getting safe ashore, spent the rest of their days amongst them; and such was their ingenuity that from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts that were then among the Romans, and which were known to these shipwrecked men; and by the hints that they gave them they themselves found out even some of those arts which they could not fully explain, so happily did they improve that accident of having some of our people cast upon their shore.  But if such an accident has at any time brought any from thence into Europe, we have been so far from improving it that we do not so much as remember it, as, in aftertimes perhaps, it will be forgot by our people that I was ever there; for though they, from one such accident, made themselves masters of all the good inventions that were among us, yet I believe it would be long before we should learn or put in practice any of the good institutions that are among them.  And this is the true cause of their being better governed and living happier than we, though we come not short of them in point of understanding or outward advantages.”  Upon this I said to him, “I earnestly beg you would describe that island very particularly to us; be not too short, but set out in order all things relating to their soil, their rivers, their towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a word, all that you imagine we desire to know; and you may well imagine that we desire to know everything concerning them of which we are hitherto ignorant.”  “I will do it very willingly,” said he, “for I have digested the whole matter carefully, but it will take up some time.”  “Let us go, then,” said I, “first and dine, and then we shall have leisure enough.”  He consented; we went in and dined, and after dinner came back and sat down in the same place.  I ordered my servants to take care that none might come and interrupt us, and both Peter and I desired Raphael to be as good as his word.  When he saw that we were very intent upon it he paused a little to recollect himself, and began in this manner:—­

“The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends.  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 five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds.  In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbour, 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.  In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may, therefore, easily be avoided; and on the top of it there is a tower, in