We have turned off the riverfront into a quieter block. The Chinese call this area Waitanyuan, which means where the Bund begins. The name is geographic and historical at the same time. This is the northern end of the mile-and-a-half curve, and it is also where the first foreign buildings on the Bund went up, twenty years before anything grand appeared to the south.
我们从江边拐进了一个安静些的街区。这一带中文叫外滩源，意思是外滩开始的地方。这个名字既说位置，也说历史。这里是那道一公里半弧线的北端，也是外滩上最早一批外国建筑立起来的地方，比南边那些大楼早了二十年。
The low building behind the lawn is the former British Consulate, number thirty-three on the Bund. Britain took this site in 1849, six years after the port opened, and the consulate that stands here now dates from 1873 after fire destroyed the first one. It is the oldest surviving building on the whole Bund. Two storeys, a deep verandah1 on each floor, thick walls. That shape has a name. It is the colonial verandah style, worked out in India and carried east, and you will see it again in Guangzhou and Xiamen.
草坪后面那幢矮楼是英国领事馆旧址，外滩三十三号。英国 1849 年拿下这块地，那时开埠才六年，现在这幢是 1873 年重建的，头一幢烧掉了。它是整条外滩上现存最老的建筑。两层，每层一圈很深的外廊，墙很厚。这个样式有名字，叫外廊式，在印度成型后一路往东传，广州和厦门也能看到。
Now look down Yuanmingyuan Road. Eleven historic buildings stand along three hundred metres, put up between 1900 and 1936 for missions, learned societies4 and the YWCA. The Royal Asiatic Society building of 1932 is the one with the Greek key pattern and the Chinese bagua motif3 on the same facade2. Since 2010 it has housed the Rockbund Art Museum. Next to it the Lyceum Building, the Capitol Building and the True Light Building carry on the row, all restored rather than rebuilt.
请各位看圆明园路这一排。三百米里站着十一幢历史建筑，1900 到 1936 年间陆续盖起来，原来的主人有教会、学术团体和女青年会。1932 年的亚洲文会大楼最好认，同一面立面上既有希腊回纹又有中国八卦。2010 年起它成了外滩美术馆。旁边兰心大楼、光陆大楼、真光大楼接着排下去，都是修出来的，不是拆了重盖的。
The whole block is closed to cars, so you can walk it at your own pace. Half an hour is enough for a slow loop, and there are cafes in the ground floors if you want to sit. One thing to notice as you go. South of here the Bund shows you banks and customs houses, the money of the city. Here you get the churches, the libraries and the learned societies, the other half of what the settlement built. Photographs come out best in the late afternoon, when the sun comes down the street rather than across it.
整个街区不通车，各位可以按自己的节奏走。慢慢绕一圈半小时够了，底层有咖啡馆，想坐下随时可以。走的时候留意一点。往南的外滩给你看的是银行和海关，是这座城市的钱。这里留下的是教堂、图书馆和学术团体，是租界盖起来的另一半。拍照最好赶下午晚些时候，那时太阳顺着街照进来，不是横着打。