PART III.
A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI,
LUGGNAGG,
GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN.
CHAPTER I.
The author sets out on his third voyage.
Is taken by pirates. The malice of a Dutchman. His
arrival at an island. He is received into Laputa.
I had not been at home above ten days, when Captain William
Robinson, a Cornish man, commander of the Hopewell, a stout ship
of three hundred tons, came to my house. I had formerly
been surgeon of another ship where he was master, and a fourth
part owner, in a voyage to the Levant. He had always
treated me more like a brother, than an inferior officer; and,
hearing of my arrival, made me a visit, as I apprehended only
out of friendship, for nothing passed more than what is usual
after long absences. But repeating his visits often,
expressing his joy to find I me in good health, asking, “whether
I were now settled for life?” adding, “that he intended a voyage
to the East Indies in two months,” at last he plainly invited
me, though with some apologies, to be surgeon of the ship; “that
I should have another surgeon under me, beside our two mates;
that my salary should be double to the usual pay; and that
having experienced my knowledge in sea-affairs to be at least
equal to his, he would enter into any engagement to follow my
advice, as much as if I had shared in the command.”
He said so many other obliging things, and I knew him to be
so honest a man, that I could not reject this proposal; the
thirst I had of seeing the world, notwithstanding my past
misfortunes, continuing as violent as ever. The only
difficulty that remained, was to persuade my wife, whose consent
however I at last obtained, by the prospect of advantage she
proposed to her children.
We set out the 5th day of August, 1706, and arrived at Fort
St. George the 11th of April, 1707. We staid there three
weeks to refresh our crew, many of whom were sick. From
thence we went to Tonquin, where the captain resolved to
continue some time, because many of the goods he intended to buy
were not ready, nor could he expect to be dispatched in several
months. Therefore, in hopes to defray some of the charges
he must be at, he bought a sloop, loaded it with several sorts
of goods, wherewith the Tonquinese usually trade to the
neighbouring islands, and putting fourteen men on board, whereof
three were of the country, he appointed me master of the sloop,
and gave me power to traffic, while he transacted his affairs at
Tonquin.
We had not sailed above three days, when a great storm
arising, we were driven five days to the north-north-east, and
then to the east: after which we had fair weather, but still
with a pretty strong gale from the west. Upon the tenth
day we were chased by two pirates, who soon overtook us; for my
sloop was so deep laden, that she sailed very slow, neither were
we in a condition to defend ourselves.
We were boarded about the same time by both the pirates, who
entered furiously at the head of their men; but finding us all
prostrate upon our faces (for so I gave order), they pinioned us
with strong ropes, and setting guard upon us, went to search the
sloop.
I observed among them a Dutchman, who seemed to be of some
authority, though he was not commander of either ship. He
knew us by our countenances to be Englishmen, and jabbering to
us in his own language, swore we should be tied back to back and
thrown into the sea. I spoken Dutch tolerably well; I told
him who we were, and begged him, in consideration of our being
Christians and Protestants, of neighbouring countries in strict
alliance, that he would move the captains to take some pity on
us. This inflamed his rage; he repeated his threatenings,
and turning to his companions, spoke with great vehemence in the
Japanese language, as I suppose, often using the word
Christianos.
The largest of the two pirate ships was commanded by a
Japanese captain, who spoke a little Dutch, but very
imperfectly. He came up to me, and after several
questions, which I answered in great humility, he said, “we
should not die.” I made the captain a very low bow, and
then, turning to the Dutchman, said, “I was sorry to find more
mercy in a heathen, than in a brother christian.” But I
had soon reason to repent those foolish words: for that
malicious reprobate, having often endeavoured in vain to
persuade both the captains that I might be thrown into the sea
(which they would not yield to, after the promise made me that I
should not die), however, prevailed so far, as to have a
punishment inflicted on me, worse, in all human appearance, than
death itself. My men were sent by an equal division into
both the pirate ships, and my sloop new manned. As to
myself, it was determined that I should be set adrift in a small
canoe, with paddles and a sail, and four days’ provisions; which
last, the Japanese captain was so kind to double out of his own
stores, and would permit no man to search me. I got down
into the canoe, while the Dutchman, standing upon the deck,
loaded me with all the curses and injurious terms his language
could afford.
About an hour before we saw the pirates I had taken an
observation, and found we were in the latitude of 46 N. and
longitude of 183. When I was at some distance from the
pirates, I discovered, by my pocket-glass, several islands to
the south-east. I set up my sail, the wind being fair,
with a design to reach the nearest of those islands, which I
made a shift to do, in about three hours. It was all
rocky: however I got many birds’ eggs; and, striking fire, I
kindled some heath and dry sea-weed, by which I roasted my eggs.
I ate no other supper, being resolved to spare my provisions as
much as I could. I passed the night under the shelter of a
rock, strewing some heath under me, and slept pretty well.
The next day I sailed to another island, and thence to a
third and fourth, sometimes using my sail, and sometimes my
paddles. But, not to trouble the reader with a particular
account of my distresses, let it suffice, that on the fifth day
I arrived at the last island in my sight, which lay
south-south-east to the former.
This island was at a greater distance than I expected, and I
did not reach it in less than five hours. I encompassed it
almost round, before I could find a convenient place to land in;
which was a small creek, about three times the wideness of my
canoe. I found the island to be all rocky, only a little
intermingled with tufts of grass, and sweet-smelling herbs.
I took out my small provisions and after having refreshed
myself, I secured the remainder in a cave, whereof there were
great numbers; I gathered plenty of eggs upon the rocks, and got
a quantity of dry sea-weed, and parched grass, which I designed
to kindle the next day, and roast my eggs as well as I could,
for I had about me my flint, steel, match, and burning-glass.
I lay all night in the cave where I had lodged my provisions.
My bed was the same dry grass and sea-weed which I intended for
fuel. I slept very little, for the disquiets of my mind
prevailed over my weariness, and kept me awake. I
considered how impossible it was to preserve my life in so
desolate a place, and how miserable my end must be: yet found
myself so listless and desponding, that I had not the heart to
rise; and before I could get spirits enough to creep out of my
cave, the day was far advanced. I walked awhile among the
rocks: the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun so hot, that I
was forced to turn my face from it: when all on a sudden it
became obscure, as I thought, in a manner very different from
what happens by the interposition of a cloud. I turned
back, and perceived a vast opaque body between me and the sun
moving forwards towards the island: it seemed to be about two
miles high, and hid the sun six or seven minutes; but I did not
observe the air to be much colder, or the sky more darkened,
than if I had stood under the shade of a mountain. As it
approached nearer over the place where I was, it appeared to be
a firm substance, the bottom flat, smooth, and shining very
bright, from the reflection of the sea below. I stood upon
a height about two hundred yards from the shore, and saw this
vast body descending almost to a parallel with me, at less than
an English mile distance. I took out my pocket
perspective, and could plainly discover numbers of people moving
up and down the sides of it, which appeared to be sloping; but
what those people where doing I was not able to distinguish.
The natural love of life gave me some inward motion of joy,
and I was ready to entertain a hope that this adventure might,
some way or other, help to deliver me from the desolate place
and condition I was in. But at the same time the reader
can hardly conceive my astonishment, to behold an island in the
air, inhabited by men, who were able (as it should seem) to
raise or sink, or put it into progressive motion, as they
pleased. But not being at that time in a disposition to
philosophise upon this phenomenon, I rather chose to observe
what course the island would take, because it seemed for awhile
to stand still. Yet soon after, it advanced nearer, and I
could see the sides of it encompassed with several gradations of
galleries, and stairs, at certain intervals, to descend from one
to the other. In the lowest gallery, I beheld some people
fishing with long angling rods, and others looking on. I
waved my cap (for my hat was long since worn out) and my
handkerchief toward the island; and upon its nearer approach, I
called and shouted with the utmost strength of my voice; and
then looking circumspectly, I beheld a crowd gather to that side
which was most in my view. I found by their pointing
towards me and to each other, that they plainly discovered me,
although they made no return to my shouting. But I could
see four or five men running in great haste, up the stairs, to
the top of the island, who then disappeared. I happened
rightly to conjecture, that these were sent for orders to some
person in authority upon this occasion.
The number of people increased, and, in less than half all
hour, the island was moved and raised in such a manner, that the
lowest gallery appeared in a parallel of less then a hundred
yards distance from the height where I stood. I then put
myself in the most supplicating posture, and spoke in the
humblest accent, but received no answer. Those who stood
nearest over against me, seemed to be persons of distinction, as
I supposed by their habit. They conferred earnestly with
each other, looking often upon me. At length one of them
called out in a clear, polite, smooth dialect, not unlike in
sound to the Italian: and therefore I returned an answer in that
language, hoping at least that the cadence might be more
agreeable to his ears. Although neither of us understood
the other, yet my meaning was easily known, for the people saw
the distress I was in.
