E69 三峡：风光壮丽，险象环生

E69 三峡：风光壮丽，险象环生

课程导读

在上节课中，我们与苏东坡一同泊岸仙都，寻访传说中的白鹿，并通过他的诗歌进一步了解了这名超逸高士。在这节课中，我们将随着林语堂先生的笔触，走进风光壮美却险象环生的长江三峡。那么，三峡究竟有多险？急流漩涡之中，如何才能通过这条凶险万分的水路？

英文原文

The Yangtse Gorges, majestic in their beauty and exciting in hazards for the travelers, are a stretch of two hundred and twenty miles of the river where the torrents swirl in and out through the rocky precipices, with hidden rocks beneath the water, requiring a great dexterity on the part of the boatmen.

The gorges annually claim their toll of shipwrecks and travelers' lives, for this is a big, deep river, and those who sink are lost.

But the gorges are also, in their majestic, awe-inspiring beauty, unsurpassed anywhere in China and by very few places in the world.


They are also the reason why Szechuen has always been considered practically a kingdom by itself, naturally protected by the gigantic mountains on its eastern border and by these narrow gorges, impenetrable by an enemy.

While going up the gorges was a strenuous task for the boatmen, with perhaps sixty or seventy boat hands tugging a little junk against the swift current by long ropes slung across their shoulders, the voyage down was always more dangerous, the boat being carried forward by the force of the current and guided only by the extreme skill of the boatman at the rudder.

This dangerous long stretch is known as the Three Gorges: the Chutang Gorge and the Wu Gorge in Szechuen, and the Shiling Gorge above Ichang in Hupeh.

Each of these consists of a series of dangerous rapids alternating with whirlpools and torrents that pass between sharp cliffs rising several hundred feet high straight from the water.