雙語(yǔ)+MP3|美國(guó)學(xué)生世界地理15 “之最”最多的西部

A LAND where they have the b-est, the bigg-est, the fin-est, the highest, the loveli-est of everything—so they say—the best oranges, the biggest prunes, the finest grapes, the tallest trees, the highest mountains, the loveliest weather—i. t. w. W. No, it’s not Paradise. That’s the ’est, ’est West.
California was named after an island in an old fairy-tale and in many ways the real California is a fairy-tale land. When gold was found in the rivers there, the story sounded like a fairy-tale, but it turned out to be a true tale. Many stories they tell nowadays about California still sound like fairy-tales to people in the East. Who would believe that there are trees in California so tall they seem to brush the sky—trees so big around that men have cut tunnels in them for automobiles to go through—trees so old that they were born before Christ was born! It’s true, there are. They are called Giant Redwoods. How more wonderful than a fairy-tale it would be if those trees could tell us the true story of what has happened in their long lives!
Let us see how many ’ests we can count in California.
California is the longest State in the United States. If you could take up California and put it down on the Atlantic coast it would stretch from Florida to New York. That’s one ’est.
California has the highest mountain in the United States. It is called Mount Whitney. That’s two ’ests.
California has the lowest place in America. It’s a valley, and the valley is more than two hundred feet lower than the ocean. It is so dry and so hot down in this hollow—this lowest spot—that nothing can live there, either animal or vegetable, except horned toads and lizards, both of which animals love heat—the more heat the better for them. Some people say they can even live in fire—but that’s a fairy-tale. This low hot valley is called Death Valley. People usually keep away from it, but some men have strayed into it looking for gold and have lost their way, or some who wanted to get to the other side tried to cross it and before they could get out or reach the other side they have died of heat or thirst. That’s why it is called Death Valley. That’s longest, highest, lowest—three ’ests.
Besides Death Valley, California has another valley—but this is one of the loveliest valleys. It is called the Yosemite. It is a very deep trough, and streams of water fall over the edge into the trough from many high places. One of these falls turns to mist before it reaches the ground and looks like a huge veil of a bride, so it is called Bridal Veil Falls. Half a dozen of these waterfalls in the Yosemite Valley are higher than Niagara, and two of them tumble headlong a quarter of a mile from the top to the bottom of the valley, the highest falls in America—loveliest valley, highest falls; that makes two more ’ests.
California has, beside these ’ests, the sweetest oranges, the sourest lemons, the biggest grape-fruit, so they say, but they didn’t come from California; they went there. There were no oranges and no lemons growing in America at all before white men came to this country. The first white people to settle in California came from the country of Spain on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In Spain oranges and lemons grew, and the people from Spain, called Spaniards, brought over orange and lemon plants and started them growing in California and also in Florida.
The Spaniards built houses like those back in Spain, with white stucco walls and red tile roofs and with the “back yards” in the center of the house. They gave their cities Spanish names—Los Angeles, which means The Angels; and they named many of their cities after saints—San Francisco after St. Francis, Santa Barbara after St. Barbara—for many of the Spaniards were priests, who built mission churches up and down the land.
The City of the Angels is now the largest city on the Pacific coast. Near the City of the Angels is Hollywood, the greatest (another ’est) moving-picture place i. t. w. W. There are 365 days in the year, as you know, but in Hollywood they say the sun shines on 400 days a year—fairy-tale land! At any rate, the weather is fine most of the time for taking moving pictures. This is one reason why it is such a good place for making movies, but another is that there are so many different kinds of natural scenery near-by. If they want to make a picture of a ship scene or shipwreck, there is the ocean. If they want to make a picture of the desert with camels and Arabs, there is the seashore. If they want to make a picture in the hot countries, there are palms and flowers. If they want to make pictures of winter scenes, all they have to do is to go to the mountains near-by and there is snow and ice all the year round.
The city of San Francisco on the coast north of Los Angeles is nearly as large as Los Angeles. It might have been larger, but not so many years ago a terrible earthquake shook down the city. The quake only lasted a few minutes, but in that few minutes it rocked the city, cracked open the ground, and knocked down buildings as if they were houses of children’s blocks, and hundreds and hundreds of people were killed. But the worst thing the earthquake did was to upset stoves and lamps that started one of the worst fires ever known—fires that burned up most of the city. Were the people discouraged? Not at all. They collected their insurance money—and they built the city up again.


