大学英语综合教程 第三册 2textA

[05:36.20]9 Parker saw a small boat and,with a shout,pushed the escaping slaves into it.There was room for all but two.
[05:45.78]As the boat slid across the river,Parker watched helplessly
[05:52.03]as the pursuers closed in around the men he was forced to leave behind.
[05:58.11]10 The others made it to the Ohio shore,
[06:02.14]where Parker hurriedly arranged for a wagon to take them to the next “station”
[06:08.61]on the Underground Railroad--the first leg of their journey to safety in Canada.Over the course of his life,
[06:18.12]John Parker guided more than400 slaves to safety.
[06:23.48]11 While black conductors were often motivated by their own painful experiences,
[06:30.27]whites were commonly driven by religious convictions.Levi Coffin,a Quaker raised in North Carolina,explained,
[06:40.67]“The Bible,in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked,said nothing about color.”
[06:48.27]12 In the 1820s Coffin moved west to Newport(new Fountain City),Indiana,where he opened a store.
[06:58.09]Word spread that fleeing slaves could always find refuge at the Coffin home.
[07:04.59]At times he sheltered as many as 17 fugitives at once,
[07:10.37]and he kept a team and wagon ready to convey them on the next leg of their journey.Eventually three principal routes
[07:20.76]converged at the Coffin house,which came to be the Crand Central Terminal of the Underground Railroad.
[07:29.44]13 For his efforts,Coffin received frequent death threats and warnings that his stores and home would be burned.
[07:38.58]Nearly every conductor faced similar risks--or worse.In the North,
[07:45.76]a magistrate might have imposed a fine or a brief jail sentence for aiding those escaping.In the Southern states,
[07:55.98]whites were sentenced to months or even years in jail.One courageous Methodist minister,Calvin Fairbank,
[08:07.08]was imprisoned for more than 17 years in Kentucky,where he kept a log of his beatings:35,105 stripes with the whip.
[08:20.06]14 As for the slaves,escape meant a journey of hundreds of miles through unknown country,
[08:27.22]where they were ususlly easy to recognize.
[08:31.32]With no road signs and few maps,they had to put their trust in directions passed by word of mouth
[08:39.58]and in secret signs--nails driven into trees,for example--that conductors used to mark the route north.
[08:49.08]15 Many slaves traveled under cover of night,their faces sometimes caked with white powder.
[08:56.74]Quakers often dressed their"passengers",both male and female,in gray dresses,deep bonnets and full veils.On one occasion,
[09:08.65]Levi Coffin was transporting so many runaway slaves that he disguised them as a funeral procession.
[09:17.53]16 Canada was the primary destination for many fugitives.Slavery had been abolished there in 1833,
[09:27.38]and Canadian authorities encouraged the runaways to settle their vast virgin land.Among them was Josiah Henson.
[09:37.93]17 As a boy in Maryland,Henson watched as his entire family was sold to different buyers,
[09:45.56]and he saw his mother harshly beaten when she tried to keep him with her.
[09:52.04]Making the best of his lot,Henson worked diligently and rose far in his owner's regard.
[10:00.19]18 Money problems eventually compelled his master to send Henson,his wife and children to a brother in Kentucky.
[10:09.57]After laboring there for several years,Henson heard alarming news:the new master
[10:17.64]was planning to sell him for plantation work far away in the Deep South.The slave would be separated forever from his family.
[10:28.24]19 There was only one answer:flight."I knew the North Star,"Henson wrote years later.
[10:37.10]"Like the star of Bethlehem,it announced where my salvation lay."
[10:43.42]20 At huge risk,Henson and his wife set off with their four children.Two weeks later,starving and exhausted,
[10:53.27]the family reached Cincinnati,where they made contact with members of the Underground Railroad.
[11:00.98]"Carefully they provided for our welfare,and then they set us thirty miles on our way by wagon."
[11:09.47]21 The Hensons continued north,arriving at last in Buffalo,N.Y.There a friendly captain pointed across the Niagara River.
[11:21.53]"Do you see those trees?he said.They grow on free soil." He gave Henson a dollar and arranged for a boat,
[11:30.99]which carried the slave and his family across the river to Canada.
[11:36.63]22 I threw myself on the ground,rolled in the sand and danced around,till,
[11:43.92]in the eyes of several who were present,I passed for a madman.'He's some crazy fellow,'said a Colonel Warren.”
[11:54.27]23 "'Oh,no!Don't you know?I'm free!'"