“It’s a shame that you’ve never seen Leros, my young friend. It’s a delightful island — it’s like a little copy of the island of Rhodes; fewer than a thousand people live there. The island has rolling hills and gentle valleys, valleys that produce delicious fruits and vegetables figs and pomegranates and oranges and turnips. Carob trees grow on the hillsides. And wine? Lerosian vines grow the sweetest of grapes in all of Greece. It’s a heavenly land. And everyone is a sailor. The winds come out of the West for nine months of the year. They blow away the summer heat, and they also make it only an afternoon’s easy sail to the Carian coast. What a fine place for a little boy to grow up.”