Not being tourists, we of the Snark went to Haleakala. On the slopes of that monster mountain there is a cattle ranch7 of some fifty thousand acres, where we spent the night at an altitude of two thousand feet. The next morning it was boots and saddles, and with cow-boys and packhorses we climbed to Ukulele, a mountain ranch-house, the altitude of which, fifty-five hundred feet, gives a severely8 temperate9 climate, compelling blankets at night and a roaring fireplace in the living-room. Ukulele, by the way, is the Hawaiian for “jumping flea” as it is also the Hawaiian for a certain musical instrument that may be likened to a young guitar. It is my opinion that the mountain ranch-house was named after the young guitar. We were not in a hurry, and we spent the day at Ukulele, learnedly discussing altitudes and barometers12 and shaking our particular barometer11 whenever any one’s argument stood in need of demonstration13. Our barometer was the most graciously acquiescent14 instrument I have ever seen. Also, we gathered mountain raspberries, large as hen’s eggs and larger, gazed up the pasture-covered lava15 slopes to the summit of Haleakala, forty-five hundred feet above us, and looked down upon a mighty16 battle of the clouds that was being fought beneath us, ourselves in the bright sunshine.
Every day and every day this unending battle goes on. Ukiukiu is the name of the trade-wind that comes raging down out of the north-east and hurls17 itself upon Haleakala. Now Haleakala is so bulky and tall that it turns the north-east trade-wind aside on either hand, so that in the lee of Haleakala no trade-wind blows at all. On the contrary, the wind blows in the counter direction, in the teeth of the north-east trade. This wind is called Naulu. And day and night and always Ukiukiu and Naulu strive with each other, advancing, retreating, flanking, curving, curling, and turning and twisting, the conflict made visible by the cloud-masses plucked from the heavens and hurled18 back and forth19 in squadrons, battalions20, armies, and great mountain ranges. Once in a while, Ukiukiu, in mighty gusts21, flings immense cloud-masses clear over the summit of Haleakala; whereupon Naulu craftily22 captures them, lines them up in new battle-formation, and with them smites23 back at his ancient and eternal antagonist24. Then Ukiukiu sends a great cloud-army around the eastern-side of the mountain. It is a flanking movement, well executed. But Naulu, from his lair25 on the leeward26 side, gathers the flanking army in, pulling and twisting and dragging it, hammering it into shape, and sends it charging back against Ukiukiu around the western side of the mountain. And all the while, above and below the main battle-field, high up the slopes toward the sea, Ukiukiu and Naulu are continually sending out little wisps of cloud, in ragged27 skirmish line, that creep and crawl over the ground, among the trees and through the canyons28, and that spring upon and capture one another in sudden ambuscades and sorties. And sometimes Ukiukiu or Naulu, abruptly29 sending out a heavy charging column, captures the ragged little skirmishers or drives them skyward, turning over and over, in vertical30 whirls, thousands of feet in the air.
But it is on the western slopes of Haleakala that the main battle goes on. Here Naulu masses his heaviest formations and wins his greatest victories. Ukiukiu grows weak toward late afternoon, which is the way of all trade-winds, and is driven backward by Naulu. Naulu’s generalship is excellent. All day he has been gathering31 and packing away immense reserves. As the afternoon draws on, he welds them into a solid column, sharp-pointed, miles in length, a mile in width, and hundreds of feet thick. This column he slowly thrusts forward into the broad battle-front of Ukiukiu, and slowly and surely Ukiukiu, weakening fast, is split asunder32. But it is not all bloodless. At times Ukiukiu struggles wildly, and with fresh accessions of strength from the limitless north-east, smashes away half a mile at a time of Naulu’s column and sweeps it off and away toward West Maui. Sometimes, when the two charging armies meet end-on, a tremendous perpendicular33 whirl results, the cloud-masses, locked together, mounting thousands of feet into the air and turning over and over. A favourite device of Ukiukiu is to send a low, squat34 formation, densely35 packed, forward along the ground and under Naulu. When Ukiukiu is under, he proceeds to buck36. Naulu’s mighty middle gives to the blow and bends upward, but usually he turns the attacking column back upon itself and sets it milling. And all the while the ragged little skirmishers, stray and detached, sneak37 through the trees and canyons, crawl along and through the grass, and surprise one another with unexpected leaps and rushes; while above, far above, serene38 and lonely in the rays of the setting sun, Haleakala looks down upon the conflict. And so, the night. But in the morning, after the fashion of trade-winds, Ukiukiu gathers strength and sends the hosts of Naulu rolling back in confusion and rout39. And one day is like another day in the battle of the clouds, where Ukiukiu and Naulu strive eternally on the slopes of Haleakala.
