r government, or of
ours," said he, "you cannot pass a true judgment of it, unless you had
read their histories; for if they are to be believed, they had towns
among them before these parts were so much as inhabited. And as for
those discoveries, that have been either hit on by chance, or made by
ingenious men, these might have happened there as well as here. I do not
deny but we are more ingenious than they are, but they exceed us much in
industry and application. They knew little concerning us before our
arrival among them; they call us all by a general name of the nations
that lie beyond the Equinoctial Line; for their Chronicle mentions a
shipwreck that was made on their coast 1,200 years ago; and that some
Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent
the rest of their days amongst them; and such was their ingenuity, that
from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning from
those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts that were
then among the Romans, and which were known to these shipwrecked men:
and by the hints that they gave them, they themselves found out even
some of those arts which they could not fully explain; so happily did
they improve that accident, of having some of our people cast upon their
shore. But if such an accident has at any time brought any from thence
into Europe, we have been so far from improving it, that we do not so
much as remember it; as in after-times perhaps it will be forgot by our
people that I was ever there. For though they from one such accident
made themselves masters of all the good inventions that were among us;
yet I believe it would be long before we should learn or put in practice
any of the good institutions that are among them. And this is the true
cause of their being better governed, and living happier than we, though
we come not short of them in point of understanding or outward
advantages."--Upon this I said to him, "I earnestly beg you would
describe that island very particularly to us. Be not too short, but set
out in order all things relating to their soil, their rivers, their
towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a word,
all that you imagine we desire to know. And you may well imagine that we
desire to know everything concerning them, of which we are hitherto
ignorant."--"I will do it very willingly," said he, "for I have digested
the whole matter carefully; but it will take up some t