“The world and men are just reciprocal,
Yet contrary. Spirit invadeth sense
And carries captive Nature. Be this true,
All good is Heaven, and all ill is Hell.”
Bailey.
The southern and most eastern portion of Hawaii was, at the period of this tale, in great part, a sterile1, volcanic2 region, with but scanty3 vegetation and a scanty supply of water. Mauna Loa occupied the larger part, with its immense dome4 and volcano. It threw off on its flanks, vast rivers formed by the flow from its summit of torrents5 of lava6, which, in cooling, broke up into a myriad7 of fantastic forms. In some places they presented large tracks of volcanic rock, in easy slopes, as smooth as if a sluggish8 stream of oil had been suddenly changed to stone,—in others, the sharp vitrified edges, broken, basaltic masses, and savage9 look of the whole, suggested the thought of a black ocean petrified10 at the instant when a typhoon begins to subside11, and the waves running steeple high toss and tumble, break and foam12, into a thousand wild currents and irregular shapes. No verdure of any kind found root in these wastes. The sole nourishment13 they offered was an occasional[126] supply of rain-water, left in the hollows of the rocks. It was impossible to traverse them, unless the feet were protected by sandals, impenetrable to the heat which was reflected from the glassy surfaces of the smooth rock, or the knife-like edges of the jagged lava, which formed a path as unpleasant as if it had been freshly macadamized with broken beer bottles. Fresh currents of lava yearly flowed over the old, adding to the blackness of its desolation. The fumes14 of sulphur and other poisonous gases, the lurid15 glare of liquid rock, explosions and mutterings, belchings and heavings, the quaking and trembling of the fire-eaten ground and jets of mingled16 earth and water,—the very elements fuzed into whirlpools and fountains of nature’s gore17, redder and more clotted18 than human blood, while fiery19 ashes obscured the sky, and heavy rocks shot up as if from hell’s mortars20, burst high in the air, or fell far away from their discharging craters21 with the crash and roar of thunderbolts,—such at times were the scenes and atmosphere of much of this district.
Still the coasts and many of the valleys afforded sufficient arable23 ground to support quite a numerous population. The climate was as variable as the variety of altitudes it covered. On the seaside, to the leeward24 of the fire-mountains, it was burning with the heat of Sahara, and all but rainless, while the highest portions were almost continually enveloped25 in clouds and dense26 vapors28. The natives were familiar with both the tropical palm and the frigid29 lichens30, perpetual heat and perpetual[127] cold, boiling springs and never melting ice, the precocious31 luxuriance and the utter sterility32 of nature, all within a circuit of not over one hundred and fifty miles.
I doubt if the earth’s surface affords elsewhere more rapid transitions of zones within a more limited territory than Hawaii. Her phenomena33 of all kinds, and even her productions, though limited in variety, are on no niggard scale. The active and extinct volcanoes are the largest known,—her mountains, not in chains, but isolated34, are the more impressive to the eye, from their solitary35 grandeur36, rising as they do directly from the ocean, which encircling them leads off the view into immensity. Thus the grandeur of this wonderful island becomes complete.
In the middle-ground between the hot country of the coast and the cold of the highest region, there is a neutral spot or belt, where the creative and destructive agencies of nature are in intimate contact. Here we find heavy forests with trees of immense size, growing upon a soil so thin, that earthquakes frequently tilted37 them to the ground, throwing roots and the clinging earth into the air, and leaving bare the rock beneath. Amid seas of cold lava arise islets of shrubbery; verdant38 spots, where the strawberry, raspberry, and other fruits grow, planted in ages past by the provident39 agency of birds, that have here rested in their flights from more prolific40 soils. Now they yield welcome harvests to the colonies of their first sowers and to man. Although fire so often lays them waste, they speedily recover[128] their fertility, and, indeed, are gradually pushing vegetation into the increasing soil on all sides, thus adding slowly to the area of habitable earth.
