A sailor (船员) in one of Christopher Columbus's three ships is eagerly (渴望地) looking for land. In the sailor's eagerness to 1 land, he makes his 2. He thinks that a cloud on the horizon (地平线) is land. The sailor, with great excitement, calls out, "3!"
Greatly excited, the rest of the ship's sailors run to the side quickly. They, too, 4 eagerly out at the horizon. They are 5 at the thought of land. They have 6 nothing but a very large area of water for weeks.
As the ship moves forward, the sailor's mistake is made 7. The "land" is nothing but a cloud. What do the others say to the sailor who made the 8 call? What do they say when it turns out that the "land" was only a moving cloud? The sailors make a 9. They say, "You just saw the dirt under the cooking 10!" The response (答复) may not seem 11 at all today, but it was a humorous response to the living conditions on 12 long ago.
When Columbus13 from Spain in August 1492 across the Atlantic Ocean, he traveled in three small, wooden ships. The living conditions were 14. Most of the sailors slept fully-clothed under the stars on the hard decks (甲板). There were no bathrooms, 15 there was not a 16. Food had to be 17 on the open deck at risk of 18 the wooden ship. To prevent the ship from catching fire, the cook would always spread 19 under the place where the cooking was done. The others would joke with a sailor who had wrongly 20 he had discovered land. And they usually told him that what he had really seen was the dirt spread out by the cook for preventing fires!
