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*第二十六篇Seeing the World Centuries Ago

　　If you enjoy looking through travel books by such familiar authors as Arthur Frommer or Eugene Fodor, it will not surprise you to learn that travel writing has a long and venerable history. Almost from the earliest annals of recorded time individuals have found ready audiences for their accounts of journeys to strange and exotic locales.

　　One of the earliest travel writers, a Greek geographer and historian named Strabo, lived around the time of Christ. Though Strabo is known to have traveled from east of the Black Sea west to Italy and as far south as Ethiopia, he also used details gleaned from other writers to extend and enliven his accounts. His multivolumed work Geography provides the only surviving account of the cities, peoples, customs, and geographical peculiarities of the whole known world of his time.

　　Two other classic travel writers, the Italian Marco Polo and the Moroccan Ibn Battutah, lived in roughly the same time period. Marco Polo traveled to China with his father and uncle in about A. D. 1275 and remained there 16 or 17 years, visiting several other countries during his travels. When Marco returned to Italy he dictated his memoirs, including stories he had heard from others, to a scribe, with the resulting book Il milione being an instant success. Though difficult to attest to the accuracy of all he says, Marco's book impelled Europeans to begin their great voyages of exploration.

　　Ibn Battutah's interest in travel began on his required Muslim journey to Mecca in 1325, and during his lifetime he journeyed through all the countries where Islam held sway. 3 His travel book the Rihlah is a personalized account of desert journeys, court intrigues, and even the effect of the Black Death in the various lands he visited. In almost 30 years of traveling it is estimated that Ibn Battutah covered more than 75, 000 miles.

　　练习：

　　1. This passage is mostly about________.

　　A) why people find travel writing exciting

　　B) the literary style of three early travel writers

　　C) where three early travel writers went and wrote about

　　D) how to write a travel book

　　2. Ibn Battutah traveled________.

　　A) to China

　　B) to Ethiopia

　　C) throughout the Muslim world

　　D) for 16 or 17 years

　　3. The books of the three writers were popular because________.

　　A) they listed good places to stay

　　B) they told of strange and exotic locales

　　C) they explained the best routes to get to places

　　D) all of their stories were firsthand accounts

　　4. The overall organization of this passage is through________.

　　A) chronological order

　　B) spatial description

　　C) travel writers' personal narratives

　　D) persuasive details

　　5. In this passage attest means to________.

　　A) give an examination to

　　B) draw a map of

　　C) tell lies to

　　D) give proof of

　　【答案】

　　1. C 2. C 3. B 4. A 5. D

　　【译文】

　　第二十六篇看许久以前的世界

　　如果你喜欢读类似亚瑟·弗洛梅尔或尤金·弗多这些令人熟知的作家写的旅行图书，那么你就不会惊讶于旅行写作那悠长、令人肃然起敬的历史。几乎从最早有记载的时期开始，人们就发现，他们对去一个陌生地方旅行的记录是不乏读者的。

　　公元前后的希腊地理学家、历史学家斯特雷波，就是最早的旅行作家之一。虽然斯特雷波因从黑海的东部出发，西至意大利，南至埃塞俄比亚而闻名，他也借鉴了其他作者的记录来使他的作品内容更丰富生动。他的多卷著作《地理》是唯一一部记录当时世界上城市、人、风俗、地理特征的作品。

　　大概同时期的另两位优秀的旅行作家是意大利人马可·波罗和摩洛哥人伊本·白图泰。马可·波罗在公元1275 年同他的父亲和叔叔去了中国，在那里待了十六七年，在这期间他也去了一些其他国家。回到意大利后，他向一位作家口述了他旅行的回忆以及从别人那里听到的故事，最终《马可·波罗游记》问世，迅速红了起来。虽然很难证实他所说的是否都属实，但马可的书促使欧洲人开始了他们伟大的航海探索之旅。

　　伊本·白图泰在1325 年出发去麦加朝圣，从此开始了他的旅行。在他的有生之年，他去了所有的穆斯林国家旅行。他的书《伊本·白图泰游记》记载了沙漠旅行、宫廷阴谋，甚至包括他游历过的地方受黑死病的影响。据估计，在差不多30 年里，伊本·白图泰的旅行行程有7 万5 千多英里。

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