Number thirteen on the Bund is the Customs House, and it is the fourth customs building to stand on this ground. The first was a Chinese official yamen from 1846, timber and tile with a courtyard. It burned. The second, in 1857, was a strange thing, a Chinese temple roof over a set of European offices. The third, in 1893, was Gothic, and it lasted until the port outgrew it. The building we are looking at opened in 1927.
外滩十三号是江海关大楼，这块地上的第四代海关。第一代是 1846 年的中式衙门，木结构瓦顶，带院子，后来烧了。第二代 1857 年建成，样子很怪，中式歇山屋顶罩着一整套欧式办公房。第三代 1893 年建成，改成了哥特式，一直用到港口的吞吐量超过它为止。各位现在看到的这一幢 1927 年启用。
It was designed by Palmer and Turner, the same firm that did the bank next door, and the two were meant to be read together. Doric columns across the front, granite on the lower storeys, and above them a plain shaft rising to the clock tower. Seventy-nine metres to the top of the tower, which made it the tallest thing on the Bund for the next seventy years. Walk into the entrance hall and look up. The vaulted2 ceiling carries eight mosaic panels of sailing ships, and the sixteen-pointed star in the middle is a compass rose3.
设计者是公和洋行，跟隔壁那家银行同一家事务所，两幢楼当初就是配着看的。正面一排多立克柱，下面几层花岗岩，往上是一段素净的塔身接到钟楼。到钟楼顶七十九米，此后七十年它一直是外滩上最高的。走进门厅请抬头看，穹顶上有八幅帆船马赛克，正中那颗十六角星是罗盘玫瑰。
The clock is the part people remember. Four faces, each over five metres across, and behind them a mechanism4 made by J B Joyce in Whitchurch, England, on the pattern of Big Ben. One large bell and four small ones hang above it, and the heaviest of the three driving weights that turn the whole thing comes to two tonnes. The whole assembly came out by ship in 1927 and took a month to install. Two engineers wind it and check it to this day.
大家记住的往往是那口钟。四面钟盘，每面直径五米多，后面的机芯由英国惠特彻奇的乔伊斯厂制造，照大本钟的样式做的。上方挂着一口大钟和四口小钟，大钟报整点，小钟报刻；带动它们的三个重锤里，最重的一个有两吨。整套设备 1927 年海运到岸，装了一个月。到今天还有两位师傅上弦、校时。
What it plays has changed with the times. From New Year's Day 1928 it struck the Westminster chimes1, the same tune as the London clock. In 1966 the mechanism was rebuilt to play The East Is Red. In October 1986, before Queen Elizabeth visited Shanghai, the Westminster chimes were restored for her, and they stayed until 1997, when the clock went back to The East Is Red. That is what you hear on the hour today. If your group is here just before the hour, stop talking and let them listen. It carries a long way over the water.
它奏什么曲子跟着时代变。1928 年元旦起打的是威斯敏斯特钟声，跟伦敦那口钟一个调。1966 年机构改过，换成《东方红》。1986 年 10 月英国女王访问上海之前，为她恢复了威斯敏斯特钟声，一直用到 1997 年才改回《东方红》。今天整点听到的就是《东方红》。团队要是赶在整点前几分钟到，索性别讲了，让他们听。这个声音在水面上传得很远。