【推荐2】The statue of King Leopold II of Belgium that stands in sight of the royal palace in Brussels has been defaced dozens of times in recent years. Activists have painted its hands and eyes red as a reminder of the brutality that Leopold unleashed in the Congo Free State, a territory in central Africa, at the end of the 19th century. As many as 10 million Congolese-or half of the population-might have perished as Europeans forced entire villages to collect rubber and ivory for export.

Leopold’s exploitation of Congo was a scandal. In 1908, after years of campaigning by journalists, the Belgian state stripped the king of his private possession. The Belgian Congo joined other European colonies in Africa where wanton（恶意的）extraction was to be replaced by a supposedly civilising mission. Yet though less transparently murderous, the “benign” colonialism of elsewhere was often not that different from what happened under Leopold. A new book, “In the Forest of No Joy”, by J. P. Daughton, an American historian, exposes how forced labour in the French Congo（now the Republic of Congo）, on the other side of the river from Leopold’s possession（now the Democratic Republic）, led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Africans.

The book is a masterful, if relentlessly bleak, account of the construction of the Congo-Ocean Railway, a route designed to connect the central African interior to the Atlantic. What makes it so compelling is the divide it exposes between the often admirable intentions of colonial bureaucrats, who did genuinely think they were lifting Africans out of poverty, and the grim reality that they enabled. The application of “modern” government to conquered people could be almost as savage as plunder（掠夺）, Mr Daughton shows.

The railway was the idea of Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazza, an Italian-born French explorer who conquered much of central Africa for France “by exclusively peaceful means”. The French state imagined itself as a bringer of civilisation to Africa, and the railway was to provide a way for the Congolese to take part in world trade. Yet Mr Daughton shows how the colonial administration in Congo had little capacity to build a railway without violence: it claimed to be recruiting paid volunteers while its agents forced Africans to work at gunpoint. Many were marched hundreds of kilometres to the tracks chained at the neck, as slaves had been a century before. Whatever work had to be done, reported Albert Londres, a French journalist, “it’s captives who do it.”

Surprisingly, the French state documented these abuses diligently（the archives provide the source of much of Mr Daughton’s information）. In 1926 one inspector, Jean-Noel-Paul Pegourier, compared the treatment of workers on the railway to the German genocide of the Herero in Namibia before the first world war. Yet unlike the reports of Leopold’s abuses, these observations had little effect, not least because orders issued from Paris or even Brazzaville were simply ignored. Raphael Antonetti, the colonial governor, fought back with an avalanche of legalese.

The railway was a masterpiece of engineering, as Mr Daughton readily admits. For decades it provided the only means of transporting goods within Congo. The wealth of Brazzaville, still so named, was built on it. In Britain and France, the infrastructure bequeathed to former colonies is often cited as an argument for its benefits. But to build it, a weak and stingy state had to rely on brutality. As Mr Daughton reports, “the Congo-Ocean provides an all too-useful case in point for how the language of humanity could be invoked to explain the deaths of thousands.”

1. According to the passage, King Leopold was infamous for ________.

A．taking possession of the private belongings of 10 million Congolese by killing them

B．reviving slavery by illegally transporting the native Congo villagers to Europe

C．being physically handicapped by people in the Congo Free State for his cruel governance

D．his tyrannical and exploitative behaviors imposing forced labor on the Congolese

2. Which of the following statements will Mr Daughton probably disagree with?

A．European bureaucrats’ intention to bring prosperity to the Africans led to unintended consequences.

B．The African workers involved in the railway construction were enslaved and ill-treated.

C．Despite being crowned as a masterpiece of engineering, the railway is of little benefit to local people.

D．Some colonists led no better lives when governed by civilized leaders than by tyrants.

3. Why did the documents made by the French state about the construction workers’ being abused barely contribute to improving the condition?

A．Because the local governor turned a blind eye to the instructions given by higher officials.

B．Because some of the descriptions were groundless and denied by the inspector on the site.

C．Because the local agents fought back by filing a lawsuit against the alleged documents.

D．Because the workers on the railway were contracted volunteers though being treated cruelly.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

A．A Brief History of Forced Labor	B．Blood on the Tracks
C．Treasure of Colonialism	D．The Vanishing Humanity

【推荐3】Exhibition of the week

Charles II : Art & Power

Queen’s Gallery, London SW1 (0303-123 7300, www.royalcollection.org.uk), Until 13 May.

Charles II had the misfortune to be in a time “loaded with a rare tonnage of national botheration”, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. His father Charles, of course, “paid the price for his royalty” when he died in 1649. Arguably Charles II, who regained the throne (王位) in 1660, occupied “an even hotter seat”. He was well aware that he might suffer the same fate as his father. Yet, as this “uplifting” new exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery reveals, Charles was a “brilliant operator who played his moves like a chess grand-master” — and who used art to glorify the monarchy (君主制) and to justify his rule. The exhibition bring together a wealth of paintings, drawings and furniture he inherited or collected over the course of his “remarkably successful reign (统治)”. The result is a “grand” celebration of “a king who brought gaiety back to his nation”.

