There were two places that I particularly wanted to go to when I could make up my mind to tear myself away from the charms of Peking. One was the Tungling, or Eastern Tombs, the tombs where the great Empress-Dowager and most of the Manchu Emperors were buried, and Jehol, the Hunting Palace of the Manchus, away to the north in Inner Mongolia, or on the outermost2 edge of the Province of Chihli, for boundaries are vague things in that out-of-the-way part of the world. I wondered if I could combine them both if instead of coming back to Peking after visiting the tombs I might make my way over the mountains to Jehol. With that end in view I instituted inquiries3, only to find that while many people knew a man, or had heard of several men who had been, I never struck the knowledgeable4 man himself. The only thing was to start out on my own account, and I knew then I should soon arrive at the difficulties to be overcome, not the least of them was two hundred 152and eighty miles in a Peking cart. The only drawback to that arrangement was that if I didn't like the difficulties when I did meet them, there could be no drawing back. They would have to be faced.
Accordingly I engaged a servant with a rudimentary knowledge of English. When the matter we spoke5 of was of no importance, such as my dinner, I could generally understand him, when it was of importance, such as the difficulties of the way, I could not, but I guessed, or the events themselves as they unfolded became explanatory. This gentleman was a small person with noble views on the subject of squeeze, as it pertained6 to Missie's servant, and he wore on state occasions a long black coat of brocaded silk, slit7 at the sides, and on all occasions the short hairs that fringed the shaven front of his head stood up like a black horsehair halo. He was badly pock-marked, very cheerful, and an excellent servant, engineering me over difficulties so well that I had to forgive him the squeeze, though in small matters I was occasionally made aware I was paying not double the price, but seven times what it ought to have been. However one buys one's experience. He was my first servant and I paid him thirty dollars a month, so I was squeezed on that basis. A six months' stay in China convinced me I could get as good a servant for fifteen dollars a month, and feel he was well paid.
His name was Tuan, pronounced as if it began with a “D,” and he engaged for me two Peking carts with a driver each, and two mules8 apiece. One was for myself and some of my luggage, the other took 153my servant, my humble9 kitchen utensils10, and the rest of my baggage; and one Sunday morning in May, it is hardly necessary to say it was sunny, because a dull morning in May in Northern China is an exception hailed with joy, the carts appeared at the door of the “Wagons12 Lits,” and we were ready to start. At least everything was ready but me. I ached in every limb, and felt sure that I was just beginning an attack of influenza13. What was to be done? I longed with a great longing14 for my peaceful bed. I did not want to go venturing forth15 into the, to me, unknown wilds of China, but I had engaged those carts at the rate of seven dollars a day for the two, and I felt that I really could not afford to linger. Possibly the fresh air might do me good. At any rate, I reflected thankfully, as I climbed into the foremost cart, no active exertion16 was required of me. And that only shows how remarkably17 little I knew about a Peking cart. A man and a girl of my acquaintance rose up early in the morning to accompany me the first ten miles on donkeys, we had tiffin together beneath the shade of some pine-trees in a graveyard18, and then they wished me good-bye, and I started off with the comfortable feeling that arises from the parting good wishes of kind friends.
Now a Peking cart is a very venerable mode of progression. When our ancestors were lightly dressed in woad, and had no conception of any wheeled vehicle, the Chinese lady was paying her calls sitting in the back of a Peking cart, the seat of honour under the tilt19, well out of the sight of the passers-by, while-her servant sat in front, the place of comfort, if such a word can be applied20 to anything 154pertaining to a Peking cart, for in spite of its long and aristocratic record if there is any mode of progression more wearying and uncomfortable I have not met it. It is simply a springless board set on a couple of wheels with a wagon11 tilt of blue cotton, if you are not imperial, over it, and a place for heavy luggage behind. The Chinaman sits on the floor and does not seem to mind, but the ordinary Westerner, such as I am, packs his bedding and all the cushions he can raise around him, and then resigns himself to his fate. It has one advantage people will tell you, it has nothing to break in it, but there are moments when it would be a mighty21 relief if something did break, for if the woodwork holds together, as it tosses you from side to side, you yourself are one sore, bruised22 mass. No, I cannot recommend a Peking cart, even on the smoothest road.