San Francisco has one of the finest harbors in the World. Its harbor is a long bay—fifty miles long. Ships enter the harbor from the Pacific Ocean through an opening called the Golden Gate. The city is built on many hills so steep that it is difficult for automobiles to climb them, but houses built on them have lovely views of the ocean, the bay, or the Golden Gate. Across the Golden Gate is a huge suspension bridge much bigger than the Brooklyn Bridge.
Ships enter and leave San Francisco for all the countries on and across the Pacific Ocean. Across the Pacific Ocean are China and Japan, and in days gone by so many Chinese came to the United States and landed in San Francisco that there is a part of the city called Chinatown, where there are Chinese houses and shops and theaters. Many Japanese too came to the United States from Japan, and bought farms where they raised fruits and vegetables.

據(jù)說(shuō)有個(gè)地方，那里有最好、最大、最優(yōu)、最高、最美的東西，如世界上最好吃的柑橘、最碩大的李子、最美味的葡萄、最高大的樹木、最巍峨的山峰、最宜人的天氣。是天堂嗎？不，不是天堂。那就是擁有最多“之最”的美國(guó)西部。
加利福尼亞是以一個(gè)古老童話故事里的小島命名的，而真正的加利福尼亞在很多方面都是一個(gè)童話般的地方。當(dāng)人們?cè)谀抢锏暮恿骼锇l(fā)現(xiàn)金子的時(shí)候，這樣的事聽(tīng)起來(lái)就像是個(gè)童話，但結(jié)果證明這是一個(gè)真實(shí)的故事。人們現(xiàn)在講的很多關(guān)于加利福尼亞的故事對(duì)東部的人來(lái)說(shuō)仍然像是童話故事。誰(shuí)會(huì)相信加利福尼亞有沖天大樹——粗大的樹干可以鑿個(gè)洞，讓汽車通過(guò)——有些樹非常古老，在耶穌誕生前就開始生長(zhǎng)了！是真的，真的有這樣的樹。它們叫做大紅杉。如果這些樹能告訴我們?cè)谒鼈兟L(zhǎng)生命中發(fā)生過(guò)的真實(shí)故事，那一定比童話故事更加精彩?。?br /> 讓我們來(lái)數(shù)一數(shù)在加利福尼亞究竟有多少個(gè)“之最”吧。
加利福尼亞是美國(guó)“最”長(zhǎng)的州。如果你能拿起加利福尼亞州，放到大西洋沿岸，它將從佛羅里達(dá)延伸到紐約。這是一個(gè)“之最”。
加利福尼亞有美國(guó)“最”高的山，叫做惠特尼山。這是兩個(gè)“之最”了。
加利福尼亞有美國(guó)的“最”低的地方。那是一個(gè)山谷，低于海平面200多英尺。這個(gè)最低點(diǎn)的山谷里極其干燥炎熱，沒(méi)有動(dòng)植物能在里面生存，除了角蟾和蜥蜴，這兩種動(dòng)物都喜歡炎熱的環(huán)境——越熱越好。有人說(shuō)它們甚至在火里也能生存——但那是童話里才發(fā)生的事。這個(gè)炎熱的低谷叫做“死亡谷”。人們通常不會(huì)靠近死亡谷，但有人在找金子時(shí)誤入其中而迷路，還有人想到另一面去，就嘗試穿越死亡谷，但還沒(méi)等他們走出去或到達(dá)對(duì)面就已經(jīng)熱死或渴死了。正因如此，它才叫死亡谷。這里就有三個(gè)“之最”了：最長(zhǎng)，最高，最低。
