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WE HAD FINALLY arrived on the outskirts of this forest, surely one of the finest in Captain Nemo's immense domains. He regarded it as his own and had laid the same claim to it that, in the first days of the world, the first men had to their forests on land. Besides, who else could dispute his ownership of this underwater property? What other, bolder pioneer would come, ax in hand, to clear away its dark underbrush?
我們到底走到森林的邊緣了，這可能是尼摩船長的廣大領土中最美好的一處。他把森林看作是他的，他把森林的所有權歸他自己，像世界開辟的時候，最初出現的一批人霸占所有權一樣。其實，又有誰能夠跟他爭這海底財產的所有權呢？哪有比他更大膽的開荒者，手拿著斧子，敢來這里砍伐荊棘，開墾田地呢？
This forest was made up of big treelike plants, and when we entered beneath their huge arches, my eyes were instantly struck by the unique arrangement of their branches--an arrangement that I had never before encountered.
這森林中生長的都是高大的木本植物，當我們走到樹，林中間闊大的拱形枝干之下，我的眼光首先就被林中樹枝排列的奇特形狀所吸引，感到奇怪的是這種形狀，我從來沒有看見過。
None of the weeds carpeting the seafloor, none of the branches bristling from the shrubbery, crept, or leaned, or stretched on a horizontal plane. They all rose right up toward the surface of the ocean. Every filament or ribbon, no matter how thin, stood ramrod straight. Fucus plants and creepers were growing in stiff perpendicular lines, governed by the density of the element that generated them. After I parted them with my hands, these otherwise motionless plants would shoot right back to their original positions. It was the regime of verticality.
林中地上并沒有生長什么草，小樹上叢生的枝權沒有一根向外蔓延，也不彎曲垂下，也不向橫的方面伸展。所有草木都筆直伸向洋面。沒有枝條，沒有葉帶，不管怎么細小，都是筆直的，像鐵桿一般。海帶和水藻，受到海水強大密度的影響，堅定不移地沿著垂直線生長。而且這些水草叉是靜止不動的，當我用手分開它們的時候，一放手，它們立即回復原來的筆直狀態。這林子簡直就是垂直線的世界。
