Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
in himself.
The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill
in dressing, wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be
determined by their own judgment. But constancy, chastity, good sense,
and good nature, were not rated, because they would not bear the charge
of collecting.
To keep senators in the interest of the crown, it was proposed that the
members should raffle for employments; every man first taking an oath,
and giving security, that he would vote for the court, whether he won
or not; after which, the losers had, in their turn, the liberty of
raffling upon the next vacancy. Thus, hope and expectation would be
kept alive; none would complain of broken promises, but impute their
disappointments wholly to fortune, whose shoulders are broader and
stronger than those of a ministry.
Another professor showed me a large paper of instructions for
discovering plots and conspiracies against the government. He advised
great statesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons;
their times of eating; upon which side they lay in bed; with which hand
they wipe their posteriors; take a strict view of their excrements,
and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the
crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts
and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent,
as when they are at stool, which he found by frequent experiment; for,
in such conjunctures, when he used, merely as a trial, to consider
which was the best way of murdering the king, his ordure would have a
tincture of green; but quite different, when he thought only of raising
an insurrection, or burning the metropolis.
The whole discourse was written with great acuteness, containing many
observations, both curious and useful for politicians; but, as I
conceived, not altogether complete. This I ventured to tell the author,
and offered, if he pleased, to supply him with some additions. He
received my proposition with more compliance than is usual among
writers, especially those of the projecting species, professing “he
would be glad to receive further information.”
I told him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, [454a] by the natives
called Langden, [454b] where I had sojourned some time in my travels,
the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers,
witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers,
together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all
under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and
their deputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship
of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound
politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle
or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures;
and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best
answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among
them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then,
effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put
the owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists,
very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words,
syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool,
to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an
invader; a codshead; a ——; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a
prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of
state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a
broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a
treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed,
a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the
administration. [455]
“When this method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the
learned among them call acrostics and anagrams. First, they can
decipher all initial letters into political meanings. Thus _N_. shall
signify a plot; _B_. a regiment of horse; _L_. a fleet at sea; or,
secondly, by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected
paper, they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party.
So, for example, if I should say, in a letter to a friend, ‘Our brother
Tom has just got the piles,’ a skilful decipherer would discover, that
the same letters which compose that sentence, may be analysed into the
following words, ‘Resist, a plot is brought home; The tour.’ And this
is the anagrammatic method.”
The professor made me great acknowledgments for communicating these
observations, and promised to make honourable mention of me in his
treatise.
I saw nothing in this country that could invite me to a longer
continuance, and began to think of returning home to England.
CHAPTER VII.
The author leaves Lagado: arrives at Maldonada. No ship ready. He takes
a short voyage to Glubbdubdrib. His reception by the governor.
The continent, of which this kingdom is a part, extends itself, as I
have reason to believe, eastward, to that unknown tract of America
westward of California; and north, to the Pacific Ocean, which is not
above a hundred and fifty miles from Lagado; where there is a good
port, and much commerce with the great island of Luggnagg, situated to
the north-west about 29 degrees north latitude, and 140 longitude. This
island of Luggnagg stands south-eastward of Japan, about a hundred
leagues distant. There is a strict alliance between the Japanese
emperor and the king of Luggnagg; which affords frequent opportunities
of sailing from one island to the other. I determined therefore to
direct my course this way, in order to direct my return to Europe. I
hired two mules, with a guide, to show me the way, and carry my small
baggage. I took leave of my noble protector, who had shown me so much
favour, and made me a generous present at my departure.
My journey was without any accident or adventure worth relating. When I
arrived at the port of Maldonada (for so it is called) there was no
ship in the harbour bound for Luggnagg, nor likely to be in some time.
The town is about as large as Portsmouth. I soon fell into some
acquaintance, and was very hospitably received. A gentleman of
distinction said to me, “that since the ships bound for Luggnagg could
not be ready in less than a month, it might be no disagreeable
amusement for me to take a trip to the little island of Glubbdubdrib,
about five leagues off to the south-west.” He offered himself and a
friend to accompany me, and that I should be provided with a small
convenient bark for the voyage.
