duncan received his advanced degrees in history from the institute of religiosity in morrow { or as historians often call it , `` that other city by the river moth , '' a good hundred miles from ambergris } , his emphasis on the many masters of the arts who had been born or made their fortune in ambergris , as well as on the court of the kalif-for he saw in these two geographical extremes a way to let his interests sprawl across both poles of the world .