29 JUNE 2002, Page 39

Maps' Happiness

Maps make you happy! Cradled in their safe grid the ways are plain to the ends of the earth.

Beautiful irregularities of coastlines! Broad bulge billowing out from the narrow suck of the Wash!

Sky-scattershot of archipelagoes! Up there the Hebrides prance like sea-horses — platter of fabulous crustaceans!

All their inlets have been noted, yet retain their privacy; the roads go only so far, then a margin of space and the sea.

Harry Eyres