Again in the morning, it was boots and saddles, cow-boys, and packhorses, and the climb to the top began. One packhorse carried twenty gallons of water, slung40 in five-gallon bags on either side; for water is precious and rare in the crater41 itself, in spite of the fact that several miles to the north and east of the crater-rim42 more rain comes down than in any other place in the world. The way led upward across countless43 lava flows, without regard for trails, and never have I seen horses with such perfect footing as that of the thirteen that composed our outfit44. They climbed or dropped down perpendicular places with the sureness and coolness of mountain goats, and never a horse fell or baulked.
There is a familiar and strange illusion experienced by all who climb isolated45 mountains. The higher one climbs, the more of the earth’s surface becomes visible, and the effect of this is that the horizon seems up-hill from the observer. This illusion is especially notable on Haleakala, for the old volcano rises directly from the sea without buttresses46 or connecting ranges. In consequence, as fast as we climbed up the grim slope of Haleakala, still faster did Haleakala, ourselves, and all about us, sink down into the centre of what appeared a profound abyss. Everywhere, far above us, towered the horizon. The ocean sloped down from the horizon to us. The higher we climbed, the deeper did we seem to sink down, the farther above us shone the horizon, and the steeper pitched the grade up to that horizontal line where sky and ocean met. It was weird47 and unreal, and vagrant48 thoughts of Simm’s Hole and of the volcano through which Jules Verne journeyed to the centre of the earth flitted through one’s mind.
And then, when at last we reached the summit of that monster mountain, which summit was like the bottom of an inverted49 cone50 situated in the centre of an awful cosmic pit, we found that we were at neither top nor bottom. Far above us was the heaven-towering horizon, and far beneath us, where the top of the mountain should have been, was a deeper deep, the great crater, the House of the Sun. Twenty-three miles around stretched the dizzy walls of the crater. We stood on the edge of the nearly vertical western wall, and the floor of the crater lay nearly half a mile beneath. This floor, broken by lava-flows and cinder-cones, was as red and fresh and uneroded as if it were but yesterday that the fires went out. The cinder-cones, the smallest over four hundred feet in height and the largest over nine hundred, seemed no more than puny51 little sand-hills, so mighty was the magnitude of the setting. Two gaps, thousands of feet deep, broke the rim of the crater, and through these Ukiukiu vainly strove to drive his fleecy herds of trade-wind clouds. As fast as they advanced through the gaps, the heat of the crater dissipated them into thin air, and though they advanced always, they got nowhere.
It was a scene of vast bleakness52 and desolation, stern, forbidding, fascinating. We gazed down upon a place of fire and earthquake. The tie-ribs of earth lay bare before us. It was a workshop of nature still cluttered53 with the raw beginnings of world-making. Here and there great dikes of primordial54 rock had thrust themselves up from the bowels55 of earth, straight through the molten surface-ferment that had evidently cooled only the other day. It was all unreal and unbelievable. Looking upward, far above us (in reality beneath us) floated the cloud-battle of Ukiukiu and Naulu. And higher up the slope of the seeming abyss, above the cloud-battle, in the air and sky, hung the islands of Lanai and Molokai. Across the crater, to the south-east, still apparently56 looking upward, we saw ascending57, first, the turquoise58 sea, then the white surf-line of the shore of Hawaii; above that the belt of trade-clouds, and next, eighty miles away, rearing their stupendous hulks out of the azure59 sky, tipped with snow, wreathed with cloud, trembling like a mirage60, the peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa hung poised61 on the wall of heaven.