They made signs for me to come down from the rock, and go
towards the shore, which I accordingly did; and the flying
island being raised to a convenient height, the verge directly
over me, a chain was let down from the lowest gallery, with a
seat fastened to the bottom, to which I fixed myself, and was
drawn up by pulleys.
Illustrations by Arthur Rackham
CHAPTER II.
The humours and dispositions of the Laputians
described. An account of their learning. Of the king
and his court. The author’s reception there. The
inhabitants subject to fear and disquietudes. An account
of the women.
At my alighting, I was surrounded with a crowd of people, but
those who stood nearest seemed to be of better quality.
They beheld me with all the marks and circumstances of wonder;
neither indeed was I much in their debt, having never till then
seen a race of mortals so singular in their shapes, habits, and
countenances. Their heads were all reclined, either to the
right, or the left; one of their eyes turned inward, and the
other directly up to the zenith. Their outward garments
were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars;
interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets,
guitars, harpsichords, and many other instruments of music,
unknown to us in Europe. I observed, here and there, many
in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder, fastened like a
flail to the end of a stick, which they carried in their hands.
In each bladder was a small quantity of dried peas, or little
pebbles, as I was afterwards informed. With these
bladders, they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those
who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive
the meaning. It seems the minds of these people are so
taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak,
nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by
some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing; for
which reason, those persons who are able to afford it always
keep a flapper (the original is climenole) in their
family, as one of their domestics; nor ever walk abroad, or make
visits, without him. And the business of this officer is,
when two, three, or more persons are in company, gently to
strike with his bladder the mouth of him who is to speak, and
the right ear of him or them to whom the speaker addresses
himself. This flapper is likewise employed diligently to
attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give him a
soft flap on his eyes; because he is always so wrapped up in
cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every
precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the
streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the
kennel.
It was necessary to give the reader this information, without
which he would be at the same loss with me to understand the
proceedings of these people, as they conducted me up the stairs
to the top of the island, and from thence to the royal palace.
While we were ascending, they forgot several times what they
were about, and left me to myself, till their memories were
again roused by their flappers; for they appeared altogether
unmoved by the sight of my foreign habit and countenance, and by
the shouts of the vulgar, whose thoughts and minds were more
disengaged.
At last we entered the palace, and proceeded into the chamber
of presence, where I saw the king seated on his throne, attended
on each side by persons of prime quality. Before the
throne, was a large table filled with globes and spheres, and
mathematical instruments of all kinds. His majesty took
not the least notice of us, although our entrance was not
without sufficient noise, by the concourse of all persons
belonging to the court. But he was then deep in a problem;
and we attended at least an hour, before he could solve it.
There stood by him, on each side, a young page with flaps in
their hands, and when they saw he was at leisure, one of them
gently struck his mouth, and the other his right ear; at which
he startled like one awaked on the sudden, and looking towards
me and the company I was in, recollected the occasion of our
coming, whereof he had been informed before. He spoke some
words, whereupon immediately a young man with a flap came up to
my side, and flapped me gently on the right ear; but I made
signs, as well as I could, that I had no occasion for such an
instrument; which, as I afterwards found, gave his majesty, and
the whole court, a very mean opinion of my understanding.
The king, as far as I could conjecture, asked me several
questions, and I addressed myself to him in all the languages I
had. When it was found I could neither understand nor be
understood, I was conducted by his order to an apartment in his
palace (this prince being distinguished above all his
predecessors for his hospitality to strangers), where two
servants were appointed to attend me. My dinner was
brought, and four persons of quality, whom I remembered to have
seen very near the king’s person, did me the honour to dine with
me. We had two courses, of three dishes each. In the
first course, there was a shoulder of mutton cut into an
equilateral triangle, a piece of beef into a rhomboides, and a
pudding into a cycloid. The second course was two ducks
trussed up in the form of fiddles; sausages and puddings
resembling flutes and hautboys, and a breast of veal in the
shape of a harp. The servants cut our bread into cones,
cylinders, parallelograms, and several other mathematical
figures.
While we were at dinner, I made bold to ask the names of
several things in their language, and those noble persons, by
the assistance of their flappers, delighted to give me answers,
hoping to raise my admiration of their great abilities if I
could be brought to converse with them. I was soon able to
call for bread and drink, or whatever else I wanted.
After dinner my company withdrew, and a person was sent to me
by the king’s order, attended by a flapper. He brought
with him pen, ink, and paper, and three or four books, giving me
to understand by signs, that he was sent to teach me the
language. We sat together four hours, in which time I
wrote down a great number of words in columns, with the
translations over against them; I likewise made a shift to learn
several short sentences; for my tutor would order one of my
servants to fetch something, to turn about, to make a bow, to
sit, or to stand, or walk, and the like. Then I took down
the sentence in writing. He showed me also, in one of his
books, the figures of the sun, moon, and stars, the zodiac, the
tropics, and polar circles, together with the denominations of
many plains and solids. He gave me the names and
descriptions of all the musical instruments, and the general
terms of art in playing on each of them. After he had left
me, I placed all my words, with their interpretations, in
alphabetical order. And thus, in a few days, by the help
of a very faithful memory, I got some insight into their
language. The word, which I interpret the flying or
floating island, is in the original Laputa, whereof I
could never learn the true etymology. Lap, in the
old obsolete language, signifies high; and untuh, a
governor; from which they say, by corruption, was derived
Laputa, from Lapuntuh. But I do not approve of
this derivation, which seems to be a little strained. I
ventured to offer to the learned among them a conjecture of my
own, that Laputa was quasi lap outed;
lap, signifying properly, the dancing of the sunbeams in
the sea, and outed, a wing; which, however, I shall not
obtrude, but submit to the judicious reader.
Those to whom the king had entrusted me, observing how ill I
was clad, ordered a tailor to come next morning, and take
measure for a suit of clothes. This operator did his
office after a different manner from those of his trade in
Europe. He first took my altitude by a quadrant, and then,
with a rule and compasses, described the dimensions and outlines
of my whole body, all which he entered upon paper; and in six
days brought my clothes very ill made, and quite out of shape,
by happening to mistake a figure in the calculation. But
my comfort was, that I observed such accidents very frequent,
and little regarded.
During my confinement for want of clothes, and by an
indisposition that held me some days longer, I much enlarged my
dictionary; and when I went next to court, was able to
understand many things the king spoke, and to return him some
kind of answers. His majesty had given orders, that the
island should move north-east and by east, to the vertical point
over Lagado, the metropolis of the whole kingdom below, upon the
firm earth. It was about ninety leagues distant, and our
voyage lasted four days and a half. I was not in the least
sensible of the progressive motion made in the air by the
island. On the second morning, about eleven o’clock, the
king himself in person, attended by his nobility, courtiers, and
officers, having prepared all their musical instruments, played
on them for three hours without intermission, so that I was
quite stunned with the noise; neither could I possibly guess the
meaning, till my tutor informed me. He said that, the
people of their island had their ears adapted to hear “the music
of the spheres, which always played at certain periods, and the
court was now prepared to bear their part, in whatever
instrument they most excelled.”
In our journey towards Lagado, the capital city, his majesty
ordered that the island should stop over certain towns and
villages, from whence he might receive the petitions of his
subjects. And to this purpose, several packthreads were
let down, with small weights at the bottom. On these
packthreads the people strung their petitions, which mounted up
directly, like the scraps of paper fastened by school boys at
the end of the string that holds their kite. Sometimes we
received wine and victuals from below, which were drawn up by
pulleys.
The knowledge I had in mathematics, gave me great assistance
in acquiring their phraseology, which depended much upon that
science, and music; and in the latter I was not unskilled.
Their ideas are perpetually conversant in lines and figures.
If they would, for example, praise the beauty of a woman, or any
other animal, they describe it by rhombs, circles,
parallelograms, ellipses, and other geometrical terms, or by
words of art drawn from music, needless here to repeat. I
observed in the king’s kitchen all sorts of mathematical and
musical instruments, after the figures of which they cut up the
joints that were served to his majesty’s table.
Their houses are very ill built, the walls bevil, without one
right angle in any apartment; and this defect arises from the
contempt they bear to practical geometry, which they despise as
vulgar and mechanic; those instructions they give being too
refined for the intellects of their workmen, which occasions
perpetual mistakes. And although they are dexterous enough
upon a piece of paper, in the management of the rule, the
pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour
of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy
people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all
other subjects, except those of mathematics and music.
