1. 插入语的处理

2. 形象化的处理：如果无法保留，那就意译处理。如：be born.带来。

1. Egypt, wrote the Greek historian Hecataeus（插入语的处理）, is the gift of the Nile. No other country is so dependent on a single lifeline. Egypt's very soil was born（形象的说法，译文无法保留形象，所以译成”带来“）in the Nile’s annual flood; with the flood came the life-giving mud（=mud that gives life, 万物得以生长）that made Egypt the granary of the ancient world. And as rain fell in the Ethiopian highlands and the snows melted in the Mountains of the Moon, the river was everlastingly renewed.

希腊历史学家赫卡泰奥斯写道：埃及是尼罗河送来的礼物【译文在这里不方便使用插入语，所以把希腊历史学家作为全句主语】。没有哪个国家能像埃及这样，如此依赖于一条生命之河。埃及的每寸土壤都来源于尼罗河每年的洪水。洪水带来了土壤，万物得以生长，埃及成为那时的世界粮仓。当雨水降落在埃塞俄比亚高原上，当明月山的积雪融化，尼罗河周而复始地循环更新着。

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希腊历史学家赫卡泰奥斯写道：埃及是尼罗河赐予的礼物。任何别的国家都不象埃及这样依赖着唯一的一条生命线。就连（very)埃及的土地都是尼罗河每年泛滥而带来的(be born)，河水泛滥带来了泥沙，万物得以生长，埃及就这样成了古代的粮仓。埃塞俄比亚高原上的雨水，和月亮山上融化的积雪，为尼罗河提供了无穷无尽的水源（更顺口）。

2. This is the best place on earth,” said Ahmed, and Egyptian fellah, or farmer, I encountered in the Nile Delta, that incredibly fertile 8,500 square mile triangle between Cairo and the Mediterranean coast（是the Nile Delta的同位语）. The delta and the narrow Nile Valley to the south（表示方位） make up only 3 percent of Egypt’s land but are home to 96 percent of her population. Here nearly 48 million people live in an area only slightly larger than Maryland. The rest of Egypt is desert. 

“这是世界上最好的地方。“艾哈迈德这样（多余）说道，他是埃及的夫埃拉，也就是农民。我在尼罗河三角洲看到他（合并处理）。那是一片异常肥沃的土地，方圆8500平米的三角带位于开罗和地中海沿岸之间。尼罗河三角洲和狭窄的向南延伸的（理解错误）尼罗河谷地只占埃及国土面积的百分之三，却住着百分之九十六的人口。在这里，大约480万人居住在比马里兰岛面积略大的地方。埃及其他地方都是沙漠。

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3. “Truly Allah has blessed us,” Ahmed exclaimed piously. “Soil, water, sun---we can grow anything!” ”真主保佑我们，“艾哈迈德虔诚地祷告，”有了土壤，水源，阳光，我们可以种植任何庄稼。“

4. In the gathering dusk Ahmed and his five companions had invited me to join them. Their galabias and turbans stained by the sweat and dirt of a long day’s work, they sat in front of a wayside shop, enjoying three of the best things in life along the Nile---tea, conversation, and the water pipe. At the edge of a nearby canal, donkeys laden with freshly harvested alfalfa waited for their masters to lead them home, braying a fretful counterpoint to the steady thud of an irrigation pump.

暮色降临，艾哈迈德和他的五个同伴邀请我加入他们的行列。经过了一天的劳作，他们的长袍和头巾沾上了汗渍和泥土。他们坐在路边小店前，享受着尼罗河生活的三大乐趣——茶叶，聊天和水烟。在附近一条水渠旁，驴子背上驮着刚割的苜蓿，等着主人牵它们回家去，一面发出一阵阵急促的叫声，和浇地的水泵不断发出的突突声交织在一起。

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5. All this suggested（=imply,使人感到） ancient harmonies. Yet, the Nile has been changed by modern man in ways not yet fully understood. In 1971 engineers and workers completed the Aswan High Dam, nearly 600miles upriver from Cairo toward the Sudanese frontier. It is the greatest public work to be undertaken in Egypt since the Pyramids. The devastating floods and droughts that imposed a recurrent tax of suffering on the fellahin no longer occur. Egyptian agriculture has been transformed（改造）, and industry isbenefiting from（译出直接意思） power generated by the dam. 

