高中英語(yǔ)作文：中國(guó)遠(yuǎn)航艦隊(duì)(Chinese Yuanhang Fleet)
    600年前的明朝，有一位叫做鄭和的杰出宦官。他率領(lǐng)了一支龐大的商船艦隊(duì)，踏上了航行范圍遠(yuǎn)達(dá)非洲大陸的偉大征程。
    Viewed from the rocky outcropping of Dondra Head at the southernnmost tip of Sri Lanka, the first sighting of the Ming fleet is a massive shadow on the horizon. As the shadow rises, it breaks into a cloud of tautly ribbed sail, aflame in the tropical sun. With relentless determination, the cloud draws ever closer, and in its fiery embrace an enormous city appears. A floating city, like nothing the world has ever seen before. No warning could have prepared officials, soldiers, or the thunderstruck peasants who stand atop Dondra Head for the scene that unfolds below them. Stretched across miles of the Indian Ocean in terrifying majesty is the armada of Zheng He, admiral of the imperial Ming navy.
    從斯里蘭卡最南端“棟德勒角(Dondra Head)”上的巖石露頭望去，初入眼簾的大明艦隊(duì)，只是地平線上的龐大陰影。隨著陰影漸升，卻化為眾帆如云，肋紋畢現(xiàn)，在熱帶的陽(yáng)光下映出閃閃紅光。彤云徐徐掩至，耀眼光芒中逐漸浮現(xiàn)出一座巨大的城市。這是一座世所未有的漂浮之城。對(duì)于立在巖石頂端的官員、士兵或驚呆的農(nóng)民而言，這番景象若非親見(jiàn)，如何也無(wú)法想象。這是明帝國(guó)海軍統(tǒng)帥鄭和率領(lǐng)的船隊(duì)，展現(xiàn)懾人威儀，在印度洋中綿延數(shù)里。
    Exactly 600 years ago this month the great Ming armada weighed anchor in Nanjing, on the first of seven epic voyages as far west as Africa—almost a century before Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas and Vasco da Gama's in India. Even then the European expeditions would seem paltry by comparison: All the ships of Columbus and da Gama combined could have been stored on a single deck of a single vessel in the fleet that set sail under Zheng He.
    就在600年前的這個(gè)月(明永樂(lè)三年(1408)六月十五日)，這支雄壯的明朝船隊(duì)在江蘇太倉(cāng)劉家港起錨首航，七次歷史性航行由此展開(kāi)，最遠(yuǎn)最西曾抵達(dá)非洲，而且比哥倫布到達(dá)美洲以及達(dá).伽馬到達(dá)印度早了將近一個(gè)世紀(jì)。且這些歐洲船隊(duì)與他相較仍是小巫見(jiàn)大巫：光是鄭和旗下其中一艘船的一面甲板，就容納得下哥倫布與達(dá).伽馬所有的船只。
    Zheng was not even Chinese—he was by origin a Central Asian Muslim. Born Ma He, the son of a rural official in the Mongol province of Yunnan, he had been taken captive as an invading Chinese army overthrew the Mongols in 1382. Ritually castrated, he was trained as an imperial eunuch and assigned to the court of Zhu Di, the bellicose Prince of Yan.
    鄭和不是漢人——就血源來(lái)說(shuō)，他是中亞的回族。原名馬和，父親是元朝云南省的一個(gè)鄉(xiāng)村官員。1382年，漢人軍隊(duì)趕走蒙古人時(shí)將他俘擄，依例閹割之后，訓(xùn)練他成為一名太監(jiān)，指派到好戰(zhàn)的燕王朱棣宮廷中。
    Hewing to a long but dying tradition, workmen in Beihai, China, craft the wood skeleton of a junk for the prolific South China Sea fishing industry. The ship's design has probably changed little since Chinese admiral Zheng He commanded a massive fleet of junks during seven epic voyages—the first of which was launched 600 years ago this month. In service to Ming emperor Zhu Di, Zheng's Treasure Fleet conducted widespread trade and diplomacy throughout the Indian Ocean. His mandate was to enrich the imperial treasury by exacting tribute from leaders of other countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and to solidify their allegiance to China.
    在中國(guó)的北海，工人延續(xù)著一個(gè)歷史悠久但漸趨沒(méi)落的傳統(tǒng)，為富饒的南海漁業(yè)打造中國(guó)帆船的木制骨架。自從鄭和于600年前率領(lǐng)龐大船隊(duì)展開(kāi)七趟西洋之行以來(lái)，這種中國(guó)船的設(shè)計(jì)八成沒(méi)什么改變。鄭和效忠明成祖朱棣，率領(lǐng)“寶船”船隊(duì)在整個(gè)印度洋地區(qū)進(jìn)行貿(mào)易與外交。他的任務(wù)就是向印度洋沿岸的其它國(guó)家索求貢品、充實(shí)國(guó)庫(kù)，并鞏固他們對(duì)中國(guó)的忠誠(chéng)。
    The fins of a hammerhead shark hauled out of the Red Sea at Al Hudaydah, Yemen, may end up on dinner tables in China, where shark-fin soup is highly prized. Seafaring traders from Yemen and other Arabian Peninsula countries did brisk business throughout the Indian Ocean during the Ming period, which lasted from the 14th to the mid-17th centuries. When Zheng set sail in 1408, his fleet was the mightiest of its age. With vessels numbering in the hundreds and crewmen in the tens of thousands, Zheng took to the seas nearly a century before the European age of exploration began in earnest.