They are very bad reasoners, and vehemently given to opposition,
unless when they happen to be of the right opinion, which is
seldom their case. Imagination, fancy, and invention, they
are wholly strangers to, nor have any words in their language,
by which those ideas can be expressed; the whole compass of
their thoughts and mind being shut up within the two
forementioned sciences.
Most of them, and especially those who deal in the
astronomical part, have great faith in judicial astrology,
although they are ashamed to own it publicly. But what I
chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the
strong disposition I observed in them towards news and politics,
perpetually inquiring into public affairs, giving their
judgments in matters of state, and passionately disputing every
inch of a party opinion. I have indeed observed the same
disposition among most of the mathematicians I have known in
Europe, although I could never discover the least analogy
between the two sciences; unless those people suppose, that
because the smallest circle has as many degrees as the largest,
therefore the regulation and management of the world require no
more abilities than the handling and turning of a globe; but I
rather take this quality to spring from a very common infirmity
of human nature, inclining us to be most curious and conceited
in matters where we have least concern, and for which we are
least adapted by study or nature.
These people are under continual disquietudes, never enjoying
a minutes peace of mind; and their disturbances proceed from
causes which very little affect the rest of mortals. Their
apprehensions arise from several changes they dread in the
celestial bodies: for instance, that the earth, by the continual
approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be
absorbed, or swallowed up; that the face of the sun, will, by
degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more
light to the world; that the earth very narrowly escaped a brush
from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly
reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they have
calculated for one-and-thirty years hence, will probably destroy
us. For if, in its perihelion, it should approach within a
certain degree of the sun (as by their calculations they have
reason to dread) it will receive a degree of heat ten thousand
times more intense than that of red hot glowing iron, and in its
absence from the sun, carry a blazing tail ten hundred thousand
and fourteen miles long, through which, if the earth should pass
at the distance of one hundred thousand miles from the nucleus,
or main body of the comet, it must in its passage be set on
fire, and reduced to ashes: that the sun, daily spending its
rays without any nutriment to supply them, will at last be
wholly consumed and annihilated; which must be attended with the
destruction of this earth, and of all the planets that receive
their light from it.
They are so perpetually alarmed with the apprehensions of
these, and the like impending dangers, that they can neither
sleep quietly in their beds, nor have any relish for the common
pleasures and amusements of life. When they meet an
acquaintance in the morning, the first question is about the
sun’s health, how he looked at his setting and rising, and what
hopes they have to avoid the stroke of the approaching comet.
This conversation they are apt to run into with the same temper
that boys discover in delighting to hear terrible stories of
spirits and hobgoblins, which they greedily listen to, and dare
not go to bed for fear.
The women of the island have abundance of vivacity: they,
contemn their husbands, and are exceedingly fond of strangers,
whereof there is always a considerable number from the continent
below, attending at court, either upon affairs of the several
towns and corporations, or their own particular occasions, but
are much despised, because they want the same endowments.
Among these the ladies choose their gallants: but the vexation
is, that they act with too much ease and security; for the
husband is always so rapt in speculation, that the mistress and
lover may proceed to the greatest familiarities before his face,
if he be but provided with paper and implements, and without his
flapper at his side.
The wives and daughters lament their confinement to the
island, although I think it the most delicious spot of ground in
the world; and although they live here in the greatest plenty
and magnificence, and are allowed to do whatever they please,
they long to see the world, and take the diversions of the
metropolis, which they are not allowed to do without a
particular license from the king; and this is not easy to be
obtained, because the people of quality have found, by frequent
experience, how hard it is to persuade their women to return
from below. I was told that a great court lady, who had
several children,—is married to the prime minister, the richest
subject in the kingdom, a very graceful person, extremely fond
of her, and lives in the finest palace of the island,—went down
to Lagado on the pretence of health, there hid herself for
several months, till the king sent a warrant to search for her;
and she was found in an obscure eating-house all in rags, having
pawned her clothes to maintain an old deformed footman, who beat
her every day, and in whose company she was taken, much against
her will. And although her husband received her with all
possible kindness, and without the least reproach, she soon
after contrived to steal down again, with all her jewels, to the
same gallant, and has not been heard of since.
This may perhaps pass with the reader rather for an European
or English story, than for one of a country so remote. But
he may please to consider, that the caprices of womankind are
not limited by any climate or nation, and that they are much
more uniform, than can be easily imagined.
In about a month’s time, I had made a tolerable proficiency
in their language, and was able to answer most of the king’s
questions, when I had the honour to attend him. His
majesty discovered not the least curiosity to inquire into the
laws, government, history, religion, or manners of the countries
where I had been; but confined his questions to the state of
mathematics, and received the account I gave him with great
contempt and indifference, though often roused by his flapper on
each side.
Illustrations by Arthur Rackham
CHAPTER III.
A phenomenon solved by modern philosophy and
astronomy. The Laputians’ great improvements in the
latter. The king’s method of suppressing insurrections.
I desired leave of this prince to see the curiosities of the
island, which he was graciously pleased to grant, and ordered my
tutor to attend me. I chiefly wanted to know, to what
cause, in art or in nature, it owed its several motions, whereof
I will now give a philosophical account to the reader.
The flying or floating island is exactly circular, its
diameter 7837 yards, or about four miles and a half, and
consequently contains ten thousand acres. It is three
hundred yards thick. The bottom, or under surface, which
appears to those who view it below, is one even regular plate of
adamant, shooting up to the height of about two hundred yards.
Above it lie the several minerals in their usual order, and over
all is a coat of rich mould, ten or twelve feet deep. The
declivity of the upper surface, from the circumference to the
centre, is the natural cause why all the dews and rains, which
fall upon the island, are conveyed in small rivulets toward the
middle, where they are emptied into four large basins, each of
about half a mile in circuit, and two hundred yards distant from
the centre. From these basins the water is continually
exhaled by the sun in the daytime, which effectually prevents
their overflowing. Besides, as it is in the power of the
monarch to raise the island above the region of clouds and
vapours, he can prevent the falling of dews and rain whenever he
pleases. For the highest clouds cannot rise above two
miles, as naturalists agree, at least they were never known to
do so in that country.
At the centre of the island there is a chasm about fifty
yards in diameter, whence the astronomers descend into a large
dome, which is therefore called flandona gagnole, or the
astronomer’s cave, situated at the depth of a hundred yards
beneath the upper surface of the adamant. In this cave are
twenty lamps continually burning, which, from the reflection of
the adamant, cast a strong light into every part. The
place is stored with great variety of sextants, quadrants,
telescopes, astrolabes, and other astronomical instruments.
But the greatest curiosity, upon which the fate of the island
depends, is a loadstone of a prodigious size, in shape
resembling a weaver’s shuttle. It is in length six yards,
and in the thickest part at least three yards over. This
magnet is sustained by a very strong axle of adamant passing
through its middle, upon which it plays, and is poised so
exactly that the weakest hand can turn it. It is hooped
round with a hollow cylinder of adamant, four feet yards in
diameter, placed horizontally, and supported by eight adamantine
feet, each six yards high. In the middle of the concave
side, there is a groove twelve inches deep, in which the
extremities of the axle are lodged, and turned round as there is
occasion.
The stone cannot be removed from its place by any force,
because the hoop and its feet are one continued piece with that
body of adamant which constitutes the bottom of the island.
By means of this loadstone, the island is made to rise and
fall, and move from one place to another. For, with
respect to that part of the earth over which the monarch
presides, the stone is endued at one of its sides with an
attractive power, and at the other with a repulsive. Upon
placing the magnet erect, with its attracting end towards the
earth, the island descends; but when the repelling extremity
points downwards, the island mounts directly upwards. When
the position of the stone is oblique, the motion of the island
is so too: for in this magnet, the forces always act in lines
parallel to its direction.
By this oblique motion, the island is conveyed to different
parts of the monarch’s dominions. To explain the manner of
its progress, let A B represent a line drawn
across the dominions of Balnibarbi, let the line c d
represent the loadstone, of which let d be the repelling
end, and c the attracting end, the island being over C:
let the stone be placed in position c d, with its
repelling end downwards; then the island will be driven upwards
obliquely towards D. When it is arrived at D,
let the stone be turned upon its axle, till its attracting end
points towards E, and then the island will be carried
obliquely towards E; where, if the stone be again turned
upon its axle till it stands in the position E F,
with its repelling point downwards, the island will rise
obliquely towards F, where, by directing the attracting
end towards G, the island may be carried to G, and
from G to H, by turning the stone, so as to make
its repelling extremity to point directly downward. And
thus, by changing the situation of the stone, as often as there
is occasion, the island is made to rise and fall by turns in an
oblique direction, and by those alternate risings and fallings
(the obliquity being not considerable) is conveyed from one part
of the dominions to the other.
