![]() ![]() They have built over all the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and are furnished with all things necessary for country labor. The jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles: and where the towns lie wider, they have much more ground: no town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. Every city sends three of its wisest Senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about their common concerns for that is the chief town of the island, being situated near the centre of it, so that it is the most convenient place for their assemblies. The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles distance from one another, and the most remote are not so far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day from it to that which lies next it. There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well built: the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and they are all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. ![]() And his neighbors who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with admiration and terror. As he set a vast number of men to work, he beyond all men's expectations brought it to a speedy conclusion. To accomplish this, he ordered a deep channel to be dug fifteen miles long and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor in carrying it on. Utopus that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name) brought the rude and uncivilized inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. But they report (and there remain good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. On the other side of the island there are likewise many harbors and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. The channel is known only to the natives, so that if any stranger should enter into the bay, without one of their pilots, he would run great danger of shipwreck for even they themselves could not pass it safe, if some marks that are on the coast did not direct their way and if these should be but a little shifted, any fleet that might come against them, how great soever it were, would be certainly lost. In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may therefore be easily avoided, and on the top of it there is a tower in which a garrison is kept the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. In this bay there is no great current the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbor, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce but the entry into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one hand, and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. Its figure is not unlike a crescent: between its horns, the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about 500 miles, and is well secured from winds. The island of Utopia is in the middle 200 miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it but it grows narrower toward both ends. ![]()
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