It is told that long ago, one Maui, the son of Hina, lived on what is now known as West Maui. His mother, Hina, employed her time in the making of kapas. She must have made them at night, for her days were occupied in trying to dry the kapas. Each morning, and all morning, she toiled63 at spreading them out in the sun. But no sooner were they out, than she began taking them in, in order to have them all under shelter for the night. For know that the days were shorter then than now. Maui watched his mother’s futile64 toil62 and felt sorry for her. He decided65 to do something—oh, no, not to help her hang out and take in the kapas. He was too clever for that. His idea was to make the sun go slower. Perhaps he was the first Hawaiian astronomer66. At any rate, he took a series of observations of the sun from various parts of the island. His conclusion was that the sun’s path was directly across Haleakala. Unlike Joshua, he stood in no need of divine assistance. He gathered a huge quantity of coconuts67, from the fibre of which he braided a stout68 cord, and in one end of which he made a noose69, even as the cow-boys of Haleakala do to this day. Next he climbed into the House of the Sun and laid in wait. When the sun came tearing along the path, bent70 on completing its journey in the shortest time possible, the valiant71 youth threw his lariat72 around one of the sun’s largest and strongest beams. He made the sun slow down some; also, he broke the beam short off. And he kept on roping and breaking off beams till the sun said it was willing to listen to reason. Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the sun accepted, agreeing to go more slowly thereafter. Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry her kapas, and the days are longer than they used to be, which last is quite in accord with the teachings of modern astronomy.
We had a lunch of jerked beef and hard poi in a stone corral, used of old time for the night-impounding of cattle being driven across the island. Then we skirted the rim for half a mile and began the descent into the crater. Twenty-five hundred feet beneath lay the floor, and down a steep slope of loose volcanic73 cinders74 we dropped, the sure-footed horses slipping and sliding, but always keeping their feet. The black surface of the cinders, when broken by the horses’ hoofs75, turned to a yellow ochre dust, virulent76 in appearance and acid of taste, that arose in clouds. There was a gallop77 across a level stretch to the mouth of a convenient blow-hole, and then the descent continued in clouds of volcanic dust, winding78 in and out among cinder-cones, brick-red, old rose, and purplish black of colour. Above us, higher and higher, towered the crater-walls, while we journeyed on across innumerable lava-flows, turning and twisting a devious79 way among the adamantine billows of a petrified80 sea. Saw-toothed waves of lava vexed81 the surface of this weird ocean, while on either hand arose jagged crests82 and spiracles of fantastic shape. Our way led on past a bottomless pit and along and over the main stream of the latest lava-flow for seven miles.
At the lower end of the crater was our camping spot, in a small grove84 of olapa and kolea trees, tucked away in a corner of the crater at the base of walls that rose perpendicularly85 fifteen hundred feet. Here was pasturage for the horses, but no water, and first we turned aside and picked our way across a mile of lava to a known water-hole in a crevice86 in the crater-wall. The water-hole was empty. But on climbing fifty feet up the crevice, a pool was found containing half a dozen barrels of water. A pail was carried up, and soon a steady stream of the precious liquid was running down the rock and filling the lower pool, while the cow-boys below were busy fighting the horses back, for there was room for one only to drink at a time. Then it was on to camp at the foot of the wall, up which herds of wild goats scrambled87 and blatted, while the tent arose to the sound of rifle-firing. Jerked beef, hard poi, and broiled88 kid were the menu. Over the crest83 of the crater, just above our heads, rolled a sea of clouds, driven on by Ukiukiu. Though this sea rolled over the crest unceasingly, it never blotted89 out nor dimmed the moon, for the heat of the crater dissolved the clouds as fast as they rolled in. Through the moonlight, attracted by the camp-fire, came the crater cattle to peer and challenge. They were rolling fat, though they rarely drank water, the morning dew on the grass taking its place. It was because of this dew that the tent made a welcome bedchamber, and we fell asleep to the chanting of hulas by the unwearied Hawaiian cow-boys, in whose veins90, no doubt, ran the blood of Maui, their valiant forebear.
