—“That may not be, said then the ferryman,
Least we unweeting hap3 to be fordonne;
For those same islands seeming now and than,
Are not firme land, nor any certein wonne,
But stragling plots which to and fro do ronne
In the wide waters; therefore are they hight
The Wandering Islands; therefore do them shonne;
For they have oft drawne many a wandring wight
Into most deadly daunger and distressed5 plight6;
For whosoever once hath fastened
His foot thereon may never it secure
But wandreth evermore uncertein and unsure.”
“Darke, dolefull, dreary7, like a greedy grave,
That still for carrion8 carcasses doth crave9;
On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owl10,
Shrieking11 his balefull note, which ever drave
Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl12,
And all about it wandring ghosts did wayle and howl.”
Take five-and-twenty heaps of cinders13 dumped here and there in an outside city lot; imagine some of them magnified into mountains, and the vacant lot the sea; and you will have a fit idea of the general aspect of the Encantadas, or Enchanted14 Isles. A group rather of extinct volcanoes than of isles; looking much as the world at large might, after a penal15 conflagration16.
It is to be doubted whether any spot of earth can, in desolateness17, furnish a parallel to this group. Abandoned cemeteries18 of long ago, old cities by piecemeal19 tumbling to their ruin, these are melancholy20 enough; but, like all else which has but once been associated with humanity, they still awaken21 in us some thoughts of sympathy, however sad. Hence, even the Dead Sea, along with whatever other emotions it may at times inspire, does not fail to touch in the pilgrim some of his less unpleasurable feelings.
And as for solitariness22; the great forests of the north, the expanses of unnavigated waters, the Greenland ice-fields, are the profoundest of solitudes23 to a human observer; still the magic of their changeable tides and seasons mitigates24 their terror; because, though unvisited by men, those forests are visited by the May; the remotest seas reflect familiar stars even as Lake Erie does; and in the clear air of a fine Polar day, the irradiated, azure25 ice shows beautifully as malachite.
But the special curse, as one may call it, of the Encantadas, that which exalts26 them in desolation above Idumea and the Pole, is, that to them change never comes; neither the change of seasons nor of sorrows. Cut by the Equator, they know not autumn, and they know not spring; while already reduced to the lees of fire, ruin itself can work little more upon them. The showers refresh the deserts; but in these isles, rain never falls. Like split Syrian gourds27 left withering28 in the sun, they are cracked by an everlasting29 drought beneath a torrid sky. “Have mercy upon me,” the wailing31 spirit of the Encantadas seems to cry, “and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented32 in this flame.”
Another feature in these isles is their emphatic33 uninhabitableness. It is deemed a fit type of all-forsaken overthrow34, that the jackal should den35 in the wastes of weedy Babylon; but the Encantadas refuse to harbor even the outcasts of the beasts. Man and wolf alike disown them. Little but reptile36 life is here found: tortoises, lizards37, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the aguano. No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss38.
On most of the isles where vegetation is found at all, it is more ungrateful than the blankness of Aracama. Tangled39 thickets40 of wiry bushes, without fruit and without a name, springing up among deep fissures41 of calcined rock, and treacherously42 masking them; or a parched43 growth of distorted cactus44 trees.
In many places the coast is rock-bound, or, more properly, clinker-bound; tumbled masses of blackish or greenish stuff like the dross45 of an iron-furnace, forming dark clefts46 and caves here and there, into which a ceaseless sea pours a fury of foam47; overhanging them with a swirl48 of gray, haggard mist, amidst which sail screaming flights of unearthly birds heightening the dismal49 din50. However calm the sea without, there is no rest for these swells51 and those rocks; they lash52 and are lashed53, even when the outer ocean is most at peace with, itself. On the oppressive, clouded days, such as are peculiar54 to this part of the watery55 Equator, the dark, vitrified masses, many of which raise themselves among white whirlpools and breakers in detached and perilous56 places off the shore, present a most Plutonian sight. In no world but a fallen one could such lands exist.
Those parts of the strand57 free from the marks of fire, stretch away in wide level beaches of multitudinous dead shells, with here and there decayed bits of sugar-cane, bamboos, and cocoanuts, washed upon this other and darker world from the charming palm isles to the westward58 and southward; all the way from Paradise to Tartarus; while mixed with the relics59 of distant beauty you will sometimes see fragments of charred60 wood and mouldering61 ribs62 of wrecks63. Neither will any one be surprised at meeting these last, after observing the conflicting currents which eddy64 throughout nearly all the wide channels of the entire group. The capriciousness of the tides of air sympathizes with those of the sea. Nowhere is the wind so light, baffling, and every way unreliable, and so given to perplexing calms, as at the Encantadas. Nigh a month has been spent by a ship going from one isle2 to another, though but ninety miles between; for owing to the force of the current, the boats employed to tow barely suffice to keep the craft from sweeping65 upon the cliffs, but do nothing towards accelerating her voyage. Sometimes it is impossible for a vessel66 from afar to fetch up with the group itself, unless large allowances for prospective67 lee-way have been made ere its coming in sight. And yet, at other times, there is a mysterious indraft, which irresistibly68 draws a passing vessel among the isles, though not bound to them.