But it must be observed, that this island cannot move beyond
the extent of the dominions below, nor can it rise above the
height of four miles. For which the astronomers (who have
written large systems concerning the stone) assign the following
reason: that the magnetic virtue does not extend beyond the
distance of four miles, and that the mineral, which acts upon
the stone in the bowels of the earth, and in the sea about six
leagues distant from the shore, is not diffused through the
whole globe, but terminated with the limits of the king’s
dominions; and it was easy, from the great advantage of such a
superior situation, for a prince to bring under his obedience
whatever country lay within the attraction of that magnet.
When the stone is put parallel to the plane of the horizon,
the island stands still; for in that case the extremities of it,
being at equal distance from the earth, act with equal force,
the one in drawing downwards, the other in pushing upwards, and
consequently no motion can ensue.
This loadstone is under the care of certain astronomers, who,
from time to time, give it such positions as the monarch
directs. They spend the greatest part of their lives in
observing the celestial bodies, which they do by the assistance
of glasses, far excelling ours in goodness. For, although
their largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they magnify
much more than those of a hundred with us, and show the stars
with greater clearness. This advantage has enabled them to
extend their discoveries much further than our astronomers in
Europe; for they have made a catalogue of ten thousand fixed
stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one
third part of that number. They have likewise discovered
two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars;
whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary
planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost, five;
the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in
twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical
times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of
their distance from the centre of Mars; which evidently shows
them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that
influences the other heavenly bodies.
They have observed ninety-three different comets, and settled
their periods with great exactness. If this be true (and
they affirm it with great confidence) it is much to be wished,
that their observations were made public, whereby the theory of
comets, which at present is very lame and defective, might be
brought to the same perfection with other arts of astronomy.
The king would be the most absolute prince in the universe,
if he could but prevail on a ministry to join with him; but
these having their estates below on the continent, and
considering that the office of a favourite has a very uncertain
tenure, would never consent to the enslaving of their country.
If any town should engage in rebellion or mutiny, fall into
violent factions, or refuse to pay the usual tribute, the king
has two methods of reducing them to obedience. The first
and the mildest course is, by keeping the island hovering over
such a town, and the lands about it, whereby he can deprive them
of the benefit of the sun and the rain, and consequently afflict
the inhabitants with dearth and diseases: and if the crime
deserve it, they are at the same time pelted from above with
great stones, against which they have no defence but by creeping
into cellars or caves, while the roofs of their houses are
beaten to pieces. But if they still continue obstinate, or
offer to raise insurrections, he proceeds to the last remedy, by
letting the island drop directly upon their heads, which makes a
universal destruction both of houses and men. However,
this is an extremity to which the prince is seldom driven,
neither indeed is he willing to put it in execution; nor dare
his ministers advise him to an action, which, as it would render
them odious to the people, so it would be a great damage to
their own estates, which all lie below; for the island is the
king’s demesne.
But there is still indeed a more weighty reason, why the
kings of this country have been always averse from executing so
terrible an action, unless upon the utmost necessity. For,
if the town intended to be destroyed should have in it any tall
rocks, as it generally falls out in the larger cities, a
situation probably chosen at first with a view to prevent such a
catastrophe; or if it abound in high spires, or pillars of
stone, a sudden fall might endanger the bottom or under surface
of the island, which, although it consist, as I have said, of
one entire adamant, two hundred yards thick, might happen to
crack by too great a shock, or burst by approaching too near the
fires from the houses below, as the backs, both of iron and
stone, will often do in our chimneys. Of all this the
people are well apprised, and understand how far to carry their
obstinacy, where their liberty or property is concerned.
And the king, when he is highest provoked, and most determined
to press a city to rubbish, orders the island to descend with
great gentleness, out of a pretence of tenderness to his people,
but, indeed, for fear of breaking the adamantine bottom; in
which case, it is the opinion of all their philosophers, that
the loadstone could no longer hold it up, and the whole mass
would fall to the ground.
By a fundamental law of this realm, neither the king, nor
either of his two eldest sons, are permitted to leave the
island; nor the queen, till she is past child-bearing.
Illustrations by Arthur Rackham
CHAPTER IV.
The author leaves Laputa; is conveyed to
Balnibarbi; arrives at the metropolis. A description of
the metropolis, and the country adjoining. The author
hospitably received by a great lord. His conversation with
that lord.
Although I cannot say that I was ill treated in this island,
yet I must confess I thought myself too much neglected, not
without some degree of contempt; for neither prince nor people
appeared to be curious in any part of knowledge, except
mathematics and music, wherein I was far their inferior, and
upon that account very little regarded.
On the other side, after having seen all the curiosities of
the island, I was very desirous to leave it, being heartily
weary of those people. They were indeed excellent in two
sciences for which I have great esteem, and wherein I am not
unversed; but, at the same time, so abstracted and involved in
speculation, that I never met with such disagreeable companions.
I conversed only with women, tradesmen, flappers, and
court-pages, during two months of my abode there; by which, at
last, I rendered myself extremely contemptible; yet these were
the only people from whom I could ever receive a reasonable
answer.
I had obtained, by hard study, a good degree of knowledge in
their language: I was weary of being confined to an island where
I received so little countenance, and resolved to leave it with
the first opportunity.
There was a great lord at court, nearly related to the king,
and for that reason alone used with respect. He was
universally reckoned the most ignorant and stupid person among
them. He had performed many eminent services for the
crown, had great natural and acquired parts, adorned with
integrity and honour; but so ill an ear for music, that his
detractors reported, “he had been often known to beat time in
the wrong place;” neither could his tutors, without extreme
difficulty, teach him to demonstrate the most easy proposition
in the mathematics. He was pleased to show me many marks
of favour, often did me the honour of a visit, desired to be
informed in the affairs of Europe, the laws and customs, the
manners and learning of the several countries where I had
travelled. He listened to me with great attention, and
made very wise observations on all I spoke. He had two
flappers attending him for state, but never made use of them,
except at court and in visits of ceremony, and would always
command them to withdraw, when we were alone together.
I entreated this illustrious person, to intercede in my
behalf with his majesty, for leave to depart; which he
accordingly did, as he was pleased to tell me, with regret: for
indeed he had made me several offers very advantageous, which,
however, I refused, with expressions of the highest
acknowledgment.
On the 16th of February I took leave of his majesty and the
court. The king made me a present to the value of about
two hundred pounds English, and my protector, his kinsman, as
much more, together with a letter of recommendation to a friend
of his in Lagado, the metropolis. The island being then
hovering over a mountain about two miles from it, I was let down
from the lowest gallery, in the same manner as I had been taken
up.
The continent, as far as it is subject to the monarch of the
flying island, passes under the general name of Balnibarbi;
and the metropolis, as I said before, is called Lagado.
I felt some little satisfaction in finding myself on firm
ground. I walked to the city without any concern, being
clad like one of the natives, and sufficiently instructed to
converse with them. I soon found out the person’s house to
whom I was recommended, presented my letter from his friend the
grandee in the island, and was received with much kindness.
This great lord, whose name was Munodi, ordered me an apartment
in his own house, where I continued during my stay, and was
entertained in a most hospitable manner.
The next morning after my arrival, he took me in his chariot
to see the town, which is about half the bigness of London; but
the houses very strangely built, and most of them out of repair.
The people in the streets walked fast, looked wild, their eyes
fixed, and were generally in rags. We passed through one
of the town gates, and went about three miles into the country,
where I saw many labourers working with several sorts of tools
in the ground, but was not able to conjecture what they were
about: neither did observe any expectation either of corn or
grass, although the soil appeared to be excellent. I could
not forbear admiring at these odd appearances, both in town and
country; and I made bold to desire my conductor, that he would
be pleased to explain to me, what could be meant by so many busy
heads, hands, and faces, both in the streets and the fields,
because I did not discover any good effects they produced; but,
on the contrary, I never knew a soil so unhappily cultivated,
houses so ill contrived and so ruinous, or a people whose
countenances and habit expressed so much misery and want.
This lord Munodi was a person of the first rank, and had been
some years governor of Lagado; but, by a cabal of ministers, was
discharged for insufficiency. However, the king treated
him with tenderness, as a well-meaning man, but of a low
contemptible understanding.
When I gave that free censure of the country and its
inhabitants, he made no further answer than by telling me, “that
I had not been long enough among them to form a judgment; and
that the different nations of the world had different customs;”
with other common topics to the same purpose. But, when we
returned to his palace, he asked me “how I liked the building,
what absurdities I observed, and what quarrel I had with the
dress or looks of his domestics?” This he might safely do;
because every thing about him was magnificent, regular, and
polite. I answered, “that his excellency’s prudence,
quality, and fortune, had exempted him from those defects, which
folly and beggary had produced in others.” He said, “if I
would go with him to his country-house, about twenty miles
distant, where his estate lay, there would be more leisure for
this kind of conversation.” I told his excellency “that I
was entirely at his disposal;” and accordingly we set out next
morning.
