Oh, look! Here is an explorer!"
"Where do you come from?"
"What is that big book?" said the little prince. "What are you doing?"
"I am a geographer,"
"What is a geographer?"
A geographer is a scholar who knows the location of all the seas, rivers,towns, mountains, and deserts.
"That is very interesting," said the little prince. "Here at last is a man who has a real profession!"
"Your planet is very beautiful," he said. "Has it any oceans?"
"I couldn't tell you,"
"Ah!" The little prince was disappointed. "Has it any mountains?"
"I couldn't tell you,"
"And towns, and rivers, and deserts?"
I couldn't tell you that, either.
But you are a geographer!
"Exactly,"
But I am not an explorer. I haven't a single explorer on my planet.
It is not the geographer who goes out to count the towns, the rivers, the mountains, the seas, the oceans, and the deserts.
The geographer is much too important to go loafing about.
He does not leave his desk.
But you， you come from far away! You are an explorer! You shall describe your planet to me!
Oh, where I live," said the little prince, "it is not very interesting.It is all so small.
"We do not record them," said the geographer, "because they are ephemeral."
What does that mean "ephemeral'?
"Geographies," said the geographer, are the books which, of all books, are most concerned with matters of consequence
It is very rarely that a mountain changes its position.
It is very rarely that an ocean empties itself of its waters.
We write of eternal things.
"But extinct volcanoes may come to life again," the little prince interrupted.
What does that mean "ephemeral'?
"Whether volcanoes are extinct or alive, it comes to the same thing for us," said the geographer.The thing that matters to us is the mountain. It does not change.
"But what does that mean'ephemeral'?" repeated the little prince,
It means, which is in danger of speedy disappearance.
Is my flower in danger of speedy disappearance?
Certainly it is.
"My flower is ephemeral,and she has only four thorns to defend herself against the world.
And I have left her on my planet, all alone
"What place would you advise me to visit now?" he asked.
"The planet Earth," replied the geographer. "It has a good reputation."
