第11章　百川之父

我曾經跟你們說過，美國最大的海灣，叫作“百川之母”。而美國最大的一條河流，則叫作“百川之父”。盡管這條河流被稱為一個“父親”，可它并不是一位“先生”（Mr.），而是一位“女士”（Miss）。在印第安語里，此河被稱為“密西西比”（Mississippi），而它在英語中的拼寫也很有節奏感：

一個M，

一個i，兩個s，

一個i，兩個s，

一個i，兩個p，

再加一個i

很容易記住吧。

假如我要求你們畫出一條河流，并且畫出一棵上面沒有任何葉子的樹來，那么你們很可能都會這樣來畫那棵樹：一根樹干，加上粗大的樹枝，上面再畫較小的樹枝，上面再畫一些更細的樹枝，就像下圖一樣。并且，你們很可能會將河流畫成只是一根蜿蜒曲折的線條，是不是這樣呢？事實上，樹和河流的畫法應該是一模一樣的，因為二者都有一個主干和粗大的分支，而粗分支上又有小分支，小分支上又有更細小的分支。不過在地圖上，大家在一條河流的示意圖上可能是看不到所有分not see all the branches in the picture of a river on the map.

But there is this big difference between a tree and a river：

A tree grows from the bottom to the top of its branches.

A river flows from the top of its branches to the bottom. The sap runs up a tree, water runs down a river.If a river were just a single line and had no branches at all, it would be just as big at the finish as at the start.It's the river's branches that make it bigger and bigger.The biggest river in the United States, the Mississippi, starts almost at the top of our country, at a little lake called Itasca, in the State of Minnesota, and flows all the way to the bottom of our country, getting bigger and bigger all the time as its branches flow into it, until at last it reaches a corner of the ocean we call the Gulf of Mexico.The Mississippi River really cuts our country into two parts, but the two parts are not the same size.The part west of the Mississippi is about twice as big as the part east of the Mississippi.

The Mississippi River hardly gets a good running start on its long journey south to the Gull of Mexico before it falls down, and where it falls men have built big mills, the wheels of which are turned by the falling water. These mills, however, are not like those in New England.They do not make things.They grind wheat to make flour to make bread, for more and better wheat grows near where the Mississippi starts and the States near-by than anywhere else in the whole World.

支的。

但是，一棵樹和一條河流之間，還是有著下面這種重大的差別：

一棵樹，支椏是從樹干底下向頂上生長的。

一條河流，水卻是從各條支流的頂端流向底下的主干的。樹液從下往上，流向樹梢；河水則自上而下，匯入主流。如果一條河流就像一根線，沒有任何支流的話，那么它的發源之地就會跟它的終止之處一樣粗細了。正是有了各條支流，才使得一條河流變得越來越粗、越來越寬闊。美國最大的河流密西西比河差不多發源于美國的最北端，即明尼蘇達州境內一個叫作伊塔斯卡的小湖，然后流向美國南方，一路上隨著各條支流的匯入而變得越來越寬闊，最后注入我們所稱的“墨西哥灣”這個大洋的一角。實際上，密西西比河把美國分割成了兩個部分，不過，這兩個部分的面積并不相同。密西西比河以西的那個部分，面積達到了密西西比河以東那一部分的兩倍左右。

密西西比河剛一開始向南經過漫長的旅程流往墨西哥灣的時候，便陡然下落，而在它下落形成瀑布的那個地方，人們建造了許多大型的磨坊，利用下落的河水來推動磨輪。然而，這些磨坊卻跟新英格蘭地區的那些磨坊不同。它們并沒有制造出任何東西來。它們只是用于將小麥磨成制作面包的面粉，因為在密西西比河源頭的附近地區，人們種植了比全世界其他任何地方更多的、品質更好的小麥。

An acre seems to me, who lives in a city, a large piece of ground, a hundred acres seems immense, and a thousand acres seems enormous, but some farms in Minnesota where they raise wheat have as many as ten thousand acres of wheat in a single farm！The farmers would never get through planting or gathering the wheat if they did so by hand or even with a horse. So they plow with an engine and often with ten plows in a row, and they use machines for gathering the wheat and for separating the grains of the wheat from the straw, which has to be done before it can be ground into flour.

On opposite sides of the Mississippi near these falls two large cities of almost the same size have grown up. These two cities are connected by a bridge, and they are so nearly the same size they are called Twin Cities.One of them is named Minneapolis, which means“Water City，”as Annapolis means“Anna's City”；and the other is named St.Paul.Notice that almost all names around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi are named either after saints or after Indians.That's because priests were among the first to come to this country to make the Indians Christians, and they named places either after the Indians or after the Christian saints.

