a passenger if this was the westhaven express, but he had not even heard of it. i determined to lodge a complaint as soon as we arrived. two hours later, i was talking angrily to the station master at westhaven. when he denied the train's existence, i borrowed his copy of the timetable. there was a note of triumph in my voice when i told him that it was there in black and white. glancing at it briefly, he told me to look again. a tiny asterisk conducted me to a footnote at the bottom of the page. it said: 'this service has been suspended.'

new words and expressions 生词和短语

express

n. 快车；

adj. 高速的

punctual

adj. 准时的

condition

v. 使习惯于

unshakable

adj. 不可动摇的

faith

n. 信任

cancel

v. 取消

exceptionally

adv. 例外地

dislocate

v. 打乱（计划等）

blame

v. 责怪

consult

v. 请教，查阅

direct

adv. 径直地

odd

adj. 奇怪的，异常的

reflect

v. 细想

advantage

n. 优势

mighty

adj. 强大的，有力的

dawdle

v. 慢吞吞地动或做

chug

v. 咔嚓咔嚓地响

lodge

v. 提出

complaint

n. 抱怨

triumph

n. 胜利

asterisk

n. 星号（*）

conduct

v. 引向，引导

参考译文

我们已经习惯于相信火车总是准点的。经过多年的适应，大多数人对火车时刻表产生了一种不可动摇的信念。轮船船期可能因风暴而推延，飞机航班可能因恶劣天气而取消，唯有火车必然是准点的。只有非同寻常的大雪才可能暂时打乱铁路运行。因此，一旦铁路上真出了问题，人们便不加思索地责备铁路当局。事实上，差错很可能是我们自己，而不是铁路当局的。

我查看了列车时刻表，满意地了解到有一趟去威斯特海温的快车。这是趟直达车，旅途总共才需1小时17分钟。上车后，我不禁注意到许多当地人也上了车。一开始，我并不感到奇怪，我想除我之外，想利用快车之便的也一定大有人在。火车开出几英里即在一个小站威德里停了下来。对此，我不觉得奇怪，因为即便是特别快车也可能被信号拦住。但是，当火车一站接着一站往前蠕动时，我便产生了怀疑。我突然感到这趟快车并没以时速90英里的速度呼啸前进，而是卟哧卟哧地向前爬行，时速仅30英里。1小时17分过去了，走了还不到一半路程。我问一位乘客，这是不是开往威斯特海温的那趟快车，他说从未听说过有这么一趟快车。我决定到目的地就给铁路部门提意见。两小时后，我气呼呼地同威斯特海温站站长说起此事。他说根本没有这趟车。于是我借他本人的列车时刻表，我带着一种胜利者的调子告诉他那趟车白纸黑字。明明白白印在时刻表上。他迅速地扫视了一眼，让我再看一遍。一个小小的星形符号把我的目光引到了那页底部一个说明上。上面写着：“此趟列车暂停运行。”

lesson 38

the first calender

最早的日历

listen to the tape then answer the question below.

听录音，然后回答以下问题。

what is the importance of the dots, lines, and symbols engraved on some, bones and ivory?

future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times. they will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates. what is more, they will not have to rely solely on the written word. films, videos, cds and cd-roms are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have. they will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action. but the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task. he has to deduce what he can from the few scanty clues available. even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man.

up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons. recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.

historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths. the nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last ice age which began about 35,000 b.c. and ended about 10,000 b.c. by correlating markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code. they have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon. it is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar. it has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression. they had a definite meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing. it is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them. it seems that man was making a real effort to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier than has been supposed.

new words and expressions 生词和短语

calendar

n. 历法，日历

historian

n. 历史学家

unique

adj. 无与伦比的

steadily

adv. 不断地

solely

adv. 唯一地

video

n. 录像

cd-room

n. （只读）光盘驱动器

bewilder

v. 令人眼花缭乱

deduce

v. 推断，推理

scanty

adj. 不足的，贫乏的

clue

n. 线索

insignificant

adj. 不重要的

shed

v. 使流出，泻

advent

n. 出现，到来，来临

agriculture

n. 农业

assumption

n. 假定，设想

dot

n. 小圆点

symbol

n. 符号

engrave

v. 雕刻

ivory

n. 象牙制品

mammoth

n. （古）长毛象

tusk

n. 獠牙，长牙，象牙

nomad

n. 游牧民

correlate

v. 使相互联系

phase

n. 月相，天相

primitive

adj. 原始的

depict

v. 描画，描绘

参考译文

未来的历史学家在写我们这一段历史的时候会别具一格。对于逐渐积累起来的庞大材料，他们几乎不知道选取哪些好，而且，也不必完全依赖文字材料。电影、录像、光盘和光盘驱动器只是能为他们提供令人眼花缭乱的大量信息的几种手段。他们能够身临其境般地观看我们做事，倾听我们讲话。但是，历史学家企图重现遥远的过去可是一项艰巨的任务，他们必须根据现有的不充分的线索进行推理。即使看起来微不足道的遗物，也可能揭示人类早期历史的一些有趣的内容。

历史学家迄今