We are all explorers. Our desire to discover, and then share that new-found knowledge, is part of what makes us human – indeed, this has played an important part in our success as a species. Long before the first caveman slumped down beside the fire and grunted news that there were plenty of wildebeest over yonder, our ancestors had learnt the value of sending out scouts to investigate the unknown. This questing nature of ours undoubtedly helped our species spread around the globe, just as it nowadays no doubt helps the last nomadic Penan maintain their existence in the depleted forests of Borneo, and a visitor negotiate the subways of New York.

我们都是探险家。我们渴望发现并分享那些新发现的知识，这是我们人类的一部分一实际上，这对于人类这个物种的成功起到了重要作用。早在第一个穴居人躺在火堆旁，咕哝着说那边有很多牛羚之前，我们的祖先就已经学会了派遣侦察兵去探索未知世界的价值。毫无疑问，这种探索的天性无疑帮助了我们这个物种在全球范围内传播，就像如今这种天性无疑帮助了最后一个游牧的本南族人在婆罗洲贫瘠的森林中存活，以及一个游客在纽约的地铁中穿行。

Over the years, we've come to think of explorers as a peculiar breed – different from the rest of us, different from those of us who are merely 'well travelled', even; and perhaps there is a type of person more suited to seeking out the new, a type of caveman more inclined to risk venturing out. That, however, doesn't take away from the fact that we all have this enquiring instinct, even today; and that in all sorts of professions – whether artist, marine biologist or astronomer – borders of the unknown are being tested each day.

多年来，我们已经将探险家视为一个特别的种族一与我们不同，与我们这些仅仅“游历过很多地方“的人不同;也许有一类人更适合寻找新事物，一类穴居人更倾向于去冒险。然而，这并不能抹杀这样一个事实: 即使在今天，我们都有这种好奇的本能，而且无论是艺术家、海洋生物学家还是天文学家各种各样职业的人每天都在探索未知的边界。

Thomas Hardy set some of his novels in Egdon Heath, a fictional area of uncultivated land, and used the landscape to suggest the desires and fears of his characters. He is delving into matters we all recognise because they are common to humanity. This is surely an act of exploration, and into a world as remote as the author chooses. Explorer and travel writer Peter Fleming talks of the moment when the explorer returns to the existence he has left behind with his loved ones. The traveller 'who has for weeks or months seen himself only as a puny and irrelevant alien crawling laboriously over a country in which he has no roots and no background, suddenly encounters his other self, a relatively solid figure, with a place in the minds of certain people'.

托马斯·哈代把他的一些小说背景设定在埃格登荒原这片虚构的荒地上，并用风景来表达他笔下人物的欲望和恐惧。他深入探索了那些我们都已知的问题，因为这些问题很普遍。 这是属于作家的探索他们可以随意探索世界的深浅。探险家兼旅行作家彼得·弗莱明，谈到了探险家回归到自己所爱之人身边的时光。 几周或几个月以来，旅行者把自己看作是一个微不足道、无关紧要的异乡人，在一个他没有扎根，也没有背景的国家艰难前行，突然遇到了另一个自己，一个坚定的自己，在某些人的心中占有一席之地的自己。

In this book about the exploration of the earth's surface, I have confined myself to those whose travels were real and who also aimed at more than personal discovery. But that still left me with another problem: the word 'explorer' has become associated with a past era. We think back to a golden age, as if exploration peaked somehow in the 19th century – as if the process of discovery is now on the decline, though the truth is that we have named only one and a half million of this planet's species, and there may be more than 10 million – and that's not including bacteria. We have studied only 5 per cent of the species we know. We have scarcely mapped the ocean floors, and know even less about ourselves; we fully understand the workings of only 10 per cent of our brains.

