Your father returns from his voyage. Your family gathers in the dining-room. You want to know as much as possible about his voyage, which was very hard.
VI. Compose a story about your first voyage. Use the following words and expressions:
To belong; to weigh anchor; to be in good health, to be bound for; to pass; to keep steady upon the course; port of destination; to moor; to be over.
VII. Home reading. Read and translate orally and do all tasks in written form.
THE ROBINSON CRUSOE
OF THE POLAR REGIONS
by JAMES LINBRIDGE
James Lindbrige, an Englishman, lived in the 19th century. He wrote a book of short sea stories. The book was a success in the late forties of the century. One of the best stories he wrote is The Robinson Crusoe of the Polar Regions,
Somewhere about the year 1757, a vessel named the Anne Forbes left the port of Aberdeen for the Greenland.whale fishery. On board, as a seaman, was a lad of the name of Gordon. The captain's name was Hughes, an Englishman, who had the character of being drunken, and obstinate, and altogether unfit for such a situation. They had instructions to proceed to the Spitzbergen seas. They had fine weather and an open sea. They continued their route straight on for a fortnight, although the mate, an old experienced sailor, represented to the captain the danger of penetrating so far into the Polar Seas; but he only laughed at him.
One day the mate pointed out to the captain some brilliant appearance at a great distance, which he said he suspected were immense floes or fields of ice, and if the wind should rise in that direction, they should to a certainty be enclosed. But Captain Hughes did not pay any attention to it. The captain went and intoxicated himself as usual. A few hours afterwards the mate perceived the vessel to be drifting with great rapidity, but not knowing in what direction, he called up the captain. The captain became now alarmed and gave his orders with impatience.
But in spite of all their efforts, they became completely involved in broken floating ice. They continued, however, to drift slowly toward the south-west, under short sail, passing what the crew took for a huge iceberg, but which the captain said was one of the "Seven Sisters", off the coast of Spitzbergen. That was last land they saw. After struggling on for twenty-four hours longer the Anne Forbes perished in a moment except Gordon who was thrown on one of the ice fields. The ship went down; but in less than half an hour, by some extraordinary operations of the iceberg below the water, she was thrown out on the ice, keel uppermost, a perfect wreck!
There, then, was this man left on a field of floating ice, on the great Polar Ocean, without food or shelter. He saw at once the necessity of trying to reach the hulk, an attempt which was dangerous. But life is sweet, and hunger began to assail him, so he determined to try. It is impossible to describe the perils he underwent in this attempt.
When at last he reached the wreck and obtained the entrance, he found food. Having renewed his strength he soon fell asleep. He slept for a considerable time, and on awaking he heard, as he thought, somebody enter the cabin. He arose and cautiously opened the door of the cabin where he had been all the time, and saw a whole horde of white Polar bears round the ship, and all busy eating!
Not knowing how to drive this herd of monsters away, Gordon took a speaking-trumpet and shouted through it with all his might, on which they all sprung up on their hind feet, standing as straight as human creatures. They were all fat, and some of them at least ten feet high. After staring about them for a time, they again began to eat.
Gordon was now quite sure, from the invasion of the bears, that there was a communication with some country— most probably Spitzbergen. He imagined he was somewhere about the middle of the sea, between Greenland and the North Cape.
Winter had now nearly set in. During one of the terrible storms of wind and snow-drift common in the Polar regions, about the middle of the night, Gordon was awakened by some noise inside his cabin. He was frightened beyond measure, for he had no idea what it could be. By-and-by, something came to his cabin-door and rapped. It tried to open the door, but it failed. He was by this time on his feet, with a large knife in his hand. Presently, he heard the intruder go away and attack the biscuits. He now knew that it was his first visitor the bear, and was sure that it had come to steal for its winter store. He immediately struck a light, opened the door, and bolted out, having the light in his left hand, and the long sharp knife for cutting up beef, whales, etc., in his right. The light frightened the animal so dreadfully that it could not move. He ran forward, and with his long knife gave the animal two deadly stabs below the fifth rib, towards the heart. The blood, that gushed out, nearly filled the cabin, and the poor brute very soon gave over struggling.
