ime,"--"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.

BOOK II.

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 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. 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. On
the other side of the island there are likewise many harbours; 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. But they report (and there
remains good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at
first, but a part of the continent. 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 the