〜ヒント〜
２月２６日出題分
あまりなじみの無い単語・熟語をちょっと解説。
Seven Years in Tibet :
Escape-20So we gradually approached the Himalaya range and sorrowfully the Indian frontier. The temperature had become warmer, as we were no longer so high up. It was just here that the Sutlej breaks its way through the Himalayas. The village in this region looked like little oases, and around the houses there were actually apricot orchards and vegetable gardens.
Eleven days from Shangtse, we came to the frontier village of Shipki. The date was June 9 - we had been wandering about Tibet for more than three weeks. We had seen a lot, and we had learned by bitter experience that life in Tibet without a residence permit was not possible.
We spent one more night in Tibet, romantically encamped under apricot trees whose fruit unfortunately was not yet ripe. Here I succeeded in buying a donkey for eighty rupees on the pretext that I would need a baggage animal for my things in India. In the interior of Tibet I could never have managed this, but near the frontier it was different and I felt that a baggage animal was absolutely essential to the successful accomplishment of my plan.
Our donkey man left us here and took his animals with him. "Perhaps we shall meet again in Lhasa," he said with a smile. He had spoken to us enthusiastically about the pretty girls and good beer to be found in the capital. Our road wound up to the top of the pass, where we reached the frontier, but there were no frontier posts, Tibetan or Indian. Nothing but the usual heaps of stones and prayer flags, and the first sign of civilization in the shape of a milestone that said: SIMLA 200 MILES.
We were in India once more, but not one of us had the intention of saying long in this land in which a wire-fenced camp was waiting to receive us.
the Himalaya range：ヒマラヤ山脈
sorrowfully：残念なことに、悲しいことに
the Sutlej breaks：ストレジ川
orchard：果樹園
Shangtse・Shipki：地名
encamp：野営する、キャンプする
ripe：熟した
pretext：口実
this：前の文の内容を指します（ロバ購入）
absolutely：絶対に、無条件に
accomplishment：仕上げ、業績
Lhasa：チベットの首都
post：標
heap：積み重なったもの、山
civilization：文明
milestone：道標
SIMLA：地名
intention：意図