And the roads in China are not smooth. We all know the description of the snakes in Ireland, “There are no snakes,” and if in the same manner could be described the roads in China, blessed would the roads in China be, but as China is a densely23 populated country there are so-called roads, upon which the people move about, but I have seldom met one that was any better than the surrounding country, and very, very often on this journey did I meet roads where it was ease and luxury to move off them on to the neighbouring ploughed field. The receipt for a road there in the north seems to be: Take a piece of the country that is really too bad to plough or to use for any agricultural purposes whatever, that a mountain torrent24, in fact, has given up as too much for the water, 155upset a stone wall over it, a stone wall with good large stones in it, take care they never for a moment lie evenly, and you have your road.
0233
Leaving Peking for the Eastern Tombs you go for the first two or three hours along a paved way of magnificent proportions, planned and laid out as a great highway should be. The great stones with which it is paved were probably put there by slave labour, how many hundred years ago I do not know, but the blocks are uneven25 now, some of them are gone altogether, though how a huge block of stone could possibly disappear passes my understanding, and whenever the carter could, he took the cart down beside the road, where at least the dust made a cushion for the nail-studded wheels, and the jarring and the jolting27 were not quite so terrible.
It takes as long to get beyond the environs of Peking in a cart as it does to get out of London in a motor-car. First we passed through the Babylonish gate, and the great walls were behind us, then, outside the city, all looking dusty, dirty, and khaki-coloured in the brilliant sunshine, were numerous small houses, and the wayside was lined with booths on which were things for sale, green vegetables and salads looking inviting28, if I could have forgotten the danger of enteric, unappetising-looking meat, bones, the backbones29 of sheep from which all flesh had been taken, eggs, piles of cakes and small pies, shoes, clothes, samovars, everything a poor man in a primitive30 community can possibly require, and along the roadway came an endless array of people, clad for the most part in blue cotton, men walking, men with loads slung31 from a 156bamboo across their shoulders, donkeys laden32 with baskets, with sacks of grain, with fat Chinese on their backs, with small-footed women being transported from one place to another; there were Peking carts, there were mules, there were ponies33; and this busy throng34 is almost the same as it was a couple of thousand years ago. I wondered; could I have taken a peep at the outskirts35 of London in the days of Elizabeth of happy memory, would it not have been like this? But no. The sky here is bright and clear, the sunshine hot, and the faces of the moving crowd are yellow and oriental. This crowd is like the men who toiled36 round the quarries37 of Babylon or Nineveh, and it is perhaps more satisfied with itself and its position in the universe than any like company of people anywhere in the world. That impression was forced upon me as I stayed in Peking, it grew and grew as I got farther away from the great city, and out into the country.
But it was a long, long while before I could feel I was really in the country. There was the khaki-coloured land, there were the khaki-coloured houses built of mud apparently38, with graceful39, tiled roofs, and blue-clad people everywhere, and everywhere at work. Always the fields were most beautifully tilled, there were no fences, the Chinese is too civilised to need a fence, and when you see stone walls it is only because, since they can't be dropped off the planet into space, the stones must be disposed of somehow, here and there the kaoliang was coming up like young wheat, in vivid green patches that were a relief from the general dust, and occasionally there were trees, willow40 or poplar or fir, delightful41 to look upon, that marked a graveyard, 157and then, just as I was beginning to hope I was out in the country, a walled town would loom42 up.
And in the dusk of the evening we stopped and met for the first time the discomforts43 of a Chinese inn.
We had started rather late, and I had spent so much time bidding farewell to my friends, that we did not reach the town we had intended to, but put up at a small inn in a small hamlet. This, my first inn was, like most Chinese inns, a line of one-storied buildings, built round the four sides of a large courtyard. Mixed up with the rooms were the stalls for the beasts, the mules and the little grey donkeys, with an occasional pony44 or two, and the courtyard was dotted with stone or wooden mangers. In the pleasant May weather there was no need to put all the beasts under cover, and there were so many travellers there was not room in the stalls for all the beasts.
