It was an arduous climb over sharp lava and pumice stones in the midst of air often reeking with sulfurous fumes from the smoke holes.

我们是在充满喷火口所发出的流磺气体的大气中，沿着尖利的火石和浮石的石层，作艰苦的攀登。

For a man out of practice at treading land, the captain scaled the steepest slopes with a supple agility I couldn't equal, and which would have been envied by hunters of Pyrenees mountain goats.

船长是一个已经不惯踩踏陆地的人，走上这些最陡峭的斜坡，轻便灵活，不单我不能比，就是追赶羚羊的猎人心中也要欣羡。

It took us two hours to reach the summit of this half-crystal, half-basalt peak.

我们费了两个钟头，才到达这座云斑岩、玄武岩掺杂的尖峰上面。

From there our eyes scanned a vast sea, which scrawled its boundary line firmly against the background of the northern sky.

从上面看，我们的眼光望见一片广阔的海，海在北面天空中清楚现出它的最后界线来。

At our feet: dazzling tracts of white. Over our heads: a pale azure, clear of mists.

我们脚下，是眩眼的光辉的白冰常我们头上，是从云雾中现出来的淡白的蔚蓝色。

North of us: the sun's disk, like a ball of fire already cut into by the edge of the horizon.

在北方，太陽的轮盘像一只火球一样，已经被水平线的锋刃削开一角了。

From the heart of the waters: jets of liquid rising like hundreds of magnificent bouquets.

海水中间，有美丽好看的喷水花束成千成百地放出来。

Far off, like a sleeping cetacean: the Nautilus. Behind us to the south and east: an immense shore, a chaotic heap of rocks and ice whose limits we couldn't see.

远远的所在，是那诺第留斯号，像酣睡着的鲸科动物一样。在我们后面，东方和南方，有一片广阔的陆地，是望不见边际的岩石和冰群的凌乱层台。

Arriving at the summit of this peak, Captain Nemo carefully determined its elevation by means of his barometer, since he had to take this factor into account in his noon sights.

尼摩船长走到峰顶上，拿晴雨表小心测量尖峰的高度，因为在他的观察中，峰高也要估计在内。

At 11:45 the sun, by then seen only by refraction, looked like a golden disk, dispersing its last rays over this deserted continent and down to these seas not yet plowed by the ships of man.

正午差一刻，单从折光作用看，太陽像金盘一样现出，它对这从没有人迹来过的海面，把它的最后光芒散在荒凉无人的大陆上。

Captain Nemo had brought a spyglass with a reticular eyepiece, which corrected the sun's refraction by means of a mirror, and he used it to observe the orb sinking little by little along a very extended diagonal that reached below the horizon.

尼摩船长戴上网形线望远镜，这镜利用一个镜面，可以改正折光作用，他观察那沿着一条拖拉得很长的对角线，渐渐沉入水平线下的太陽。