“For they this tight the Rock of vile1 Reproach,
A dangerous and dreadful place,
To which nor fish nor fowl2 did once approach,
But yelling meaws with sea-gulls3 hoars and bace
And cormoyrants with birds of ravenous4 race,
Which still sit waiting on that dreadful clift.”
“With that the rolling sea resounding5 soft
In his big base them fitly answered,
And on the Rock, the waves breaking aloft,
A solemn ineane unto them measured.”
“Then he the boteman bad row easily,
And let him heare some part of that rare melody.”
“Suddeinly an innumerable flight
Of harmefull fowles about them fluttering cride,
And with their wicked wings them oft did smight
And sore annoyed, groping in that griesly night.”
“Even all the nation of unfortunate
And fatal birds about them flocked were.”
To go up into a high stone tower is not only a very fine thing in itself, but the very best mode of gaining a comprehensive view of the region round about. It is all the better if this tower stand solitary8 and alone, like that mysterious Newport one, or else be sole survivor9 of some perished castle.
Now, with reference to the Enchanted10 Isles11, we are fortunately supplied with just such a noble point of observation in a remarkable12 rock, from its peculiar13 figure called of old by the Spaniards, Rock Rodondo, or Round Rock. Some two hundred and fifty feet high, rising straight from the sea ten miles from land, with the whole mountainous group to the south and east. Rock Rodondo occupies, on a large scale, very much the position which the famous Campanile or detached Bell Tower of St. Mark does with respect to the tangled14 group of hoary15 edifices16 around it.
Ere ascending18, however, to gaze abroad upon the Encantadas, this sea-tower itself claims attention. It is visible at the distance of thirty miles; and, fully19 participating in that enchantment20 which pervades21 the group, when first seen afar invariably is mistaken for a sail. Four leagues away, of a golden, hazy22 noon, it seems some Spanish Admiral’s ship, stacked up with glittering canvas. Sail ho! Sail ho! Sail ho! from all three masts. But coming nigh, the enchanted frigate23 is transformed apace into a craggy keep.
My first visit to the spot was made in the gray of the morning. With a view of fishing, we had lowered three boats and pulling some two miles from our vessel24, found ourselves just before dawn of day close under the moon-shadow of Rodondo. Its aspect was heightened, and yet softened25, by the strange double twilight26 of the hour. The great full moon burnt in the low west like a half-spent beacon27, casting a soft mellow28 tinge29 upon the sea like that cast by a waning30 fire of embers upon a midnight hearth31; while along the entire east the invisible sun sent pallid32 intimations of his coming. The wind was light; the waves languid; the stars twinkled with a faint effulgence33; all nature seemed supine with the long night watch, and half-suspended in jaded34 expectation of the sun. This was the critical hour to catch Rodondo in his perfect mood. The twilight was just enough to reveal every striking point, without tearing away the dim investiture of wonder.
From a broken stair-like base, washed, as the steps of a water-palace, by the waves, the tower rose in entablatures of strata35 to a shaven summit. These uniform layers, which compose the mass, form its most peculiar feature. For at their lines of junction36 they project flatly into encircling shelves, from top to bottom, rising one above another in graduated series. And as the eaves of any old barn or abbey are alive with swallows, so were all these rocky ledges37 with unnumbered sea-fowl. Eaves upon eaves, and nests upon nests. Here and there were long birdlime streaks38 of a ghostly white staining the tower from sea to air, readily accounting39 for its sail-like look afar. All would have been bewitchingly quiescent40, were it not for the demoniac din6 created by the birds. Not only were the eaves rustling41 with them, but they flew densely42 overhead, spreading themselves into a winged and continually shifting canopy43. The tower is the resort of aquatic44 birds for hundreds of leagues around. To the north, to the east, to the west, stretches nothing but eternal ocean; so that the man-of-war hawk45 coming from the coasts of North America, Polynesia, or Peru, makes his first land at Rodondo. And yet though Rodondo be terra-firma, no land-bird ever lighted on it. Fancy a red-robin or a canary there! What a falling into the hands of the Philistines46, when the poor warbler should be surrounded by such locust-flights of strong bandit birds, with long bills cruel as daggers47.
I know not where one can better study the Natural History of strange sea-fowl than at Rodondo. It is the aviary48 of Ocean. Birds light here which never touched mast or tree; hermit-birds, which ever fly alone; cloud-birds, familiar with unpierced zones of air.
Let us first glance low down to the lowermost shelf of all, which is the widest, too, and but a little space from high-water mark. What outlandish beings are these? Erect49 as men, but hardly as symmetrical, they stand all round the rock like sculptured caryatides, supporting the next range of eaves above. Their bodies are grotesquely50 misshapen; their bills short; their feet seemingly legless; while the members at their sides are neither fin7, wing, nor arm. And truly neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is the penguin51; as an edible52, pertaining53 neither to Carnival54 nor Lent; without exception the most ambiguous and least lovely creature yet discovered by man. Though dabbling55 in all three elements, and indeed possessing some rudimental claims to all, the penguin is at home in none. On land it stumps56; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops57. As if ashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away at the ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abased58 sea-story of Rodondo.
