Island of the Blue Dolphins（Ⅰ）

By Scott O’Dell

太平洋中有一個島嶼，形狀像一條側(cè)躺的海豚。島的周圍有海豚在游泳，有海獺在嬉戲，有海象在爭雄，有野狗在決斗……這就是藍色的海豚島。

Perhaps I should tell you about our island so you will know how it looks and where our village was and where the Aleuts camped for most of the summer.

Our island is two1)leagueslong and one league wide,and if you were standing on one of the hills that rise in the middle of it,you would think that it looked like a fish.Like a dolphin lying on its side,with its tail pointing toward the sunrise,its nose pointing to the sunset,and its2)finsmaking reefs and the rocky ledges along the shore.Whether someone did stand there on the low hills in the days when the earth was new and,because of its shape,called it the Island of the Blue Dolphins,I do not know.Many dolphins live in our seas and it may be from them that the name came.But one way or another,this is what the island was called.

1) leaɡue [li?ɡ] n.里格（長度單位，約等于4000 米）

2) fin [f?n] n.(魚的)鰭

The first thing you would notice about our island,I think,is the wind.It blows almost every day,sometimes from the northwest and sometimes from the east,once in a long while out of the south.All the winds except the one from the south are strong,and because of them the hills are polished3)smoothand the trees are small and4)twisted,even in the canyon that runs down to Coral Cove.

3) smooth [smu?e] adj.(表面）光滑的；平坦的

4) twist [tw?st] v.扭彎；纏繞

也許我應該講一講我們島的情況，以便你了解它的地形，村子在什么地方，整個夏天阿留申人多半駐扎在什么地方。

我們的島有兩里格長，一里格寬，假如你站在島中央聳起的一座小山上，你會認為它像一條魚。它像一條側(cè)躺的海豚，尾巴指向日出的地方，鼻子朝著日落的地方，它的鰭就是暗礁和沿岸的石壁。當初這個島新發(fā)現(xiàn)的時候，是否有人確實站在那些小山上，根據(jù)形狀把它叫作藍色的海豚島呢，那我就不知道了。我們的海里聚居著許多海豚，由此得名也有可能。但不管怎么說，我們就是這樣稱呼這個島的。

關于我們的島，我想，你首先會注意到的就是風。這里差不多天天刮風，有時刮西北風，有時刮東風，每隔一些時候刮上一陣南風。除了南風以外，其他風都刮得很大，因為這個緣故，這里的山都是光禿禿的，樹干低矮盤曲，即使珊瑚灣峽谷中的樹木也是如此。

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《藍色的海豚島》是一部專門寫給孩子但同樣對大人也充滿魔力的歷史小說，自20 世紀60 年代出版以來，僅在美國就銷售了600 多萬冊。它曾被美國協(xié)會評為“1776 年以來最偉大的10 部兒童文學作品”之一，曾先后榮獲國際安徒生獎、紐伯瑞兒童文學獎等七種兒童文學獎。