Word List
strand vt 使（船）搁浅；使（某人）困于（某地）
canoe n 独木小舟
fancy n 幻想；异想
prevail vi 占上风；占压倒优势
launch vt 使（新船）下水
fell vt 伐（木）；砍树
cedar n 杉木
temple n 庙宇
diameter n 直径
stump n 树桩
lessen vi 变小，变少
part vi 分开
branch n 树枝
infinite adj 无限的
hack vi 砍；劈
hew vi 砍；劈
vast adj 巨大的
upright adv 直立的
mere adj 仅仅；不过
mallet n 槌子；木槌
chisel n 凿子
handsome adj 漂亮的
cargo n 货物
weary adj 令人厌倦的
stroke n 一击
voyage n 航行
undertake vt 从事
device n 方法，手段
yard n 码（=三英尺）
inconvenience n 困难；不便之处
uphill adj 上坡的
creek n 小水湾
resolve vt决心；决定
dig vi 挖；掘
surface n 表面
grudge vt 吝惜
deliverance n （从困境中)解脱；解放
stir vt 摇动；移动
cannal n 运河
measure vt 测量
calculate vt 计算
reluctance n 不愿意
folly n 愚蠢
IDIOMS AND EXPRESSIONS
to put oneself upon thinking 开始考虑
to have in mind(something) 心中所想的是
to make.....of ....以。。。为材料制作
so as to 以便；
to go through( work）做完
to be delighted with 因。。。而十分高兴
many a= many 许多
to feel certain that 觉得。。。肯定
to meet a difficulty 对付困难
to have something in view 可以指望得到某种东西
at length 终于
to give up 放弃
to count the cost 计算代价
TEXT
ROBINSON CRUSOE MAKES HIMSELF A BOAT
I had been stranded on this little island for quite some time when one day I put myself upon thinking whether it was not possible to make myself a boat. I had in mind a canoe, such as the natives of these regions make of the trunk of a great tree. This I not only thought possible but easy. I felt so pleased with the idea that I never once considered how I should get it off the land after it was completed.
The eagerness of my fancy prevailed and to work I went. " Let's first make it and then i'll find some way or other to launch it into the water," I said to myself.
I felled a cedar tree, and I doubt whether Solomon ever had such a tree for the building of the temple at Jerusalem. It was five feet teninches in diameter near the stump, and four feet eleven inches in diameter at the end of twenty-two feet, after which it lessened a little, and then parted into branches. It was not without infinite labour that I felled this tree. I was twenty days hacking and hewing at it at the bottom.I was fourteen more getting the branches and the vast spreading head of it cut off. After this it tookme a month to shape it to something like the bottom of a boat, so that it might swim upright. It took me another three months to clear the inside so as to make and exact boat of it. This I did by mere mallet and chisel, and by hard labour, till I had a very handsome boat. It was big enough to carryl six-and-twenty men, and therefore big enough to carry me and all my cargo.
When I had gone through this work I was extremely delighted with it. The boat was really much bigger than any canoe I ever saw that was made of one tree. Many a weary stroke it had cost, you may be sure, and there remained nothing but to get it into the water; and had I succeeded in getting it into the water, I feel certain that I should have begun the maddest voyage that was ever undertaken by man.
However, all my devices to get it into the water failed, though they cost me infinite labour. The boat lay about one hundred yards from the water, and not more; but the first inconvenience was it was uphill towards the creek. Well, to meet this difficulty, I resolved to dig into the surface of the earth, so as to make it easier to launch the boat. This I began, and ti cost me enormous pains; but who grudge pains that have their deliverance in view? But when this was worked through, I found it still impossible to stir the canoe.
Then I resolved to cut a canal to bring the water up to the canoe, seeing that I could not bring the canoe down to the water. Well, I measured the distance of ground, and calculated how deep it was to be dug, how broad, and how the earth to be thrown out. I found that since there was no other person to work at it but myself it would bhave to be ten to twelve years before I could go through with it; for the shore lay high, and at the upper end it must have been twenty feet deep. So at lengh, though with great reluctance, I gave up the attempt.
This was a great lesson to me, and now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strenghth to go through with it.
(Adapted from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe) |