donkeybenben
lesson 32 Antarctic ExpeditionThe Race to the Pole On 1 June,1910,Captain Scott left London to begin his Antarctic expedition. On his way,he received a telegram from the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen:"I'm going South."So the race to the South Pole was on! During the polar summer of 1910-1911,both teams organised food depots in preparation for their expeditions the following year.Then came the total darkness of the polar winter. Scott and Amundsen waited impatiently for the first signs of spring. Amundsen was the first to leave,on 15 October,1911.He had team of dogs pulling the sledges and all his men were on skis.Because of this,he made rapid progress. Scott left on 1 November and soon had problems.First,his two motor sledges broke down, and then the ponies began to have serious difficulties with the snow and the cold. After a while,Scott and his men had to push the sledges themselves. Amundsen reached the Pole on 14 December and put a Norwegian flag there. Then he prepared for the return journey. Scott finally arrived at the Pole with four companions on 17 January. They were devastated when they saw the Norwegian flag. Scott wrote bitterly in his diary: "Well,we have now lost the goal of our ambition and must face 800 miles of hard pushing and goodbye to most of our dreams." The return journey was one of the worst in the history of exploration.The men were son exhausted and were running out of food. The weather conditions were terrible. Scott started to realise their desperate situation: "Amongst ourselves we are very cheerful,but what each man feels in his heart I can only guess.Putting on our shoes in the morning is getting slower and slower." Despite this,on their way back they found time to look for rocks and fossils.They carried 20 kilos of rocks all the way with them. Later,these rocks proved that at one time in the distant past Antarctica was covered by plants.However,disaster soon struck. Edgar Evans had terrible frostbite and died after a bad fall. The next to go was Captain Oates,who was having great difficulty walking. Scott recorded his death:"He said,'I am just going outside and I may be some time.' We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to stop him, we knew that it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit, and certainly the end is not far." Scott and two companions carried on and got withineleven miles of one of their food depots. But then a terrible storm started and they could not leave their tent. Scott spent some of his last hours writing. He wrote a letter full of sadness to his wife Kathleen:"To my Widow,I could tell you lots and lots about this journey. What stories you would have for the boy..But what a price to pay." Scott's final diary entry told the story of their end:"The depot is only 11 miles away, but I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We are getting weaker and weaker and he end can't be far. It seems a pity,but I do not think I can write more." The news of Scott's death shocked the world. He had failed to win the race to the Pole, but the remarkable courage shown by Captain Scott and his men made tham into heroes.
yvonnejiang8
Elias’s story 1.My name is Elias. I am a poor black worker in South Africa. The time when I first met Nelson Mandela was a very difficult period of my life . I was twelve years old . It was in 1952 and Mandela was the black lawyer to whom I went for advice . He offered guidance to poor black people on their legal problems. He was generous with his time ,for which I was grateful.I needed his help because I had very little education. I began school at six . The school where I studied for only two years was three kilomertes away . I had to leave because my family could not continue to pay the school fees and the bus fare . I could not read or write well . After trying hard ,I got a job in a gold mine ,However,this was a time when one had got to have a passbook to live in Johannesburg. Sadly I did not have it because I was not born there , and I worried about whether I would become out of work. 2.The day when Nelson Mandela helped me was one of my happiest . He told me how to get the correct papers so I could stay in Johannesburg. I became more hopeful about my future. I never forgot how kind Mandela was . When he organized the ANC Youth League, I joined it as soon as I could.He said: “The last thirty years have seen the greatest numeber of laws stopping our rights and progress ,untill today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all .”