在这本关于探索地球表面的书中，我一直以来，都把探险者的定义局限在了那些旅行经历真实，但目的不仅仅是自我发现的人身上。但这给我带来了另一个问题:“探险者“这个词逐渐和旧旧时代联系在一起。回想起那个黄金时代，似乎探险在19世纪就已经达到了顶峰- 似乎现在探索正在走下坡路，但事实是，我们只给这个星球上的150万个物种命名过，而所有物种可能数量超过一千万 - 这还不包括细菌。我们仅研究了已知物种的5%。我们也几乎没有绘制过海底地图，对我们自己的了解更是少之又少:我们只能完全理解10% 的大脑工作原理。

Here is how some of today's 'explorers' define the word. Ran Fiennes, dubbed the 'greatest living explorer', said, 'An explorer is someone who has done something that no human has done before – and also done something scientifically useful.' Chris Bonington, a leading mountaineer, felt exploration was to be found in the act of physically touching the unknown: 'You have to have gone somewhere new.' Then Robin Hanbury-Tenison, a campaigner on behalf of remote so-called 'tribal' peoples, said, 'A traveller simply records information about some far-off world, and reports back; but an explorer changes the world.' Wilfred Thesiger, who crossed Arabia's Empty Quarter in 1946, and belongs to an era of unmechanised travel now lost to the rest of us, told me, 'If I'd gone across by camel when I could have gone by car, it would have been a stunt.' To him, exploration meant bringing back information from a remote place regardless of any great self-discovery.

以下是当今一些“探险家“对这个词的定义。被称为“仍在世的最伟大探险家”的冉·费因斯说:“探险家就是做过人类以前从未做过的事情，且对科学做出过贡献的人。“克里斯·波宁顿 ，一位一流的登山运动员，认为探险是用身体去接触未知:“你必须去一个新地方。“然后，代表偏远地区亦或是“部落“民族的活动家罗宾·汉伯里·泰尼森 说:“旅行者只是记载一些久远社会的信息，然后传播这些信息;但探险家改变了世界;在1946年，威尔弗雷德·塞西格穿越了阿拉伯半岛的空旷地带，他所处那个对我们来说有点陌生的徒步旅行时代。他告诉我:“如果我本可以驾车去，但我却选择骑骆驼，那么我就只是搞噱头而已了。“对他来说，探索意味着从遥远的地方带回信息，无论是否有任何伟大的自我发现。

Each definition is slightly different – and tends to reflect the field of endeavour of each pioneer. It was the same whoever I asked: the prominent historian would say exploration was a thing of the past, the cutting-edge scientist would say it was of the present. And so on. They each set their own particular criteria; the common factor in their approach being that they all had, unlike many of us who simply enjoy travel or discovering new things, both a very definite objective from the outset and also a desire to record their findings.

每个人对探险的定义都略有不同 - 而这正体现出每个先驱者的努力。无论我问谁，答案都是一样的:杰出的历史学家会说探索已经成为过去，而前沿科学家会说探索就在当下，诸如此类。他们每个人都有自己独特的标准。他们的共同点是，不同于我们这种只是享受旅行或发现新事物的人，探索家从一开始就有一个非常明确的目标，也渴望记录他们的发现。

I'd best declare my own bias. As a writer, I'm interested in the exploration of ideas. I've done a great many expeditions and each one was unique. I've lived for months alone with isolated groups of people all around the world, even two 'uncontacted tribes'. But none of these things is of the slightest interest to anyone unless, through my books, I've found a new slant, explored a new idea. Why? Because the world has moved on. The time has long passed for the great continental voyages – another walk to the poles, another crossing of the Empty Quarter. We know how the land surface of our planet lies; exploration of it is now down to the details – the habits of microbes, say, or the grazing behaviour of buffalo. Aside from the deep sea and deep underground, it's the era of specialists. However, this is to disregard the role the human mind has in conveying remote places; and this is what interests me: how a fresh interpretation, even of a well-travelled route, can give its readers new insights.

我想谈谈我的看法。作为一个作家，我对思想探索很感兴趣。我进行过很多次探险，每一次都是独一无二的体验。几个月来，我一直和世界各地与世隔绝的人群生活在一起，甚至还有两个与世隔绝的部落。但是，除非通过我的书我发现了新的角度，探索了新的想法，否则没有人会对这些事情有任何兴趣。为什么?因为世界在前进。伟大的大陆航行已经是很久以前的事情了 - 又是一次到两极的旅行，又是一次穿越“空旷之地”的旅行。我们已经知道了我们星球的陆地表面如何;现在，探索已经落实到细节上了 - 例如微生物的习性或水牛的放牧行为。除了深海和地下深处，探索已经俨然成了专家的时代了。但是，这忽视了人类思维在把信息传递到偏远地区上的作用，而这正是我感兴趣的地方:即使是别人走过很多遍的路线，如何用令人耳目一新的阐释，给读者带来新的见解。