Passage one
(The only way to travel is on foot
) #gr+%=S'6C The past agesof man have all been carefully labeled by anthropologists. Descriptions like ‘Palaeolithic Man’, ‘Neolithic Man’, etc., neatly sum up whole periods. When thetime comes for anthropologists to turn their attention to the twentiethcentury, they will surely choose the label ‘Legless Man’. Histories of the timewill go something like this: ‘in the twentieth century, people forgot how touse their legs. Men and women moved about in cars, buses and trains from a veryearly age. There were lifts and escalators in all large buildings to preventpeople from walking. This situation was forced upon earth dwellers of that timebecause of miles each day. But the surprising thing is that they didn’t usetheir legs even when they went on holiday. They built cable railways, ski-liftsand roads to the top of every huge mountain. All the beauty spots on earth weremarred by the presence of large car parks. ’
1]zyME The futurehistory books might also record that we were deprived of the use of our eyes.In our hurry to get from one place to another, we failed to see anything on theway. Air travel gives you a bird’s-eye view of the world – or even less if thewing of the aircraft happens to get in your way. When you travel by car ortrain a blurred image of the countryside constantly smears the windows. Cardrivers, in particular, are forever obsessed with the urge to go on and on:they never want to stop. Is it the lure of the great motorways, or what? And asfor sea travel, it hardly deserves mention. It is perfectly summed up in thewords of the old song: ‘I joined the navy to see the world, and what did I see?I saw the sea.’ The typical twentieth-century traveler is the man who alwayssays ‘I’ve been there. ’ You mention the remotest, most evocative place-namesin the world like El Dorado, Kabul, Irkutsk and someone is bound to say ‘I’vebeen there’ – meaning, ‘I drove through it at 100 miles an hour on the way tosomewhere else. ’
*~MiL9m+? When youtravel at high speeds, the present means nothing: you live mainly in the futurebecause you spend most of your time looking forward to arriving at some otherplace. But actual arrival, when it is achieved, is meaningless. You want tomove on again. By traveling like this, you suspend all experience; the presentceases to be a reality: you might just as well be dead. The traveler on foot,on the other hand, lives constantly in the present. For him traveling andarriving are one and the same thing: he arrives somewhere with every step he makes.He experiences the present moment with his eyes, his ears and the whole of hisbody. At the end of his journey he feels a delicious physical weariness. Heknows that sound. Satisfying sleep will be his: the just reward of all true travellers.
jmwQc& ]((
>i%%~ 1
、Anthorpologists label nowaday’s men‘Legless’ because
IDVY2`sM A people forget how to use his legs.
-^NAHE$bW B people prefer cars, buses and trains.
8aIq#v C lifts and escalators prevent people from walking.
L
M<