GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT.* CHAPTER I. myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. MENTS TO TRAVEL. - HE IS SHIPWRECKED, James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, THE AUTHOR GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF HIM- AND SWIMS FOR HIS LIFE. -GETS SAFE ON with whom I continued four years; and my father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation and other parts of the mathematics useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time or other, my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father; where, by the advice of him and my uncle John and to the Secretary of State, in order to subject the lands he discovered to the crown of Great Britain. "Now, if by these hints the reader can help himself to a further discovery of the nature and contents of these travels, he is welcome to as much light as they afford him; I am obliged, by all the ties of honor, not to speak more openly." Pope, however, appears to have been displeased at the substitution of Lemuel Gulliver for Marti "It was in the year 1699 that Martin set out on his travels. Thou wilt certainly be very curious to know what they were. It is not yet time to inform thee; but what hints I am at liberty to give Inus Scriblerus; he adds, rather ill-naturedly :— will. "Thou shalt know, then, that in his first voyage he was carried by a prosperous storm to a discovery of the ancient Pygmean empire. "But if any man shall see such very extraordinary voyages, which manifest the most distinguishing marks of a philosopher, a politician, and a legislator, and can imagine them to belong to a surgeon "That, in his second, he was happily ship-of a ship or a captain of a merchantman, let him wrecked on the land of the Giants, the most humane people in the world. "That, in his third, he discovered a whole kingdom of philosophers, who govern by the mathematics; with whose admirable schemes and projects he returned to benefit his own dear country; but had the misfortune to find them rejected by the envious ministers of Queen Anne, and himself sent treacherously away. "And hence it is that in his fourth voyage he discovers a vein of melancholy, proceeding almost to a disgust of his species; but, above all, a mortal detestation of the whole flagitious race of ministers, and a final resolution not to give in any memorial remain in his ignorance." Swift himself thus announces the approaching appearance of the work in a letter to Pope, dated Dublin, September 29, 1725: "I have employed my time (besides ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my travels, in four parts complete, newly augumented, and intended for the press when the world shall deserve them, or rather when a printer shall be found bold enough to venture his ears." The existence of a nation of pygmies was firmly believed in ancient times. The diminutive race is mentioned by Herodotus, Aristotle, Pliny, and even some other relations, I got forty pounds, and | Burton, hosier in Newgate Street, with whom a promise of thirty pounds a year to maintain I received four hundred pounds for a me at Leyden; there I studied physic two portion.* years and seven months, knowing it would be useful to me in long voyages. Soon after my return from Leyden I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannell commander; with whom I continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant and some other parts. When I came back I resolved to settle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and being advised to alter my condition, I married Miss Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund by some of the earlier modern travellers. The following account is from Ctesias, who was contemporary with Xenophon. "In the middle of India there are black men called pygmies, using the same language as the other Indians; they are very little, the tallest of them being but two cubits, But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my brethren. Having, therefore, consulted with my wife and some of my acquaintance, I determined to go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six years, to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory. The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, * Swift and De Foe are unrivalled in the art of introducing trifling and minute circumstances, which give an air of reality to their fictitious narratives. In Gulliver's early history, as in that of Crusoe, persons are casually mentioned of whom we hear and most of them but a cubit and a half high. They have very long hair, reaching down to their knees and lower, and a beard larger than any man's. After their beards are grown long they wear no clothes, but the hair of their head fails behind a great deal below their hams, and that of their beard before comes down to their feet; then, laying their hair thick all about their body, they afterwards gird themselves, making use of their hair for clothes. They are flat-nosed and ill-nothing more. Gulliver's uncle, like Crusoe's favored. Their sheep are like lambs, and their oxen and asses scarce as big as rams, and their horses and mules, and all their other cattle, not bigger. Three thousand of these pygmies are household troops in the service of the King of India. They are good archers. They are very just, and use the same laws as the Indians do." Some of the old commentators on the Bible translated the word Gammachia pygmies, and it is so rendered in the Vulgate. "This circumstance," as Sir Thomas Browne remarks in his "Enquiries into Vulgar Errors," "tended greatly to confirm the popular belief in the existence of this fabulous race." Viewed as a mere fiction, the account of Lilliput did not appear so extravagant in Swift's days as it does in ours. Every one has heard the story of the Irish bishop, a very learned man, who, having read the voyage to Lilliput, said that "there were some things in it which he could not believe." After the publication of the Travels, Swift was much amused to find that Gulliver was a real name, and that a Mr. Jonathan Gulliver was a member of the House of Representatives in Boston. An American writer adds, that this Jonathan deemed it necessary to disclaim publicly all connection with Lemuel. brother, only comes on the stage to disappear again forever. This is quite contrary to the usual course of romance writers, who rarely introduce a personage or an incident that does not in some way aid the development of the plot. Sir Walter Scott suggests that Swift probably imitated De Foe in this particular, but the ideal character of Gulliver naturally led the Dean to introduce these petty particulars. He designed to portray Gulliver as a kind of second Dampier, uniting the homely sense and prejudices of a true-born Englishman