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. Most from the earliest annals of recorded time individuals have found ready audiences for their accounts of journeys to strange and exotic locales.1

　　One of the earliest travel writers, a Greek geographer and historian named Strabo, lived round 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 id enliven his accounts. His multivolume work Geography provides the only surviving account 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 e 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. 2

　　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.

　　練習：

　　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

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　　備考：♦在職聯(lián)考歷年真題 ♦GCT復習規(guī)劃 ♦英語大綱及試題結構♦備考技巧

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