3. Alexandra David-Neel traveled alone to Tibet ih the early twentieth century. What do you think her goal was?
_10 _ d ---,----� Unit 1 : Explorers
Context Clues
It is not necessary to look up every new word in the dictionary.
You can often tell what a word means from the sentence it is in or from the sentences after it. For example, the word aborigines in line 6 on page 3 is explained in the next sentence. Take a look.
What are aborigines? Always look for context clues when you are reading. Try not to fook up every new word in your dictionary.
The words in bold print below are from this lesson. Use context clues to guess what each word means. Do all of the Context Clues exercises in the book this way.
1. David-Neel was very unhappy when she was a child. She escaped her unhappiness by reading books on adventure and travel.
2. Later, she studied the Buddhist religion and wrote articles and books about it.
3. In 1903, she started working as a journalist, writing articles about Asia and Buddhism for English and French magazines and newspapers.
4. She wrote her husband long letters full of details about her travels.
5. For centuries, Tibet was a secret and mysterious place to the rest of the world. Only a few foreigners were able to visit the area.
Lesson 2: Alexandra David u�1.>:!1 ultj {:?.JD
www.irLanguage.com
1 1
2 Alexandra David-Neel:
A French Woman in Tibet
Tibet has been a secret and mysterious place to the rest of the world for several centuries. It is on a high plateau in Asia, surrounded by even higher mountains, and only a few foreigners were able to cross its borders until recently.
s One of these foreigners was a French woman named Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969). She traveled by herself in India, China, and Tibet. She studied the Buddhist religion, wrote articles and books about it, and collected ancient Buddhist books. She also became 1 o a Buddhist herself.
David-Neel always said she had an unhappy childhood. She escaped her unhappiness by reading books on adventure and travel. She ran away from school several times and even ran away to England 1 s when she was only 16.
She was a singer for several years, but in 1903 she started working as a journalist, writing articles about Asia and Buddhism for English and French magazines and newspapers. The next year, when she was 37, she married
20 Philippe-Fram;ois Neel. It was an unusual marriage. After five days together, they moved to different cities and never lived together again. Yet he supported her all his life, and she wrote him hundreds of long letters full of details about her travels.
2s She traveled all over Europe and North Africa, but she went to India in 1911 to study Buddhism, and then her real travels began. She traveled in India and also in Nepal and Sikkim, the small countries north of India in the Himalaya Mountains, but her goal was Tibet. She
30 continued to study Buddhism and learned to speak Tibetan. She traveled to villages and religious centers, with only an interpreter and a few men to carry her camping equipment. For several months, she lived in a cave in Sikkim and studied Buddhism and the Tibetan
12
legal lines between countries
left without telling anyone
gave (her) money to live on
cave
u�I .>:!I 0'1j l!;:? .>"
www.irLanguage.com
Unit 1: Explorers
I 1
35 language. Then she adopted a 15-year-old Sikkimese
I boy to travel with her. He remained with her until stayed
his death at the age of 55.
For the next seven years, she traveled in remote far from towns
areas of China. These were years of civil war in China, war between people 40 and she was often in danger. She traveled for in the same country
thousands of kilometers on horseback with only a few men to help her-through desert heat and sandstorms and the rain, snow, and freezing temperatures of the colder areas.
l 45 In 1924, David-Neel was 56 years old. She darkened,- her skin and dressed as an old beggar. She carried only
a beggar's bow] and a backpack and traveled through beggar hot lowlands and snowy mountain passes until she
reached the border of Tibet. Because she spoke Tibetan
50 so well, she was able to cross the border and reach the famous city of Lhasa without anyone knowing that she was European and forbidden to be there. It was often freezing cold, and sometimes there wasn't enough food.
Sometimes she was sick, and once she nearly died. This
55 was the most dangerous of all her journeys, but she reached her goal and collected more information about Tibetan Buddhism.
She returned to France in 1925. She spent several
years writing about her research and adventures and search for new 60 translating ancient Tibetan religious books. When she information
was 66, she returned to China and the Tibetan border area for ten years. In 1944, the Second World War reached even that remote area, and at the age of 76, she walked for days, sometimes without food, until she was
65 able to reach a place from which she could fly to India and then home to France. She continued writing and translating until she died, just seven weeks before her 101st birthday.
Most explorers traveled to discover and map new
70 places. David-Neel went to do research on Buddhism.
She said that freedom was the most important thing in
life for her, and, like many other explorers, she lived a similar to
dangerous, exciting, free life.