Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
the fineness of the grass made them feed very heartily, though I had
always feared the contrary: neither could I possibly have preserved
them in so long a voyage, if the captain had not allowed me some of his
best biscuit, which, rubbed to powder, and mingled with water, was
their constant food. The short time I continued in England, I made a
considerable profit by showing my cattle to many persons of quality and
others: and before I began my second voyage, I sold them for six
hundred pounds. Since my last return I find the breed is considerably
increased, especially the sheep, which I hope will prove much to the
advantage of the woollen manufacture, by the fineness of the fleeces.
I stayed but two months with my wife and family, for my insatiable
desire of seeing foreign countries, would suffer me to continue no
longer. I left fifteen hundred pounds with my wife, and fixed her in a
good house at Redriff. My remaining stock I carried with me, part in
money and part in goods, in hopes to improve my fortunes. My eldest
uncle John had left me an estate in land, near Epping, of about thirty
pounds a year; and I had a long lease of the Black Bull in Fetter Lane,
which yielded me as much more; so that I was not in any danger of
leaving my family upon the parish. My son Johnny, named so after his
uncle, was at the grammar school, and a towardly child. My daughter
Betty (who is now well married, and has children) was then at her
needlework. I took leave of my wife, and boy and girl, with tears on
both sides, and went on board the Adventure, a merchant ship of three
hundred tons, bound for Surat, captain John Nicholas, of Liverpool,
commander. But my account of this voyage must be referred to the Second
Part of my Travels.
PART II. A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG.
CHAPTER I.
A great storm described; the long boat sent to fetch water; the author
goes with it to discover the country. He is left on shore, is seized by
one of the natives, and carried to a farmer’s house. His reception,
with several accidents that happened there. A description of the
inhabitants.
Having been condemned, by nature and fortune, to active and restless
life, in two months after my return, I again left my native country,
and took shipping in the Downs, on the 20th day of June, 1702, in the
Adventure, Captain John Nicholas, a Cornish man, commander, bound for
Surat. We had a very prosperous gale, till we arrived at the Cape of
Good Hope, where we landed for fresh water; but discovering a leak, we
unshipped our goods and wintered there; for the captain falling sick of
an ague, we could not leave the Cape till the end of March. We then set
sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of Madagascar;
but having got northward of that island, and to about five degrees
south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed to blow a
constant equal gale between the north and west, from the beginning of
December to the beginning of May, on the 19th of April began to blow
with much greater violence, and more westerly than usual, continuing so
for twenty days together: during which time, we were driven a little to
the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three degrees northward of
the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2nd of
May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm, whereat
I was not a little rejoiced. But he, being a man well experienced in
the navigation of those seas, bid us all prepare against a storm, which
accordingly happened the day following: for the southern wind, called
the southern monsoon, began to set in.
Finding it was likely to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood
by to hand the fore-sail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns
were all fast, and handed the mizen. The ship lay very broad off, so we
thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying or hulling. We
reefed the fore-sail and set him, and hauled aft the fore-sheet; the
helm was hard a-weather. The ship wore bravely. We belayed the fore
down-haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard, and got
the sail into the ship, and unbound all the things clear of it. It was
a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous. We hauled off
upon the laniard of the whip-staff, and helped the man at the helm. We
would not get down our topmast, but let all stand, because she scudded
before the sea very well, and we knew that the top-mast being aloft,
the ship was the wholesomer, and made better way through the sea,
seeing we had sea-room. When the storm was over, we set fore-sail and
main-sail, and brought the ship to. Then we set the mizen,
main-top-sail, and the fore-top-sail. Our course was east-north-east,
the wind was at south-west. We got the starboard tacks aboard, we cast
off our weather-braces and lifts; we set in the lee-braces, and hauled
forward by the weather-bowlings, and hauled them tight, and belayed
them, and hauled over the mizen tack to windward, and kept her full and
by as near as she would lie.
During this storm, which was followed by a strong wind west-south-west,
we were carried, by my computation, about five hundred leagues to the
east, so that the oldest sailor on board could not tell in what part of
the world we were. Our provisions held out well, our ship was staunch,
and our crew all in good health; but we lay in the utmost distress for
water. We thought it best to hold on the same course, rather than turn
more northerly, which might have brought us to the north-west part of
Great Tartary, and into the Frozen Sea.
On the 16th day of June, 1703, a boy on the top-mast discovered land.