The water city—Minneapolis—is the greatest flour-making place in the whole World. I have to say“in the whole World”so often, I'm going to use only the first letters from now on—i for“in，”t for“the，”w for“whole，”W for“World”—thus：i.t.w.W.Minneapolis is the greatest flour-making place i.t.w.W.Minnesota and the States near it are the greatest wheat-raising States i.t.w.W.

對于居住在城市里的我來說，一英畝可是面積很大的一塊土地了，一百英畝土地屬于極大，而一千英畝土地則屬于無邊無際了，可在明尼蘇達州一些種植小麥的農場里，單個農場就種植著多達一萬英畝的小麥呢！要是人工種植的話，那些農民永遠都種不了、也收割不了這么多的小麥，哪怕用馬匹來，也做不到。因此，他們都是用一種裝有發動機的犁來耕地，并且常常是一次用十張犁排成一行來進行的，而收割小麥、脫粒時用的也是機器，小麥必須先經過脫粒，才能再去磨成面粉。

在密西西比河這些瀑布的兩岸，出現了兩座大小差不多相等的大城市。這兩座城市之間，有一條大橋相連，由于兩市的大小幾乎相同，因此人們還把它們稱為“雙子城”呢。其中一座，叫作“明尼阿波利斯”，意思是“水城”，就像“安那波利斯”指的是“安娜之城”一樣；另一座城市則叫“圣保羅”。注意，大湖地區和密西西比河附近地區，幾乎所有的地名，不是用基督教圣徒的名字，便是用印第安名稱來命名的。那是因為，一些傳教士最先來到美國并將印第安人點化成為基督徒，他們在給地點命名時，要么是用印第安人的名稱，要么便是用基督教圣徒的名字。

“水城”明尼阿波利斯是整個世界上最大的面粉生產地。由于我必須不停地說“整個世界上”，因此我打算此后只用“全世界”來進行簡稱。比如，明尼阿波利

As the Mississippi River flows south toward the Gulf of Mexico it passes other cities, but the biggest one is St. Louis, about half-way down.St.Louis—another saint—is near the two biggest branches of the Mississippi River—the Missouri, which comes in from the west, and the Ohio, which comes in from the east—both rivers named after States and both States named after the Indians.The Missouri is such a big branch that it is hard to tell whether it is a branch of the Mississippi or the Mississippi is a branch of it.Indeed, if you can find where the Missouri River begins you will see that from that point to the end of the Mississippi the river is much longer than the Mississippi itself—it is over 4，000 miles—so the Missouri-Mississippi together is the longest river i.t.w.W.

The Mississippi gets bigger and bigger as it gets more and more branches, and in the spring when the snow melts and the rain rains so hard and flows down into the branches, the river swells and swells until it finally bursts over its banks and floods the country. So, down where this is likely to happen, men have built banks along the river on each side, to hold the water in.These banks are called levees；but sometimes the river grows too big and strong even for these levees to hold it in, and the river breaks through or over the top and floods the country.If there happen to be any farms or houses or towns with people in them, the water washes houses away and drowns people and animals, and destroys thousands upon thousands of farms and other property.

The Mississippi near its end passes the city called New Orleans and at last flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The end of a river where it flows into the sea is called its mouth.I

斯是全世界最大的小麥生產地；明尼蘇達州及附近各州，是全世界最大的小麥種植州，等等。

密西西比河在向南流入墨西哥灣的過程中，還流經了其他一些城市，其中最大的一座，則是位于該河中下游的圣路易斯。“圣路易斯”又是一位圣徒的名字，該市位于密西西比河兩條最大的支流附近：其中一條是密蘇里河，它自西向東注入密西西比河，另一條則是俄亥俄河，它自東向西注入密西西比河。這兩條支流的名稱都與州名相同，也都是用印第安人的名稱來命名的。密蘇里河非常巨大，因此我們很難說清，究竟是它屬于密西西比河的支流呢，還是密西西比河屬于它的支流。事實上，假如能夠找到密蘇里河的發源地，那么你們就會看出，從那個地方起，直到密西西比河的入?？?，密蘇里河的流程都要比密西西比河本身長得多，竟然超過了四千英里，因此，倘若將密蘇里河與密西西比河合起來，它便是全世界最長的河流了。

隨著匯入的支流越來越多，密西西比河也變得越來越寬闊，到了春季，冰雪消融、春雨如注并流入各條支流之后，密西西比河就會變得越來越寬，河水也會越漲越高，最終決堤，淹沒整個鄉村。因此，在下游有可能決堤的地方，人們在河流兩岸都筑有高高的河堤，以便約束河水。這些河堤，稱為防洪堤，不過，有的時候，由于河水上漲得太厲害，連這些防洪堤也約束不了，因此河水便會沖垮堤壩，或者越過堤壩，淹沒鄉村。如果附近正好有住了人的農場、房屋或者市鎮，河水便會將房屋沖走、淹死民眾和牲畜，毀掉成千上萬座農場和其他的財產呢。

never knew why, because a mouth is where water flows in, not where it flows out. At any rate, the Mississippi has several mouths instead of one mouth, for the water in the river brings along with it so much mud that it settles right in the way of the river's mouth and forms mud islands which the river has to go round, so the river blocks itself.

