The process is steady and patient; the apparent obscurity of another collection of unfamiliar towns and river courses simply impresses on the consciousness how immense the world is, and how many places in it are homes to people who carry no weight in the minds of those who see only grand, sweeping arcs.
Imagine the simple Turkic tax collector who leaves from Constantinople in the mid-17th century, to take a crude cart from an unfamiliar coastal port, along some unknown river to arrive at a desolate steppeland town called "Leksan," only to be told that this represents the height of civilisation for a distance of 30 miles around. How dismal.
Poor bastard.
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