18th-century Grand Tour of Europe

The Grand Tour began in the 16th century and gained popularity during the 17th century. Privileged (有特权的) young European graduates     1    a trend where they travelled across the continent in search of art and cultural experiences upon their graduation. This practice, which grew to be     2    popular, became known as the Grand Tour. Speciality guidebooks, tour guides, and other aspects of the tourist industry were developed during this time to meet the needs of wealthy 20-something male and female travellers as they explored the European continent.

These young, classically educated Tourists were rich enough to fund multiple years abroad for themselves and they took full advantage of this. They carried letters of     3    and introduction with them as they departed from southern England to communicate with and learn from people they met in other countries. Some Tourists     4    to continue their education and broaden their horizons while abroad, some were just after fun and     5    travels, but most desired a combination of both.

A typical journey through Europe was long and     6    with many stops along the way. London was commonly used as a starting point and the Tour was usually kicked off with a difficult trip across the English Channel. Crossing the wide channel was and is not easy. Tourists in the 17th and 18th centuries risked seasickness, illness, and even shipwreck on this first     7    of travel.

Grand Tourists were     8    interested in visiting cities that were considered centres of culture at the time, so Paris, Rome, and Venice were not to be missed. The average Grand Tourist travelled from city to city, usually spending weeks in smaller cities and up to several months in the three     9    ones.

The vast majority of Tourists took part in similar activities during their exploration with art at the centre of it all. Once a Tourist arrived at a destination, he would look for     10    and settle in for anywhere from weeks to months, even years. Though certainly not an overly trying experience for most, the Grand Tour presented a unique set of challenges for travellers to overcome.

Poetry probably had its origins in traditional folk music tens of thousands of years ago. In that     1    , there were no TVs or films, and writing had not been invented, so people would sit around the fire at night and sing songs to entertain themselves. These songs reflected themes from the people’s daily lives, such as hunting animals or     2     crops. Since nothing was written down, over the years different     3     of these songs developed, and each area would have its own     4     rhythm. In addition to this, people would     5     stories of past heroes. As these stories were often quite long, they often had     6     and rhythm to help people remember them more easily. While in the beginning such songs and stories had a very simple     7    , over time they became more complicated and more polished. These were no longer the works of     8     sitting around a fire, but works of true poets who cared about their art and who sometimes made a living from it.

The Nile

The ancient Greek writer Herodotus once described Egypt-with some envy-as ‘the gift of the Nile’. The Egyptians depend on the river for food, for water and for life. The Ancient Egyptians were able to control and use the Nile, creating the earliest irrigation systems and developing a prosperous     1    .

Snaking through the deserts, the Nile would flood almost     2     each year in June. Once the water subsided, a rich deposit of sand was left behind, making an excellent topaoil. Seeds were sown, yielding wheat, barley, beans, lentils and leeks. Drought could spell disaster for the Egyptians, so during the dry seasons, they dug basins and channels to deliver water to their land. They also devised simple channels to transfer water at the peak of the flood.

An early system of     3    , a Nilometer, was used to de determine the size of the floods. Later, during the New Kingdom, a lifting system called a shaduf was used to raise water from the river--    4     to the way in which a well is used today.

The Egyptians took up some of the earliest trading missions. Without a(n)     5     system they exchanged goods, bringing back timber, precious stones, pottery, spices and animals. Their efforts in medicine were also     6     advanced: surgeons performed operations to remove cysts(囊肿). Mummification gave them great understanding of the human body-yet they also relied heavily on various medicines to prevent disease, and discoveries were often confused with superstition(迷信). And while a great deal of time was dedicated to     7     the Egyptians thought the stars were gods.

By the 16th century Egypt was under the Ottoman Empire until Britain seized control in 1882. What is now mostly Arabic Egypt only won     8     from Britain after World War Ⅱ. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869,     9    the country as a center for world transportation. But it, and the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1971     10     the ecology of the Nile, which now struggles to satisfy the country’s rapidly growing population, currently more than 76 million-the largest in the Arab world.