Above Darjeeling—a modern and fashionable health-resort, a town of villas13, for the most part with corrugated14 iron roofs—hangs a dense15 mist, cutting off the horizon at a distance of a few miles; and through the dull substance of this fleece, at an impossible height, there was a reflection—a mirage16, an illusion, a brighter gleam, a bluer shadow, which might be the top of a mountain; but so high up, so far away, and above all so transient, that it failed to fix itself on the memory, blotted17 out at once by the pallid18 wall that shut[Pg 147] in the scene. But at sunset one thickness of the haze melted away, unveiling, leagues on leagues away, a chain of giant mountains, not yet the snowy peaks, but bright-hued cliffs on which gold and purple mingled20 in symphonies before dying into violet, turning to blue in the moonlight; and the mists fell once more—a shroud21 at our feet, an abyss of shadows, in which the tea-planters' lamps twinkled through the darkness.
In the sleeping town of Darjeeling a bell and drum were sounding to announce the Tibetan Christmas. The Brahmin paradise remained invisible and mysterious behind a clear sky studded with stars.
Next morning—so far, so high on the horizon! I saw a pink spot; then, as day broke, the rose colour spread—broader, lower, turned paler, then to white, and the Himalayas lay before me in blinding glory of size and light. Kinchinjunga, at a measureless distance, looked in the clear air as if it were quite close; and round the sovereign giant other giants rent their wrappings of cloud, an amphitheatre of peaks of dazzling whiteness lost against the sky, and almost insensibly fading away behind the vapour that rolled up from the abysses, grew[Pg 148] thicker, and settled into a compact mass over the lost summits, hiding the nearer heights and shrouding22 Darjeeling in opaque23 white fog.
Round a temple, with iron roofs ending in copper24 balls at the top, a crowd was watching, some seated on steps cut in the soil and some squatting25 on the hillside, here almost perpendicular26. By the temple long white streamers, fluttering from bamboo poles, were covered with painted prayers. A Lama was enthroned in an armchair under an arbour of pine-branches; he wore a yellow robe, and above a face like a cat's he had a sort of brass27 hat surmounted28 by a coral knob; his little beard was quite white, and he turned his praying machine with a steady, dull movement, perfectly29 stolid30. Two women stood by his side fanning him, dressed in close-fitting aprons31 of dark cloth bordered with a brighter shade, and opening over pale pink satin petticoats, on their heads crowns of flowers of every hue19.
Four women and two men wearing masks stretched in a broad grimace—one of the men in a red satin robe edged with leopard-skin, while the other had a squalid white shirt, intentionally32 soiled, over all his clothes—then began to dance round the priest, stopping presently to spin very fast on one[Pg 149] spot, and the girls' skirts floated gracefully33 in heavy folds, showing their under-skirts of bright satin embroidered34 with silver and gold. One of these women, who were not satisfied with painting their faces, by way of adornment35, on the nose and cheeks with blackened pig's blood, took off her mask, showing her whole face smeared36 with it. She and the man in the dirty shirt played a number of mountebank's tricks to the great delectation of the spectators, and she finished amid thunders of applause by seating herself on the Lama's knee and stroking his beard.
Cymbals37 and kettle-drums formed the orchestra, reinforced by the shrill38 cries and strident laughter of the spectators.
Whenever there was a pause in the dance the performers, to amuse themselves, sang a scale, always the same, beginning on a very high note, or sometimes taken up from the lowest bass39 pitch, and marking time with their stamping feet.
Far up the hill, and for a long time, the clanging brass and sharp cries followed me on my way all through the afternoon, and I could picture the dancing women, the Lama under his gleaming brass hat, turning his praying-wheel beneath his bower40 of branches and papers fluttering in the wind; and[Pg 150] not till dark did the whole party break up and go back to Darjeeling; the poorer women, on foot, all a little tipsy, danced a descending41 scale that ended occasionally in the ditch; the richer ladies, in thin dark satin robes with wide sleeves all embroidered in silk and gold, and their hair falling in plaits from beneath a fillet of red wood studded with large glass beads42, fitting tightly to the head, rode astride on queer little horses, mostly of a dirty yellow colour, that carried them at a brisk amble43. Their husbands, extremely attentive44, escorted the dames45, some of whom gave noisy evidence of the degree of intoxication46 they had reached. The least blessed had but one husband, or perhaps two; but the more fortunate had a following of as many as six eager attendants, whom they tormented47 with incessant48 scolding.