Art certainly played a “vital” role in establishing the Restoration, said Laura Cumming in the Observer. Prints in the exhibition show Charles “effortlessly” calming a horse or offering his “healing touch to the sick”. The Shropshire oak in which he famously hid from the Round-heads after the Battle of Worcester can be seen again and again. Most “striking” of all is John Michael Wright’s painting, which is so big that the viewer is “just about on kissing level with the royal feet”. But the show has an inherent flaw, said Nancy Durrant in the Times. On climbing up to the throne, Charles found that most of his father’s vast art collection had been sold off by Oliver Cromwell, and he set about securing its return. While this ambitious initiative was “effective” in England, it worked less well in recovering the masterpieces that were sold overseas — and their absence is disappointing once you learn what was lost.

Nevertheless Charles added some marvelous art to the Royal collection, said Jonathan Jones in the Guardian. There are many fine British works in this show — notably Peter Lely’s painting of a royal mistress, Louise de Kerouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. However, the “drop-dead highlights” of Charles’s collection come from abroad: they include Lorenzo Lotto’s “intensely atmospheric” 1527 portrait of Andrea Odoni, and the hundreds of “amazing” drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, four of which are on show here. What an “absorbing” exhibition this is.

1. According to the passage, Charles II ________.

A．suffered the same fate as his father, Charles I

B．ruled the nation in an incomparably fierce way

C．was one of the greatest chess players in history

D．started his reign while the nation was in trouble

2. According paragraph 3, the “inherent flaw” refers to the fact that ________.

A．Charles II brought most of his father’s vast art collections abroad

B．visitors will feel disappointed to see what is on show in the exhibition

C．Oliver Cromwell wasn’t able to recover the masterpieces he once sold

D．the exhibition fails to include some masterpieces sold overseas in history

3. Which of the following statements is true of the exhibition?

A．It is most famous for its local collections.

B．It shows how art was used to restore the nation.

C．It excludes what Charles II collected in his reign.

D．It includes hundreds of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci.

【推荐1】Otters (水獭) are known to be very social and intelligent creatures, but a new study by the University of Exeter has given new insight into their intellect.

Researchers gave otters “puzzle boxes (智力训练箱)”, some of which contained familiar food, while others held unfamiliar natural prey (猎物) — shore crab and blue mussels, which are protected by hard outer shells. For the familiar food — meatballs, a favorite with the Asian short-clawed otters in the study- the scientists had five different types of boxes, and the method to extract (提取) the food changed in each version, for example pulling a tab or opening a cap. The unfamiliar food presented additional problems because the otters did not know if the crab and mussels were safe to eat and had no experience of getting them out of their shells.

In order to decide whether food was safe and desirable to eat, the otters, which live at Newquay zoo and the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre, watched intently (专注地) as their companions inspected what was in the boxes and mimicked their behavior if the other otters sampled the treats.

However, they preferred to spend more time trying to figure out how to remove the meat from the shells on their own and relied less on the actions of their companions. Of the 20 otters in the study, 11 managed to extract the meat from all three types of natural prey.

“Much of the research into the extractive foraging (觅食) and learning capabilities of otters has centered on artificial food puzzles,” said the lead author, Alex Saliveros, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter’s Penryn campus in Cornwall. “Here, we were interested in investigating such skills in the context of unfamiliar natural food, as well as in relation to artificial food puzzles.”

Other animals employ social learning to decide what is safe to eat; rats, for example, prefer novel food types that they have smelled on the breath of other rats.

Scientists hope that understanding how otters cope with unfamiliar foraged food in their natural environment can help them train the animals to survive in the wild. “The captive (圈养的) otters in this study initially struggled with natural prey, but they showed they can learn how to extract the food,” said Saliveros. “Our findings suggest that if you give one otter pre-release training, it can pass some of that information on to others.”

1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．The purpose of the research.	B．The process of extracting the food.
C．The discovery of the intellect.	D．The ways of presenting the food.

2. What does the underlined word “mimicked” probably mean in paragraph3?

A．Copied.

B．Influenced.

C．Translated.

D．Monitored.

3. What does the new study focus on?

A．Changes in otters’ learning capabilities.

B．Otters’ new response in artificial food puzzles.

C．Otters’ learning skills in different circumstances.

D．Relationships between otters’ various learning skills.

4. What’s the significance of the findings?

A．They may help extract the food.	B．They improve otters’ intelligence.
C．They can aid conservation efforts.	D．They justify the early release of otters.