ends; flavour; good stuff; like nothing else on earth; to make a fire, to put out the fire; to light a gas-stove; to settle oneself for
a meal; to squat down to supper; burnt and unappetising-looking mess; to give smb. a good appetite; to wash up.
4. Sleep: to camp out, to sleep out; a picnic site; to fix (to pitch) a tent, to strike a tent; sleeping-bag; to be fast asleep, not to
sleep a wink; torch.
5. Bathing and boating: to look down at the river and shiver; to throw water over oneself, a tremendous splash; to dive; to
swim, to have a swim; to run one's boat into a quiet nook; to hire a boat; to get upset; to row up (down) the river (stream); to
steer; bow, stern; canoe, rowing-boat, motor-boat, yacht; to land, to get out; to scull, tow, to punt; raft, to raft; strong current; a
refreshing bathe.
Read the following passage, comment on it and then answer the questions which follow it.
A Walking Tour
To be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is no
longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is something else and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking tour
should be gone upon alone because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way and that, as the
whim takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor
mince in time with a girl. And you must be open to all impressions and let your thoughts take colour from what
you see. You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon. There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to
jar on the meditative silence of the morning. And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that
fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the
brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension.
During the first day or so of any tour there are moments of bitterness, when the traveller feels more than coldly
towards his knapsack, when he is half in a mind to throw it bodily over the hedge. Yet it soon acquires a property
of easiness. It becomes magnetic; the spirit of the journey enters into it again. And no sooner have you passed the
straps over your shoulder again than the less of sleep are cleared from you, you pull yourself together with a shake
and fall at once into your stride. And surely, of all possible moods, this, in which a man takes the road, is the best.
1.Comment on the writer's use of the expression "in anything but name". 2. What in the opinion of the writer
are the main disadvantages of having company on a walking tour? 3. "You should be as a pipe for any wind to play
on." What is the significance of this statement? 4. How, according to the writer, is man affected by prolonged
walking in the open air? 5. What impression do we receive from the use of the word "bodily"? 6. The writer
describes the knapsack as becoming magnetic. In what way is this an accurate description? 7. Taking the theme as
a whole, what do you think is "the spirit of the journey" referred to?