英国语文第六册(双语):尼罗河流域(3)
The English traveller in Egypt is generally willing to getaway from Alexandria as soon as he can, and that for sanitary reasons. Cairo is distant some hundred miles, and the route thither lies either along the famous canal made by order of Mehemet Ali in 1819-20, or along the railway, which has brought the city of Saladin within a few hours of the coast.
出于卫生方面的考虑，在埃及旅行的英国人都想尽快逃离亚历山大城。亚历山大城距离开罗有几百英里，去那儿的话可以走1819至1820年由穆罕默德·阿里修建的运河路线，亦或走那条将萨拉丁城和海岸之间的距离缩短至几小时路程的铁路路线。
On approaching Cairo by way of the Nile, the Pyramids are first seen from a point in the river, here about a mile in width, near the separation of the two great branches which form the delta of Lower Egypt, about ninety miles from their outlets at the coast. Standing on the western bank of the river, on a platform elevated some fifty feet above the surrounding level, they form most striking and suggestive objects, even when viewed from a great distance.
经由尼罗河靠近开罗时，人们在河上的某个位置首先看到的便是金字塔。金字塔宽约一英里，位于形成下埃及三角洲的两大支流的分离处附近，离出口约九十英里，矗立在河西岸的一个高出周围约50英尺的平台上，即使从很远的距离望过去也极其地引人注目且令人浮想联翩。
In the neighbourhood of the Pyramids are the ruins of Memphis, the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, and the residence of the Pharaohs at the time of the exodus of the Jews. "For miles," says Dean Stanley, "you walk through layers of bones and skulls and mummy swathings, extending from the sand, and deep down in shaft-like mummy-pits; and among these mummy-pits are vast galleries filled with mummies of ibises, in red jars, which are being gradually despoiled. Lastly, there are long galleries, only recently discovered, hewn in the rock, and opening from time to time—say every fifty yards—into high arched vaults, under each of which stands the most magnificent black marble sarcophagus that can be conceived—a chamber rather than a coffin—smooth, and sculptured within and without; grander by far than even the granite sarcophagi of the Theban kings—how much grander than any human sepulchres anywhere else; and all for the successive corpses of the bull Apis!"
金字塔旁是孟菲斯废墟，那里是下埃及的古都，也是犹太人出埃及时期法老的住所。迪恩·斯坦利说，“几英里吧，你会穿过一层层的骨头、头骨和木乃伊，它们从沙子里延伸出来，然后深入到像竖井一样的木乃伊坑里。木乃伊坑之间是一些巨大的陈列室，陈列室里全是装在红色罐子里的朱鹭木乃伊，而这些罐子已经被逐渐掠夺一空。还有一些近期才被发掘的长长的陈列室，人们破开岩石，将其逐渐打开，每五十码便能看见一个高高的拱顶，每个拱顶下面都有一具极其华丽的黑色大理石棺材，而比起棺材它们更像是房间，很光滑，内外都有雕刻。它们甚至比底比斯国王的花岗岩石棺还要壮观，比任何地方、任何人的棺材都要壮观，而所有的这些石棺材都是为了存放一个又一个的神牛的尸体！”