During our journey he made me observe the several methods
used by farmers in managing their lands, which to me were wholly
unaccountable; for, except in some very few places, I could not
discover one ear of corn or blade of grass. But, in three
hours travelling, the scene was wholly altered; we came into a
most beautiful country; farmers’ houses, at small distances,
neatly built; the fields enclosed, containing vineyards,
corn-grounds, and meadows. Neither do I remember to have
seen a more delightful prospect. His excellency observed
my countenance to clear up; he told me, with a sigh, “that there
his estate began, and would continue the same, till we should
come to his house: that his countrymen ridiculed and despised
him, for managing his affairs no better, and for setting so ill
an example to the kingdom; which, however, was followed by very
few, such as were old, and wilful, and weak like himself.”
We came at length to the house, which was indeed a noble
structure, built according to the best rules of ancient
architecture. The fountains, gardens, walks, avenues, and
groves, were all disposed with exact judgment and taste. I
gave due praises to every thing I saw, whereof his excellency
took not the least notice till after supper; when, there being
no third companion, he told me with a very melancholy air “that
he doubted he must throw down his houses in town and country, to
rebuild them after the present mode; destroy all his
plantations, and cast others into such a form as modern usage
required, and give the same directions to all his tenants,
unless he would submit to incur the censure of pride,
singularity, affectation, ignorance, caprice, and perhaps
increase his majesty’s displeasure; that the admiration I
appeared to be under would cease or diminish, when he had
informed me of some particulars which, probably, I never heard
of at court, the people there being too much taken up in their
own speculations, to have regard to what passed here below.”
The sum of his discourse was to this effect: “That about
forty years ago, certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon
business or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came
back with a very little smattering in mathematics, but full of
volatile spirits acquired in that airy region: that these
persons, upon their return, began to dislike the management of
every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts,
sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot. To
this end, they procured a royal patent for erecting an academy
of projectors in Lagado; and the humour prevailed so strongly
among the people, that there is not a town of any consequence in
the kingdom without such an academy. In these colleges the
professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and
building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and
manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the
work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so
durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the
fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we
think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they
do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals. The
only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet
brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country
lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people
without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being
discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon
prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and
despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising
spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the
houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every
part of life, without innovation: that some few other persons of
quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an
eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and
ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth
before the general improvement of their country.”
His lordship added, “That he would not, by any further
particulars, prevent the pleasure I should certainly take in
viewing the grand academy, whither he was resolved I should go.”
He only desired me to observe a ruined building, upon the side
of a mountain about three miles distant, of which he gave me
this account: “That he had a very convenient mill within half a
mile of his house, turned by a current from a large river, and
sufficient for his own family, as well as a great number of his
tenants; that about seven years ago, a club of those projectors
came to him with proposals to destroy this mill, and build
another on the side of that mountain, on the long ridge whereof
a long canal must be cut, for a repository of water, to be
conveyed up by pipes and engines to supply the mill, because the
wind and air upon a height agitated the water, and thereby made
it fitter for motion, and because the water, descending down a
declivity, would turn the mill with half the current of a river
whose course is more upon a level.” He said, “that being
then not very well with the court, and pressed by many of his
friends, he complied with the proposal; and after employing a
hundred men for two years, the work miscarried, the projectors
went off, laying the blame entirely upon him, railing at him
ever since, and putting others upon the same experiment, with
equal assurance of success, as well as equal disappointment.”
In a few days we came back to town; and his excellency,
considering the bad character he had in the academy, would not
go with me himself, but recommended me to a friend of his, to
bear me company thither. My lord was pleased to represent
me as a great admirer of projects, and a person of much
curiosity and easy belief; which, indeed, was not without truth;
for I had myself been a sort of projector in my younger days.
Illustrations by Arthur Rackham
CHAPTER V.
The author permitted to see the grand academy
of Lagado. The academy largely described. The arts
wherein the professors employ themselves.
This academy is not an entire single building, but a
continuation of several houses on both sides of a street, which
growing waste, was purchased and applied to that use.
I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many
days to the academy. Every room has in it one or more
projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer than five
hundred rooms.
The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands
and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several
places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same
colour. He has been eight years upon a project for
extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in
phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw
inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in
eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s
gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained
that his stock was low, and entreated me “to give him something
as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been
a very dear season for cucumbers.” I made him a small
present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose,
because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see
them.
I went into another chamber, but was ready to hasten back,
being almost overcome with a horrible stink. My conductor
pressed me forward, conjuring me in a whisper “to give no
offence, which would be highly resented;” and therefore I durst
not so much as stop my nose. The projector of this cell
was the most ancient student of the academy; his face and beard
were of a pale yellow; his hands and clothes daubed over with
filth. When I was presented to him, he gave me a close
embrace, a compliment I could well have excused. His
employment, from his first coming into the academy, was an
operation to reduce human excrement to its original food, by
separating the several parts, removing the tincture which it
receives from the gall, making the odour exhale, and scumming
off the saliva. He had a weekly allowance, from the
society, of a vessel filled with human ordure, about the bigness
of a Bristol barrel.
I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder; who
likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the
malleability of fire, which he intended to publish.
There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new
method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and
working downward to the foundation; which he justified to me, by
the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the
spider.
There was a man born blind, who had several apprentices in
his own condition: their employment was to mix colours for
painters, which their master taught them to distinguish by
feeling and smelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find
them at that time not very perfect in their lessons, and the
professor himself happened to be generally mistaken. This
artist is much encouraged and esteemed by the whole fraternity.
In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector
who had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to
save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The
method is this: in an acre of ground you bury, at six inches
distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts,
and other mast or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest;
then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field,
where, in a few days, they will root up the whole ground in
search of their food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same
time manuring it with their dung: it is true, upon experiment,
they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had
little or no crop. However it is not doubted, that this
invention may be capable of great improvement.
I went into another room, where the walls and ceiling were
all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the
artist to go in and out. At my entrance, he called aloud
to me, “not to disturb his webs.” He lamented “the fatal
mistake the world had been so long in, of using silkworms, while
we had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled
the former, because they understood how to weave, as well as
spin.” And he proposed further, “that by employing
spiders, the charge of dyeing silks should be wholly saved;”
whereof I was fully convinced, when he showed me a vast number
of flies most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his
spiders, assuring us “that the webs would take a tincture from
them; and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit
everybody’s fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for the
flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to
give a strength and consistence to the threads.”
There was an astronomer, who had undertaken to place a
sun-dial upon the great weathercock on the town-house, by
adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun,
so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the
wind.
I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my
conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided,
who was famous for curing that disease, by contrary operations
from the same instrument. He had a large pair of bellows,
with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight
inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he
could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when
the disease was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle
while the bellows were full of wind, which he discharged into
the body of the patient; then withdrew the instrument to
replenish it, clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of
then fundament; and this being repeated three or four times, the
adventitious wind would rush out, bringing the noxious along
with it, (like water put into a pump), and the patient
recovered. I saw him try both experiments upon a dog, but
could not discern any effect from the former. After the
latter the animal was ready to burst, and made so violent a
discharge as was very offensive to me and my companion.
The dog died on the spot, and we left the doctor endeavouring to
recover him, by the same operation.
I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my
reader with all the curiosities I observed, being studious of
brevity.
I had hitherto seen only one side of the academy, the other
being appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of
whom I shall say something, when I have mentioned one
illustrious person more, who is called among them “the universal
artist.” He told us “he had been thirty years employing
his thoughts for the improvement of human life.” He had
two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at
work. Some were condensing air into a dry tangible
substance, by extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or
fluid particles percolate; others softening marble, for pillows
and pin-cushions; others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse,
to preserve them from foundering. The artist himself was
at that time busy upon two great designs; the first, to sow land
with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true seminal virtue to be
contained, as he demonstrated by several experiments, which I
was not skilful enough to comprehend. The other was, by a
certain composition of gums, minerals, and vegetables, outwardly
applied, to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs; and
he hoped, in a reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked
sheep, all over the kingdom.
We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as
I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning
resided.
The first professor I saw, was in a very large room, with
forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to
look earnestly upon a frame, which took up the greatest part of
both the length and breadth of the room, he said, “Perhaps I
might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving
speculative knowledge, by practical and mechanical operations.
But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness; and he
flattered himself, that a more noble, exalted thought never
sprang in any other man’s head. Every one knew how
laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences;
whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a
reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write
books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and
theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.”
