About 250 years ago, a man named Jonas Hanway, who liked traveling, went out for a walk along the streets in London. Every time he went out for a walk, no matter it rained or the sun shone hotly, he carried an umbrella over his head. Wherever he went, people looked and laughed at the strange man. Jonas Hanway was the first man to carry an umbrella in London, and everybody, but him, thought it was a veryridiculousthing.
But he seemed to be a brave man, and decided not to give up his umbrella even if all the people in London made fun of him. Perhaps, in imagination, he saw the future, tons of umbrellas—umbrellas enough to protect the whole land of England from rain.
But Jonas Hanway wasn't the first man in the world to carry an umbrella. He had traveled a lot and had seen umbrellas in China, Japan, India and Africa, where the umbrellas had been in use for so many years that nobody knows when the first one was made. And as one of the oldest and greatest cities in the long history, Nineveh hada great many sculptures(雕塑) on which there were umbrellas. Umbrellas can also be seen on the monuments(纪念碑) of Egypt, which are very very old as well. History will tell you that Nineveh was built not long after the flood(洪水). Perhaps it was the great rain, of forty days and forty nights, that gave people in Nineveh the idea of making an umbrella!
