A towel is about the most massively useful
thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.
Partly it has great practical value: You can wrap it around you for
warmth as you bound across [a cold moon]; you can lie on it on the brilliant
marble-sanded [beach planet], inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep on
it underneath the stars which shine so redly on [a desert planet]; you can use
it to sail a mini-raft down [a slow river]; you can wet it to fight hand-to-hand
combat; you can wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the
gaze of [a monster]…; you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress
signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems clean enough.
(from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy”, by Douglas Adams)
I have just come back to Tokyo from a two night stay in Hakone.
We took a cable car up the volcano to a viewing platform, where visitors could look out at a vent which was releasing steam from under the surface of the Earth. The air smelled of sulphur, and the steam hissed like a giant kettle.
Before we got on the cable car going up the volcano, we were all handed a wet towel as a safety precaution. “In the event of a release of poisonous gas from the volcano,” we were told, “Hold the wet towel in front of your face.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea that a little wet towel could protect me from the power of an erupting volcano! Imagine the people at Pompeii saying to each other, “Quick – cover your face with a towel!”
But a towel was very useful when we took a
hot footbath in a large park. Douglas
Adams was right. The first thing a
traveller must pack is his towel.
Vocabulary:
interstellar – between the stars
to bound – to leap or jump
to inhale – to breathe in
vapor – a cloud of material hanging in the
air
noxious fumes – poisonous gas or vapor
a distress signal – a sign asking for help
a vent – in a volcano, a long tunnel-like
exit from which steam or other material emerges
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