The camera cannot do justice to the House of the Sun. The sublimated91 chemistry of photography may not lie, but it certainly does not tell all the truth. The Koolau Gap may be faithfully reproduced, just as it impinged on the retina of the camera, yet in the resulting picture the gigantic scale of things would be missing. Those walls that seem several hundred feet in height are almost as many thousand; that entering wedge of cloud is a mile and a half wide in the gap itself, while beyond the gap it is a veritable ocean; and that foreground of cinder-cone and volcanic ash, mushy and colourless in appearance, is in truth gorgeous-hued in brick-red, terra-cotta rose, yellow ochre, and purplish black. Also, words are a vain thing and drive to despair. To say that a crater-wall is two thousand feet high is to say just precisely93 that it is two thousand feet high; but there is a vast deal more to that crater-wall than a mere94 statistic95. The sun is ninety-three millions of miles distant, but to mortal conception the adjoining county is farther away. This frailty96 of the human brain is hard on the sun. It is likewise hard on the House of the Sun. Haleakala has a message of beauty and wonder for the human soul that cannot be delivered by proxy97. Kolikoli is six hours from Kahului; Kahului is a night’s run from Honolulu; Honolulu is six days from San Francisco; and there you are.
We climbed the crater-walls, put the horses over impossible places, rolled stones, and shot wild goats. I did not get any goats. I was too busy rolling stones. One spot in particular I remember, where we started a stone the size of a horse. It began the descent easy enough, rolling over, wobbling, and threatening to stop; but in a few minutes it was soaring through the air two hundred feet at a jump. It grew rapidly smaller until it struck a slight slope of volcanic sand, over which it darted98 like a startled jackrabbit, kicking up behind it a tiny trail of yellow dust. Stone and dust diminished in size, until some of the party said the stone had stopped. That was because they could not see it any longer. It had vanished into the distance beyond their ken10. Others saw it rolling farther on—I know I did; and it is my firm conviction that that stone is still rolling.
Our last day in the crater, Ukiukiu gave us a taste of his strength. He smashed Naulu back all along the line, filled the House of the Sun to overflowing100 with clouds, and drowned us out. Our rain-gauge was a pint101 cup under a tiny hole in the tent. That last night of storm and rain filled the cup, and there was no way of measuring the water that spilled over into the blankets. With the rain-gauge out of business there was no longer any reason for remaining; so we broke camp in the wet-gray of dawn, and plunged102 eastward103 across the lava to the Kaupo Gap. East Maui is nothing more or less than the vast lava stream that flowed long ago through the Kaupo Gap; and down this stream we picked our way from an altitude of six thousand five hundred feet to the sea. This was a day’s work in itself for the horses; but never were there such horses. Safe in the bad places, never rushing, never losing their heads, as soon as they found a trail wide and smooth enough to run on, they ran. There was no stopping them until the trail became bad again, and then they stopped of themselves. Continuously, for days, they had performed the hardest kind of work, and fed most of the time on grass foraged104 by themselves at night while we slept, and yet that day they covered twenty-eight leg-breaking miles and galloped105 into Hana like a bunch of colts. Also, there were several of them, reared in the dry region on the leeward side of Haleakala, that had never worn shoes in all their lives. Day after day, and all day long, unshod, they had travelled over the sharp lava, with the extra weight of a man on their backs, and their hoofs were in better condition than those of the shod horses.
