The Great Wall 万里长城 - 1

It's a thousand times longer than any monument ever built. Started before the Birth of Christ, it was still being built when Columbus sailed to America and millions died in its making. What unspeakable fears drove the Chinese to build the Great Wall, a wall they called “the longest cemetery¹ in the world”.

This is the wall that everybody knows about, where American presidents pose and millions of tourists visit every year. But few of those visitors realize that the floor they are rapidly wearing away and the walls they carve their initials on is younger than they are, rebuilt only a few decades ago.

But there is a lost wall, rarely visited and seldom filmed that lies just over the horizon. This is the real Great Wall of China. It starts on the shores of the Yellow Sea, and stretches through the mountains north of Beijing and into the heartland of North China. It has great fortified² castles and watchtowers at crucial mountain passes where enemy armies could easily breach³ the defenses.

It runs down to the shoreline of great rivers, then for thousands of miles it stretches through uninhabited deserts across unscalable mountains. At first, it is built of stone, but as it reaches the desert, it reverses into mud brick. And finally, the Great Wall ends here at this lonely watchtower overlooking the White River. It's the greatest feat⁴ of engineering in the world, running a staggering total of more than 4,000 miles from start to finish.

This is the 15th dawn Chen Daling has photographed in this month alone. But Chen is not only a photographer. He is a man who has dedicated⁵ his life to discovering everything he can about the Great Wall of China. For years, he searched the Chinese countryside for evidence of long forgotten and abandoned walls.

breach: break through, burst into

unscalable: not possible to scale

1 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

2 fortified   

adj. 加强的

参考例句：

• He fortified himself against the cold with a hot drink. 他喝了一杯热饮御寒。
• The enemy drew back into a few fortified points. 敌人收缩到几个据点里。

3 breach   

n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破

参考例句：

• We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
• He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。

4 feat   

n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的

参考例句：

• Man's first landing on the moon was a feat of great daring.人类首次登月是一个勇敢的壮举。
• He received a medal for his heroic feat.他因其英雄业绩而获得一枚勋章。

5 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。