Passage One Long time ago, the ancient people could not travel to any far away places for they had no vehicle to carry them across the wide oceans, deep valleys, long rivers or high mountains. Nowadays people take advantage of steamships, trains, airplanes and modern bridges. Airplanes can carry us to the far countries in a short time steamships can travel across the wide oceans. It is convenient to the modern people. Travelling is a good idea to us because we can get more knowledge, such as the customs, the geography of other countries. And people could travel among the different countries in the world. For it is easy to travel from the land by trains, or from the sea by ships. We learnt that the Italian who made the world large was Mr. Columbus. He was a brave man. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the people were afraid of traveling because they believed it was a dangerous thing. There is a saying in China, which is 'Travelling for thousands is better than reading for ten years.' It is to say that we can learn more in different places than we can learn from books. 36. The people in ancient times couldn't travel too far away places because______.