The inhabitants of this region partook of its character. They were brave, hardy41, fierce, and cruel; as uncertain as their volcanoes, and as savage as their soil. The sybaritic life of their more favored neighbors had no attractions for them, except as a temptation for foray. They loved to seize upon the luxuries they were too ignorant to create for themselves, and indeed which nature almost denied them. But the superior arms and discipline of Kiana’s people in general prevailed, and they were confined within their own borders, although sometimes a successful expedition supplied them with both slaves and victims for sacrifice to the gods of their terrible mythology42. For they saw in the mighty43 agencies of nature around them, only malignant44 and sanguinary deities45, whom they feared and sought to appease46 by rites47 as horrible as their own imagination.
The great crater22 of Mauna Loa was their Olympus. Amid its glowing fires, or high up in the perpetual snows of the mountain, resided their awful goddess Pele, with her sister train and attendants of the other sex, whose names best express their terrific attributes. It will be noticed that like the Grecian, their mythology had its origin in[129] their elementary conceptions of the facts of natural philosophy, which in time, by their darker imaginations, were personified into a family of monsters, instead of the poetical48 fancies of the sensuous49 Greek. “Hiaka-wawahi-lani,” the heaven dwelling50 cloud-holder, and “Makole-inawahi-waa,” the fiery-eyed cave breaker, were the sisters of Pele, and with the brothers “Kamoho-alii,” the king of steam and vapor27, “Kapoha-ikahi-ala,” the explosion in the palace of life, “Kenakepo,” the rain of night, “Kanekekili,” thundering god, and “Keoahi-kama-kana,” fire-thrusting child of war; the latter two were like Vulcan deformed,—made up her court. Their favorite sporting place was the volcano of Kilauea, where they were always to be seen, revelling51 in its flames, or bathing in its red surges, to the chorus of its terrific thunderings or frightful52 mutterings.
My readers will, I trust, forgive me the insertion of these sentence-long names for the poetry there is in them, and if they will pronounce them with the soft accent of Southern Europe, they will find them as melodious53 as their definitions are expressive54.
But it was not alone to these deities these savages55 paid homage56. They worshipped a mammoth57 shark, and fed him with human victims, casting them alive within the enclosed water in which they kept their ferocious58 pet. This was not quite so bad as feeding lampreys on slaves, for their sin was done under a mistaken idea of religion, while the other was to glut59 revenge, and fatten60 eels61 for their[130] owner’s dinner. If we condemn62 the unintellectual Indian for his sacrifices and his tabus, how much more must we pass under condemnation63 the Roman for his inhumanity, and the Catholic for his Inquisition; the one sinning in the full light of knowledge, and the other of both knowledge and revelation.
As Kiana had partially64 succeeded in placing the rites of worship among his sensuous people upon a cheerful and in a material view, an elevated footing, so the priests of these tribes had in every conceivable way augmented65 the terrors and demoniacal attributes of theirs, and shaped them into the likeness66 of a devil, called “Kalaipahoa,” which combined all the ugliness their imaginations were capable of conceiving in a wooden idol67, sufficiently68 hideous69 to have sent a thrill of horror even through Dante’s Inferno70. It was the poison god, and was made of a wood, which the priests gave out to be deadly poisonous. Its huge, grinning mouth was filled with rows of sharks’ teeth, human hair in brutish curls covered its head, while its extended arms and spread fingers continually cried, “give, give,” to the poor victims of its fears.
[131]
Such, in brief, were the chief objects of worship among these Hawaiians, whose habits in other respects offered a strong contrast to those of Kiana’s people. Cannibalism71, though not very common, was not rare among the most ferocious of the clans72, but was restricted chiefly to feasts of revenge after contests in which all their cruel propensities73 had been fully74 aroused. They were given to the worst forms of sorcery, and their worship embraced such rites as might be supposed to be pleasing to their demon-idols. Always at war, either among themselves, or with their more favored neighbors of the north, their selfish passions were ever active, and their religion, based upon fear and the most abject75 superstition76, but confirmed them in the vices77 most congenial to their natures. Kiana’s subjects presented the aborigines of Polynesia under their most favorable aspect, but these tribes the other extreme of savage life. With both there were exceptions to the general character. There was, however, sufficient similarity between their traits to prove not only a common parentage, but that a change of circumstances would, in time, produce an alteration79 in the most prominent qualities of each. This actually occurred, nearly three centuries later, when the first Kamehameha united the islands under one sovereign. But even now the traveller perceives in the sparse80 inhabitants of these regions a less genial78 disposition81 than in those on the sea-coast, while it is among them that still linger most pertinaciously82 the traces of their former fearful worship.