Off at four in the morning, led by a Mongol guide with a broad expressionless yellow face. My steed was a perfect little devil of a horse of a light coffee colour.
I rode to Tiger Hill. Overhead hung a dense mist, like a roof of shadow, perfectly still, wrapping us in damp and frightfully cold vapour. After two hours' ride in the darkness we reached our [Pg 151]destination. Suddenly the cloud fell like a curtain pulled down, the sky appeared, and then the earth at our feet became visible in the starlight. Some vestiges49 of a temple could be discerned among the grass—the foundations of enormous halls, and still standing50 in solitude51, the brick chimneys in which the devout52 were wont53 to burn their prayers, written on rice-paper. Far away, in the transparent54 air, above a wall of grey cloud—the dull, dingy55 grey of dirty cotton-wool—a speck56 showed as a beacon57 of lilac light, of the hue and form of a cyclamen flower; this turned to rose, to brick-red, to warm gold colour, fading into silver; and then, against the blue sky, showed immaculately white. This was Gaurisankar—Mount Everest—the top of the world, appallingly58 high, inconceivably vast, though lost in the distance, and seen from a hillock three thousand metres above the sea.
After the giant a whole chain of lavender and rose-coloured peaks turning to blue came into sight in the marvellously clear atmosphere; then the sun rose below us, in the throbbing59 tide of heat the mountains seemed to come closer to us, but immediately the mist gathered about Gaurisankar. "The Apsaras wearing impenetrable veils, that mortals may not gaze too long on the throne of the gods,"[Pg 152] said my sa?s, who had fallen on his face since the first appearance of the snow-crowned colossus, with hands upraised towards the paradise of Indra.
For another minute the sublime60 ice-peak remained visible through the gauzy whiteness, and then a cloud rising from beyond the range descended61 on the heights and gradually enfolded the whole chain.
As we returned, vistas62 of unreal definiteness showed us endless valleys lost in the distance, and vast spaces cultivated in green and russet stripes—the tea plantations that spread below the now vanished splendour of the snows. At a turning in the road stands a cross, erected63 there in memory of an epidemic64 of suicide that broke out among the soldiers of the English fort—a small structure of stone with an iron roof that faces the heaven-scaling range.
Towards noon the mass of Kinchinjunga again lifted its head above the clouds, now white with a dust of rosy65 gold or violet on the snow in the shadows; and again, as the clouds swept across, of every changing tint66 of steel and copper, pearl and sunshine, till, following on the ardent67 glory of sunset, a purple and living fire, like a flame within the very substance of the ice-fields, all died into[Pg 153] mysterious blueness under the broad pure light of the moon.
All the day long a solid blue mass melting into rain hid the mountains and darkened the nearer view; and our return journey was made between two grey walls, through which the trees, which sometimes met in an arch overhead, were but dimly visible.
At the railway station thousands of people had collected to take leave of a great turbaned moollah from Mecca, dressed in yellow silk. Long after we had left Darjeeling the faithful ran by the side of the carriage to kiss his hand, on which blazed an enormous diamond cut in a cone68; and all along the road, when the train going downhill went too fast for anyone to keep up with it, Moslem69 natives bowed and prostrated70 themselves in the road, shouting words of Godspeed to the holy man. And at one stopping-place a little carpet was spread, on which he took off his shoes and prayed—hurried through his last prostrations by the whistle of the locomotive.
At night, when the fog had at last cleared off, a column of fire was piled up on the engine; it shone[Pg 154] on the smooth trunks of the "flame of the forest," which looked like the pillars of a cathedral, on the sparkling water-springs all hung about with prayer-strips, on the veronica shrubs covered with flowers and as tall as trees, and the sheaves of bamboo and fern; or it lighted up the hanging screen of creepers, the impenetrable jungle growth that shut in the silence of the sleeping forest.
