GREAT TRAVELLERS
Areas were selected according to various criteria,
bearing witness to the eclectic nature of a group made up of
people of such different cultures, ideologies, temperaments and vulnerabilities
that sometimes entire hours were spent before agreements could be reached.
At times
it was latitude that became the object of infinitesimal corrections,
at other times longitude provoked long-winded discussions
making use of arguments taken from the narratives of great
travellers, known to all, and also from illustrious unknown authors! Sometimes we even referred to the experiences
of a forty-fifth cousin, a neighbour or a consultant whom we never
hesitated to summon to be heard...In this type of research
because of its very nature, it must be understood that geographical knowledge
would not have sufficed without the concurrency
of points of view relating to history, philosophy,
metaphysics, science and art...
When agreement was finally reached we resorted to a scientific
coding system to record the provisional final
choice. In fact the system we used is the ancestor of the bar coding system
that has been adopted in supermarkets for mass products.
Thus it is that the document containing fundamental territorial particulars
appears in the 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2- language form;
these exact particulars are needed for the satisfactory execution of all commissioned tasks...