听力文本

All the continents begin with an “A” except one.
Asia is the largest continent.
Africa is the next largest.
But Africa was an “In-the-Way” continent. It was in the way of those who wanted to get to Asia. Every one wanted to get around Africa. No one wanted to get to it. Sailors had been shipwrecked on its shores, but fewlived to tell the tale of jungles of wild animals and wild black men. Africa was called the Dark Continent because no one knew much about it or wanted to know about it. Like children afraid of the dark, people were afraid of the Dark Continent. On one edge—along the Mediterranean Sea—white men lived, but south of that edge was a great desert that men feared to cross, and south of that wild black men and wild animals. But in one corner of Africa, the corner near Asia and along the Red Sea, white people had been living and mighty kings had been ruling for thousands of years. This corner country is called Egypt.
Have you ever seen a man one hundred years old? I have seen a man five thousands years old—a real man, a little dried up man who was once a mighty ruler of Egypt. He did not want to “turn to dust” when he died, for how then could he rise again from the dead at the Day of Judgment? So he left orders that he should be pickled and wrapped in bandages and a mountain of stone placed over his body to make sure it would not be touched or moved away. In fact, he built the mountain of stone before he died, to make sure of that part of it. But you can never tell what will happen to you after you are dead, so in spite of the mountain of stone, herehe is, a ruler of Egypt whom millions obeyed, now in a case in a museum where any one can stare at him, and the janitor dusts his face and moves him out of the way to sweep the floor.

参考译文

地球上所有大洲的英文名字，除一个洲之外，都是以“A”开头的。
亚洲是最大的洲。
非洲是第二大洲。
但是，非洲是一个“挡道”的大洲，它挡住了那些想到亚洲去的西方人的道。所有人都想“绕过”非洲，没有人“进入”非洲。有些水手在非洲沿岸遭遇海难，很少有人能活着回来，给人们讲一讲他们在非洲丛林里遇到的野生动物、未开化的黑人。非洲被称为“黑暗大陆”，因为没有人对这片大陆了解多少，也没想去了解它。就像小孩害怕黑暗一样，人们也害怕黑暗大陆。在非洲—地中海沿岸生活着白人，而在地中海沿岸的南边是人人害怕穿越的大沙漠。在沙漠的南边生活着未开化的黑人和野生动物。然而，在非洲的一角，也就是在红海沿岸，靠近亚洲的那个角落，几千年来，白人一直生活在那里，也一直由强大的国王统治着，这个角落里的国家就是埃及。
你见过100岁的人吗？我见过一个5000岁的人——一个真人，一个矮小干瘪的男人，他曾经是埃及一位强大的统治者。他不想死后“化为尘土”，因为一旦化为尘土，他怎么能在最后审判日死而复生呢？于是，他下令自己死后的尸体必须“腌制”，然后用布裹起来，上面再压上一座石山，确保不会有人挪动或触摸他的尸体。事实上，他在生前就建好了这座石山，这样他的愿望在这一环节就不会延误。但是，没有人知道自己死后会发生什么，所以，尽管建了这座石山，他，一个曾经让无数人俯首称臣的埃及统治者，现在却被装在一个盒子里，陈列在博物馆中，任何人都可以盯着他看。而且，博物馆的勤杂工会经常掸去他脸上的灰尘，并在打扫地板的时候暂时将他搬走。