阅读理解 The Yellow River is the second longest river in China．It rises in the mountains in Qinghai and flows right across China to the Yellow Sea．Both the river and the sea are called Yellow because of the yellow mud which the river carries down from the desert into the sea, making the water a yellow color．When the river reaches the flat plain and flows less fast, it drops much of its mud, filling up the riverbed and forcing the water to overflow its banks and flood the countryside for miles．These terrible floods wash away crops and destroy whole villages．They have brought death and famine(饥饿)to so many people that the river is sometimes called“China's sorrow．”In order to prevent the floods, they have built banks of earth, called dykes(河堤)along both sides．As the river brought down more mud and broke through the dykes, people mended them and built them higher, until now in some parts the river flows as much as twenty feet above．In spite of the danger of floods, farming has been carried on for centuries． |