Glubbdubdrib, as nearly as I can interpret the word, signifies the
island of sorcerers or magicians. It is about one third as large as the
Isle of Wight, and extremely fruitful: it is governed by the head of a
certain tribe, who are all magicians. This tribe marries only among
each other, and the eldest in succession is prince or governor. He has
a noble palace, and a park of about three thousand acres, surrounded by
a wall of hewn stone twenty feet high. In this park are several small
enclosures for cattle, corn, and gardening.
The governor and his family are served and attended by domestics of a
kind somewhat unusual. By his skill in necromancy he has a power of
calling whom he pleases from the dead, and commanding their service for
twenty-four hours, but no longer; nor can he call the same persons up
again in less than three months, except upon very extraordinary
occasions.
When we arrived at the island, which was about eleven in the morning,
one of the gentlemen who accompanied me went to the governor, and
desired admittance for a stranger, who came on purpose to have the
honour of attending on his highness. This was immediately granted, and
we all three entered the gate of the palace between two rows of guards,
armed and dressed after a very antic manner, and with something in
their countenances that made my flesh creep with a horror I cannot
express. We passed through several apartments, between servants of the
same sort, ranked on each side as before, till we came to the chamber
of presence; where, after three profound obeisances, and a few general
questions, we were permitted to sit on three stools, near the lowest
step of his highness’s throne. He understood the language of
Balnibarbi, although it was different from that of this island. He
desired me to give him some account of my travels; and, to let me see
that I should be treated without ceremony, he dismissed all his
attendants with a turn of his finger; at which, to my great
astonishment, they vanished in an instant, like visions in a dream when
we awake on a sudden. I could not recover myself in some time, till the
governor assured me, “that I should receive no hurt;” and observing my
two companions to be under no concern, who had been often entertained
in the same manner, I began to take courage, and related to his
highness a short history of my several adventures; yet not without some
hesitation, and frequently looking behind me to the place where I had
seen those domestic spectres. I had the honour to dine with the
governor, where a new set of ghosts served up the meat, and waited at
table. I now observed myself to be less terrified than I had been in
the morning. I stayed till sunset, but humbly desired his highness to
excuse me for not accepting his invitation of lodging in the palace. My
two friends and I lay at a private house in the town adjoining, which
is the capital of this little island; and the next morning we returned
to pay our duty to the governor, as he was pleased to command us.
After this manner we continued in the island for ten days, most part of
every day with the governor, and at night in our lodging. I soon grew
so familiarized to the sight of spirits, that after the third or fourth
time they gave me no emotion at all: or, if I had any apprehensions
left, my curiosity prevailed over them. For his highness the governor
ordered me “to call up whatever persons I would choose to name, and in
whatever numbers, among all the dead from the beginning of the world to
the present time, and command them to answer any questions I should
think fit to ask; with this condition, that my questions must be
confined within the compass of the times they lived in. And one thing I
might depend upon, that they would certainly tell me the truth, for
lying was a talent of no use in the lower world.”
I made my humble acknowledgments to his highness for so great a favour.
We were in a chamber, from whence there was a fair prospect into the
park. And because my first inclination was to be entertained with
scenes of pomp and magnificence, I desired to see Alexander the Great
at the head of his army, just after the battle of Arbela: which, upon a
motion of the governor’s finger, immediately appeared in a large field,
under the window where we stood. Alexander was called up into the room:
it was with great difficulty that I understood his Greek, and had but
little of my own. He assured me upon his honour “that he was not
poisoned, but died of a bad fever by excessive drinking.”
Next, I saw Hannibal passing the Alps, who told me “he had not a drop
of vinegar in his camp.”
I saw Cæsar and Pompey at the head of their troops, just ready to
engage. I saw the former, in his last great triumph. I desired that the
senate of Rome might appear before me, in one large chamber, and an
assembly of somewhat a later age in counterview, in another. The first
seemed to be an assembly of heroes and demigods; the other, a knot of
pedlars, pick-pockets, highwaymen, and bullies.
The governor, at my request, gave the sign for Cæsar and Brutus to