The coastline of Dalmatia

Even as a boy, I was beguiled by maps - I gazed for for hours at the pages of an atlas of Britain - the scale of the maps was three miles to the inch - I traced the routes of canals across the north of England - I marvelled at the line of the Great Glen - when I'd counted all the names of the islands off the west coast of Scotland, I murmured their names - Scalpey - Benbecula - Coll - 

I bought Ordnance Survey Maps with my pocket money - I would unfold the sheet of wonders - there, before me, were the delicate webs of contour lines, the winding tidal creeks of landlocked harbours - I would cycle out to Portsdown Hill, the map in my saddle bag, as though I was Speke or Burton, questing for the source of the Nile -

The Times Atlas of The World was a revelation - there were maps of every country in the world depicted upon its sumptuous pages -

The coastline of Yugoslavia fascinated me - for me it was always Dalmatia - I loved the sound of the name, and studied the history of that indented, beautiful, shore - I saw, in my mind's eye, the galleys of the Doge, sailing to the island citadels -

Once more, I murmured the names of islands - Korkula - Hvar - Veliki Drvenik - 

In two days time, we will fly to Split - we shall learn to sail amongst those islands with their strange names - they could be the names of spirits in a grimoire -

Later, we will stay in the city, near the palace of the canny Diocletian - I can imagine him, tending his garden, having saved the empire -