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Lesson 12  Life on a desert island

荒岛生活

Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise where the sun always shines. Life there is simple and good. Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you never have to work. The other side of the picture is quite the opposite. Life on a desert island is wretched. You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, waiting for a boat which never comes. Perhaps there is an element of truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the opportunity to find out.

Two men who recently spent five days on a coral island wished they had stayed there longer. They were taking a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired. During the journey, their boat began to sink. They quickly loaded a small rubber dinghy with food, matches, and cans of beer and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island. There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not prove to be a problem. The men collected rainwater in the rubber dinghy. As they had brought a spear gun with them, they had plenty to eat. They caught lobster and fish every day, and, as one of them put it 'ate like kings'. When a passing tanker rescued them five days later, both men were genuinely sorry that they had to leave.

New words and expressions 生词与短语

     desert island

     荒岛

     unrealistic

adj. 不真实

     paradise

n.   天堂，乐士

     wretched

adj. 可怜的，艰苦的

     starve

v.   挨饿

     element

n.   成分

     opportunity

n.   机会

     coral

n.   珊瑚

     Virgin Islands

     维尔京群岛

     Miami

n.   迈阿密（美国最南的城市）

     dinghy

n.   救生筏，小船

     Caribbean

n.   加勒比海

     spear gun

     捕鱼枪

     lobster

n.   龙虾

     tanker

n.   油轮

     genuinely

adv. 由衷地

     Robinson Crusoe

     鲁滨孙.克鲁索（小说《鲁滨孙漂流记》主人公）

本文参考译文

我们许多人对于荒岛生活有一种不切实际的想法。我们有时想象荒岛是阳光终日普照的天堂。在那里，生活简单又美好。成熟的水果从树上掉下来，人们根本无需劳动。另一种想法恰恰相反，认为荒岛生活很可怕，要么饿死，要么像鲁滨孙那样，天天盼船来，却总没见船影。也许，这两种都像都有可信之处。但很少有人能有机会去弄个究竟。