2011年考研英語作文之美文范例：北美早期殖民者

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The   Early   Settlers   in   North America

　　The North American frontier changed some of  the  characteristics  of the pioneers of the 1750's and intensified others. They were, as a group, semiliterate, proud,and stubborn, as dogged in their insistence on their own way of life as pine roots cracking granite to grow. Perhaps their greatest resource was their capacity to endure. They outlasted recurrent plagues of smallpox and malaria  and  a  steady  progression  of  natural  accidents.  They  were  incredibly  prolific.  Squire Boone's family of eight children was small  by frontier standards. James Roberson, an  eventual neighbor of  Boone's and the founder of Nashville,  had eleven children.  Twice married John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, fathered eighteen; his longtime enemy, John Tipton, also twice married, produced seventeen. The entire assets of one of these huge families often amounted, in the beginning, to little more than an axe, a hunting knife, an auger, a rifle, a horse or two, some cattle and a few pigs, a sack of corn seed and another of salt, perhaps a crosscut saw, and a loom. Those who moved first into a new region lived for months at a time on wild meat, Indian maize, and native fruits in season. Yet if they were poor at the beginning, they confidently expected that soon they would be rich. In a way almost impossible to define to urban dwellers, a slice of ground suitable for farming represented not  just dollars and  cents,  but  dignity. The  obsession  brought shiploads of yearners every week to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charles Towne, and Savannah. It sent them streaming westward into the wilderness after their predecessors  to raise still more children who wanted still more land.
　　全文翻譯：北美早期殖民者北美的邊遠地區改變了 18 世紀 50 年代拓荒者的一些特點，而強化了他們的另一些特點。  作為一個整體，他們是半文盲，高傲并且頑固。他們堅持自己的生活方 式就象松樹根在花崗石中爆縫生長。也許，他們比較大的資源是忍耐能力。 他們熬過了經常性的天花、瘧疾等瘟疫及一系列自然災難。他們出奇地多育。依他們的標準，斯夸爾布恩 有八個孩子是少的了。比較后成了布恩的鄰居并且是那士維的建造者的詹姆士·羅伯遜有 11 個孩子。  曾結過兩次婚的約翰·塞維爾--田納西州的第一位州長，生了18 個孩子，他長期 的仇敵，約翰·提普敦也結過兩次婚并有 17 個孩子。比較初，在這些龐大的家庭中，全部的 財產合起來也不過是一把斧頭、一把獵刀和一根鉆子，一條步槍，一兩匹馬，牛和豬，一袋 玉米種子和一袋鹽，或可能還有一把鋸子和一臺織布機。那些新到一個地區的人們一連數 月靠野味、印第安玉米和季節性野果維持生活。然而，即使比較初很貧窮，他們自信很快就 會富起來。 一塊適合耕種的土地不僅僅代表著金錢，更意味著尊嚴。這一點是無法向城市 居民解釋的。 這一固執的想法每周都將整船整船的渴望者帶往波士頓、紐約、費城、巴爾的摩、查爾斯城和薩瓦那。跟隨著他們的先行者，這些渴望的人們象潮水一般涌向荒野，去生養更多的子女，而這些子女又將需求更多的土地。