He then led me to the frame, about the sides, whereof all his
pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed
in the middle of the room. The superfices was composed of
several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some
larger than others. They were all linked together by
slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every
square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were
written all the words of their language, in their several moods,
tenses, and declensions; but without any order. The
professor then desired me “to observe; for he was going to set
his engine at work.” The pupils, at his command, took each
of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed
round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the
whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He
then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several
lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they
found three or four words together that might make part of a
sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were
scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and
at every turn, the engine was so contrived, that the words
shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside
down.
Six hours a day the young students were employed in this
labour; and the professor showed me several volumes in large
folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended
to piece together, and out of those rich materials, to give the
world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however,
might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would
raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames
in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their
several collections.
He assured me “that this invention had employed all his
thoughts from his youth; that he had emptied the whole
vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest computation of
the general proportion there is in books between the numbers of
particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech.”
I made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person,
for his great communicativeness; and promised, “if ever I had
the good fortune to return to my native country, that I would do
him justice, as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine;”
the form and contrivance of which I desired leave to delineate
on paper, as in the figure here annexed. I told him,
“although it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal
inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this
advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right
owner; yet I would take such caution, that he should have the
honour entire, without a rival.”
We next went to the school of languages, where three
professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own
country.
The first project was, to shorten discourse, by cutting
polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles,
because, in reality, all things imaginable are but norms.
The other project was, a scheme for entirely abolishing all
words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in
point of health, as well as brevity. For it is plain, that
every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our
lunge by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the
shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore
offered, “that since words are only names for things, it would
be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things
as were necessary to express a particular business they are to
discourse on.” And this invention would certainly have
taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject,
if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had
not threatened to raise a rebellion unless they might be allowed
the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of
their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to
science are the common people. However, many of the most
learned and wise adhere to the new scheme of expressing
themselves by things; which has only this inconvenience
attending it, that if a man’s business be very great, and of
various kinds, he must be obliged, in proportion, to carry a
greater bundle of things upon his back, unless he can afford one
or two strong servants to attend him. I have often beheld
two of those sages almost sinking under the weight of their
packs, like pedlars among us, who, when they met in the street,
would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold
conversation for an hour together; then put up their implements,
help each other to resume their burdens, and take their leave.
But for short conversations, a man may carry implements in
his pockets, and under his arms, enough to supply him; and in
his house, he cannot be at a loss. Therefore the room
where company meet who practise this art, is full of all things,
ready at hand, requisite to furnish matter for this kind of
artificial converse.
Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that
it would serve as a universal language, to be understood in all
civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the
same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily
be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified
to treat with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose
tongues they were utter strangers.
I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his
pupils after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe.
The proposition, and demonstration, were fairly written on a
thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture.
This, the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for
three days following, eat nothing but bread and water. As
the wafer digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing
the proposition along with it. But the success has not
hitherto been answerable, partly by some error in the quantum
or composition, and partly by the perverseness of lads, to whom
this bolus is so nauseous, that they generally steal aside, and
discharge it upwards, before it can operate; neither have they
been yet persuaded to use so long an abstinence, as the
prescription requires.
CHAPTER VI.
A further account of the academy. The
author proposes some improvements, which are honourably
received.
In the school of political projectors, I was but ill
entertained; the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly
out of their senses, which is a scene that never fails to make
me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes
for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of
their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to
consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities,
eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true
interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of
their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to
exercise them, with many other wild, impossible chimeras, that
never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and
confirmed in me the old observation, “that there is nothing so
extravagant and irrational, which some philosophers have not
maintained for truth.”
But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the
Academy, as to acknowledge that all of them were not so
visionary. There was a most ingenious doctor, who seemed
to be perfectly versed in the whole nature and system of
government. This illustrious person had very usefully
employed his studies, in finding out effectual remedies for all
diseases and corruptions to which the several kinds of public
administration are subject, by the vices or infirmities of those
who govern, as well as by the licentiousness of those who are to
obey. For instance: whereas all writers and reasoners have
agreed, that there is a strict universal resemblance between the
natural and the political body; can there be any thing more
evident, than that the health of both must be preserved, and the
diseases cured, by the same prescriptions? It is allowed,
that senates and great councils are often troubled with
redundant, ebullient, and other peccant humours; with many
diseases of the head, and more of the heart; with strong
convulsions, with grievous contractions of the nerves and sinews
in both hands, but especially the right; with spleen, flatus,
vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumours, full of fetid
purulent matter; with sour frothy ructations: with canine
appetites, and crudeness of digestion, besides many others,
needless to mention. This doctor therefore proposed, “that
upon the meeting of the senate, certain physicians should attend
it the three first days of their sitting, and at the close of
each day’s debate feel the pulses of every senator; after which,
having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the
several maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the
fourth day return to the senate house, attended by their
apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and before the
members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives,
abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives,
cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their
several cases required; and, according as these medicines should
operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at the next meeting.”
This project could not be of any great expense to the public;
and might in my poor opinion, be of much use for the despatch of
business, in those countries where senates have any share in the
legislative power; beget unanimity, shorten debates, open a few
mouths which are now closed, and close many more which are now
open; curb the petulancy of the young, and correct the
positiveness of the old; rouse the stupid, and damp the pert.
Again: because it is a general complaint, that the favourites
of princes are troubled with short and weak memories; the same
doctor proposed, “that whoever attended a first minister, after
having told his business, with the utmost brevity and in the
plainest words, should, at his departure, give the said minister
a tweak by the nose, or a kick in the belly, or tread on his
corns, or lug him thrice by both ears, or run a pin into his
breech; or pinch his arm black and blue, to prevent
forgetfulness; and at every levee day, repeat the same
operation, till the business were done, or absolutely refused.”
He likewise directed, “that every senator in the great
council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and
argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote
directly contrary; because if that were done, the result would
infallibly terminate in the good of the public.”
When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful
contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this: You
take a hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into
couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let two
nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same
time, in such a manner that the brain may be equally divided.
Let the occiputs, thus cut off, be interchanged, applying each
to the head of his opposite party-man. It seems indeed to
be a work that requires some exactness, but the professor
assured us, “that if it were dexterously performed, the cure
would be infallible.” For he argued thus: “that the two
half brains being left to debate the matter between themselves
within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good
understanding, and produce that moderation, as well as
regularity of thinking, so much to be wished for in the heads of
those, who imagine they come into the world only to watch and
govern its motion: and as to the difference of brains, in
quantity or quality, among those who are directors in faction,
the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, that “it was a
perfect trifle.”
I heard a very warm debate between two professors, about the
most commodious and effectual ways and means of raising money,
without grieving the subject. The first affirmed, “the
justest method would be, to lay a certain tax upon vices and
folly; and the sum fixed upon every man to be rated, after the
fairest manner, by a jury of his neighbours.” The second
was of an opinion directly contrary; “to tax those qualities of
body and mind, for which men chiefly value themselves; the rate
to be more or less, according to the degrees of excelling; the
decision whereof should be left entirely to their own breast.”
The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of
the other sex, and the assessments, according to the number and
nature of the favours they have received; for which, they are
allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valour, and
politeness, were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and
collected in the same manner, by every person’s giving his own
word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to
honour, justice, wisdom, and learning, they should not be taxed
at all; because they are qualifications of so singular a kind,
that no man will either allow them in his neighbour or value
them 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 employment; 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,
by the
natives called Langdon, 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; 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.
“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 apart, 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
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, highwayman, and bullies.
The governor, at my request, gave the sign for Cæsar and
Brutus to advance towards us. I was struck with a profound
veneration at the sight of Brutus, and could easily discover the
most consummate virtue, the greatest intrepidity and firmness of
mind, the truest love of his country, and general benevolence
for mankind, in every lineament of his countenance. I
observed, with much pleasure, that these two persons were in
good intelligence with each other; and Cæsar freely confessed to
me, “that the greatest actions of his own life were not equal,
by many degrees, to the glory of taking it away.” I had
the honour to have much conversation with Brutus; and was told,
“that his ancestor Junius, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato the
younger, Sir Thomas More, and himself were perpetually
together:” a sextumvirate, to which all the ages of the world
cannot add a seventh.
It would be tedious to trouble the reader with relating what
vast numbers of illustrious persons were called up to gratify
that insatiable desire I had to see the world in every period of
antiquity placed before me. I chiefly fed mine eyes with
beholding the destroyers of tyrants and usurpers, and the
restorers of liberty to oppressed and injured nations. But
it is impossible to express the satisfaction I received in my
own mind, after such a manner as to make it a suitable
entertainment to the reader.
Illustrations by Milo Winter
CHAPTER VIII.
A further account of Glubbdubdrib.
Ancient and modern history corrected.
Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned
for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I
proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of
all their commentators; but these were so numerous, that some
hundreds were forced to attend in the court, and outward rooms
of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish those two
heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each
other. Homer was the taller and comelier person of the
two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were the
most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped
much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his
hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon
discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest
of the company, and had never seen or heard of them before; and
I had a whisper from a ghost who shall be nameless, “that these
commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their
principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame
and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the
meaning of those authors to posterity.” I introduced
Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat
them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they
wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But
Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave him of
Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him; and he asked them,
“whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces as
themselves?”
I then desired the governor to call up Descartes and
Gassendi, with whom I prevailed to explain their systems to
Aristotle. This great philosopher freely acknowledged his
own mistakes in natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many
things upon conjecture, as all men must do; and he found that
Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as
he could, and the vortices of Descartes, were equally to be
exploded. He predicted the same fate to attraction,
whereof the present learned are such zealous asserters. He
said, “that new systems of nature were but new fashions, which
would vary in every age; and even those, who pretend to
demonstrate them from mathematical principles, would flourish
but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was
determined.”
I spent five days in conversing with many others of the
ancient learned. I saw most of the first Roman emperors.
I prevailed on the governor to call up Heliogabalus’s cooks to
dress us a dinner, but they could not show us much of their
skill, for want of materials. A helot of Agesilaus made us
a dish of Spartan broth, but I was not able to get down a second
spoonful.
The two gentlemen, who conducted me to the island, were
pressed by their private affairs to return in three days, which
I employed in seeing some of the modern dead, who had made the
greatest figure, for two or three hundred years past, in our own
and other countries of Europe; and having been always a great
admirer of old illustrious families, I desired the governor
would call up a dozen or two of kings, with their ancestors in
order for eight or nine generations. But my disappointment
was grievous and unexpected. For, instead of a long train
with royal diadems, I saw in one family two fiddlers, three
spruce courtiers, and an Italian prelate. In another, a
barber, an abbot, and two cardinals. I have too great a
veneration for crowned heads, to dwell any longer on so nice a
subject. But as to counts, marquises, dukes, earls, and
the like, I was not so scrupulous. And I confess, it was
not without some pleasure, that I found myself able to trace the
particular features, by which certain families are
distinguished, up to their originals. I could plainly
discover whence one family derives a long chin; why a second has
abounded with knaves for two generations, and fools for two
more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to
be sharpers; whence it came, what Polydore Virgil says of a
certain great house, Nec vir fortis,
nec foemina casta; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice,
grew to be characteristics by which certain families are
distinguished as much as by their coats of arms; who first
brought the pox into a noble house, which has lineally descended
scrofulous tumours to their posterity. Neither could I
wonder at all this, when I saw such an interruption of lineages,
by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen, gamesters, fiddlers,
players, captains, and pickpockets.
I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having
strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts
of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had
been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest
exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools;
sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their
country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to
informers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been
condemned to death or banishment by the practising of great
ministers upon the corruption of judges, and the malice of
factions: how many villains had been exalted to the highest
places of trust, power, dignity, and profit: how great a share
in the motions and events of courts, councils, and senates might
be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons.
How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I
was truly informed of the springs and motives of great
enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the
contemptible accidents to which they owed their success.
Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who
pretend to write anecdotes, or secret history; who send so many
kings to their graves with a cup of poison; will repeat the
discourse between a prince and chief minister, where no witness
was by; unlock the thoughts and cabinets of ambassadors and
secretaries of state; and have the perpetual misfortune to be
mistaken. Here I discovered the true causes of many great
events that have surprised the world; how a whore can govern the
back-stairs, the back-stairs a council, and the council a
senate. A general confessed, in my presence, “that he got
a victory purely by the force of cowardice and ill conduct;” and
an admiral, “that, for want of proper intelligence, he beat the
enemy, to whom he intended to betray the fleet.” Three
kings protested to me, “that in their whole reigns they never
did once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake, or
treachery of some minister in whom they confided; neither would
they do it if they were to live again:” and they showed, with
great strength of reason, “that the royal throne could not be
supported without corruption, because that positive, confident,
restiff temper, which virtue infused into a man, was a perpetual
clog to public business.”
I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by
what methods great numbers had procured to themselves high
titles of honour, and prodigious estates; and I confined my
inquiry to a very modern period: however, without grating upon
present times, because I would be sure to give no offence even
to foreigners (for I hope the reader need not be told, that I do
not in the least intend my own country, in what I say upon this
occasion,) a great number of persons concerned were called up;
and, upon a very slight examination, discovered such a scene of
infamy, that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness.
Perjury, oppression, subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like
infirmities, were among the most excusable arts they had to
mention; and for these I gave, as it was reasonable, great
allowance. But when some confessed they owed their
greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to the
prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others, to the
betraying of their country or their prince; some, to poisoning;
more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the
innocent, I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries
inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration, which
I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to
be treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity,
by us their inferiors.
I had often read of some great services done to princes and
states, and desired to see the persons by whom those services
were performed. Upon inquiry I was told, “that their names
were to be found on no record, except a few of them, whom
history has represented as the vilest of rogues and traitors.”
As to the rest, I had never once heard of them. They all
appeared with dejected looks, and in the meanest habit; most of
them telling me, “they died in poverty and disgrace, and the
rest on a scaffold or a gibbet.”
Among others, there was one person, whose case appeared a
little singular. He had a youth about eighteen years old
standing by his side. He told me, “he had for many years
been commander of a ship; and in the sea fight at Actium had the
good fortune to break through the enemy’s great line of battle,
sink three of their capital ships, and take a fourth, which was
the sole cause of Antony’s flight, and of the victory that
ensued; that the youth standing by him, his only son, was killed
in the action.” He added, “that upon the confidence of
some merit, the war being at an end, he went to Rome, and
solicited at the court of Augustus to be preferred to a greater
ship, whose commander had been killed; but, without any regard
to his pretensions, it was given to a boy who had never seen the
sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one of the emperor’s
mistresses. Returning back to his own vessel, he was
charged with neglect of duty, and the ship given to a favourite
page of Publicola, the vice-admiral; whereupon he retired to a
poor farm at a great distance from Rome, and there ended his
life.” I was so curious to know the truth of this story,
that I desired Agrippa might be called, who was admiral in that
fight. He appeared, and confirmed the whole account: but
with much more advantage to the captain, whose modesty had
extenuated or concealed a great part of his merit.
I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick
in that empire, by the force of luxury so lately introduced;
which made me less wonder at many parallel cases in other
countries, where vices of all kinds have reigned so much longer,
and where the whole praise, as well as pillage, has been
engrossed by the chief commander, who perhaps had the least
title to either.
As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he
had done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to
observe how much the race of human kind was degenerated among us
within these hundred years past; how the pox, under all its
consequences and denominations had altered every lineament of an
English countenance; shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the
nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow
complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid.
I descended so low, as to desire some English yeoman of the
old stamp might be summoned to appear; once so famous for the
simplicity of their manners, diet, and dress; for justice in
their dealings; for their true spirit of liberty; for their
valour, and love of their country. Neither could I be
wholly unmoved, after comparing the living with the dead, when I
considered how all these pure native virtues were prostituted
for a piece of money by their grand-children; who, in selling
their votes and managing at elections, have acquired every vice
and corruption that can possibly be learned in a court.
Illustrations by Milo Winter
CHAPTER IX.
The author returns to Maldonada. Sails
to the kingdom of Luggnagg. The author confined. He
is sent for to court. The manner of his admittance.
The king’s great lenity to his subjects.
The day of our departure being come, I took leave of his
highness, the Governor of Glubbdubdrib, and returned with my two
companions to Maldonada, where, after a fortnight’s waiting, a
ship was ready to sail for Luggnagg. The two gentlemen,
and some others, were so generous and kind as to furnish me with
provisions, and see me on board. I was a month in this
voyage. We had one violent storm, and were under a
necessity of steering westward to get into the trade wind, which
holds for above sixty leagues. On the 21st of April, 1708,
we sailed into the river of Clumegnig, which is a seaport town,
at the south-east point of Luggnagg. We cast anchor within
a league of the town, and made a signal for a pilot. Two
of them came on board in less than half an hour, by whom we were
guided between certain shoals and rocks, which are very
dangerous in the passage, to a large basin, where a fleet may
ride in safety within a cable’s length of the town-wall.
