[00:05.88]Lesson 89 1 Reading comprehension
[00:12.54]Read the text fast to find answers to these questions.
[00:18.31]1 What were the thwo people in the story doing?
[00:23.28]2 What happened to them?
[00:27.22]DISCOVERY(1)
[00:31.29]"I think we're lost!What shall we do?"
[00:36.44]"Let's think carefully,"I replied.
[00:41.09]In fact,I was a bit frightened and didn't know what we should do.
[00:47.57]It was a Sunday in May.
[00:51.72]My brother and I had decided to go off for a long walk
[00:57.36]while we were staying with my grandparents in the French countryside.
[01:03.53]My parents were visiting relatives,
[01:08.81]and my grandparents had dexided to spend the day at home.
[01:14.16]The clouds had come down so suddenly we had no warning.
[01:20.22]One moment we were walking along the top of a hill
[01:26.18]and now we could see no more than about thirty metres ahead of us.
[01:33.31]We had lost the path and had no hope of finding it again.
[01:39.66]A fine rain began to fall on our heads and the temperature had dropped.
[01:46.92]"I think we should continue walking as long as we can see where we're going."I said.
[01:54.36]"If we go downhill,we might find a stream,
[01:59.93]and if we follow the stream we should reach a farm,or a village or a bridge."
[02:07.29]We set off down the hill.At first it was easy walking over the grass.
[02:14.74]Then the grass turned to bushes and the hillside became steeper.
[02:21.58]We climbed over rocks,
[02:25.82]through trees and found it more and more diffcult to get down the hill.
[02:32.95]By now we were beginning to get tired and the rain was falling heavily.
[02:40.42]I parsed on a small piece of grass and turned back to my brother who was following behind me.
[02:48.18]Then I noticed a hole between two rocks.
[02:53.43]"I'm just going to have a look,"I called.
[02:58.18]I climbed up over the rocks and saw that the hole led into the rockface.
[03:05.76]"I've found a cave,"I cried.
[03:10.48]"I'm tired,"said my younger brother as he climeded up to join me.
[03:17.25]"OK.We can stop here for a time.
[03:21.80]"The cave led back into the rockface and the earth by the entrance was dry.
[03:29.06]"We can make a fire and warm ourselves,"I suggested.
[03:35.54]"It's very difficult to see where we're going
[03:40.29]and the shower may pass in an hour or two.
[03:44.55]Let's rest and have some food."
[03:48.39]We spent some time looking around under the trees for some wood.
[03:54.87]Fortunately we found some that was still dry and carried it back to the cave.
[04:02.13]"Light the fire not so near the entrance that the wind will blow the fire our,
[04:09.89]and not so far in that th esmoke will fill the cave,"said my brother.
[04:16.65]"And don't set the hillside no fire either!"
[04:22.11]We succeeded in lighting the fire.
[04:26.66]I always carry matches with me at such times
[04:31.49]and I tore out the pages of the first chapter of the book I was reading
[04:37.42]to get the fire going.
[04:41.18]We ate our sandwiches and a bar of chocolate each and began to feel better.
[04:48.42]"At least we're safe here,"I said.
[04:53.15]The flames threw light onto the ceiling of the cave."Funny,"said my brother.
[05:00.62]"You can see shapes on the rock.Do you see that bit?
[05:06.36]It looks a bit like a deer.There's its head and there are its feet.
[05:13.52]It follows the shape of the rock.It almost looks as if someone has drawn it."
[05:21.78]Lesson 90
[05:30.84]1 Reading comprehension
[05:35.49]Read the text fast to find answers to these questions.
[05:41.66]1 What did they discover?
[05:46.38]2 What was exciting about that evening?
[05:52.03]DISCOVERY(2)
[05:56.18]I was astonished.
[06:00.23]I took a burning branch from the fire and went to examine the rock.
[06:07.07]Now I could see a smaller deer next to the one my brother had pointed to.
[06:13.52]The lines of the animal had in fact been cut into the rock
[06:19.77]"How extraordinary!"I said."I think someone has been carving animals."
[06:27.21]I went further back into the cave and stopped still.
[06:32.57]In front of me was a wall of animals.
[06:38.63]It was like stepping into a secret art museum,in which we were the only visitors.
[06:46.57]I went on walking,bending down because the roof of the cave was not very high.
[06:53.83]"This is wonderful,"I said.
[06:58.19]I turned the corner and looked in astonishment.
[07:03.52]Here were not carvings in the rock but paintings.
[07:09.69]The sides of the deer were coloured with a reddish-brown paint.
[07:15.62]There were birds too,with the eyes carved out of the rock and painted white.
[07:22.49]I could see a snake,a bear,a wolf,but no people.
[07:29.54]"I don't think anyone knows about this,"I said.
[07:34.40]"I think we are the first people here for hundreds of years.Maybe thousands."
[07:42.58]Outside the rain had turned into a storm and lightning flashed over the hills.
[07:50.44]It was beginning to get dark."I think we'd best stay the night here,"I said.
[07:57.52]"We're warm,we're dry and we're safe.
[08:02.06]We've still got a little food and water
[08:06.22]and maybe by tomorrow morning the weather will have cleared up."
[08:12.17]I shall never forget that extraordinary evening.
[08:17.14]We collected more wood and laid it in a big pile inside the cave.
[08:24.22]The smoke from the fire rose and found its way outside
[08:29.86]and the light danced over the cave.
[08:35.03]On one hand,I was anxious to leave.
[08:39.99]I was so excited that I wanted to tell the whole world what we had found.
[08:46.34]I was proud that we had come across something that was completely unknown and valuable
[08:53.42]and I guessed,extremely old.On the other hand,
[08:59.90]I felt sad that I wasn't able to tell my grandparents that we were safe.
[09:06.35]We were in a better position than they were.
[09:10.92]I realized that they would be very worried,
[09:15.60]but that they would trust our good sense,wherever we were.
[09:20.85]Another part of me wanted this moment to continue for ever.
[09:27.72]This evening the cave was ours.It belonged to no one else.
[09:35.09]I knew that experts from the local museum would soon visit the cave.
[09:41.75]Professors from the university in Paris would be coming down by train.
[09:48.09]There would be pictures in magazines and newspapers,
[09:53.55]showing crowds of people with their cameras and noisy,excited talk.
[09:59.61]We were so excited,,my brother and I,that we did not get to sleep until very late.
[10:07.58]We talked and wondered about the people who had lived here before.
[10:13.64]How many people lived here?When did they leave this area?
[10:19.28]What clothes did they weat? What were their names?What languages did they speak?
[10:26.83]Neither of us realized that night that these carvings and paintings
[10:33.89]dated back 15,000 years,
[10:39.16]nor that the headline in the newspaper would be
[10:43.92]"The find of the century---Children aged 13 and 11 discover cave paintings."
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