|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
OF THEIR TOWNS, PARTICULARLY OF AMAUROT
"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.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
