Living in the Valley
We had been living in our valley for sixteen months when we first realised the dangers that could exist in the surrounding hills and threaten our very survival. Until that time, we had felt safe and sheltered in our valley below the protecting hills.
Soon snow began to fall. Within a day it lay some 15 centimetres deep. It almost completely blocked out the lane and made the streamside path slippery and dangerous. But on the neighbouring heights the snow was much deeper and stayed for longer. Up there the wind was fierce.
And yet we knew that there was reason for us to worry. The snow and wind were certainly inconvenient but they did not really trouble us greatly.
In a short time the snow started to melt. Day after day, we watched clouds pile up high over the hills to the west Grey clouds extended over the valleys.
The snow was gradually washed away as more and more rain streamed from the clouds, but high up in the hills the reservoir (水库) was filling and was fast approaching danger level. And then it happened—for the first time in years the reservoir overflowed. There in the heights it was like the Niagara Falls, as the water flowed over the edge of the dam and poured into the stream below.
A.We can thus enjoy, rather than fear, the huge clouds that hang over the valley. |
B.Deep in our valley we felt only sudden fits of wind; trees swayed but the branches held firm. |
C.It was the year when the storms came early, before the calendar even hinted at winter. |
D.They twisted and turned, rising eastwards and upwards, warning of what was to come. |
E.It was the river, the Ryburn, which normally flowed so gently, that threatened us most. |
F.The river seemed maddened as the waters poured almost horizontally down to its lower stretches. |