It was all wonderfully Eastern. I remembered, I could not but remember, how once there arrived at such an inn a little company, weary and tired, and “so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished45 that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger: because there was no room for them in the inn.”
I thought of that little company as the Peking cart jolted46 over the step that is on the threshold of all Chinese doors—no one considers comfort in China, what is a jolt26 more or less, a Peking cart will not break—and I found myself in the courtyard, and a trestle was brought for me to get down from 158the cart. I might have jumped, I suppose, but one hundred li, about thirty miles, had left me stiff and aching in every limb. My head ached too with the influenza, and when I inspected the room offered for my accommodation, I only wished drearily47 that there had been no room in this particular inn, and that I might have slept out in the open.
But that first day as I went across the plain, that while there were no hills upon it rose slowly towards the hills, I realised that in China, there is not the charm of the open road, you may not sleep under the sky, you must put up at an inn, you would as soon think of camping out in one of the suburbs of London. Indeed you might easily find more suitable places for camping about Surbiton or Richmond than you would among the sterile48 hills or cultivated valley bottoms of Northern China. I hoped against hope for three days. I had a comfortable sleeping-bag and the nights were fine, it seemed it would be so simple a thing to camp a little off the roadside, even though I had no tent, and that first night, when I smelled the smell of the rooms, rank and abominable49, and reeking50 of human occupancy, I envied my mules, and said that as I got farther into the country I could certainly sleep outside.
“Room for ten thousand merchant guests,” said the innkeeper in characters of black on red paper over his door, and unless those merchants were very small indeed, I am sure I don't know where he proposed to put them. I remembered with a shudder51, that one man of my acquaintance had said: “What I cannot stand is the perpetual tramp, 159tramp, all night,” and I had my suspicions that the guests were small on this occasion, and I feared lest they were going to be catered52 for. There were also notices in the effective red and black that the landlord would not be responsible for any valuables not confided53 to his care, and exhorting54 the guests to be careful of fire. And it seemed to me, as I looked at the rotting thatch55 and the dubious56 grey walls, that a fire in this inn would be the very best thing that could happen to it. You see I was specially57 particular this first night. I thought the next inn might be better. I had a good deal to learn. “The tiger from the Eastern Hills and the tiger from the Western Hills,” says the Chinese proverb, “are both the same.” So everywhere a Chinese inn is about as bad as it can be. They are mostly used by carters, and well-to-do people always go to temples, when they are available. There wasn't a temple about here, and I didn't know I could have lodged58 there had there been one, so I resigned myself to the inevitable60, and wondered with all the energy that was left in me what adverse61 fate had set me down here. I might have gone back, of course. In a way I was my own mistress; but after all, we none of us own ourselves in this world. I had a book to write, and material for that book was not to be got by staying comfortably in the Wagons Lits Hotel, and therefore I very reluctantly peeped into a room from which clouds of dust were issuing, and which smelt62 worse than any place I had ever before thought of using as a bed-chamber and dining-room combined. The dust was because I had impressed upon the valued Tuan that I must have a clean room, so he had importantly turned 160two coolies on to stir up the dust of ages, a thousand years at least, I should say, there seemed no end to it, and I wondered, in addition to the merchant guests, what awful microbes were being wakened out of their long sleep. Left alone, they might have been buried so deep that they might not have come nigh me; but he was giving them all a chance. After all it was only fair, a foreign woman did not visit a Chinese inn every day of the week. After more dust than I had ever seen before all at once, had come out of that room, I instructed water to be brought and poured on things in general, and, when the turmoil63 had quieted down a little, I went in and inspected my quarters.
