Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece, there lived aking named Laertes. His kingdom was small and mountainous. People used to saythat Ithaca 'lay like a shield upon the sea, ' which sounds as if it were a flat country.But in those times shields were very large, and rose at the middle into two peakswith a hollow between them, so that Ithaca, seen far off in the sea, with her twochief mountain peaks, and a cloven valley...