【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 and could already speak four languages. The Emperor was impressed by him and they became friends. He asked Marco to serve in his court and sent him to do many important tasks across the country.Marco, in turn, was amazed by how beautiful and powerful China was. He was very impressed by Beijing and the Emperor39。s Palace, especially the Summer Palace which he described as “The greatest palace that ever was ... The walls were covered in gold and silver and the Hall was so large it could easily seat 6,000 people for dinner.”There were inventions and developments in China which were not availablein Europe at that time. Marco was surprised to see Chinese people using paper money in the markets. In Europe, people paid for goods with gold or silver. He could not understand how people could pay for food and valuable things with paper! He was also confused by the black stones people used to burn for fuel. The black stones were coal, but Marco had never seen coal before!In 1291, after 17 years of service to the Emperor, Marco returned to Italy. He was now a very wealthy man. Not long after his return, a local war broke out near his town. During the war, Marco was the captain of a warship but was caught by the enemy and put into prison. However, Marco was lucky enough to meet another prisoner who enjoyed listening to his stories about China. The prisoner was an author and he took dictation while Marco told all his stories to him. The prisoner then wrote the stories in a book called The Description of the World, which became one of the bestselling books in Europe.Although people enjoyed reading his book, many of them thought that Marco39。s stories about China were too fantastic to be true. But Marco always stood by his tales. Just before he died, aged 70, Marco was asked the question, “Was it all true?”, to which he replied, “I have only told a half of what I saw!”U8 L44 Journey to the AntarcticThe RACE to the POLEOn 1 June, 1910, Captain Scott left London to begin his journey to the Antarctic. On his way, he received a message from the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen:“I39。m going South.” So the race to the South Pole was on! During the polar summer of 1910–1911, both teams organised food bases in preparation for their journeys the next year. Then came the total darkness of the polar winter. Scott and Amundsen waited anxiously for spring.Amundsen was the first to leave, on 15 October, 1911. He had teams 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 sledges broke down, and then the horses 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 team members on 17 January. They were shocked when they saw the Norwegian flag. Scott wrote sadly 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 soon exhausted and were running out of food. The weather conditions were terrible. Scott started to realise their hopeless situation: “... 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.”However, on their way back they found time to look for rocks. They carried 20 kilos of rocks all the way with them. Later, these rocks proved that at one time in the distant past the Antarctic was covered by plants. Then, disaster soon came. Edgar Evans had a terrible disease 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.39。 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