夜航非洲
当你飞行的时候，你会感觉到满足，就像拥有了整个非洲。你觉得目力所及的一切，都属于你：所有的碎片都合而为一，全部归你所有。它存在着，属于你。它让你感觉自己比真实的那个自己更强大，已接近你自己可能会达到的事，但你从没提起胆量认真细想。”
神秘的非洲，狂野的非洲。它是炼狱，也是摄影师的天堂。它是狩猎者的瓦尔哈拉，也是遁世者的乌托邦。它是你心中的愿望，禁得起所有的诠释。它是死亡世界最后的一丝残余，也是闪亮生命的摇篮。但对于很多人，也包括我，它只是个“家”。它有各种各样的性格——除了沉闷。
我四岁那年来到英属东非，少年时光都在光着脚和纳迪人一起捕猎野猪，后来以训练赛马为生，再后来驾驶飞机在坦噶尼喀湖，以及位于塔纳河与阿西河之间的干旱丛林地带中寻找大象。我一直是个快活的乡下人，直到我在伦敦生活一年之后，才明白需要用脑的生活多么无聊。无聊，就像钩虫，是挑地方的疾病。
我曾驾驶我的飞机从内罗毕机场起飞过一千次，但每当机轮滑过陆地进入半空，我都能感觉到飞机的不确定与兴奋，就像是开始第一次冒险旅程。
即便在有航道的地区，即便有仪器的帮助和无线电的指引，夜航依旧是种孤独的工作。但飞越牢不可破的黑暗，没有冰冷的耳机陪伴，也不知道前方是否会出现灯光、生命迹象或标志清晰的机场，这就不仅仅是孤独了。有时那种感觉如此不真实，相信别人的存在反而成了毫不理性的想象。山丘、树林、岩石，还有平原都在黑暗中合为一体，而这黑暗无穷无尽。地球不再是你生活的星球，而是一颗遥远的星星，只不过星星会发光。飞机就是你的星球，而你是上面唯一的居民。
离开内罗毕抵达南格威的旅程并不伟大。它没有什么新闻价值，只是从这里到那里而已。对于那些不了解非洲草原，不了解它的沼泽、夜色与寂静的人来说，这段旅程不仅算不上伟大，或许还有些乏味。但对我来说并非如此，因为自童年时代起，非洲就是呼吸一样的存在，是我的生命源泉。
它依旧主宰着我内心最深切的恐惧，总是孕育着复杂而又无法解答的谜题。它是记忆中的阳光与青山。清凉的河水与暖黄色的灿烂清晨。它和海洋一样冷酷无情，比沙漠更顽固不化。它从不隐藏自己的好恶。它不会有分毫妥协，却又对全人类奉献良多。
Africa with the Night Flight
Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just ‘home.’ It is all these things but one thing — it is never dull.
From the time, I arrived in British East Africa at the indifferent age of four and went through the barefoot stage of early youth hunting wild pig with the Nandi, later training race-horses for a living, and still later scouting Tanganyika and the waterless bush country between the Tana and Athi Rivers, by aeroplane, for elephant, I remained so happily provincial I was unable to discuss the boredom of being alive with any intelligence until I had gone to London and lived there a year. Boredom, like hookworm, is endemic.
I have lifted my plane from the Nairobi airport for perhaps a thousand flights and I have never felt her wheels glide from the earth into the air without knowing the uncertainty and the exhilaration of firstborn adventure.
Night flying over charted country by the aid of instruments and radio guidance can still be a lonely business, but to fly in unbroken darkness without even the cold companionship of a pair of ear-phones or the knowledge that somewhere ahead are lights and life and a well-marked airport is something more than just lonely. It is at times unreal to the point where the existence of other people seems not even a reasonable probability. The hills, the forests, the rocks, and the plains are one with the darkness, and the darkness is infinite. The earth is no more your planet than is a distant star — if a star is shining; the plane is your planet and you are its sole inhabitant.
But to leave Nairobi and arrive at Nungwe is not spectacular. It is not news. It is only a little hop from here to there, and to one who does not know the plains of Africa, its swamps, its night sounds and its night silences, such a flight is not only unspectacular, but perhaps tedious as well. Only not to me, for Africa was the breath and life of my childhood.
It is still the host of all my darkest fears, the cradle of mysteries always intriguing, but never wholly solved. It is the remembrance of sunlight and green hills, cool water and the yellow warmth of bright mornings. It is as ruthless as any sea, more uncompromising than its own deserts. It is without temperance in its harshness or in its favors. It yields nothing, offering much to men of all races.
柏瑞尔·马卡姆
英国女飞行员、冒险家和作家
1936年完成了横越北大西洋的历史性的单机飞行，著有回忆录夜航西飞
Beryl Markham
British-born Kenyan aviator, adventurer, author.
She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. She wrote about her adventures in her memoir, West with the Night.
本网站部分图片来源于网络，如有侵权，请联系780236430@qq.com ，我们会在5个工作日内查证删除。图片其版权均归原作者及其网站所有。