    這只錘頭鯊是在也門荷臺(tái)達(dá)附近的紅海捕獲，它身上的鰭可能會(huì)跑到中國(guó)人的餐桌上──魚翅羹在中國(guó)被視為珍饈佳肴。在明代(公元14世紀(jì)至17世紀(jì)中期)，也門與阿拉伯半島上其它國(guó)家的航海商人確實(shí)在整個(gè)印度洋地區(qū)帶動(dòng)了蓬勃的商業(yè)。當(dāng)鄭和于1408年出航時(shí)，他的船隊(duì)是當(dāng)代最強(qiáng)大、最威震八方的。在歐洲人開(kāi)始認(rèn)真展開(kāi)海洋探險(xiǎn)之前將近一個(gè)世紀(jì)，鄭和就已經(jīng)率領(lǐng)著數(shù)以百計(jì)的船只與數(shù)以萬(wàn)計(jì)的船員航向大海。
    At the bottom end of a soaring market, an ethnic Chinese worker squats in a sluice to gather tin ore at a mine on Bangka Island off the Sumatran coast. Zheng's crewmen found a Chinese community already settled on this Indonesian island when their ships called at Bangka to trade for tin and other goods. Prices for the metal rose substantially in 2004, and abandoned mines are being reworked as demand grows, particularly within China's vigorous economy.
    在蘇門答臘外海邦加島的一處礦場(chǎng)，一名華裔工人蹲在一個(gè)洗礦槽內(nèi)采集著錫礦砂。當(dāng)鄭和的船員來(lái)到邦加島進(jìn)行錫礦與其它商品的貿(mào)易時(shí)，已經(jīng)有一個(gè)中國(guó)人社群定居在這個(gè)印尼的島嶼上。錫的價(jià)格在2004年上漲了不少，而隨著需求增加──特別是在中國(guó)蓬勃的經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展之下──廢棄的礦場(chǎng)也重新啟用。
    On Pate Island along the Swahili coast of Kenya, the Mohame family pounds corn to make cornbread, a staple of their diet. The Mohameds are one of three families of the Famao clan who claim Chinese lineage. According to local legend, shipwrecked sailors from Zheng's fleet made it to shore and married local women, a belief that has become a central part of the Famao's personal mythology. Hints of past Chinese presence still exist on the island: Local tombs and lion statues have designs that some believe closely resemble those of the Ming era, and bits of Chinese ceramics that have washed ashore decorate the facades of some houses.
    在肯尼亞斯瓦希里(Swahili)海岸上的培迪島，默哈姆一家人打磨玉米制作他們的日常食物──玉米面包。默哈姆家族是宣稱擁有中國(guó)血統(tǒng)的“法茂”氏族中的三個(gè)家族之一。根據(jù)當(dāng)?shù)貍髡f(shuō)，遇上船難的鄭和船隊(duì)水手游上了岸、跟當(dāng)?shù)貗D女通婚，這樣的想法已然成為法茂氏族個(gè)人神話中很重要的一部分。至今島上依然可以瞥見(jiàn)中國(guó)人曾經(jīng)到此一游的痕跡：有些人認(rèn)為，當(dāng)?shù)貕災(zāi)古c石獅子的樣式跟明代中國(guó)的設(shè)計(jì)非常相似，而某些房屋的門面上則裝飾著被海浪沖上岸的中國(guó)陶器碎片。
    Dhows lie beached near Ra's al Hadd in Oman, their hulls sealed with a coating of cement and animal fat. For Arab countries the dhow has been the workhorse of the Indian Ocean, just as the junk has been for the Chinese in Southeast Asia. Zheng's fleet stopped here to trade porcelain for frankincense, myrrh, and aloe.
    在阿曼的拉斯哈德附近，一艘艘三角帆船躺在沙灘上，船殼上涂著膠合劑與動(dòng)物脂肪的混合物。三角帆船一直是阿拉伯人在印度洋的主力交通工具，一如中國(guó)人仰賴木帆船往返東南亞。鄭和的船隊(duì)曾經(jīng)?？吭诖?，以瓷器交換乳香、沒(méi)藥與蘆薈。
    Incense perfumes the air at Tay Kak Sie, a Chinese Buddhist temple in Semarang, Indonesia—one of several in Southeast Asia where Zheng He's memory is revered. Its sister temple, Sampokong, was built to honor Zheng's reported appearance in Semarang to visit Wang Jinghong, his vice commander, who was laid up in a cave to recuperate from illness. A Central Asian Muslim by birth who was sympathetic to other religions, Zheng is thought to have been buried at sea after dying on the fleet's seventh and last voyage. A tomb—purportedly empty—stands outside Nanjing, China. It bears an Arabic inscription: "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great").
    在印尼三寶的一座中國(guó)佛寺，空氣中彌漫著薰香的氣味──這是東南亞幾處敬拜鄭和的地點(diǎn)之一。由于傳說(shuō)鄭和曾到三寶來(lái)探視他氅下的副指揮官(當(dāng)時(shí)正在此地的一座山洞里養(yǎng)病)，人們還建了一座姊妹廟來(lái)紀(jì)念這個(gè)事件。血統(tǒng)上屬于中亞回人的鄭和能夠?qū)捜萁蛹{其它信仰，據(jù)信他是死于最后一趟航程上，最后舉行了海葬。中國(guó)南京城外有一座他的墳?zāi)梗瑩?jù)說(shuō)是空墳。墳上刻著一句阿拉伯文：“Allahu Akbar”(偉哉神也)。
    

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