所有这一切都彰显出古老的和谐。但是，现代人已经用让人无法完全理解的方式（比较拗口，表意不清）改变了尼罗河。1971年，工程师和工人修建了阿斯旺高坝，这条近600公里的大坝从开罗一直向上游的苏丹边境延伸开去。（理解错误）它是继金字塔之后埃及人的又一伟大工程。给当地农民不断带来灾难的毁灭性的洪灾和干旱从此一去不复返。埃及农业得以发展，大坝发电使工业获益良多。

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6. But there have been negative effects also.Standing on a sandy beach at the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile, I was puzzled by what seemed a ghost town—a sad vista of crumbling buildings, smashed windows, and broken wires dangling from utility poles. One house teetered drunkenly, half in, half out of the sea. 不过，大坝也带来了负面影响。站在尼罗河的罗塞塔支流河口的沙石滩上，我看到一座类似鬼城的地方，感到毛骨悚然。那里一片衰败景象，建筑物摇摇欲坠，窗户破碎，断了的电线悬挂在电线杆上。一栋房子仿佛醉汉般岌岌可危地立着，一半在岸边，一半在海里。

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7. “Last summer, people stayed in those rooms—this was a summer resort,” said a voice behind me. The speaker was a young Egyptian named Muhammad, member of a team from Alexandria that had come to this abandoned village to study coastal erosion（同位句单独成句）. “Now the sea moving in,” Muhammad said. He pointed to a lighthouse perched on a tiny island a couple of mile offshore: “That lighthouse used to be on land. About six years ago it became an island. Day by day the sea is eating the land—the dam has stopped the sediment of the Nile from replenishing the shoreline.” 

”去年夏天，人们还呆在这些房子里。这里是个度假胜地。“我身后传来一个声音。说话的人是一个年轻的埃及小伙子，名叫默罕默德，是亚历山大市一个小组的成员。他们来到这个人迹罕至的村庄，希望研究海岸侵蚀现象。”如今海水正在向岸上逼近。“他指着离岸边几公里的小岛上的一个灯塔说，”那个灯塔原本是在陆地上。大约六年前，那里成了一个小岛。日复一日，大海吞噬着陆地，而大坝使得尼罗河的泥沙无法沉积下来加固海岸线了。”

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“去年夏天，那所房子还有人住过。这是一个避暑胜地。”在我身后有人说道。说话的人是一个名叫穆罕默德的埃及年轻人，他是一个考察队的队员，是专门从亚历山大港口到这个荒芜的小村庄来考察沿海地区水土流失的情况的。 “海水越来越往里边来，”穆罕默德指着两英里以外海滩一个小岛上的灯塔说道。“那座灯塔本来是在陆地上的。”大约6年前，那地方变成了一个岛。海水日复一日的冲刷陆地—水坝已经使得尼罗河的泥沙无法沉积下来加固（replenishing）海岸了。

8. As we chatted, a brightly painted sardine boat dropped anchor. The captain came ashore and joined our conversation. “Before they started the High Dam 25 years ago,” he said, “the Nile mud had a lot of food in it, and so the sardines gathered near the mouth of the river to feed. Now there is no mud, and no food for the fish --- they’ve left us.”

就在我们交谈时，一艘色彩鲜艳的捕捉沙丁鱼的船抛了锚。船长上岸，加入我们的谈话。“25年前，这里还没有大坝，”他说，“尼罗河的泥土里有很多食物，所以沙丁鱼聚集在河口寻找吃的。如今，泥土没有了，这些鱼的食物也就没有了，这些鱼离开了我们。

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我们正在聊着，一个鲜艳的漆过的沙丁船抛锚了。船长上了岸，凑过来跟我们说话。他说，“25年前开始修建高坝以前，尼罗河的泥沙有很多可吃的东西，所以沙丁鱼就聚集在河口找食吃。但现在泥沙了，鱼也没可吃的了，也就不来了”（船长的话要尽量朴素）。

9. “If all this can happen in 25 years, what will happen after 50 years, or 100 or 200?” asked Muhammad.

”如果这些发生在25年里，那么50年以后，甚至100年，200年后，会发生什么呢？“默罕默德问道。

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