The animal was a huge she-bear. He skinned it with great difficulty, and spread it on the ice to freeze. He calculated that he could not have less than a hundred weight of good fresh meat. He then cleared out his cabin, and spread the bear’s skin on it for a carpet. After that he once more went to bed.
On awaking, he heard a noise at the window, and instantly recognized the sounds which had alarmed him before, when the dead bear was sticking there. Without hesitation he opened the window. A bear cub, dying of hunger and cold, raised its fore feet to the window. He helped it in, and when it found its mothers skin, it uttered a sound of joy, and tears actually streamed from its eyes. It went round and round, and licked the skin for very fondness.
At last its mutters of joy gradually changed into moanings and at last it laid itself down in a round form, to die beside all that remained of its mother. Pitying its groans, Gordon gave it some biscuits. It received the first piece shyly, but the rest it ate so voraciously that he was afraid it would choke.
He fed the cub slowly, patting it and speaking kindly to it, calling it Nancy, for it was a female. It licked his hand in return, and his heart bounded with delight. Their friendship was formed at that moment, with a resolution on his part that it should never be broken. She licked his hand again, and then rolling herself up once more on her mother's skin, after a few heavy moans, she fell sound asleep. Out of this sleep she did not awake for at least three days.
Gordon fed her, and her eyes lighted up. He taught her gradually to follow him in and out. She seemed to consider Gordon a friend of her own species. She answered to her name, and came at his bidding; and when they walked out upon the ice, he dressed in his late captain's holiday-clothes, took her paw within his arm, and taught her to walk upright. He often laughed heartily at the figure they cut; and as she tried to imitate him in everything, so she did in laughing; but her laugh was perfectly irresistible.
For about two months he spent all his waking hours with Nancy, for she was constant to him as his shadow.
One night he was awakened from a sound sleep by the tottering motion of the iceberg. The motion stopped in the course of a minute, by which time he was up and out on the platform at the top, from whence he saw that the iceberg had moved a small degree round to the west. It had separated from the interminable field of ice on the east, leaving an opening there, about a bowsprit over. The sea in the opening was as bright as a mirror, and as soon as Nancy saw the water, she rushed into it, and vanished in below the ice for a space that frightened him for her safety. She at length appeared with a fish in her mouth, something like a large herring. He was glad of it, and caressed her, and away she flew again to the opening. Whenever she dived, she brought up a fish of some sort; and every day thereafter she supplied him with fish, so that he had a treasure of great value in that singular animal.
During the space of six months at least, Gordon must have crossed the Polar Seas without ever knowing where he was. He several times saw mountains in the early part of his tour, and twice, in particular, quite distinctly; and once he saw a headland or island straight before him. He was even so near it that he saw a being, whom he took for a woman, moving about on the shore, staring at the floating ice-mountain. He put two hands to his mouth in place of a speaking-trumpet, and hailed the stranger with his whole strength of lungs; but before he could prevent it, Nancy did the same, and sent forth such a bray that fairly frightened the native, who fled with the swiftness of the roe, and vanished among the rocks.
When he had traveled from sixteen to twenty miles, calculating from the length of time he had taken, and while making for some hills which he thought he discovered before him, he noticed Nancy very far to the right, seeming greatly interested about something, as if following a track. He turned in the same direction, and to his joy, found the traces of a company mounting to from thirty or forty individuals, all journeying on the same path, straight for the land. Thus encouraged, he posted on for many miles. At length he came upon some marks, which were rather equivocal. Nancy had run off and left him on the track; and now straining his sight forward, he perceived on a rising ground that must have been a shore, a whole herd of white bears!