But look, what are yon wobegone regiments59 drawn60 up on the next shelf above? what rank and file of large strange fowl? what sea Friars of Orders Gray? Pelicans61. Their elongated62 bills, and heavy leathern pouches63 suspended thereto, give them the most lugubrious64 expression. A pensive65 race, they stand for hours together without motion. Their dull, ashy plumage imparts an aspect as if they had been powdered over with cinders66. A penitential bird, indeed, fitly haunting the shores of the clinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented67 Job himself might have well sat down and scraped himself with potsherds.
Higher up now we mark the gony, or gray albatross, anomalously68 so called, an unsightly unpoetic bird, unlike its storied kinsman69, which is the snow-white ghost of the haunted Capes70 of Hope and Horn.
As we still ascend17 from shelf to shelf, we find the tenants71 of the tower serially72 disposed in order of their magnitude:—gannets, black and speckled haglets, jays, sea-hens, sperm-whale-birds, gulls of all varieties:—thrones, princedoms, powers, dominating one above another in senatorial array; while, sprinkled over all, like an ever-repeated fly in a great piece of broidery, the stormy petrel or Mother Cary’s chicken sounds his continual challenge and alarm. That this mysterious hummingbird73 of ocean—which, had it but brilliancy of hue74, might, from its evanescent liveliness, be almost called its butterfly, yet whose chirrup under the stern is ominous75 to mariners76 as to the peasant the death-tick sounding from behind the chimney jamb—should have its special haunt at the Encantadas, contributes, in the seaman’s mind, not a little to their dreary77 spell.
As day advances the dissonant78 din augments79. With ear-splitting cries the wild birds celebrate their matins. Each moment, flights push from the tower, and join the aerial choir80 hovering81 overhead, while their places below are supplied by darting82 myriads83. But down through all this discord84 of commotion85, I hear clear, silver, bugle-like notes unbrokenly falling, like oblique86 lines of swift-slanting rain in a cascading87 shower. I gaze far up, and behold88 a snow-white angelic thing, with one long, lance-like feather thrust out behind. It is the bright, inspiriting chanticleer of ocean, the beauteous bird, from its bestirring whistle of musical invocation, fitly styled the “Boatswain’s Mate.”
The winged, life-clouding Rodondo had its full counterpart in the finny hosts which peopled the waters at its base. Below the water-line, the rock seemed one honey-comb of grottoes, affording labyrinthine89 lurking-places for swarms90 of fairy fish. All were strange; many exceedingly beautiful; and would have well graced the costliest91 glass globes in which gold-fish are kept for a show. Nothing was more striking than the complete novelty of many individuals of this multitude. Here hues92 were seen as yet unpainted, and figures which are unengraved.
To show the multitude, avidity, and nameless fearlessness and tameness of these fish, let me say, that often, marking through clear spaces of water—temporarily made so by the concentric dartings of the fish above the surface—certain larger and less unwary wights, which swam slow and deep; our anglers would cautiously essay to drop their lines down to these last. But in vain; there was no passing the uppermost zone. No sooner did the hook touch the sea, than a hundred infatuates contended for the honor of capture. Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimized confidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust, while they do not understand, human nature.
But the dawn is now fairly day. Band after band, the sea-fowl sail away to forage93 the deep for their food. The tower is left solitary save the fish-caves at its base. Its birdlime gleams in the golden rays like the whitewash94 of a tall light-house, or the lofty sails of a cruiser. This moment, doubtless, while we know it to be a dead desert rock other voyagers are taking oaths it is a glad populous95 ship.
But ropes now, and let us ascend. Yet soft, this is not so easy.