True, at one period, as to some extent at the present day, large fleets of whalemen cruised for spermaceti upon what some seamen69 call the Enchanted Ground. But this, as in due place will be described, was off the great outer isle of Albemarle, away from the intricacies of the smaller isles, where there is plenty of sea-room; and hence, to that vicinity, the above remarks do not altogether apply; though even there the current runs at times with singular force, shifting, too, with as singular a caprice.
Indeed, there are seasons when currents quite unaccountable prevail for a great distance round about the total group, and are so strong and irregular as to change a vessel’s course against the helm, though sailing at the rate of four or five miles the hour. The difference in the reckonings of navigators, produced by these causes, along with the light and variable winds, long nourished a persuasion70, that there existed two distinct clusters of isles in the parallel of the Encantadas, about a hundred leagues apart. Such was the idea of their earlier visitors, the Buccaneers; and as late as 1750, the charts of that part of the Pacific accorded with the strange delusion71. And this apparent fleetingness and unreality of the locality of the isles was most probably one reason for the Spaniards calling them the Encantada, or Enchanted Group.
But not uninfluenced by their character, as they now confessedly exist, the modern voyager will be inclined to fancy that the bestowal72 of this name might have in part originated in that air of spell-bound desertness which so significantly invests the isles. Nothing can better suggest the aspect of once living things malignly73 crumbled74 from ruddiness into ashes. Apples of Sodom, after touching75, seem these isles.
However wavering their place may seem by reason of the currents, they themselves, at least to one upon the shore, appear invariably the same: fixed76, cast, glued into the very body of cadaverous death.
Nor would the appellation77, enchanted, seem misapplied in still another sense. For concerning the peculiar reptile inhabitant of these wilds—whose presence gives the group its second Spanish name, Gallipagos—concerning the tortoises found here, most mariners78 have long cherished a superstition79, not more frightful80 than grotesque81. They earnestly believe that all wicked sea-officers, more especially commodores and captains, are at death (and, in some cases, before death) transformed into tortoises; thenceforth dwelling82 upon these hot aridities, sole solitary83 lords of Asphaltum.
Doubtless, so quaintly84 dolorous85 a thought was originally inspired by the woe-begone landscape itself; but more particularly, perhaps, by the tortoises. For, apart from their strictly86 physical features, there is something strangely self-condemned in the appearance of these creatures. Lasting30 sorrow and penal hopelessness are in no animal form so suppliantly87 expressed as in theirs; while the thought of their wonderful longevity88 does not fail to enhance the impression.
Nor even at the risk of meriting the charge of absurdly believing in enchantments89, can I restrain the admission that sometimes, even now, when leaving the crowded city to wander out July and August among the Adirondack Mountains, far from the influences of towns and proportionally nigh to the mysterious ones of nature; when at such times I sit me down in the mossy head of some deep-wooded gorge90, surrounded by prostrate91 trunks of blasted pines and recall, as in a dream, my other and far-distant rovings in the baked heart of the charmed isles; and remember the sudden glimpses of dusky shells, and long languid necks protruded92 from the leafless thickets; and again have beheld93 the vitreous inland rocks worn down and grooved94 into deep ruts by ages and ages of the slow draggings of tortoises in quest of pools of scanty95 water; I can hardly resist the feeling that in my time I have indeed slept upon evilly enchanted ground.
Nay96, such is the vividness of my memory, or the magic of my fancy, that I know not whether I am not the occasional victim of optical delusion concerning the Gallipagos. For, often in scenes of social merriment, and especially at revels97 held by candle-light in old-fashioned mansions98, so that shadows are thrown into the further recesses99 of an angular and spacious100 room, making them put on a look of haunted undergrowth of lonely woods, I have drawn4 the attention of my comrades by my fixed gaze and sudden change of air, as I have seemed to see, slowly emerging from those imagined solitudes, and heavily crawling along the floor, the ghost of a gigantic tortoise, with “Memento * * * * *” burning in live letters upon his back.
