I was born with a recurring nightmare of a great bird picking me up in its claws and dropping me into an empty ocean.

Where once the sea had been but one great big expanse of water, suddenly four rivers formed, and these four meandered from beneath the mountains and spread across the whole country.

SAILORS of old sometimes mistook manatees for mermaids, which shows how months at sea quaffing rum and missing female company can cloud one's vision.