1 vile | |
adj.卑鄙的,可耻的,邪恶的;坏透的 | |
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2 fowl | |
n.家禽,鸡,禽肉 | |
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3 gulls | |
n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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4 ravenous | |
adj.极饿的,贪婪的 | |
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5 resounding | |
adj. 响亮的 | |
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6 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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7 fin | |
n.鳍;(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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8 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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9 survivor | |
n.生存者,残存者,幸存者 | |
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10 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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11 isles | |
岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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12 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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13 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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14 tangled | |
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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15 hoary | |
adj.古老的;鬓发斑白的 | |
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16 edifices | |
n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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17 ascend | |
vi.渐渐上升,升高;vt.攀登,登上 | |
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18 ascending | |
adj.上升的,向上的 | |
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19 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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20 enchantment | |
n.迷惑,妖术,魅力 | |
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21 pervades | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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22 hazy | |
adj.有薄雾的,朦胧的;不肯定的,模糊的 | |
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23 frigate | |
n.护航舰,大型驱逐舰 | |
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24 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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25 softened | |
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰 | |
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26 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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27 beacon | |
n.烽火,(警告用的)闪火灯,灯塔 | |
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28 mellow | |
adj.柔和的;熟透的;v.变柔和;(使)成熟 | |
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29 tinge | |
vt.(较淡)着色于,染色;使带有…气息;n.淡淡色彩,些微的气息 | |
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30 waning | |
adj.(月亮)渐亏的,逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 );(月)亏;变小;变暗淡 | |
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31 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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32 pallid | |
adj.苍白的,呆板的 | |
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33 effulgence | |
n.光辉 | |
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34 jaded | |
adj.精疲力竭的;厌倦的;(因过饱或过多而)腻烦的;迟钝的 | |
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35 strata | |
n.地层(复数);社会阶层 | |
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36 junction | |
n.连接,接合;交叉点,接合处,枢纽站 | |
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37 ledges | |
n.(墙壁,悬崖等)突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 );(平窄的)壁架;横档;(尤指)窗台 | |
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38 streaks | |
n.(与周围有所不同的)条纹( streak的名词复数 );(通常指不好的)特征(倾向);(不断经历成功或失败的)一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 );使布满条纹 | |
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39 accounting | |
n.会计,会计学,借贷对照表 | |
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40 quiescent | |
adj.静止的,不活动的,寂静的 | |
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41 rustling | |
n. 瑟瑟声,沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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42 densely | |
ad.密集地;浓厚地 | |
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43 canopy | |
n.天篷,遮篷 | |
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44 aquatic | |
adj.水生的,水栖的 | |
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45 hawk | |
n.鹰,骗子;鹰派成员 | |
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46 philistines | |
n.市侩,庸人( philistine的名词复数 );庸夫俗子 | |
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47 daggers | |
匕首,短剑( dagger的名词复数 ) | |
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48 aviary | |
n.大鸟笼,鸟舍 | |
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49 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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50 grotesquely | |
adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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51 penguin | |
n.企鹅 | |
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52 edible | |
n.食品,食物;adj.可食用的 | |
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53 pertaining | |
与…有关系的,附属…的,为…固有的(to) | |
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54 carnival | |
n.嘉年华会,狂欢,狂欢节,巡回表演 | |
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55 dabbling | |
v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 );涉足;浅尝;少量投资 | |
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56 stumps | |
(被砍下的树的)树桩( stump的名词复数 ); 残肢; (板球三柱门的)柱; 残余部分 | |
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57 flops | |
n.失败( flop的名词复数 )v.(指书、戏剧等)彻底失败( flop的第三人称单数 );(因疲惫而)猛然坐下;(笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地)移动或落下;砸锅 | |
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58 abased | |
使谦卑( abase的过去式和过去分词 ); 使感到羞耻; 使降低(地位、身份等); 降下 | |
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59 regiments | |
(军队的)团( regiment的名词复数 ); 大量的人或物 | |
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60 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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61 pelicans | |
n.鹈鹕( pelican的名词复数 ) | |
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62 elongated | |
v.延长,加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63 pouches | |
n.(放在衣袋里或连在腰带上的)小袋( pouch的名词复数 );(袋鼠等的)育儿袋;邮袋;(某些动物贮存食物的)颊袋 | |
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64 lugubrious | |
adj.悲哀的,忧郁的 | |
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65 pensive | |
a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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66 cinders | |
n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 );炭渣;煤渣路;煤渣跑道 | |
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67 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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68 anomalously | |
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69 kinsman | |
n.男亲属 | |
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70 capes | |
碎谷; 斗篷( cape的名词复数 ); 披肩; 海角; 岬 | |
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71 tenants | |
n.房客( tenant的名词复数 );佃户;占用者;占有者 | |
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72 serially | |
adv.连续地,连续刊载地 | |
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73 hummingbird | |
n.蜂鸟 | |
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74 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
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75 ominous | |
adj.不祥的,不吉的,预兆的,预示的 | |
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76 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
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77 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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78 dissonant | |
adj.不和谐的;不悦耳的 | |
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79 augments | |
增加,提高,扩大( augment的名词复数 ) | |
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80 choir | |
n.唱诗班,唱诗班的席位,合唱团,舞蹈团;v.合唱 | |
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81 hovering | |
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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82 darting | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的现在分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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83 myriads | |
n.无数,极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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84 discord | |
n.不和,意见不合,争论,(音乐)不和谐 | |
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85 commotion | |
n.骚动,动乱 | |
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86 oblique | |
adj.斜的,倾斜的,无诚意的,不坦率的 | |
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87 cascading | |
流注( cascade的现在分词 ); 大量落下; 大量垂悬; 梯流 | |
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88 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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89 labyrinthine | |
adj.如迷宫的;复杂的 | |
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90 swarms | |
蜂群,一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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91 costliest | |
adj.昂贵的( costly的最高级 );代价高的;引起困难的;造成损失的 | |
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92 hues | |
色彩( hue的名词复数 ); 色调; 信仰; 观点 | |
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93 forage | |
n.(牛马的)饲料,粮草;v.搜寻,翻寻 | |
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94 whitewash | |
v.粉刷,掩饰;n.石灰水,粉刷,掩饰 | |
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95 populous | |
adj.人口稠密的,人口众多的 | |
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