旅行的藝術(shù):Ⅵ 壯闊-2

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西奈之旅的第二天，我們一行12人來到一個(gè)毫無生機(jī)的山谷，這里沒有樹、沒有草、沒有水，也沒有動(dòng)物。沙巖地上滿是巨石，它們仿佛被一個(gè)粗野的巨人踩過后，滾下周圍的山坡。這些光禿禿、赤裸裸的山脈，顯露出了通常被層層泥土和茂密松樹林所遮掩的地貌。狹長(zhǎng)的洼地和裂縫訴說著千萬年來飽受的壓力，而經(jīng)歷不同地質(zhì)年代的演化，山脈間也出現(xiàn)了眾多的橫斷面。地球的地殼構(gòu)造板塊之間的褶狀花崗石，就像亞麻布一樣。山脈在地平線上無止境地延伸，直到西奈山的高原逐漸變成鋪滿碎石的“砂礫烤盤”。貝都因人把它形容為“埃爾帝”（El Tih），或“流浪者的沙漠”。

Two days into my Sinai trip, the group of twelve which I have joined reaches a valley empty of life, without trees, grass, water or animals. Only boulders lie strewn across a sandstone floor, as though the stamping of a petulant giant had caused them to roll off the sides of the surrounding mountains. These mountains look like naked alps and their nudity reveals geological origins normally concealed beneath coats of earth and pine forest. There are gashes and fissures that speak of the pressures of millennia, there are cross-sections through disproportionate expanses of time. The earth's tectonic plates have rippled granite as though it were linen. The mountains spread out in seeming infinity on the horizon until eventually the high plateau of the southern Sinai gives way to a featureless, baking gravelpan described by the bedouins as 'El Tih', or the desert of the Wandering.

菲利普·德·盧泰爾堡：《阿爾卑斯山雪崩》，1803年

卡斯帕·大衛(wèi)·弗里德里希：《呂根島的白堊峭壁》，約1818年