The Yangtze River
What a river this must be to make itself felt so far out from land, to so impress its personality on its overlord, the sea. I made a bow to it in my mind, for I felt in the presence of a great monarch. And I was not mistaken. The Yangtze River, as we followed its smooth course up through the immense stretches of flat farm land of coastal China, was one of those rivers which give the impression of being the only true and permanent rulers of the earth.
Rivers perhaps are the only physical features of the world that are at their best from the air. Mountain ranges, no longer seen in profiles, dwarf to anthills; seas lose their horizons;lakes have no longer depth but look like bright pennies on the earth's surface; forests become a thin impermanent film, a moss on the top of a wet stone, easily rubbed off. But rivers,which from the ground one usually sees only in cross sections,like a small sample of ribbon -- rivers stretch out serenely ahead as far as the eye can reach. Rivers are seen in their true stature.
They tumble down mountainsides; they meander through flat farmlands. Valleys trail them; cities ride them; farms cling to them; road and railroad tracks run after them and they remain, permanent, possessive. Next to them, man 's gleaming cement roads which he has built with such care look fragile as paper streamers thrown over the hills easily blown away. Even the railroads seem only scratched in with a penknife. But rivers have carved their way over the earth's face for centuries and they will stay.
长江
这该是一条多么非凡的河啊! 离地面还很远你就可以感受到它的存在，而且它的个性给它的君王——大海以深刻的印象。我在心里向它屈服了，因为我觉得自己正站在一位帝王面前。而我并没有错。 当我们沿它平直的河道而上，穿过中国海岸广阔而平坦的田地时，我感觉到长江正是那种令人感到它是地球上惟一真正永恒的统治者的河流。
河流也许是世界上各种地貌中惟一从空中看最能展示其荚的地貌。在空中俯视，山脉(因为不再站在陆地上看它的侧面)缩小成了蚁丘；海洋失去了地平线；湖泊不再有深度，而是看上去像地球表面上闪亮的便士；森林变成了衬度弱、作用时间短的胶片，湿石头上的一片青苔看上去似乎很容易便可被擦掉。而河流在地面上看时通常只能见到一段河面，由空中看去像一小条缎带——目力所及之处河流安详宁静地向前伸展着，呈现出它们真正的全貌。
它们滚滚冲下山脊，蜿蜒穿过平坦的农田。山谷跟踪它们，城镇驾驭它们，农庄紧贴着它们，公路和铁路跟在它们后头追，而它们仍然保持永恒不变，有着强烈的占有欲。在它们旁边，人类精心建造的闪亮的水泥公路看上去宛如洒在山上的细纸彩带一样脆弱，似乎轻易便会被风吹走。甚至铁路似乎也只是用铅笔刀随意刮出来的。但是河流在地球的表面雕刻自己的路径已有数百年的历史，它们将继续下去。
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