Among their chiefs was one named Pohaku, who[132] had acquired by his superior courage and fierceness an ascendency over all the others. He was dark even for a native; his hair short and crispy; his eyes blood-shot; nostrils83 thick and wide spread, and his lips heavy and full, showing, when open, a mouth in which great milky84 white teeth appeared like scattered85 tomb-stones in a graveyard86; many having been knocked out in the various fights in which he had been engaged. His frame and muscles were those of a bull, and his strength prodigious87. Brute88 force was his tenure89 of power, for with all the respect of the Hawaiians for inherited rank, he was so bad a tyrant90, that nothing but a convenient opportunity had been wanting for them long before to have rid themselves of him. So malicious91 was his vanity, that he had been known to cut off the leg of a man more richly tattooed92 than his own. To mangle93 faces, whose beauty inspired him with jealousy94, was a common pastime. Thankful were the possessors if their entire heads were spared. Even a handsome head of hair was sufficient provocation95 to cause the owner to be beheaded. To this malevolence96 he joined a mania97 for building. What with his wars, cruelties and constant consumption of time in his rude works, his immediate98 tenants99 had a hard service, so that it was not surprising that they took every occasion to desert to the territories of Kiana, who kindly100 received all who claimed his protection. Others retreated farther into the savage wilderness101, and there became petty robbers, a further pest to the little industry that could exist under such a ruler, and on so precarious102 a soil.[133] The whole population, therefore, bred to hardihood and tyranny, were ever ripe for every opportunity which would unite them in any enterprise that savored103 of danger and plunder104.
点击收听单词发音
1 sterile | |
adj.不毛的,不孕的,无菌的,枯燥的,贫瘠的 | |
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2 volcanic | |
adj.火山的;象火山的;由火山引起的 | |
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3 scanty | |
adj.缺乏的,仅有的,节省的,狭小的,不够的 | |
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4 dome | |
n.圆屋顶,拱顶 | |
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5 torrents | |
n.倾注;奔流( torrent的名词复数 );急流;爆发;连续不断 | |
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6 lava | |
n.熔岩,火山岩 | |
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7 myriad | |
adj.无数的;n.无数,极大数量 | |
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8 sluggish | |
adj.懒惰的,迟钝的,无精打采的 | |
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9 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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10 petrified | |
adj.惊呆的;目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆,使惊呆;变僵硬;使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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11 subside | |
vi.平静,平息;下沉,塌陷,沉降 | |
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12 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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13 nourishment | |
n.食物,营养品;营养情况 | |
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14 fumes | |
n.(强烈而刺激的)气味,气体 | |
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15 lurid | |
adj.可怕的;血红的;苍白的 | |
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16 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
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17 gore | |
n.凝血,血污;v.(动物)用角撞伤,用牙刺破;缝以补裆;顶 | |
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18 clotted | |
adj.凝结的v.凝固( clot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19 fiery | |
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的 | |
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20 mortars | |
n.迫击炮( mortar的名词复数 );砂浆;房产;研钵 | |
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21 craters | |
n.火山口( crater的名词复数 );弹坑等 | |
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22 crater | |
n.火山口,弹坑 | |
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23 arable | |
adj.可耕的,适合种植的 | |
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24 leeward | |
adj.背风的;下风的 | |
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25 enveloped | |
v.包围,笼罩,包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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27 vapor | |
n.蒸汽,雾气 | |
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28 vapors | |
n.水汽,水蒸气,无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 );自夸者;幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁(症)v.自夸,(使)蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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29 frigid | |
adj.寒冷的,凛冽的;冷淡的;拘禁的 | |
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30 lichens | |
n.地衣( lichen的名词复数 ) | |
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31 precocious | |
adj.早熟的;较早显出的 | |
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32 sterility | |
n.不生育,不结果,贫瘠,消毒,无菌 | |
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33 phenomena | |
n.现象 | |
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34 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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35 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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36 grandeur | |
n.伟大,崇高,宏伟,庄严,豪华 | |
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37 tilted | |
v. 倾斜的 | |
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38 verdant | |
adj.翠绿的,青翠的,生疏的,不老练的 | |
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39 provident | |
adj.为将来做准备的,有先见之明的 | |
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40 prolific | |
adj.丰富的,大量的;多产的,富有创造力的 | |
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41 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
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42 mythology | |
n.神话,神话学,神话集 | |
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43 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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44 malignant | |
adj.恶性的,致命的;恶意的,恶毒的 | |
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45 deities | |
