若说我初瞥见像魁魁格这般异乡怪客，混迹于文明城镇的礼俗社会中时曾惊愕不已，那么当我首日踏着晨光漫步纽贝德福德街头，那惊愕便很快消散了。
临近码头的大街小巷，任何稍具规模的海港常能叫人瞧见来自异域、模样最古怪的杂色人等。即便在百老汇和栗树街，地中海的水手也时而撞得受惊的淑女慌忙闪避。摄政街于拉斯卡人与马来人并不陌生；而在孟买阿波罗绿地，生猛的扬基佬也常吓坏本地土著。但纽贝德福德胜过水街与瓦平所有地段。在后两处你只看得见水手；可在纽贝德福德，货真价实的食人蛮子就站在街角闲聊；地道的野人；其中许多人骨上仍带着不洁的肉腥。教外乡人看得瞪直了眼。
然而，除了斐济人、汤加塔布人、埃罗芒戈人、潘南人、布里格人，除了那些在街上旁若无人、踉跄晃荡的捕鲸行当里的野样儿，你还会见到更稀奇、无疑也更滑稽的景致。每星期都有成批青嫩的佛蒙特与新罕布什尔佬涌进这镇子，个个渴盼在渔业里捞些钱财与风光。他们大多年轻，身板结实；本是伐过森林的汉子，如今丢下斧头要去抓鲸叉。许多人青嫩得一如他们来处的青山。某些事上你简直以为他们才出世几个时辰。瞧那边！那个在街角大摇大摆的伙计。他戴海狸皮帽，穿燕尾服，腰束水手带，挂着鞘刀。又来一个，戴西南风帽，披黑呢斗篷。
城里娇养的纨绔比不上乡里娇养的——我是说地道的村憨纨绔——那种大热天怕晒黑手、套着鹿皮手套去割两英亩草的汉子。这般乡憨纨绔一旦动了念想扬名立万、投身大鲸渔业，你且看他到了海港的滑稽做派。置办行头时，他给背心订上铃铛扣；给帆布裤缀上吊带。唉，可怜的干草籽！待头场嚎啸的狂风把你连皮带扣整个儿灌进风暴的喉咙，那些带子崩断时该有多惨。
可别以为这名城待客只有鱼叉手、食人蛮与村憨。才不是。纽贝德福德依旧是个怪地方。若非我们捕鲸人，这片土地如今或许还同拉布拉多海岸一般嗥啸荒凉。实则，它腹地某些处瘦骨嶙峋，足以吓人。镇子本身许是新英格兰住起来最贵的地方。确是油之邦：却不像迦南；也是谷与酒之邦。街不流奶；春来也不拿鲜蛋铺路。即便如此，全美你再寻不到比纽贝德福德更贵胄气派的宅邸、更华富的园林。它们何来？怎就栽进这昔日荆棘火山渣的土地？
去望望那边高宅周遭铁铸的寓意鱼叉，你便有了答案。是了；这些体面宅第与繁花园林全来自大西洋、太平洋与印度洋。无一例外，是被鱼叉刺中从海底拖上来的。亚历山大先生办得到这等事么？
在纽贝德福德，据说做父亲的拿鲸鱼给女儿作嫁资，分几个江豚给侄女作陪奁。你得去纽贝德福德看阔气婚礼；因据说家家有油池，每夜任性点起等长鲸蜡烛烧个尽兴。
夏日镇子好看；满是高挺的枫树——金绿交织的长巷。八月里，高悬半空的美丽慷慨的七叶树，如烛台般向过客举起簇生花穗的尖锥。艺术何等霸道；在纽贝德福德许多地段，它于创世末日弃下的瘠岩上，硬是叠出明丽的花台。
纽贝德福德的女人们，如她们自家的红玫瑰般盛开。但玫瑰只开在夏；她们颊上姣好淡红却如七重天日光般长驻。除塞勒姆，你别处配不出那艳泽——那儿据闻少女吐纳麝香， sailor情郎离岸数里便闻见，恍如驶近馥郁摩鹿加，而非清教沙岸。
If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish
an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a
civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first
daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.
In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will
frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign
parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners
will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not
unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live
Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water
Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only
sailors; but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street
corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy
flesh. It makes a stranger stare.
But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians,
and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft
which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still
more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town
scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain
and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;
fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and
snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence
they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old.
Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat
and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife.
Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak.
No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one—I mean a
downright bumpkin dandy—a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his
two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a
country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished
reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the
comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his
sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his
canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those
straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps,
buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.
But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals,
and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a
queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would
this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of
Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten
one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to
live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not
like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run
with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs.
Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more
patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New
Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of
a country?
Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty
mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave
houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the
bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?
In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their
daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece.
You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say,
they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly
burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.
In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples—long
avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful
and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by
their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is
art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright
terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at
creation’s final day.
And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But
roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks
is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that
bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young
girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off
shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of
the Puritanic sands.