On the 17th, we came in full view of a great island, or continent (for
we knew not whether;) on the south side whereof was a small neck of
land jutting out into the sea, and a creek too shallow to hold a ship
of above one hundred tons. We cast anchor within a league of this
creek, and our captain sent a dozen of his men well armed in the
long-boat, with vessels for water, if any could be found. I desired his
leave to go with them, that I might see the country, and make what
discoveries I could. When we came to land we saw no river or spring,
nor any sign of inhabitants. Our men therefore wandered on the shore to
find out some fresh water near the sea, and I walked alone about a mile
on the other side, where I observed the country all barren and rocky. I
now began to be weary, and seeing nothing to entertain my curiosity, I
returned gently down towards the creek; and the sea being full in my
view, I saw our men already got into the boat, and rowing for life to
the ship. I was going to holla after them, although it had been to
little purpose, when I observed a huge creature walking after them in
the sea, as fast as he could: he waded not much deeper than his knees,
and took prodigious strides: but our men had the start of him half a
league, and, the sea thereabouts being full of sharp-pointed rocks, the
monster was not able to overtake the boat. This I was afterwards told,
for I durst not stay to see the issue of the adventure; but ran as fast
as I could the way I first went, and then climbed up a steep hill,
which gave me some prospect of the country. I found it fully
cultivated; but that which first surprised me was the length of the
grass, which, in those grounds that seemed to be kept for hay, was
about twenty feet high.
I fell into a high road, for so I took it to be, though it served to
the inhabitants only as a foot-path through a field of barley. Here I
walked on for some time, but could see little on either side, it being
now near harvest, and the corn rising at least forty feet. I was an
hour walking to the end of this field, which was fenced in with a hedge
of at least one hundred and twenty feet high, and the trees so lofty
that I could make no computation of their altitude. There was a stile
to pass from this field into the next. It had four steps, and a stone
to cross over when you came to the uppermost. It was impossible for me
to climb this stile, because every step was six-feet high, and the
upper stone about twenty. I was endeavouring to find some gap in the
hedge, when I discovered one of the inhabitants in the next field,
advancing towards the stile, of the same size with him whom I saw in
the sea pursuing our boat. He appeared as tall as an ordinary spire
steeple, and took about ten yards at every stride, as near as I could
guess. I was struck with the utmost fear and astonishment, and ran to
hide myself in the corn, whence I saw him at the top of the stile
looking back into the next field on the right hand, and heard him call
in a voice many degrees louder than a speaking-trumpet: but the noise
was so high in the air, that at first I certainly thought it was
thunder. Whereupon seven monsters, like himself, came towards him with
reaping-hooks in their hands, each hook about the largeness of six
scythes. These people were not so well clad as the first, whose
servants or labourers they seemed to be; for, upon some words he spoke,
they went to reap the corn in the field where I lay. I kept from them
at as great a distance as I could, but was forced to move with extreme
difficulty, for the stalks of the corn were sometimes not above a foot
distant, so that I could hardly squeeze my body betwixt them. However,
I made a shift to go forward, till I came to a part of the field where
the corn had been laid by the rain and wind. Here it was impossible for
me to advance a step; for the stalks were so interwoven, that I could
not creep through, and the beards of the fallen ears so strong and
pointed, that they pierced through my clothes into my flesh. At the
same time I heard the reapers not a hundred yards behind me. Being
quite dispirited with toil, and wholly overcome by grief and dispair, I
lay down between two ridges, and heartily wished I might there end my
days. I bemoaned my desolate widow and fatherless children. I lamented
my own folly and wilfulness, in attempting a second voyage, against the
advice of all my friends and relations. In this terrible agitation of
mind, I could not forbear thinking of Lilliput, whose inhabitants
looked upon me as the greatest prodigy that ever appeared in the world;
where I was able to draw an imperial fleet in my hand, and perform
those other actions, which will be recorded for ever in the chronicles
of that empire, while posterity shall hardly believe them, although
attested by millions. I reflected what a mortification it must prove to
me, to appear as inconsiderable in this nation, as one single
Lilliputian would be among us. But this I conceived was to be the least
of my misfortunes; for, as human creatures are observed to be more
savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk, what could I expect but
to be a morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous
barbarians that should happen to seize me? Undoubtedly philosophers are
in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little
otherwise than by comparison. It might have pleased fortune, to have
let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as
diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me. And who knows but
that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched
in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.
Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with these
reflections, when one of the reapers, approaching within ten yards of
the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the next step I
should be squashed to death under his foot, or cut in two with his
reaping-hook. And therefore, when he was again about to move, I
screamed as loud as fear could make me: whereupon the huge creature
trod short, and, looking round about under him for some time, at last