Some of these jellyfish were shaped like very smooth, semispheric parasols with russet stripes and fringes of twelve neat festoons.

有时，它们显出半球形，像很光滑的一把伞，上面有红褐色的条纹，下面垂着十二朵挺有规则的花彩。

Others looked like upside-down baskets from which wide leaves and long red twigs were gracefully trailing.

有时又是一个翻过来的花篮，很美观地从篮中散出红色大片的叶和红色的细枝。

They swam with quiverings of their four leaflike arms, letting the opulent tresses of their tentacles dangle in the drift.

它们游行的时候，摇动它们的四只叶状胳膊，让自己的丰富触须漂摇四散，随便挂住。

I wanted to preserve a few specimens of these delicate zoophytes, but they were merely clouds, shadows, illusions, melting and evaporating outside their native element.

我很想保留起这种精美植虫动物的一些品种，但它们不过是烟云、光影、空架，一离开原来的海水，就消敝得无影无踪。

When the last tips of the Falkland Islands had disappeared below the horizon,

当福克兰群岛的最后高地在水平线上隐没不见的时候，

the Nautilus submerged to a depth between twenty and twenty-five meters and went along the South American coast.

诺第留斯号潜到二十至二十五米深的水层，沿着美洲海岸行驶。

Captain Nemo didn't put in an appearance.

尼摩船长一直没有露面。

We didn't leave these Patagonian waterways until April 3, sometimes cruising under the ocean,sometimes on its surface.

一直到4月3日，我们都没有离开巴塔戈尼亚海岸，船有时在海底下，有时在洋面上。

The Nautilus passed the wide estuary formed by the mouth of the Rio de la Plata,

诺第留斯号驶过拉普拉塔河。

and on April 4 we lay abreast of Uruguay, albeit fifty miles out.

4月2日，它横过了乌拉圭，但是在距五十海里的海面上。

Keeping to its northerly heading, it followed the long windings of South America.

它的方向总是往北，它沿着南美洲弯曲延长的海岸行驶。

By then we had fared 16,000 leagues since coming on board in the seas of Japan.

我们自从日本海上出发以来，到现在已经走了一万六千里了。

Near eleven o'clock in the morning, we cut the Tropic of Capricorn on the 37th meridian, passing well out from Cape Frio.

早晨十一点左右，南回归线在西经37度上切过。我们走过了佛利奥呷海面。