I leave the vault, and as the guard closes the door, a marine archaeologist asks if I want to see anything else. As an example h

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问题     I leave the vault, and as the guard closes the door, a marine archaeologist asks if I want to see anything else. As an example he shows me an astrolabe, a navigation tool that preceded the sextant. Few have survived. "We have three of the oldest known," he says. He directs me to a paper on astrolabes written by a Cuban colleague, who quoted a 16th-century instruction: "He who wants to take the sun with an astrolabe at sea, must be seated near the main mast, the place where the boat oscillates the least and is quiet."
    I want to take the measure of Cuba’s past, so I tell the archaeologist I would like to go to the place where the plain things are. I am here not only to see treasures that glitter but also to see and touch objects that illumine moments of the past. Smiling, he takes me into storage rooms where he and other archaeologists preserve cargoes from four centuries of wrecks. Jumbled on these shelves is the stuff of Cuba’s long reign as counting house and command center for Spain’s New World colonies.
    I see knickknacks destined for one of the annual 18th-century trade fairs, where Cubans bought imports from Spain. I also see, pallid from centuries in the sea, dozens of little painted ceramic dogs, lions, cats, and deer later shipped from England. Stacked nearby are sets of dinner dishes, tankards, an hourglass, a bottle of very Old Spanish wine.
    On another day, in fading light, I walk the ramparts of E1 Morro, its lighthouse standing tall over Havana’s harbor. The old fortress, by day a warren of tourist stops, changes by night, looming deeper into the shadows of Havana’s past. As torches light the darkness, I watch Cuban soldiers, costumed as 18th-century Spanish sentries, march along the ramparts of the Castillo de San Carlos and fire a cannon that salutes the end of day. In Spanish times the cannon signaled the closing of the city gates and the drawing of a great chain across the harbor. Now the nightly ritual keeps open the sea-lane of memory between colonial past and present nationhood.
    Near the waterfront of Old Havana stands the Palace of the Captains General. Once the headquarters of the Spanish bureaucracy that governed Cuba, the palace now is the Museum of the city. Light and shadow play along its walls of coral limestone. Royal palms rustle in its lust courtyard. Up a stone stairway a gallery leads to the spacious office of Eusebio Leal Spengler, historian of the city of Havana and preserver of its past. A slight, precise man in a well-tailored dark suit, he is the obvious ruler of the palace.
    We had hardly shaken hands before he began rapidly talking about Havana, a city he sees simultaneously in past and present. The jewels I had viewed in the vault were about to become part of the treasure he guards for Cuba. He has selected an old fort to be their new home. "This," he said with a sweep of his hand, "is the city that changed history. Because of a decision by Philip Ⅱ all ships had to gather here to carry treasure back to Spain. And what treasure! Silk and aromatic wood from China, emeralds, silver."

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答案 我离开地窖,当卫兵关上门的时候,一位海洋考古学家问我是否还想看点别的什么,比如星盘,译一比六分仪还早的航海工具,这种工具现存的已经很少了。他说:“现在所知的年代最久远的星盘,我们就占据了三只。”他带我去看他的一位古巴同事所著的关于星盘的文章,文中摘引了一段16世纪关于星盘的说明:“在海上,若要测定太阳,你必须靠近主桅坐着,因为这个位置受到来自船的震荡最小,也最安静。” 我想了解的是古巴的过去,因此,我告诉这位考古学家我想去看看那些普通的东西。我到这儿来的目的不仅仅是为了参观这些闪光的珍宝,还想看一看并感触一下那些展示了古巴过去的东西。他微笑着带我进了几间储藏室。在这些储藏室里,我看到了他和其他的考古学家们珍藏的从近400年来的沉船残骸中搜集到的货物,杂乱地堆在架子上的东西表明了古巴曾作为西班牙新大陆殖民地的帐房和指挥中心的漫长时期。 在储藏室里,我看到了那些为18世纪一年一度的贸易博览会而准备的小装饰品。通过博览会,古巴人从西班牙进口货物。我还看到了数十件从英国海运回来的彩色的陶瓷小狗、狮子、小猫、小鹿等,经过数百年海水的冲刷,它们都已褪色不少。堆在近旁的还有好几套餐具,大啤酒杯,一只沙漏和一瓶很有年头的西班牙酒。 又一天傍晚,在暮色中,我在EI Morro堡垒的防护墙散步,堡垒的灯塔高高屹立在哈瓦那的港口边。这古老的边塞,白天迎来一批批游客,夜晚若隐若现,昭示着哈瓦那久远的过去。当火把燃起照亮黑夜时,我看到身着18世纪西班牙哨兵服饰的古巴士兵们沿着圣•卡洛斯城堡的防护墙走过,开炮宣告一天的结束。在西班牙时代,开炮就表示关城门并拉起环绕港口的长铁链子。而现在,在夜晚继续这一仪式,让人们更加铭记古巴作为殖民地的过去和它今天作为一个国家的地位。 在哈瓦那老城的海边伫立着总督府。它曾经是西班牙统治古巴的总部,现在却是这座城市的博物馆。光与影在珊瑚礁灰砌的墙上斑驳地舞动着。皇家的棕榈树在青草丛生的院子里发出沙沙的响声。拾级而上,一条走廊通向历史学家兼历史保护者奥•斯宾格勒的办公室。瘦削的他身着做工精细的黑色的礼服显得有些严谨。显而易见地,他统治着这座宫殿。 我们刚刚握完手,他已经飞快地讲起了哈瓦那,这座他见证了过去和现在的城市。我在地下室里参观过的珠宝将被置于他的保护之下。他已经挑选了一座古堡作为它们的新家。他的手一挥,说:“就是这座城市改变了历史。因为菲力普二世的一个决定,所有的船就不得不聚集于此将所有的珍宝都运回西班牙。那些宝贵的珍宝啊!有中国的丝绸和香料,还有猫眼石,银子等等。”

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