stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls but in
their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make chains and
fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of infamy, they
hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a chain or a coronet of the
same metal; and thus they take care by all possible means to render gold
and silver of no esteem; and from hence it is that while other nations
part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their
bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of
those metals (when there were any use for them) but as the parting with a
trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny! They find pearls on
their coasts, and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not
look after them, but, if they find them by chance, they polish them, and
with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and
glory in them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and
see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own accord,
without being bid by their parents, lay them aside, and would be as much
ashamed to use them afterwards as children among us, when they come to
years, are of their puppets and other toys.

"I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that
different customs make on people than I observed in the ambassadors of
the Anemolians, who came to Amaurot when I was there. As they came to
treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several towns
met together to wait for their coming. The ambassadors of the nations
that lie near Utopia, knowing their customs, and that fine clothes are in
no esteem among them, that silk is despised, and gold is a badge of
infamy, used to come very modestly clothed; but the Anemolians, lying
more remote, and having had little commerce with them, understanding that
they were coarsely clothed, and all in the same manner, took it for
granted that they had none of those fine things among them of which they