n.神,女神( deity的名词复数 );神祗;神灵;神明 | |
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46 appease | |
v.安抚,缓和,平息,满足 | |
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47 rites | |
仪式,典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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48 poetical | |
adj.似诗人的;诗一般的;韵文的;富有诗意的 | |
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49 sensuous | |
adj.激发美感的;感官的,感觉上的 | |
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50 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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51 revelling | |
v.作乐( revel的现在分词 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉 | |
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52 frightful | |
adj.可怕的;讨厌的 | |
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53 melodious | |
adj.旋律美妙的,调子优美的,音乐性的 | |
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54 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
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55 savages | |
未开化的人,野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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56 homage | |
n.尊敬,敬意,崇敬 | |
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57 mammoth | |
n.长毛象;adj.长毛象似的,巨大的 | |
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58 ferocious | |
adj.凶猛的,残暴的,极度的,十分强烈的 | |
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59 glut | |
n.存货过多,供过于求;v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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60 fatten | |
v.使肥,变肥 | |
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61 eels | |
abbr. 电子发射器定位系统(=electronic emitter location system) | |
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62 condemn | |
vt.谴责,指责;宣判(罪犯),判刑 | |
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63 condemnation | |
n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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64 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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65 Augmented | |
adj.增音的 动词augment的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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66 likeness | |
n.相像,相似(之处) | |
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67 idol | |
n.偶像,红人,宠儿 | |
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68 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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69 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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70 inferno | |
n.火海;地狱般的场所 | |
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71 cannibalism | |
n.同类相食;吃人肉 | |
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72 clans | |
宗族( clan的名词复数 ); 氏族; 庞大的家族; 宗派 | |
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73 propensities | |
n.倾向,习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
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74 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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75 abject | |
adj.极可怜的,卑屈的 | |
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76 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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77 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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78 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
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79 alteration | |
n.变更,改变;蚀变 | |
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80 sparse | |
adj.稀疏的,稀稀落落的,薄的 | |
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81 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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82 pertinaciously | |
adv.坚持地;固执地;坚决地;执拗地 | |
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83 nostrils | |
鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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84 milky | |
adj.牛奶的,多奶的;乳白色的 | |
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85 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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86 graveyard | |
n.坟场 | |
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87 prodigious | |
adj.惊人的,奇妙的;异常的;巨大的;庞大的 | |
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88 brute | |
n.野兽,兽性 | |
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89 tenure | |
n.终身职位;任期;(土地)保有权,保有期 | |
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90 tyrant | |
n.暴君,专制的君主,残暴的人 | |
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91 malicious | |
adj.有恶意的,心怀恶意的 | |
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92 tattooed | |
v.刺青,文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 );连续有节奏地敲击;作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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93 mangle | |
vt.乱砍,撕裂,破坏,毁损,损坏,轧布 | |
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94 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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95 provocation | |
n.激怒,刺激,挑拨,挑衅的事物,激怒的原因 | |
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96 malevolence | |
n.恶意,狠毒 | |
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97 mania | |
n.疯狂;躁狂症,狂热,癖好 | |
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98 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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99 tenants | |
n.房客( tenant的名词复数 );佃户;占用者;占有者 | |
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100 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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101 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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102 precarious | |
adj.不安定的,靠不住的;根据不足的 | |
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103 savored | |
v.意味,带有…的性质( savor的过去式和过去分词 );给…加调味品;使有风味;品尝 | |
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104 plunder | |
vt.劫掠财物,掠夺;n.劫掠物,赃物;劫掠 | |
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