Gordon had run away so quickly that he had lost all traces of his path. After travelling several miles, Nancy quitted him. He proceeded for some time, but at length he heard a noise coming along the ice, like the galloping of horses, accompanied occasionally with a growling murmur. He made all the haste he could, but his strength was gone. On looking back, he saw a bear coming upon him at full speed. It was soon kneeling at his feet, and licking his hand. It was Nancy, bleeding. She instantly turned about, and went slowly back. He then saw a gigantic bear, standing on end, like a tall obelisk, covered with snow. His heart fainted within him; but he cocked his gun, and tried to run on. Nancy endeavored to oppose the monster by throwing herself always in before him. Gordon tried several times to aim at him, but found it impossible without shooting Nancy; so that all he could do was to run on, until, fairly exhausted, he fell flat on his face. Instantly he found himself grasped, and one of the bears above him. It was poor Nancy trying to cover him with her own body from the attacks of the savage brute that pursued him. The monster struggled to reach his neck, and forced his head in below Nancy, and Gordon felt first his cold nose, and then his warm lips close to his throat. He called out, "Seize him!"—the words used for baiting on Nancy, and which she always promptly obeyed, on which she gave him such a snap that made him growl like a bull. Then she seized the gigantic monster by the throat with her teeth and paws. Gordon put the muzzle of his gun to the bear's ear and fired. The shot killed the bear. As soon as Nancy got free, he embraced her, and feeble and tired almost to death, with her at his side to lean upon, they made their escape to the old hulk.
Ex. I. Answer the following questions:
1. When did the Anne Forbes leave for Greenland?
2. What was the purpose of her voyage?
3. What was the name of the captain?
4. Was the captain a clever man?
5. Did he listen to what the mate told him?
6. What happened to the ship and her crew?
7. Did Gordon perish?
8. What did Gordon do after he had found himself on the ice-floe?
9. Who visited Gordon on the ship?
10.Why did Gordon name the bear cub Nancy?
Ex. II. Translate the following sentences into English:
1. Это произошло очень давно.
2. Судно под названием «Анна Форбес» следовало в Гренландию.
3. Капитан судна, которого звали Хьюз, был очень упрямый человек.
4. Помощник капитана — старый и опытный моряк — предупредил его, что район, в котором они находились, очень опасен.
5. Но капитан не обратил никакого внимания на его слова.
6. Из-за упрямства капитана погибли судно и команда.
7. Спасся только один член экипажа по имени Гордон.
8. После кораблекрушения Гордон стал жить на судне.
9. Жизнь на льдине была очень тяжелой.
10. На судно часто приходили медведи, и Гордону приходилось с ними сражаться.
11. Однажды на судно пришел голодный медвежонок.
12. Этот медвежонок стал жить вместе с Гордоном.
Вариант
Test paper
I. Give the equivalents of the following expressions:
Защищать окружающую среду; делать всё возможное; море спокойно; быть занятым; брать пеленги; дважды в неделю.
II. Translate the following sentences into English:
1. О чём они говорят? – Они обсуждают статью из вчерашней газеты.
2. Судно вышло из Ливерпуля 16 сентября.
3. Почему вы изменили курс судна? – Нам было приказано.
4. Какая была погода, когда вы входили в порт? – Был туман.
5. Будут ли они заходить в порты по пути в Нью-Йорк? – Нет.
6. Специальные трюмы сделаны для хранения скоропортящихся продуктов.
7. Мы знали, что он уже приехал и живёт в гостинице.
8. Если вы взгляните вверх, вы увидите белые облака и синее небо.
III. Read the text and translate it in writing:
Studying at a naval school, Cadet Gennadi Nevelskoi learned from the reports of the Cossacks, – Vasili Poyarkov, who had reached the mouth of the Amur in 1644, and Yerofei Khabarov, who had sailed along the Amur, that opposite the mouth of the river there was a huge island, later named Sakhalin. In an atlas published by the Academy of Sciences in 1745 Sakhalin was also plotted as an island. But on the maps used at geography lessons Sakhalin was plotted as a peninsula. It had been taken for a peninsula by the explorers La Perouse and Browton, who sailed along the coast of Tataria, as the shores of the Tatar Strait were then called, as well as by the first Russian circumnavigator I.F.Krusenstern.
The solution of the Amur-Sakhalin problems was very important for Russia, as at that time all the supplies were transported to Russia’s Far Eastern territories either over the Urals and the whole way across Siberia or by sea. The latter route was actually nothing less than a circumnavigation, as the ships had either to sail all the way round Africa and Asia or to skirt America. The transportation costs greatly exceeded the value of the cargo itself. Besides,the voyage took up from 15 to 18 months.
IV. Answer the following questions in details:
1.What did Nevelskoi learn from the reports of the Cossacks?
2.What was the difference between Sakhalin’s position on the maps and in the atlas?
3. Why was the solution of the Amur-Sakhalin problem very important?
