51RXModule9Unit2Usinglanguage探究.pptVIP

in the daytime and the stars at night. But very soon they began to develop local maps. About 5,000 years ago sailors from Phoenicia in North Africa used simple maps to guide their ships around the Mediterranean Sea. They were the best traders of their day. WM: Really? How cleaver! Did everybody use simple maps? DS: No. I’m afraid not. It was difficult to have a map for sailing across open sea then. We know the Vikings from Norway had no written maps when they sailed across the North Sea. WM: The Vikings? Didn’t they sail around and attack people and towns from their ships? DS: Sometimes. But we’re not interested in that, only in their superior sailing ability. WM: I see! So what did they do? DS: Well, one of the things they did was concentrate on watching birds. There’s the story of a Viking called Raven-Floki. He used to keep birds on his ships but he didn’t feed them. Then when he thought land was near he’d let the birds go and if they flew straight to land, all he had to do was to follow them! WM: Did he find any new lands to live on? DS: Well, he did find a good way of sailing from the Faroe Islands to Iceland using his ravens. It’s said that he took three birds on his ship with him. When he’d been sailing for a day or two towards Iceland he let the first bird go. It flew back to the Faroe Islands. A day after this he let the second bird go. This flew out of sight but came back to rest on the ship. Sometime after that, he let the third bird go. It headed straight for Iceland so Raven-Floki followed it and arrived there safely. WM: That sounds clever! I’ve heard too about the Polynesians in the Pacific Ocean. They did some amazing voyages without any navigational instruments to help them at all. How did they do that? DS: Nobody’s