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A writer who visited this valley in September, calls the cataract a mere tape line of water dropped from the sky.
一位作家曾于九月参观了这个山谷，称这里的瀑布就像从天而降。
Perhaps it is so, toward the close of the dry season; but as we saw it,
也许正是如此，旱季一结束，就像我们所看到的一样，
the blended majesty and beauty of it, apart from the general sublimities of Yosemite gorge, would repay a journey of a thousand miles.
这威严的气势和它的美丽，还有风景绚丽的峡谷，绝对不虚千里之行。
There was no deficiency of water.
这里水量充足。
It was a powerful stream, thirty-five feet broad, fresh from the Nevada, that made the plunge from the brow of the awful precipice.
水流湍急，宽度足有35英尺，起源于内华达，从惊险的悬崖上飞流直下。
At the first leap it clears fourteen hundred and ninety-seven feet;
它第一次冲刺的高度约为1497英尺，
then it tumbles down a series of steep stairways four hundred and two feet, and then makes a jump to the meadows five hundred and eighteen feet more.
然后翻越了一系列陡峭的岩壁，再一次冲刺，冲刺高度大约为402英尺，然后再向瀑布下面的草坪冲去，冲刺高度为518英尺。
But it is the upper and highest cataract that is most wonderful to the eye, as well as most musical.
它不但是世界上最高的瀑布，也是风景最美、声音最震撼的瀑布。
The cliff is so sheer that there is no break in the body of the water during the whole of its descent of more than a quarter of a mile.
它这种梯级而下的气势使它猛冲的速度逐渐加大，随后而来的水也会冲出悬崖超过四分之一英里。
It pours in a curve from the summit, fifteen hundred feet, to the basin that hoards it but a moment for the cascades that follow.
特别是第一波冲刺，足有将近1500英尺，势如破竹，远远望去，那种震撼真是令人永生难忘。
And what endless complexities and opulence of beauty in the forms and motions of the cataract!
真是一幅绵延而复杂，但在气势和情感上又如此美妙的风景画！
It is comparatively narrow at the top of the precipice, although, as we said, the tide that pours over is thirty-five feet broad.
悬崖的顶部是比较窄的，不过，就像我们看到的，那喷薄而出的瀑布却足有30英尺宽，十分壮观。
But itwidens as it descends, and curves a little on one side as it widens,
越往下，水流就越宽，根据山地的形势，它变宽了却依然不失曲线美，
so that it shapes itself, before it reaches its first bowl of granite, into the figure of a comet.
由于与山上的花岗岩的碰触，让瀑布的造型更加多变，就像一颗颗美丽的彗星。
More beautiful than the comet, however, we can see the substance of this watery loveliness ever renew itself and ever pour itself away.
然而，我们看到却不是火光，而是实实在在的水，而且永远在更新、在流动。
"It mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
“它仿若从天上来，
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round
不停歇地沐浴着大地，
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
用它那淡云细雨，
Is an eternal April to the ground,
赐予人间永恒四月天，
Making it all one emerald;—how profound
大地到处是一片翠绿，
The gulf and how the giant element
水潭更加深邃浩瀚！
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
到底是什么力量让它在岩石间飞跃，
Crushing the cliffs."
让它爆发，击碎悬崖。”
The cataract seems to shoot out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water,
瀑布看起来能射出千万条蜿蜒的水线，
which wriggle down deliberately through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over.
萦绕在瀑布周围的都是瀑布的水形成的水雾，气势恢宏磅礴。
Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance;
然后，从瀑布团内和两侧爆出新的水柱，在剩余的距离内又重复上述过程。
and thus the most charming fretwork of watery nodules, each trailing its vapory train for a hundred feet or more, is woven all over the cascade,
因此，水结最令人惊奇和引人入胜是其线条和空间图案，每个蒸气拖尾都多达一百英尺长，汇进小瀑流里，
which swings, now and then, thirty feet each way, on the mountain side, as if it were a pendulum of watery lace.
不时地旋转摇摆，每一次在山的一侧都扬起三十英尺高的水柱，恍若水带的下摆一样。
Once in a while, too, the wind manages to get back of the fall,
间或风儿劲吹，企图使瀑布倒流；
between it and the cliff, and then it will whirl it round and round for two or three hundred feet, as if to try the experiment of twisting it to wring it dry.
在瀑布和悬崖之间，风会卷起瀑布达二三百英尺高，仿佛在做甩干实验呢。
Of course I visited the foot of the lowest fall of the Yosemite, and looked up through the spray, five hundred feet, to its crown.
当然，我也参观了约塞米蒂下游最低的瀑布，并期待着沿瀑布一路走500多英里的路，一直走到瀑布的顶端。
And I tried to climb to the base of the first or highest cataract,
我曾经试图爬到最顶端去看最高的瀑布，
but lost my way among the steep, sharp rocks, for there is only one line by which the cliff can be scaled.
但是山路陡峭，尖锐的岩石之间根本就没有我能落脚的地方。
But no nearer view that I found or heard described, is comparable with the picture,
但是通过了解，以及别人给我的描述，那里真的是风景如画，
from the hotel, of the comet curve of the upper cataract, fifteen hundred feet high,
从酒店望去，大约1500英尺远的地方就是那看似流星的美丽瀑布，
and the two falls immediately beneath it, in which the same water leaps to the level of the quiet Merced.
还有它下面的两道分流瀑布，飞流直下，然后飞跃向那平静的默塞德河。
