國(guó)家地理:加里曼丹島的地底洞天(15)

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One "day," with Mad Phil and a young caver named Ben, I explored along the left side of the chamber, searching for another entrance. Sarawak is so large that it contains many distinct precincts, and we climbed through at least half a dozen of them, passing from a pile of loose, muddy boulders into a maze of limestone with walls sharp as the face of a cheese grater.

一天“白天”，我和瘋狂菲爾還有一個(gè)叫本的年輕洞穴探險(xiǎn)者一起沿著洞穴左側(cè)探索，尋找另一個(gè)入口。砂拉越洞非常寬闊，里面有許多界限分明的區(qū)域。我們爬過(guò)了至少六個(gè)區(qū)域，穿過(guò)了一堆松散泥濘的大卵石，進(jìn)入了一個(gè)石灰?guī)r迷宮，那里的巖壁就像奶酪磨碎器一樣尖銳。

In the end, Eavis's team did not rack up more record-setting discoveries. Frank and Cookie—the mud-covered pair, drilling and banging at the bottom of a cave—never connected the Clearwater cave system to its neighbor that seemed so tantalizingly close. But the expedition succeeded in finding and mapping a respectable 14 miles of new passages.

最后，艾維斯的隊(duì)伍并沒(méi)有更多創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄的發(fā)現(xiàn)。在洞穴底部鉆眼、敲擊的弗蘭克和庫(kù)奇二人組渾身是泥，也沒(méi)有找到清水洞洞穴系統(tǒng)和與之非常相似的鄰區(qū)之間的聯(lián)系。但探險(xiǎn)隊(duì)還是成功發(fā)現(xiàn)并繪制出了足足14英里長(zhǎng)的新通道的線路圖。

A few weeks after I left Borneo, I spoke with Eavis, who had returned to Britain. He told me he was already planning a return trip to Gunung Mulu National Park to connect the caves himself.

在我離開(kāi)婆羅洲幾周后，艾維斯回到了英國(guó)。我和他在一起聊天，他告訴我他已經(jīng)計(jì)劃回到姆魯國(guó)家公園，親自把找尋那些洞穴之間的聯(lián)系。

"We were extremely close," he said.

“我們已經(jīng)很接近了，”他說(shuō)。

He assured me it was not the pursuit of records, or the odd celebrity his sport sometimes bestows, that continued to drive him. He thought about the caves every day. His children knew well his stories from under the jungle.

他向我保證，不斷驅(qū)使著他這樣做的動(dòng)力并不是對(duì)創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄的追求，也不是這項(xiàng)運(yùn)動(dòng)是不是地給他帶來(lái)的名氣。他日思夜想著那些洞穴。他的孩子們熟知他在叢林之下的故事。

"My guess is that only 50 percent of the passages have been discovered," he said. "Wouldn't you just want to know? Mulu is this incredible place, and I want to know what's down there and see how all the pieces all fit together."

“我猜，人們只發(fā)現(xiàn)了一半的通道，”他說(shuō)?！澳汶y道不想知道嗎？姆魯是一個(gè)不可思議的地方，我想知道它下面有什么，看看各個(gè)分散的部分是如何拼湊成一個(gè)整體的?！?/p>

It was, he said, the labyrinth of a lifetime.

他說(shuō)，這是一個(gè)千載難逢的迷宮。