“He that knows one of their towns knows them all—they are so like one
another, except where the situation makes some difference. I shall
therefore describe one of them, and none is so proper as Amaurot; for
as none is more eminent (all the rest yielding in precedence to this,
because it is the seat of their supreme council), so there was none of
them better known to me, I having lived five years all together in it.
“It lies upon the side of a hill, or, rather, a rising ground. Its
figure is almost square, for from the one side of it, which shoots up
almost to the top of the hill, it runs down, in a descent for two
miles, to the river Anider; but it is a little broader the other way
that runs along by the bank of that river. The Anider rises about
eighty miles above Amaurot, in a small spring at first. But other
brooks falling into it, of which two are more considerable than the
rest, as it runs by Amaurot it is grown half a mile broad; but, it
still grows larger and larger, till, after sixty miles’ course below
it, it is lost in the ocean. Between the town and the sea, and for some
miles above the town, it ebbs and flows every six hours with a strong
current. The tide comes up about thirty miles so full that there is
nothing but salt water in the river, the fresh water being driven back
with its force; and above that, for some miles, the water is brackish;
but a little higher, as it runs by the town, it is quite fresh; and
when the tide ebbs, it continues fresh all along to the sea. There is a
bridge cast over the river, not of timber, but of fair stone,
consisting of many stately arches; it lies at that part of the town
which is farthest from the sea, so that the ships, without any
hindrance, lie all along the side of the town. There is, likewise,
another river that runs by it, which, though it is not great, yet it
runs pleasantly, for it rises out of the same hill on which the town
stands, and so runs down through it and falls into the Anider. The
inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which
springs a little without the towns; that so, if they should happen to
be besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or divert the course
of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried, in earthen
pipes, to the lower streets. And for those places of the town to which
the water of that small river cannot be conveyed, they have great
cisterns for receiving the rain-water, which supplies the want of the
other. The town is compassed with a high and thick wall, in which there
are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep dry ditch,
set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the town, and the
river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are very
convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds.
Their buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a
street looks like one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there
lie gardens behind all their houses. These are large, but enclosed with
buildings, that on all hands face the streets, so that every house has
both a door to the street and a back door to the garden. Their doors
have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of
their own accord; and, there being no property among them, every man
may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years’ end
they shift their houses by lots. They cultivate their gardens with
great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in
them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw
gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs.
And this humour of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up
by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the
inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other. And there
is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole town that is both more
useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have
taken care of nothing more than of their gardens; for they say the
whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left
all that belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by
those that should come after him, that being too much for one man to
bring to perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their
town and State, are preserved with an exact care, and run backwards
seventeen hundred and sixty years. From these it appears that their
houses were at first low and mean, like cottages, made of any sort of
timber, and were built with mud walls and thatched with straw. But now
their houses are three storeys high, the fronts of them are faced
either with stone, plastering, or brick, and between the facings of
their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on
them they lay a sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so
tempered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather
more than lead. They have great quantities of glass among them, with
which they glaze their windows; they use also in their windows a thin
linen cloth, that is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind
and gives free admission to the light.