The scenery between Vieiras’s (where the Kaupo Gap empties into the sea) and Lana, which we covered in half a day, is well worth a week or month; but, wildly beautiful as it is, it becomes pale and small in comparison with the wonderland that lies beyond the rubber plantations106 between Hana and the Honomanu Gulch107. Two days were required to cover this marvellous stretch, which lies on the windward side of Haleakala. The people who dwell there call it the “ditch country,” an unprepossessing name, but it has no other. Nobody else ever comes there. Nobody else knows anything about it. With the exception of a handful of men, whom business has brought there, nobody has heard of the ditch country of Maui. Now a ditch is a ditch, assumably muddy, and usually traversing uninteresting and monotonous108 landscapes. But the Nahiku Ditch is not an ordinary ditch. The windward side of Haleakala is serried109 by a thousand precipitous gorges110, down which rush as many torrents111, each torrent112 of which achieves a score of cascades114 and waterfalls before it reaches the sea. More rain comes down here than in any other region in the world. In 1904 the year’s downpour was four hundred and twenty inches. Water means sugar, and sugar is the backbone115 of the territory of Hawaii, wherefore the Nahiku Ditch, which is not a ditch, but a chain of tunnels. The water travels underground, appearing only at intervals116 to leap a gorge92, travelling high in the air on a giddy flume and plunging117 into and through the opposing mountain. This magnificent waterway is called a “ditch,” and with equal appropriateness can Cleopatra’s barge118 be called a box-car.
There are no carriage roads through the ditch country, and before the ditch was built, or bored, rather, there was no horse-trail. Hundreds of inches of rain annually119, on fertile soil, under a tropic sun, means a steaming jungle of vegetation. A man, on foot, cutting his way through, might advance a mile a day, but at the end of a week he would be a wreck120, and he would have to crawl hastily back if he wanted to get out before the vegetation overran the passage way he had cut. O’Shaughnessy was the daring engineer who conquered the jungle and the gorges, ran the ditch and made the horse-trail. He built enduringly, in concrete and masonry121, and made one of the most remarkable122 water-farms in the world. Every little runlet and dribble123 is harvested and conveyed by subterranean124 channels to the main ditch. But so heavily does it rain at times that countless spillways let the surplus escape to the sea.
The horse-trail is not very wide. Like the engineer who built it, it dares anything. Where the ditch plunges125 through the mountain, it climbs over; and where the ditch leaps a gorge on a flume, the horse-trail takes advantage of the ditch and crosses on top of the flume. That careless trail thinks nothing of travelling up or down the faces of precipices126. It gouges127 its narrow way out of the wall, dodging128 around waterfalls or passing under them where they thunder down in white fury; while straight overhead the wall rises hundreds of feet, and straight beneath it sinks a thousand. And those marvellous mountain horses are as unconcerned as the trail. They fox-trot along it as a matter of course, though the footing is slippery with rain, and they will gallop with their hind99 feet slipping over the edge if you let them. I advise only those with steady nerves and cool heads to tackle the Nahiku Ditch trail. One of our cow-boys was noted129 as the strongest and bravest on the big ranch. He had ridden mountain horses all his life on the rugged130 western slopes of Haleakala. He was first in the horse-breaking; and when the others hung back, as a matter of course, he would go in to meet a wild bull in the cattle-pen. He had a reputation. But he had never ridden over the Nahiku Ditch. It was there he lost his reputation. When he faced the first flume, spanning a hair-raising gorge, narrow, without railings, with a bellowing131 waterfall above, another below, and directly beneath a wild cascade113, the air filled with driving spray and rocking to the clamour and rush of sound and motion—well, that cow-boy dismounted from his horse, explained briefly132 that he had a wife and two children, and crossed over on foot, leading the horse behind him.
The only relief from the flumes was the precipices; and the only relief from the precipices was the flumes, except where the ditch was far under ground, in which case we crossed one horse and rider at a time, on primitive133 log-bridges that swayed and teetered and threatened to carry away. I confess that at first I rode such places with my feet loose in the stirrups, and that on the sheer walls I saw to it, by a definite, conscious act of will, that the foot in the outside stirrup, overhanging the thousand feet of fall, was exceedingly loose. I say “at first”; for, as in the crater itself we quickly lost our conception of magnitude, so, on the Nahiku Ditch, we quickly lost our apprehension134 of depth. The ceaseless iteration of height and depth produced a state of consciousness in which height and depth were accepted as the ordinary conditions of existence; and from the horse’s back to look sheer down four hundred or five hundred feet became quite commonplace and non-productive of thrills. And as carelessly as the trail and the horses, we swung along the dizzy heights and ducked around or through the waterfalls.