They all bear a strong family resemblance to one another, the rooms of these Chinese inns. I always tried to get one that opened directly on to the courtyard, as giving more chance of air. The Chinese, as a rule, have not much use for fresh air. Tuan, had he had his way, would have shut the door fast, as being more correct and private, and then I should have been in an hermetically sealed room, lighted all along the courtyard side by a most dainty latticework window covered with white tissue paper, or rather tissue paper that had once been white. It had been well-smoked during the winter, and a considerable quantity of the dust that had been so industriously64 stirred up, had lodged there. But air I must have, so I had the paper stripped off from the top of the window as far down as my desire for privacy would allow. Below, the more daring spirits, who had assembled to see the foreign woman, wetted their fingers and poked65 them softly through the bottom part of the window; and then 161an eye appeared, so that it really seemed at first as if I might as well have been comfortable and had all the paper off. I went outside, and let it plainly be seen that I was very angry indeed, and then Tuan, who had a great idea of my dignity, or rather of his dignity, which was as nothing if I was of no consequence, put one of the “cartee men” on guard, and once more I retired66 to my uncomfortable lodging67. It had a stone floor, being quite a superior sort of inn, the poorer sort have only beaten earth, there were two wooden chairs of dark wood, high, with narrow and uncomfortable seats, a table, also uncomfortably high, and of course, the k'ang. Most people know all about the k'ang now, but this was my first introduction to it as a working piece of furniture. It is a platform of stone about two feet high, so constructed that a small fire lighted underneath68, and a very small fire it is, carries the warmth, by a system of flues, all over it. It is covered generally with matting, and on it is always a k'ang table, a little table about eighteen inches square and a foot high, and, though this is not intentional69, covered with the grease of many meals.
I looked doubtfully at the k'ang this first day. It seemed to me I could not lodge59 in such a place, and I wished heartily70 that I had left the describing of China to some more hardened traveller. There was a grass mat upon it, hiding its stoniness71, and I had powdered borax sprinkled over it, about half a tin of Keating's followed, though I am told the insects in China rather like Keating's, and only then did I venture to have my bed set up. Alongside was placed my india-rubber bath, the gift of a friend, and every night of that journey did I thank her with 162all my heart, it was so much nicer than my old canvas bath, and making sure that the “cartee man” was still on guard I proceeded to wash and undress and creep into my sleeping-bag.
At only one Chinese inn where I stayed could food for the traveller be had, and that was, I think, only because it combined the functions of innkeeping and restaurant. In any case, of course, the foreign traveller would not think of eating Chinese food, and I, like everyone else, provided my own. I brought with me rice, tea, and flour. Tuan cooked for me on an absurd little charcoal72 stove upon which I might have succeeded in boiling an egg. With the exception of those few stores, I lived off the country, buying chickens and eggs, onions, and hard little pears; Tuan doing the buying, charging me at a rate that made me wonder how on earth the “Wagons Lits” managed to board and lodge its guests at a day. I used to think that, for sheer toughness, the palm might be given to the West African chicken, but I withdraw that statement, he isn't in it alongside the Chinese. We used to buy small birds about the size of a pigeon, But an elderly ostrich73 couldn't have been tougher. My teeth, thank Heaven, are excellent, but the Chinese chicken was too much for them. I then saw why Tuan had provided a chopper for kitchen use, he called it “cookee knife,” and the fiat74 went forth—I would have no more chicken unless it was minced.
But that first night I couldn't look at chicken, I couldn't even laugh at the woodeny pears and rice which were the next course. I declined everything, lay in bed and drank tea, the wind came in through 163the open lattice-work, guttered75 my candle and then blew it out, and I, first hot, and then cold, and always miserable76, stared at the luminous77 night sky, cut into squares by the lattice-work of the window, was conscious of every bone in my body, and wondered if I were not going to be very ill indeed.