to the acquired wisdom of a life of adventures. There is a sailor's bluntness and frankness in everything that Gulliver tells us of himself and family; the occasional minuteness, and even coarseness, of the personal details, are faithfully taken from the journals of the early English voyagers, whose accounts of their discoveries are strangely blended with the most trifling particulars respecting their food, clothing, etc. The character of Gulliver is that of a thorough English sailor; his education at Leyden did not raise him too high above the rude tars with whom he mingled, and we always find his learning brought forward with difficulty, and by an effort, while his mother-wit and sailor's courage are present in every emergency. hoping to get business among the sailors, got to the shore, which I conjectured was but it would not turn to account. After about eight o'clock in the evening. I then three years' expectation that things would advanced forward near half a mile, but could mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from not discover any sign of houses or inhabiCaptain William Prichard, master of the An- tants; at least, I was in so weak a condition telope, who was making a voyage to the that I did not observe them. I was exSouth Sea. We set sail from Bristol, May 4, tremely tired, and with that and the heat 1699, and our voyage at first was very pros- of the weather, and about half a pint of perous. brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I' reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked it was just daylight. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir; for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body from my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which, advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downward as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands and a quiver at his back.* In the mean time I felt at least forty more of the same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud that they all ran back in a It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures in those seas; let it suffice to inform him that in our passage from thence to the East Indies we were driven by a violent storm to the northwest of Van Diemen's Land.* By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labor and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the 5th of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock within half a cable's length of the ship; but the wind was so strong that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labor while we were in the ship. We therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well as of those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but conclude they were all lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the storm was much abated. The declivity was so small that I walked near a mile before I * This island was first discovered, A. D. 1633, by Abel Janson Tasman, a Dutch navigator, who called it Van Diemen's Land after the governor of Batavia, by whom he had been sent to examine the Southern Ocean. Tasman's narrative was very loose and inaccurate, so that Swift might people the seas which that navigator traversed with any creatures he pleased. lib. ii. p. 817). "The pygmies," The archers and slingers besieged his feet, admiring the hugeness of his thighs; but against his head, as the arsenal, they raised batteries, the king himself taking his post there. They set fire to his hair, put reaping-hooks in his eyes, and, that he might not breathe, fixed doors to his mouth and nostrils. But all the execution that they could do was only to awake him; and when this was done, deriding their folly, he gathered them all up into his lion's skin and carried them (Philostratus thinks) to Euristnenes. fright, and some of them, as I was after-ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, wards told, were hurt by the falls they got like that of people at work; when, turning by leaping from my sides upon the ground. my head that way as well as the pegs and However, they soon returned, and one of strings would permit me, I saw a stage them who ventured so far as to get a full erected about a foot and a half from the sight of my face, lifting up his hands and ground, capable of holding four of the ineyes by way of admiration, cried out in a habitants, with two or three ladders to mount shrill but distinct voice, Hekinah degul! the it, from whence one of them, who seemed to others repeated the same words several times, be a person of quality, made me a long speech, but I then knew not what they meant. whereof I understood not one syllable.* But I should have mentioned that, before the principal person began his oration, he cried out three times, Langro dehul san (these words and the former were afterwards repeated and explained to me). Whereupon immediately about fifty of the inhabitants came and cut the string that fastened the left side of my head, which gave me the liberty of turning it to the right, and of observing the person and gesture of him that was to speak. He appeared to be of middle age and taller than any of the other three who attended him, whereof one was a page that held up his train, and seemed to be somewhat longer than my middle finger; the other two stood one on each side to support him. He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered * Moore has made a very amusing use of this incident in an ode to Sir Hudson Lowe, which is too good to be passed over with a mere reference. I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great uneasiness; at length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and at the same time, with a violent pull which gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and, after it had ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud, Tolgo phonac; when, in an instant, I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and besides they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not) and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a groaning with grief and pain, and then, striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but, by good luck, I had on me a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest army they could bring against me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows; but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right "Sir Hudson Lowe, Sir Hudson Low As thou art fond of persecutions; When thrown among the Lilliputians. Upon the mighty man's protuberance, To see their pygmy pride's exuberance! And needles in the great man's breeches; Got up and worried him with speeches. In the excitement that followed the Revolution, public speaking became more common in England than it had ever had been before, and several |