And such a ride! Falling water was everywhere. We rode above the clouds, under the clouds, and through the clouds! and every now and then a shaft135 of sunshine penetrated136 like a search-light to the depths yawning beneath us, or flashed upon some pinnacle137 of the crater-rim thousands of feet above. At every turn of the trail a waterfall or a dozen waterfalls, leaping hundreds of feet through the air, burst upon our vision. At our first night’s camp, in the Keanae Gulch, we counted thirty-two waterfalls from a single viewpoint. The vegetation ran riot over that wild land. There were forests of koa and kolea trees, and candlenut trees; and then there were the trees called ohia-ai, which bore red mountain apples, mellow138 and juicy and most excellent to eat. Wild bananas grew everywhere, clinging to the sides of the gorges, and, overborne by their great bunches of ripe fruit, falling across the trail and blocking the way. And over the forest surged a sea of green life, the climbers of a thousand varieties, some that floated airily, in lacelike filaments139, from the tallest branches others that coiled and wound about the trees like huge serpents; and one, the ei-ei, that was for all the world like a climbing palm, swinging on a thick stem from branch to branch and tree to tree and throttling140 the supports whereby it climbed. Through the sea of green, lofty tree-ferns thrust their great delicate fronds141, and the lehua flaunted142 its scarlet143 blossoms. Underneath144 the climbers, in no less profusion145, grew the warm-coloured, strangely-marked plants that in the United States one is accustomed to seeing preciously conserved146 in hot-houses. In fact, the ditch country of Maui is nothing more nor less than a huge conservatory147. Every familiar variety of fern flourishes, and more varieties that are unfamiliar148, from the tiniest maidenhair to the gross and voracious149 staghorn, the latter the terror of the woodsmen, interlacing with itself in tangled150 masses five or six feet deep and covering acres.
Never was there such a ride. For two days it lasted, when we emerged into rolling country, and, along an actual wagon-road, came home to the ranch at a gallop. I know it was cruel to gallop the horses after such a long, hard journey; but we blistered151 our hands in vain effort to hold them in. That’s the sort of horses they grow on Haleakala. At the ranch there was great festival of cattle-driving, branding, and horse-breaking. Overhead Ukiukiu and Naulu battled valiantly152, and far above, in the sunshine, towered the mighty summit of Haleakala.
点击收听单词发音
1 herds | |
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众 | |
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2 wriggling | |
v.扭动,蠕动,蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 );(使身体某一部位)扭动;耍滑不做,逃避(应做的事等);蠕蠕 | |
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3 dinosaurs | |
n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 );守旧落伍的人,过时落后的东西 | |
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4 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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5 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
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6 grandeur | |
n.伟大,崇高,宏伟,庄严,豪华 | |
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7 ranch | |
n.大牧场,大农场 | |
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8 severely | |
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地 | |
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9 temperate | |
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的 | |
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10 ken | |
n.视野,知识领域 | |
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11 barometer | |
n.气压表,睛雨表,反应指标 | |
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12 barometers | |
气压计,晴雨表( barometer的名词复数 ) | |
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13 demonstration | |
n.表明,示范,论证,示威 | |
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14 acquiescent | |
adj.默许的,默认的 | |
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15 lava | |
n.熔岩,火山岩 | |
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16 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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17 hurls | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的第三人称单数 );大声叫骂 | |
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18 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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19 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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20 battalions | |
n.(陆军的)一营(大约有一千兵士)( battalion的名词复数 );协同作战的部队;军队;(组织在一起工作的)队伍 | |
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21 gusts | |
一阵强风( gust的名词复数 ); (怒、笑等的)爆发; (感情的)迸发; 发作 | |
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22 craftily | |
狡猾地,狡诈地 | |
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23 smites | |
v.猛打,重击,打击( smite的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24 antagonist | |
n.敌人,对抗者,对手 | |
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25 lair | |
n.野兽的巢穴;躲藏处 | |
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26 leeward | |
adj.背风的;下风的 | |
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27 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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28 canyons | |
n.峡谷( canyon的名词复数 ) | |
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29 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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30 vertical | |
adj.垂直的,顶点的,纵向的;n.垂直物,垂直的位置 | |
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31 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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32 asunder | |
adj.分离的,化为碎片 | |
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33 perpendicular | |
adj.垂直的,直立的;n.垂直线,垂直的位置 | |
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34 squat | |
v.蹲坐,蹲下;n.蹲下;adj.矮胖的,粗矮的 | |
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35 densely | |
ad.密集地;浓厚地 | |
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36 buck | |
n.雄鹿,雄兔;v.马离地跳跃 | |
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37 sneak | |
vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝);偷偷摸摸做;n.潜行;adj.暗中进行 | |
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38 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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39 rout | |
n.溃退,溃败;v.击溃,打垮 | |
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40 slung | |
抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往 | |
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41 crater | |
n.火山口,弹坑 | |
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42 rim | |
n.(圆物的)边,轮缘;边界 | |
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43 countless | |
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
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44 outfit | |
n.(为特殊用途的)全套装备,全套服装 | |
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45 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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46 buttresses | |
n.扶壁,扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑,加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47 weird | |
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的 | |
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48 vagrant | |
n.流浪者,游民;adj.流浪的,漂泊不定的 | |
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49 inverted | |
adj.反向的,倒转的v.使倒置,使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50 cone | |
n.圆锥体,圆锥形东西,球果 | |
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51 puny | |
adj.微不足道的,弱小的 | |
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52 bleakness | |
adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
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53 cluttered | |
v.杂物,零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 );乱糟糟地堆满,把…弄得很乱;(以…) 塞满… | |
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54 primordial | |
adj.原始的;最初的 | |
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55 bowels | |
n.肠,内脏,内部;肠( bowel的名词复数 );内部,最深处 | |
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56 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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57 ascending | |
adj.上升的,向上的 | |
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58 turquoise | |
n.绿宝石;adj.蓝绿色的 | |
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59 azure | |
adj.天蓝色的,蔚蓝色的 | |
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60 mirage | |
n.海市蜃楼,幻景 | |
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61 poised | |
a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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62 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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63 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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64 futile | |
adj.无效的,无用的,无希望的 | |
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65 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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66 astronomer | |
n.天文学家 | |
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67 coconuts | |
n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 );椰肉,椰果 | |
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69 noose | |
n.绳套,绞索(刑);v.用套索捉;使落入圈套;处以绞刑 | |
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70 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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71 valiant | |
adj.勇敢的,英勇的;n.勇士,勇敢的人 | |
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72 lariat | |
n.系绳,套索;v.用套索套捕 | |
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73 volcanic | |
adj.火山的;象火山的;由火山引起的 | |
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74 cinders | |
n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 );炭渣;煤渣路;煤渣跑道 | |
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75 hoofs | |
n.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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76 virulent | |
adj.有毒的,有恶意的,充满敌意的 | |
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77 gallop | |
v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔;飞速发展 | |
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78 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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79 devious | |
adj.不坦率的,狡猾的;迂回的,曲折的 | |
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80 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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81 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
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82 crests | |
v.到达山顶(或浪峰)( crest的第三人称单数 );到达洪峰,达到顶点 | |
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83 crest | |
n.顶点;饰章;羽冠;vt.达到顶点;vi.形成浪尖 | |
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84 grove | |
n.林子,小树林,园林 | |
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85 perpendicularly | |
adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
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86 crevice | |
n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝;缺口 | |
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87 scrambled | |
v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞 | |
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88 broiled | |
a.烤过的 | |
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89 blotted | |
涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 ); (用吸墨纸)吸干 | |
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90 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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91 sublimated | |
v.(使某物质)升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 );使净化;纯化 | |
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92 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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93 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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94 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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95 statistic | |
n.统计量;adj.统计的,统计学的 | |
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96 frailty | |
n.脆弱;意志薄弱 | |
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97 proxy | |
n.代理权,代表权;(对代理人的)委托书;代理人 | |