点击收听单词发音
1 plantations | |
n.种植园,大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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2 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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3 mingling | |
adj.混合的 | |
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4 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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5 cedars | |
雪松,西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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6 orchids | |
n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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7 tangled | |
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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8 mosses | |
n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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9 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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10 verge | |
n.边,边缘;v.接近,濒临 | |
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11 opalescent | |
adj.乳色的,乳白的 | |
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12 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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13 villas | |
别墅,公馆( villa的名词复数 ); (城郊)住宅 | |
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14 corrugated | |
adj.波纹的;缩成皱纹的;波纹面的;波纹状的v.(使某物)起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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15 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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16 mirage | |
n.海市蜃楼,幻景 | |
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17 blotted | |
涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 ); (用吸墨纸)吸干 | |
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18 pallid | |
adj.苍白的,呆板的 | |
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19 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
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20 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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21 shroud | |
n.裹尸布,寿衣;罩,幕;vt.覆盖,隐藏 | |
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22 shrouding | |
n.覆盖v.隐瞒( shroud的现在分词 );保密 | |
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23 opaque | |
adj.不透光的;不反光的,不传导的;晦涩的 | |
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24 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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25 squatting | |
v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 );非法擅自占用(土地或房屋);为获得其所有权;而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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26 perpendicular | |
adj.垂直的,直立的;n.垂直线,垂直的位置 | |
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27 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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28 surmounted | |
战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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29 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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30 stolid | |
adj.无动于衷的,感情麻木的 | |
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31 aprons | |
围裙( apron的名词复数 ); 停机坪,台口(舞台幕前的部份) | |
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32 intentionally | |
ad.故意地,有意地 | |
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33 gracefully | |
ad.大大方方地;优美地 | |
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34 embroidered | |
adj.绣花的 | |
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35 adornment | |
n.装饰;装饰品 | |
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36 smeared | |
弄脏; 玷污; 涂抹; 擦上 | |
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37 cymbals | |
pl.铙钹 | |
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38 shrill | |
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
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39 bass | |
n.男低音(歌手);低音乐器;低音大提琴 | |
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40 bower | |
n.凉亭,树荫下凉快之处;闺房;v.荫蔽 | |
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41 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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42 beads | |
n.(空心)小珠子( bead的名词复数 );水珠;珠子项链 | |
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43 amble | |
vi.缓行,漫步 | |
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44 attentive | |
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的 | |
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45 dames | |
n.(在英国)夫人(一种封号),夫人(爵士妻子的称号)( dame的名词复数 );女人 | |
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46 intoxication | |
n.wild excitement;drunkenness;poisoning | |
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47 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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48 incessant | |
adj.不停的,连续的 | |
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49 vestiges | |
残余部分( vestige的名词复数 ); 遗迹; 痕迹; 毫不 | |
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50 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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51 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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52 devout | |
adj.虔诚的,虔敬的,衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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53 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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54 transparent | |
adj.明显的,无疑的;透明的 | |
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55 dingy | |
adj.昏暗的,肮脏的 | |
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56 speck | |
n.微粒,小污点,小斑点 | |
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57 beacon | |
n.烽火,(警告用的)闪火灯,灯塔 | |
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58 appallingly | |
毛骨悚然地 | |
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59 throbbing | |
a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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60 sublime | |
adj.崇高的,伟大的;极度的,不顾后果的 | |
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61 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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62 vistas | |
长条形景色( vista的名词复数 ); 回顾; 展望; (未来可能发生的)一系列情景 | |
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63 ERECTED | |
adj. 直立的,竖立的,笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立,建立 | |
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64 epidemic | |
n.流行病;盛行;adj.流行性的,流传极广的 | |
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65 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
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66 tint | |
n.淡色,浅色;染发剂;vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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67 ardent | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
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68 cone | |
n.圆锥体,圆锥形东西,球果 | |
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69 Moslem | |
n.回教徒,穆罕默德信徒;adj.回教徒的,回教的 | |
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70 prostrated | |
v.使俯伏,使拜倒( prostrate的过去式和过去分词 );(指疾病、天气等)使某人无能为力 | |
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