点击收听单词发音
1 minced | |
v.切碎( mince的过去式和过去分词 );剁碎;绞碎;用绞肉机绞(食物,尤指肉) | |
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2 outermost | |
adj.最外面的,远离中心的 | |
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3 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
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4 knowledgeable | |
adj.知识渊博的;有见识的 | |
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5 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 | |
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6 pertained | |
关于( pertain的过去式和过去分词 ); 有关; 存在; 适用 | |
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7 slit | |
n.狭长的切口;裂缝;vt.切开,撕裂 | |
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8 mules | |
骡( mule的名词复数 ); 拖鞋; 顽固的人; 越境运毒者 | |
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9 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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10 utensils | |
器具,用具,器皿( utensil的名词复数 ); 器物 | |
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11 wagon | |
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车 | |
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12 wagons | |
n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 );铁路货车;小手推车 | |
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13 influenza | |
n.流行性感冒,流感 | |
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14 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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15 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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16 exertion | |
n.尽力,努力 | |
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17 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
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18 graveyard | |
n.坟场 | |
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19 tilt | |
v.(使)倾侧;(使)倾斜;n.倾侧;倾斜 | |
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20 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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21 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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22 bruised | |
[医]青肿的,瘀紫的 | |
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23 densely | |
ad.密集地;浓厚地 | |
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24 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
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25 uneven | |
adj.不平坦的,不规则的,不均匀的 | |
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26 jolt | |
v.(使)摇动,(使)震动,(使)颠簸 | |
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27 jolting | |
adj.令人震惊的 | |
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28 inviting | |
adj.诱人的,引人注目的 | |
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29 backbones | |
n.骨干( backbone的名词复数 );脊骨;骨气;脊骨状物 | |
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30 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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31 slung | |
抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往 | |
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32 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
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33 ponies | |
矮种马,小型马( pony的名词复数 ); £25 25 英镑 | |
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34 throng | |
n.人群,群众;v.拥挤,群集 | |
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35 outskirts | |
n.郊外,郊区 | |
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36 toiled | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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37 quarries | |
n.(采)石场( quarry的名词复数 );猎物(指鸟,兽等);方形石;(格窗等的)方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 );从(书本等中)努力发掘(资料等);在采石场采石 | |
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38 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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39 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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40 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
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41 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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42 loom | |
n.织布机,织机;v.隐现,(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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43 discomforts | |
n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 );不愉快,苦恼 | |
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44 pony | |
adj.小型的;n.小马 | |
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45 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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46 jolted | |
(使)摇动, (使)震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 drearily | |
沉寂地,厌倦地,可怕地 | |
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48 sterile | |
adj.不毛的,不孕的,无菌的,枯燥的,贫瘠的 | |
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49 abominable | |
adj.可厌的,令人憎恶的 | |
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50 reeking | |
v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 );散发臭气;发出难闻的气味 (of sth);明显带有(令人不快或生疑的跡象) | |
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51 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
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52 catered | |
提供饮食及服务( cater的过去式和过去分词 ); 满足需要,适合 | |
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53 confided | |
v.吐露(秘密,心事等)( confide的过去式和过去分词 );(向某人)吐露(隐私、秘密等) | |
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54 exhorting | |
v.劝告,劝说( exhort的现在分词 ) | |
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55 thatch | |
vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部;n.茅草(屋) | |
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56 dubious | |
adj.怀疑的,无把握的;有问题的,靠不住的 | |
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57 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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58 lodged | |
v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 );暂住;埋入;(权利、权威等)归属 | |
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59 lodge | |
v.临时住宿,寄宿,寄存,容纳;n.传达室,小旅馆 | |
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60 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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61 adverse | |
adj.不利的;有害的;敌对的,不友好的 | |
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62 smelt | |
v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼 | |
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63 turmoil | |
n.骚乱,混乱,动乱 | |
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64 industriously | |
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65 poked | |
v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 );戳出;拨弄;与(某人)性交 | |
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66 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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67 lodging | |
n.寄宿,住所;(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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68 underneath | |
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面 | |
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69 intentional | |
adj.故意的,有意(识)的 | |
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70 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
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71 stoniness | |
冷漠,一文不名 | |
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72 charcoal | |
n.炭,木炭,生物炭 | |
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73 ostrich | |
n.鸵鸟 | |
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74 fiat | |
n.命令,法令,批准;vt.批准,颁布 | |
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75 guttered | |
vt.形成沟或槽于…(gutter的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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76 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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77 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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