1 isles | |
岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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2 isle | |
n.小岛,岛 | |
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3 hap | |
n.运气;v.偶然发生 | |
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4 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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5 distressed | |
痛苦的 | |
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6 plight | |
n.困境,境况,誓约,艰难;vt.宣誓,保证,约定 | |
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7 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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8 carrion | |
n.腐肉 | |
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9 crave | |
vt.渴望得到,迫切需要,恳求,请求 | |
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10 owl | |
n.猫头鹰,枭 | |
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11 shrieking | |
v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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12 fowl | |
n.家禽,鸡,禽肉 | |
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13 cinders | |
n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 );炭渣;煤渣路;煤渣跑道 | |
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14 enchanted | |
adj. 被施魔法的,陶醉的,入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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15 penal | |
adj.刑罚的;刑法上的 | |
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16 conflagration | |
n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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17 desolateness | |
孤独 | |
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18 cemeteries | |
n.(非教堂的)墓地,公墓( cemetery的名词复数 ) | |
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19 piecemeal | |
adj.零碎的;n.片,块;adv.逐渐地;v.弄成碎块 | |
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20 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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21 awaken | |
vi.醒,觉醒;vt.唤醒,使觉醒,唤起,激起 | |
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22 solitariness | |
n.隐居;单独 | |
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23 solitudes | |
n.独居( solitude的名词复数 );孤独;荒僻的地方;人迹罕至的地方 | |
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24 mitigates | |
v.减轻,缓和( mitigate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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25 azure | |
adj.天蓝色的,蔚蓝色的 | |
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26 exalts | |
赞扬( exalt的第三人称单数 ); 歌颂; 提升; 提拔 | |
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27 gourds | |
n.葫芦( gourd的名词复数 ) | |
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28 withering | |
使人畏缩的,使人害羞的,使人难堪的 | |
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29 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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30 lasting | |
adj.永久的,永恒的;vbl.持续,维持 | |
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31 wailing | |
v.哭叫,哀号( wail的现在分词 );沱 | |
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32 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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33 emphatic | |
adj.强调的,着重的;无可置疑的,明显的 | |
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34 overthrow | |
v.推翻,打倒,颠覆;n.推翻,瓦解,颠覆 | |
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35 den | |
n.兽穴;秘密地方;安静的小房间,私室 | |
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36 reptile | |
n.爬行动物;两栖动物 | |
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37 lizards | |
n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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38 hiss | |
v.发出嘶嘶声;发嘘声表示不满 | |
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39 tangled | |
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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40 thickets | |
n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 );丛状物 | |
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41 fissures | |
n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 );裂伤;分歧;分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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42 treacherously | |
背信弃义地; 背叛地; 靠不住地; 危险地 | |
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43 parched | |
adj.焦干的;极渴的;v.(使)焦干 | |
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44 cactus | |
n.仙人掌 | |
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45 dross | |
n.渣滓;无用之物 | |
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46 clefts | |
n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 );裂口;cleave的过去式和过去分词;进退维谷 | |
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47 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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48 swirl | |
v.(使)打漩,(使)涡卷;n.漩涡,螺旋形 | |
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49 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
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50 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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51 swells | |
增强( swell的第三人称单数 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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52 lash | |
v.系牢;鞭打;猛烈抨击;n.鞭打;眼睫毛 | |
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53 lashed | |
adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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54 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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55 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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56 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
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57 strand | |
vt.使(船)搁浅,使(某人)困于(某地) | |
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58 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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59 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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60 charred | |
v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式);烧焦 | |
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61 mouldering | |
v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 );腐烂,崩塌 | |
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62 ribs | |
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
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63 wrecks | |
n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 );(事故中)遭严重毁坏的汽车(或飞机等);(身体或精神上)受到严重损伤的人;状况非常糟糕的车辆(或建筑物等)v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 );使(船舶)失事,使遇难,使下沉 | |
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64 eddy | |
n.漩涡,涡流 | |
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65 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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66 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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67 prospective | |
adj.预期的,未来的,前瞻性的 | |
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68 irresistibly | |
adv.无法抵抗地,不能自持地;极为诱惑人地 | |
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69 seamen | |
n.海员 | |
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70 persuasion | |
n.劝说;说服;持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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71 delusion | |
n.谬见,欺骗,幻觉,迷惑 | |
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72 bestowal | |
赠与,给与; 贮存 | |
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73 malignly | |
污蔑,诽谤; 中伤,说坏话 | |
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74 crumbled | |
(把…)弄碎, (使)碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 衰落; 坍塌; 损坏 | |
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75 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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76 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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77 appellation | |
n.名称,称呼 | |
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78 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
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79 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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80 frightful | |
adj.可怕的;讨厌的 | |
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81 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
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82 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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83 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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84 quaintly | |
adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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85 dolorous | |
adj.悲伤的;忧愁的 | |
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86 strictly | |
adv.严厉地,严格地;严密地 | |
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87 suppliantly | |
adv.恳求着,哀求着 | |
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88 longevity | |
n.长命;长寿 | |
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89 enchantments | |
n.魅力( enchantment的名词复数 );迷人之处;施魔法;着魔 | |
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90 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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91 prostrate | |
v.拜倒,平卧,衰竭;adj.拜倒的,平卧的,衰竭的 | |
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92 protruded | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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94 grooved | |
v.沟( groove的过去式和过去分词 );槽;老一套;(某种)音乐节奏 | |
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95 scanty | |
adj.缺乏的,仅有的,节省的,狭小的,不够的 | |
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96 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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97 revels | |
n.作乐( revel的名词复数 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉 | |
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98 mansions | |
n.宅第,公馆,大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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99 recesses | |
n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 );(工作或业务活动的)中止或暂停期间;学校的课间休息;某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 );将(墙)做成凹形,在(墙)上做壁龛;休息,休会,休庭 | |
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100 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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