除了死亡谷，加利福尼亞還有一個(gè)山谷——但這個(gè)是“最”美麗的山谷之一，叫做約塞米蒂谷。它是一個(gè)非常深的谷槽，股股溪流從很高處流過(guò)谷頂邊緣直落下去，形成瀑布。其中一個(gè)瀑布落地之前就變成了薄霧，看起來(lái)就像新娘巨大的面紗，因此被叫做“新娘面紗瀑布”。約塞米蒂谷有六處瀑布都比尼亞加拉瀑布還要高，其中有兩處從谷頂一瀉而下直到谷底，高達(dá)四分之一英里，是美國(guó)最高的瀑布——最美的山谷，最高的瀑布；這樣又有了兩個(gè)“之最”。
除了這些“之最”外，加利福尼亞據(jù)說(shuō)還有最甜的柑橘、最酸的檸檬和最大的葡萄柚，但這些水果原產(chǎn)地不是加利福尼亞；他們是“移居”到那兒去的。白人來(lái)美國(guó)定居前美國(guó)根本沒(méi)有這幾種水果。第一批到加利福尼亞定居的人來(lái)自于大西洋對(duì)岸的西班牙。西班牙盛產(chǎn)柑橘和檸檬，西班牙來(lái)的人，也就是西班牙人，帶來(lái)了柑橘和檸檬的植株，開始在加利福尼亞州和佛羅里達(dá)州種植這兩種水果。
西班牙人建造的房屋和西班牙國(guó)內(nèi)的風(fēng)格相似，有著白色拉毛粉飾的外墻和紅瓦的屋頂，房屋中間還有“后院”。他們給他們建造的許多城市取了西班牙名——如“洛杉磯”市，意思是“天使之城”；他們還以圣人的名字給許多城市命名——如以圣弗朗西斯命名的圣弗朗西斯科市（舊金山），以圣巴巴拉命名的圣巴巴拉市——因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)來(lái)美國(guó)的很多西班牙人是牧師，他們?cè)谶@片土地上建造了很多教堂，進(jìn)行傳教活動(dòng)。
“天使之城”現(xiàn)在是太平洋沿岸最大的城市，附近就是好萊塢，世界上最大的（又一個(gè)“之最”）電影制作地。你知道一年有365天，但是在好萊塢人們說(shuō)一年有400天陽(yáng)光照耀的日子——童話世界！不管怎么說(shuō)，當(dāng)?shù)卮蠖鄶?shù)時(shí)間天氣都很好，適宜拍攝電影。這就是“天使之城”是拍電影的好地方的一個(gè)原因，但是另一個(gè)原因是好萊塢附近有各種各樣的自然風(fēng)景。如果他們想拍一個(gè)航海鏡頭或海灘的場(chǎng)景，這里有海洋；如果他們想拍一個(gè)有駱駝和阿拉伯人的沙漠影片，這里有海灘；如果他們想拍一個(gè)熱帶地區(qū)的電影，這里有棕櫚樹和鮮花；如果他們想拍冬天場(chǎng)景的影片，他們只要爬到附近的山上，那里一年四季都是冰天雪地。
洛杉磯北面的沿海城市圣弗朗西斯科市（舊金山）幾乎和洛杉磯一樣大。以前或許比洛杉磯還要大一點(diǎn)，但是在沒(méi)有多少年以前，一場(chǎng)可怕的地震震倒了整個(gè)城市。地震只持續(xù)了幾分鐘，但就在那短短幾分鐘里城市搖晃，地面斷裂，樓房倒塌，就好像是小孩搭的積木房子說(shuō)倒就倒，許許多多的人失去了生命。但地震造成的最嚴(yán)重的災(zāi)難是打翻了火爐和油燈從而引發(fā)了至今為止最嚴(yán)重的火災(zāi)之一——大火燒掉了這個(gè)城市的大部分。人們因此而喪失希望了嗎？絲毫沒(méi)有。他們領(lǐng)取了保險(xiǎn)賠償金——重新建起了這個(gè)城市。
圣弗朗西斯科有著世界上最好的港口之一。它的港口是一個(gè)長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的海灣——長(zhǎng)達(dá)50英里。從太平洋來(lái)的船只通過(guò)一個(gè)叫做“金門”的海峽進(jìn)入港口。這個(gè)城市建造在很多陡峭的山上，因此汽車很難爬上去，但建在山坡上房子里能看到很美的風(fēng)景：大海、海灣和金門。橫跨金門海峽的金門大橋是一個(gè)比布魯克林大橋更大的巨大吊橋。
在圣弗朗西斯科進(jìn)進(jìn)出出的船只來(lái)自于太平洋上和對(duì)岸的所有國(guó)家。太平洋對(duì)岸是中國(guó)和日本，在以往的歲月里有許許多多的中國(guó)人不斷來(lái)到美國(guó)在圣弗朗西斯科上岸，所以這里有個(gè)叫做“唐人街”的地方，唐人街有中國(guó)風(fēng)格的房屋、商店和劇院。許多日本人也遠(yuǎn)離故土來(lái)到美國(guó)，他們買下農(nóng)場(chǎng)種植水果和蔬菜。

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