摘要：我总喜爱游览新奇美景，观赏奇风异俗。幼年之时，我便四处漫游，走过不少地方，深入故土的穷乡僻壤，作一番探索。

Account of My Travels游历记述

By Washington Irving

I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, and conversing with their sages and great men. I even journeyed one long summer's day to the summit of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra incognita, and was astonished to find how vast a globe I inhabited.

游历记述

我总喜爱游览新奇美景，观赏奇风异俗。幼年之时，我便四处漫游，走过不少地方，深入故土的穷乡僻壤，作一番探索。为此，父母常感惊恐，不过公告传报员 [1]却受益不少。及至少年，观察范围更趋广泛。每逢假日下午，我便畅游四周。由此，历史上或传说中的著名地方，我无不知晓。哪里有过凶杀抢劫，哪里出现过幽灵，我均能一一告知。我去邻近的村庄，观察其风俗习惯，与贤明之士和不凡人物交谈，从而知识大增。在一个漫长的夏日，我甚至远走他乡，爬上一座高山，极目远眺，凝视尚未去过的陌生地带。目睹我所居住的地球广阔无垠，我惊叹不已。

This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring their contents, I neglected the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes- with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth!

我年岁愈增，愈加喜欢漫游。种种游记书籍，令我爱不释手，读得废寝忘食，以致把学校日常功课忽略。我多么渴望在风和日丽之际，漫步码头，看只只船儿远去。我心驰神往，凝视它们愈来愈小的风帆，想象中随之漂向天涯海角。

Further reading and thinking, though they brought this vague inclination into more reasonable bounds, only served to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own country; and had I been merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere its gratification, for on no country have the charms of nature been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with their bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine;- no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery.

此种爱好，当时不过朦朦胧胧;以后读书更多，思想更广，爱好亦更具有理性，更加明确。我到美国各地游览。但我并非仅喜爱美丽风光——果真如此，便毋须去国外旅游，因自然赐予美国的妩媚，并不少于其他国家。美国有辽阔的湖水，银波闪闪;有巍峨的群山，色彩鲜明;有富饶的山谷，植物茂密，鸟兽众多;有巨大的瀑布，在幽静的山中隆隆作响;有广袤的平原，草木青葱起伏，天然而成;有深广的河流，庄严肃穆地流向海洋;有人迹罕至的森林，宏伟壮观;有蓝蓝的天空，夏日彩云飞舞，阳光灿烂，魅力无穷。不，美国人若欲观赏壮丽美景，美国已绰绰有余，无需他求了。