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 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
uncivilised 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