本篇文章共分 4 段，分述北美原住民與歐洲殖民者對於北美土地的不同態度所帶來的不同土地利用方式，藉以強調人類對所居住的環境應改採取的友善共榮看法。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Visions of the Land 對土地的看法

1. 北美人對土地的不同態度

   Successive generations of North Americans have viewed their continent's natural environment in different ways. From the vantage point of the present it is clear that perceptions of the land have changed dramatically from the first years of settlement to the Civil War. Not only have such visions often shifted, but also different peoples have used their particular perspective to reshape the land itself and make it fit their own sense of what nature should be. If the consequences of some changes, such as cutting forests and filling in lowlands, have been deliberate and purposeful—to open the landscape and create sweeping vistas, for example—other human undertakings, such as mining and dam building, have brought results neither anticipated nor intended. Native peoples, no less than the first colonists and subsequent immigrants to North America, have reshaped the natural environment to meet their physical wants and spiritual needs. Indeed, much of the landscape we know today reflects patterns of use and abuse that began several centuries ago.

   歷代北美人都以不同的方式看待他們大陸的自然環境。從現在的有利位置來看，很明顯，從定居的最初幾年到內戰期間，對土地的看法發生了巨大的變化。不僅這種看法經常發生變化，而且不同的民族還利用他們特定的視角來重塑土地本身，使其符合他們自己對自然界應有的感覺。如果說某些變化的後果，如砍伐森林和填埋低地，是經過深思熟慮和有目的明確的—例如，開闢景觀和創造廣闊的視野—那麼另一些人類活動，如採礦和築壩，則帶來了既沒有預期也非意欲的結果。原住民，與第一批殖民者和後來的北美移民一樣，重新塑造了自然環境，以滿足他們的物質需求和精神需求。事實上，我們今天所知道的大部分景觀反映了幾個世紀前開始的使用和濫用模式。

2. 原住民與土地共榮

   Long before the first European settlers reached the continent's eastern shores, native peoples had developed agricultural practices that had changed the face of the land. By cutting away the bark to kill trees selectively, Indians in the Virginia tidewater (low, coastal land) and much of the Northeast had cleared space to plant small gardens of corn, squash, beans, and melons. Although the first English immigrants described the countryside as almost entirely wooded, the forests provided canopies of large, well-spaced trees under which a horse and rider could pass unhindered. By frequently moving their garden plots to find more-fertile soil and by periodically burning the undergrowth, Indians had further opened the land, in this way facilitating their hunting of deer and other game. Native American visions of the landscape not surprisingly featured people living in harmony with nature, whose riches they celebrated in seasonal rituals and through time-honored practices.

   早在第一批歐洲定居者到達大陸東岸之前，原住民已經發展了改變土地面貌的農業作為。通過砍剝樹皮，有選擇地殺死樹木，維吉尼亞州潮水區（低矮的沿海土地）和東北部大部分地區的印第安人已經清理出種植玉米、南瓜、豆類和瓜類的小菜園空間。儘管第一批英國移民描述農村幾乎完全是樹林，但森林提供了高大、間距優良的樹木樹冠，馬匹和騎乘者可以在大樹間暢行無阻。通過經常移動他們的園地以尋找更肥沃的土壤，並定期焚燒灌木叢，印第安人進一步開闢了土地，以這種方式為他們狩獵鹿和其他野味提供了便利。美國原住民對景觀的看法很自然地著重人類與自然和諧相處，通過季節性的儀式和歷史悠久的做法來歌頌其富足。

3. 歐洲殖民者的敵視

   In contrast, the European colonists who intruded on this harmonious world often viewed it as alien and menacing; some called it, in the language of the Bible, a “howling wilderness.” The newcomers to America brought with them agricultural practices and preconceptions about nature based on their experiences in England. They saw uncultivated lands as “wastes” that needed to be “broken,” “dressed,” and “improved.” In New England, transplanted English settlers attempted to subdue what they considered a fearsome wilderness by mapping the countryside, draining marshlands, clearing pastures, fencing particular parcels, and planting wheat and other familiar crops. Within twenty years of the initial Puritan settlement, Edward Johnson boasted of the newcomers' achievements: “This remote, rocky, barren, bushy, wild-woody wilderness, a receptacle for lions, wolves, bears, foxes, racoons, beavers, otters, and all kind of wild creatures, a place that never afforded the Natives better than the flesh of a few wild creatures and parched Indian corn inched out with chestnuts and bitter acorns, now through the mercy of Christ [has] become a second England for fertility in so short a space, that it is indeed the wonder of the world.”

   相比之下，闖入這個和諧世界的歐洲殖民者往往將其視為異類和威脅；有些人用《聖經》的語言稱其為「嚎叫的荒野」。來到美國的新移民帶來了基於他們在英國的經驗的農業實踐和對自然的成見。他們認為未開墾的土地是「廢物」，需要「擊碎」、「打扮」和 「改良」。在新英格蘭，移植過來的英國定居者試圖通過繪製鄉村地圖、排乾沼澤地、清理牧場、用柵欄圍住特定的地塊、種植小麥和其他熟悉的作物來征服他們認為可怕的荒野。在清教徒最初定居的 20 年內，愛德華．強森誇耀了新來者的成就。「這片偏遠、多石、貧瘠、灌木叢生、野性十足的荒野，是獅子、狼、熊、狐狸、浣熊、海狸、水獺和各種野生動物的棲息地，這個地方除了一些野生動物的肉和用栗子和苦澀的橡子擠出來的乾癟的印第安玉米外，從未給原住民提供過更好的食物，現在由於基督的憐憫 [已經] 在這麼短的時間內成為第二個肥沃的英格蘭，這確實是世界的奇跡。」

4. 英國殖民者的態度與轉變

   So, rather than adapting to their new land, the English either changed it by cutting trees, building farms, and plowing or searched for soil and landscape features that reminded them of the English countryside. Seeking to tame the land and to conquer their fear of it. generations of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century settlers nevertheless failed to gain the mastery they desired. In part, this failure resulted from their custom of settling along waterways. To expedite travel and facilitate the shipment of agricultural produce, newcomers invariably built their homes along rivers. Despite the colonists' attempts to control waterways through dams, rivers never failed to remind them of nature's unpredictability and power. Rivers could and often did, change course abruptly or flood during sudden rainstorms. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century did the colonists begin to discard their negative view of the landscape as a wilderness to be feared and controlled, and to substitute the idea that nature could be as much useful as fearsome.

   因此，英國人沒有適應他們的新土地，而是通過砍伐樹木、建造農場和耕作來改變它，或者是尋找能讓他們想起英國鄉村的土壤和景觀特徵。一代又一代的十七和十八世紀的定居者試圖馴服土地並征服他們對土地的恐懼，但卻未能獲得他們想要的控制權。在某種程度上，這種失敗是由於他們沿水路定居的習慣造成的。為了加快旅行和方便農產品的運輸，新住民總是沿著河流建造他們的家園。儘管殖民者試圖通過水壩來控制水路，但河流總是成功提醒他們大自然的不可預測和力量。河流可能而且經常在驟發的暴雨中突然改變河道或氾濫。直到 18 世紀中葉，殖民者才開始摒棄他們認為地景是一片荒野需要恐懼和控制的這種負面看法，而代之以自然界雖然可怕但卻同樣有用的想法。