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tangled thickets,

[Defined as "places covered with such dense undergrowth that

spears cannot be used."]

quagmires

[Defined as "low-lying places, so heavy with mud as to be

impassable for chariots and horsemen."]

and crevasses,

[Defined by Mei Yao-ch'en as "a narrow difficult way between

beetling cliffs." Tu Mu's note is "ground covered with trees and

rocks, and intersected by numerous ravines and pitfalls." This is

very vague, but Chia Lin explains it clearly enough as a defile

or narrow pass, and Chang Yu takes much the same view. On the

whole, the weight of the commentators certainly inclines to the

rendering "defile." But the ordinary meaning of the Chinese in

one place is "a crack or fissure" and the fact that the meaning

of the Chinese elsewhere in the sentence indicates something in

the nature of a defile, make me think that Sun Tzŭ is here

speaking of crevasses.]

should be left with all possible speed and not approached.