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98 darted | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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99 hind | |
adj.后面的,后部的 | |
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100 overflowing | |
n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的,充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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101 pint | |
n.品脱 | |
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102 plunged | |
v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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103 eastward | |
adv.向东;adj.向东的;n.东方,东部 | |
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104 foraged | |
v.搜寻(食物),尤指动物觅(食)( forage的过去式和过去分词 );(尤指用手)搜寻(东西) | |
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105 galloped | |
(使马)飞奔,奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 ); 快速做[说]某事 | |
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106 plantations | |
n.种植园,大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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107 gulch | |
n.深谷,峡谷 | |
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108 monotonous | |
adj.单调的,一成不变的,使人厌倦的 | |
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109 serried | |
adj.拥挤的;密集的 | |
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110 gorges | |
n.山峡,峡谷( gorge的名词复数 );咽喉v.(用食物把自己)塞饱,填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 );作呕 | |
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111 torrents | |
n.倾注;奔流( torrent的名词复数 );急流;爆发;连续不断 | |
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112 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
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113 cascade | |
n.小瀑布,喷流;层叠;vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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114 cascades | |
倾泻( cascade的名词复数 ); 小瀑布(尤指一连串瀑布中的一支); 瀑布状物; 倾泻(或涌出)的东西 | |
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115 backbone | |
n.脊骨,脊柱,骨干;刚毅,骨气 | |
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116 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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117 plunging | |
adj.跳进的,突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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118 barge | |
n.平底载货船,驳船 | |
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119 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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120 wreck | |
n.失事,遇难;沉船;vt.(船等)失事,遇难 | |
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121 masonry | |
n.砖土建筑;砖石 | |
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122 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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123 dribble | |
v.点滴留下,流口水;n.口水 | |
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124 subterranean | |
adj.地下的,地表下的 | |
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125 plunges | |
n.跳进,投入vt.使投入,使插入,使陷入vi.投入,跳进,陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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126 precipices | |
n.悬崖,峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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127 gouges | |
n.凿( gouge的名词复数 );乱要价;(在…中)抠出…;挖出…v.凿( gouge的第三人称单数 );乱要价;(在…中)抠出…;挖出… | |
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128 dodging | |
n.避开,闪过,音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 );回避 | |
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129 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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130 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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131 bellowing | |
v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的现在分词 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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132 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
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133 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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134 apprehension | |
n.理解,领悟;逮捕,拘捕;忧虑 | |
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135 shaft | |
n.(工具的)柄,杆状物 | |
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136 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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137 pinnacle | |
n.尖塔,尖顶,山峰;(喻)顶峰 | |
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138 mellow | |
adj.柔和的;熟透的;v.变柔和;(使)成熟 | |
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139 filaments | |
n.(电灯泡的)灯丝( filament的名词复数 );丝极;细丝;丝状物 | |
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140 throttling | |
v.扼杀( throttle的现在分词 );勒死;使窒息;压制 | |
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141 fronds | |
n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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142 flaunted | |
v.炫耀,夸耀( flaunt的过去式和过去分词 );有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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143 scarlet | |
n.深红色,绯红色,红衣;adj.绯红色的 | |
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144 underneath | |
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面 | |
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145 profusion | |
n.挥霍;丰富 | |
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146 conserved | |
v.保护,保藏,保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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147 conservatory | |
n.温室,音乐学院;adj.保存性的,有保存力的 | |
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148 unfamiliar | |
adj.陌生的,不熟悉的 | |
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149 voracious | |
adj.狼吞虎咽的,贪婪的 | |
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150 tangled | |
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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151 blistered | |
adj.水疮状的,泡状的v.(使)起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 );(使表皮等)涨破,爆裂 | |
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152 valiantly | |
adv.勇敢地,英勇地;雄赳赳 | |
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