Where the Mississippi begins in the far north of the United States it is very cold in winter, but as the river flows farther and farther south it gets warmer and warmer and warmer. This warm country is nicknamed“Dixie.”When the river is near its end at New Orleans, flowers bloom even at Christmas and it is warm all the year round.Where the river begins you see white people in the fields and on the shores, but when it gets down south in Dixie Land you see more and more colored people working in the fields.The chief thing they are doing is growing cotton, for“Dixie Land，”as the song says, is way down south“in the land of cotton，”and more cotton is grown here than anywhere else i.t.w.W.Strange to say, there was no cotton in America at first.A cotton plant was brought first to Maryland from the other side of the world and grown only for its pretty flowers.

Cotton grows on a low bush in little white balls, and inside each white ball are troublesome little seeds. The cotton is picked off the bush and then these seeds have to be picked out of the cotton before it can be made into cotton thread, and then into cotton cloth, and then into cotton clothes, sheets, towels—can you think of anything else made out of cotton?Things made of cotton were once very expensive, because it took such a long time to pick the seeds out of the cotton, but a school-teacher—a man—invented a

密西西比河的最末端，流經一個叫作“新奧爾良”的城市，最后注入墨西哥灣。一條河流末端注入大海的地方，叫作河口。我一直都不知道為什么要這么叫，因為“口”應當是指水流匯入河中的地方，而不是河水排出河流的地方。不管怎么說，密西西比河可不止一個河口，而是有好幾個河口，原因就是，河水一路攜帶著許多的泥沙，并在河口中間沉積下來，形成了一些泥沙島嶼，使得河水必須繞流而過，也就是說，河流堵住了自己的去路。

在密西西比河那個位于美國遙遠的北方的發源地，冬季氣候非常寒冷，但隨著這條河流逐漸向南流去，一路上的氣候則變得越來越暖和、越來越炎熱了。這片暖和的土地，還有個綽號，叫作“狄克西”。這條河在新奧爾良靠近河口的地方，連圣誕節花兒也會盛開，并且一年到頭都溫暖如春。在這條河的發源地，你們會看到地里和河岸上都是白人在干活，可當它向南流到了“狄克西之國”后，大家就會看到，地里干活的有色人種越來越多。他們主要干的就是種植棉花，因為正如歌謠所唱，“狄克西之國”位于遙遠的南方的“棉花地里”，所以這里種植的棉花比全世界其他任何一個地方都要多呢。說來也怪，美國起初是沒有棉花的。最初的棉花樹，是人們從地球的另一面帶到馬里蘭州來的，并且，當初人們之所以種植棉花，也只是為了觀賞這種植物開出的美麗花朵。

way to pick the seeds out by a machine—an“engine”which the colored people called“a gin，”for short, and now cotton goods can be made very cheaply. Indeed, it is now hard to understand how we ever got along without cotton, for this little plant that was once grown only for its flowers is used in more things and in more ways than anything that grows out of the ground.This is why it is often called“King Cotton.”

棉花是一種長有白色小球的低矮灌木，而每個白色小球里面，都長有令人煩惱的小棉籽兒。人們將棉花從棉花樹上摘下來之后，必須先將這些小棉籽兒挑出來，才能將棉花紡成棉線，再用棉線去織成棉布衣服、襪子和毛巾，你們還能想出其他一些用棉花制成的東西嗎？用棉花制成的東西，價格曾經十分昂貴，因為將棉籽兒從棉花中挑出來，要費很久的時間，不過，后來有一位老師（竟然是位男老師），他發明出了一種用機器來挑出棉籽兒的方法。有色人種將他發明的那種“機械裝置”簡稱為“機子”，這樣，如今的棉織品才可以很便宜地生產出來了。事實上，我們現在很難理解，當初沒有棉花的時候，人們都是怎么過來的，因為人們曾經只是為了觀賞其花朵才種植的這種小植物，如今的用處可比地上生長出來的任何東西都要大，用途也更廣泛呢。它之所以經常被人們稱為“棉花大王”，原因也正在于此。