My ship and i
by robert louis stevenson
o it's i that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond;
and my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;
but when i’m a little older, i shall find the secret out
5 how to send my vessel sailing on beyond.
for i mean to grow as little as the dolly at the helm,
and the dolly i intend to come alive;
and with him beside to me, it’s a-sailing i shall go,
it’s a-sailing on the water, when the jolly breezes blow
10 and the vessel goes a divie-divie-dive.
o it’s then you’ll see me sailing through the rushes and the reeds,
and you’ll hear the water singing at the prow;
for beside the dolly sailor, i’m to voyage and explore,
to land upon the island where no dolly was before,
15 and to fire the penny cannon in the bow.
"my ship and i" by robert louis stevenson, from a child's garden of verses. in the public domain.
excerpt from in morocco
by edith wharton
1
to step on board a steamer in a spanish port, and three hours later to land in a country without a guide-book, is a sensation to rouse the hunger of the experienced sight-seer.
2
the sensation is attainable by any one who will take the trouble to row out into the harbour of algeciras in spain and scramble onto a little black boat headed across the straits. hardly has the rock of gibraltar turned to cloud when one's foot is on the soil of an almost unknown africa. tangier, indeed, is in the guide-books; but… there is no guide-book to morocco, and no way of knowing, once one has left tangier behind, where the long trail is going to land one, in the sense understood by any one accustomed to european certainties. the air of the unforeseen blows on one from the roadless passes of the atlas.
3
this feeling of adventure is heightened by the contrast between tangier… and the vast unknown just beyond. one has met, of course, travellers who have been to fez; but they have gone there on special missions, under escort, mysteriously, perhaps perilously; the expedition has seemed, till lately, a considerable affair. and when one opens the records of moroccan travellers written within the last twenty years, how many, even of the most adventurous, are found to have gone beyond fez? and what, to this day, do the names of meknez and marrakech, of mogador, saffi or rabat, signify to any but a few students of political history, a few explorers and naturalists?
note: tangier, fez, meknez, marrakech, mogador, saffi, and rabat are all towns or cities in morocco.
excerpt from in morocco by edith wharton. in the public domain.
read this sentence from paragraph 2 of in morocco.
hardly has the rock of gibraltar turned to cloud when one's foot is on the soil of an almost unknown africa.
what image is evoked by the description of the rock of gibraltar turning to cloud?
a
the ship has approached the rock, which is so large that it appears to be a cloud filling the sky.
b
the ship is at sea during a storm that has made objects in the distance looks like clouds.
c
the ship is on such a long journey that features of the natural world have taken on shifting and interchangeable characteristics.
d
the ship has sailed away, and the rock has become so distant as to be indistinguishable from a cloud on the horizon.