是一个岛，或加纳里群岛之一，或青角群岛之一。

Our bearings hadn't been marked on the chart-perhaps deliberately-and I had no idea what our position was.

船方位的标记还没有做—可能是有意这样—我不知道我们所在的方位。

In any case this wall seemed to signal the end of Atlantis, of which, all in all, we had crossed only a small part.

总之，这座高墙我看来是标记出大西洋洲的尽头，我们没有走过的恐怕也只有很小的一部分了。

Nightfall didn't interrupt my observations. I was left to myself. Conseil had repaired to his cabin.

黑夜没有中断我的观察，我独自一人留下，康塞尔回他的房中去了。

The Nautilus slowed down, hovering above the muddled masses on the seafloor, sometimes grazing them as if wanting to come to rest, sometimes rising unpredictably to the surface of the waves.

诺第留斯号行驶缓慢，在地面认不清的一堆一堆东西上面往来盘旋，有时它接触到这些乱堆，好像它想停留在上面似的；有时又很任意地浮出海水面上来。

Then I glimpsed a few bright constellations through the crystal waters, specifically five or six of those zodiacal stars trailing from the tail end of Orion.

我这时通过海水透明晶体，望见一些光辉的星宿，那正是跟参垦鱼贯排列起来的六七颗黄道星宿。