国家地理 加里曼丹岛的地底洞天(15)

One "day," with Mad Phil and a young caver named Ben, I explored along the left side of the chamber¹, searching for another entrance. Sarawak is so large that it contains many distinct precincts, and we climbed through at least half a dozen of them, passing from a pile of loose, muddy boulders² into a maze³ of limestone⁴ with walls sharp as the face of a cheese grater.

一天“白天”，我和疯狂菲尔还有一个叫本的年轻洞穴探险者一起沿着洞穴左侧探索，寻找另一个入口。砂拉越洞非常宽阔，里面有许多界限分明的区域。我们爬过了至少六个区域，穿过了一堆松散泥泞的大卵石，进入了一个石灰岩迷宫，那里的岩壁就像奶酪磨碎器一样尖锐。

In the end, Eavis's team did not rack up more record-setting discoveries. Frank and Cookie—the mud-covered pair, drilling and banging at the bottom of a cave—never connected the Clearwater cave system to its neighbor that seemed so tantalizingly⁵ close. But the expedition succeeded in finding and mapping a respectable 14 miles of new passages.

最后，艾维斯的队伍并没有更多创纪录的发现。在洞穴底部钻眼、敲击的弗兰克和库奇二人组浑身是泥，也没有找到清水洞洞穴系统和与之非常相似的邻区之间的联系。但探险队还是成功发现并绘制出了足足14英里长的新通道的线路图。

A few weeks after I left Borneo, I spoke⁶ with Eavis, who had returned to Britain. He told me he was already planning a return trip to Gunung Mulu National Park to connect the caves himself.

在我离开婆罗洲几周后，艾维斯回到了英国。我和他在一起聊天，他告诉我他已经计划回到姆鲁国家公园，亲自把找寻那些洞穴之间的联系。

"We were extremely close," he said.

“我们已经很接近了，”他说。

He assured me it was not the pursuit of records, or the odd celebrity⁷ his sport sometimes bestows⁸, that continued to drive him. He thought about the caves every day. His children knew well his stories from under the jungle.

他向我保证，不断驱使着他这样做的动力并不是对创纪录的追求，也不是这项运动是不是地给他带来的名气。他日思夜想着那些洞穴。他的孩子们熟知他在丛林之下的故事。

"My guess is that only 50 percent of the passages have been discovered," he said. "Wouldn't you just want to know? Mulu is this incredible place, and I want to know what's down there and see how all the pieces all fit together."

“我猜，人们只发现了一半的通道，”他说。“你难道不想知道吗？姆鲁是一个不可思议的地方，我想知道它下面有什么，看看各个分散的部分是如何拼凑成一个整体的。”

It was, he said, the labyrinth⁹ of a lifetime.

他说，这是一个千载难逢的迷宫。

1 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

2 boulders   

n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾

参考例句：

• Seals basked on boulders in a flat calm. 海面风平浪静，海豹在巨石上晒太阳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The river takes a headlong plunge into a maelstrom of rocks and boulders. 河水急流而下，入一个漂砾的漩涡中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

4 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

5 tantalizingly   

adv.…得令人着急，…到令人着急的程度

参考例句：

• A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals, tantalizingly within rifle range. 一群驯鹿走了过去，大约有二十多头，都呆在可望而不可即的来福枪的射程以内。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命
• She smiled at him tantalizingly. 她引诱性地对他笑着。 来自互联网

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

8 bestows   

赠给，授予( bestow的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Second, Xie Lingyun bestows on basic subject and emotion connotation. 谢灵运赋的基本主题及情感内涵。
• And the frigid climate bestows Heilongjiang rich resources of ice and snow. 寒冷的气候赋予了其得天独厚的冰雪资源。

9 labyrinth   

n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路

参考例句：

• He wandered through the labyrinth of the alleyways.他在迷宫似的小巷中闲逛。
• The human mind is a labyrinth.人的心灵是一座迷宫。