Some of our sailors, whether out of treachery or
inadvertence, had informed the pilots “that I was a stranger,
and great traveller;” whereof these gave notice to a
custom-house officer, by whom I was examined very strictly upon
my landing. This officer spoke to me in the language of
Balnibarbi, which, by the force of much commerce, is generally
understood in that town, especially by seamen and those employed
in the customs. I gave him a short account of some
particulars, and made my story as plausible and consistent as I
could; but I thought it necessary to disguise my country, and
call myself a Hollander; because my intentions were for Japan,
and I knew the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to enter
into that kingdom. I therefore told the officer, “that
having been shipwrecked on the coast of Balnibarbi, and cast on
a rock, I was received up into Laputa, or the flying island (of
which he had often heard), and was now endeavouring to get to
Japan, whence I might find a convenience of returning to my own
country.” The officer said, “I must be confined till he
could receive orders from court, for which he would write
immediately, and hoped to receive an answer in a fortnight.”
I was carried to a convenient lodging with a sentry placed at
the door; however, I had the liberty of a large garden, and was
treated with humanity enough, being maintained all the time at
the king’s charge. I was invited by several persons,
chiefly out of curiosity, because it was reported that I came
from countries very remote, of which they had never heard.
I hired a young man, who came in the same ship, to be an
interpreter; he was a native of Luggnagg, but had lived some
years at Maldonada, and was a perfect master of both languages.
By his assistance, I was able to hold a conversation with those
who came to visit me; but this consisted only of their
questions, and my answers.
The despatch came from court about the time we expected.
It contained a warrant for conducting me and my retinue to
Traldragdubh, or Trildrogdrib (for it is pronounced
both ways as near as I can remember), by a party of ten horse.
All my retinue was that poor lad for an interpreter, whom I
persuaded into my service, and, at my humble request, we had
each of us a mule to ride on. A messenger was despatched
half a day’s journey before us, to give the king notice of my
approach, and to desire, “that his majesty would please to
appoint a day and hour, when it would by his gracious pleasure
that I might have the honour to lick the dust before his
footstool.” This is the court style, and I found it to be
more than matter of form: for, upon my admittance two days after
my arrival, I was commanded to crawl upon my belly, and lick the
floor as I advanced; but, on account of my being a stranger,
care was taken to have it made so clean, that the dust was not
offensive. However, this was a peculiar grace, not allowed
to any but persons of the highest rank, when they desire an
admittance. Nay, sometimes the floor is strewed with dust
on purpose, when the person to be admitted happens to have
powerful enemies at court; and I have seen a great lord with his
mouth so crammed, that when he had crept to the proper distance
from the throne; he was not able to speak a word. Neither
is there any remedy; because it is capital for those, who
receive an audience to spit or wipe their mouths in his
majesty’s presence. There is indeed another custom, which
I cannot altogether approve of: when the king has a mind to put
any of his nobles to death in a gentle indulgent manner, he
commands the floor to be strewed with a certain brown powder of
a deadly composition, which being licked up, infallibly kills
him in twenty-four hours. But in justice to this prince’s
great clemency, and the care he has of his subjects’ lives
(wherein it were much to be wished that the Monarchs of Europe
would imitate him), it must be mentioned for his honour, that
strict orders are given to have the infected parts of the floor
well washed after every such execution, which, if his domestics
neglect, they are in danger of incurring his royal displeasure.
I myself heard him give directions, that one of his pages should
be whipped, whose turn it was to give notice about washing the
floor after an execution, but maliciously had omitted it; by
which neglect a young lord of great hopes, coming to an
audience, was unfortunately poisoned, although the king at that
time had no design against his life. But this good prince
was so gracious as to forgive the poor page his whipping, upon
promise that he would do so no more, without special orders.
To return from this digression. When I had crept within
four yards of the throne, I raised myself gently upon my knees,
and then striking my forehead seven times against the ground, I
pronounced the following words, as they had been taught me the
night before, Inckpling gloffthrobb squut serummblhiop
mlashnalt zwin tnodbalkuffh slhiophad gurdlubh asht.
This is the compliment, established by the laws of the land, for
all persons admitted to the king’s presence. It may be
rendered into English thus: “May your celestial majesty outlive
the sun, eleven moons and a half!” To this the king
returned some answer, which, although I could not understand,
yet I replied as I had been directed: Fluft drin yalerick
dwuldom prastrad mirpush, which properly signifies, “My
tongue is in the mouth of my friend;” and by this expression was
meant, that I desired leave to bring my interpreter; whereupon
the young man already mentioned was accordingly introduced, by
whose intervention I answered as many questions as his majesty
could put in above an hour. I spoke in the Balnibarbian
tongue, and my interpreter delivered my meaning in that of
Luggnagg.
The king was much delighted with my company, and ordered his
bliffmarklub, or high-chamberlain, to appoint a lodging
in the court for me and my interpreter; with a daily allowance
for my table, and a large purse of gold for my common expenses.
I staid three months in this country, out of perfect
obedience to his majesty; who was pleased highly to favour me,
and made me very honourable offers. But I thought it more
consistent with prudence and justice to pass the remainder of my
days with my wife and family.
CHAPTER X.
The Luggnaggians commended. A
particular description of the Struldbrugs, with many
conversations between the author and some eminent persons upon
that subject.
The Luggnaggians are a polite and generous people; and
although they are not without some share of that pride which is
peculiar to all Eastern countries, yet they show themselves
courteous to strangers, especially such who are countenanced by
the court. I had many acquaintance, and among persons of
the best fashion; and being always attended by my interpreter,
the conversation we had was not disagreeable.
One day, in much good company, I was asked by a person of
quality, “whether I had seen any of their struldbrugs, or
immortals?” I said, “I had not;” and desired he would
explain to me “what he meant by such an appellation, applied to
a mortal creature.” He told me “that sometimes, though
very rarely, a child happened to be born in a family, with a red
circular spot in the forehead, directly over the left eyebrow,
which was an infallible mark that it should never die.”
The spot, as he described it, “was about the compass of a silver
threepence, but in the course of time grew larger, and changed
its colour; for at twelve years old it became green, so
continued till five and twenty, then turned to a deep blue: at
five and forty it grew coal black, and as large as an English
shilling; but never admitted any further alteration.” He
said, “these births were so rare, that he did not believe there
could be above eleven hundred struldbrugs, of both sexes, in the
whole kingdom; of which he computed about fifty in the
metropolis, and, among the rest, a young girl born; about three
years ago: that these productions were not peculiar to any
family, but a mere effect of chance; and the children of the
struldbrugs themselves were equally mortal with the rest of
the people.”
I freely own myself to have been struck with inexpressible
delight, upon hearing this account: and the person who gave it
me happening to understand the Balnibarbian language, which I
spoke very well, I could not forbear breaking out into
expressions, perhaps a little too extravagant. I cried
out, as in a rapture, “Happy nation, where every child hath at
least a chance for being immortal! Happy people, who enjoy
so many living examples of ancient virtue, and have masters
ready to instruct them in the wisdom of all former ages! but
happiest, beyond all comparison, are those excellent
struldbrugs, who, being born exempt from that universal
calamity of human nature, have their minds free and disengaged,
without the weight and depression of spirits caused by the
continual apprehensions of death!” I discovered my
admiration that I had not observed any of these illustrious
persons at court; the black spot on the forehead being so
remarkable a distinction, that I could not have easily
overlooked it: and it was impossible that his majesty, a most
judicious prince, should not provide himself with a good number
of such wise and able counsellors. Yet perhaps the virtue
of those reverend sages was too strict for the corrupt and
libertine manners of a court: and we often find by experience,
that young men are too opinionated and volatile to be guided by
the sober dictates of their seniors. However, since the
king was pleased to allow me access to his royal person, I was
resolved, upon the very first occasion, to deliver my opinion to
him on this matter freely and at large, by the help of my
interpreter; and whether he would please to take my advice or
not, yet in one thing I was determined, that his majesty having
frequently offered me an establishment in this country, I would,
with great thankfulness, accept the favour, and pass my life
here in the conversation of those superior beings the
struldbrugs, if they would please to admit me.”
The gentleman to whom I addressed my discourse, because (as I
have already observed) he spoke the language of Balnibarbi, said
to me, with a sort of a smile which usually arises from pity to
the ignorant, “that he was glad of any occasion to keep me among
them, and desired my permission to explain to the company what I
had spoke.” He did so, and they talked together for some
time in their own language, whereof I understood not a syllable,
neither could I observe by their countenances, what impression
my discourse had made on them. After a short silence, the
same person told me, “that his friends and mine (so he thought
fit to express himself) were very much pleased with the
judicious remarks I had made on the great happiness and
advantages of immortal life, and they were desirous to know, in
a particular manner, what scheme of living I should have formed
to myself, if it had fallen to my lot to have been born a
struldbrug.”
I answered, “it was easy to be eloquent on so copious and
delightful a subject, especially to me, who had been often apt
to amuse myself with visions of what I should do, if I were a
king, a general, or a great lord: and upon this very case, I had
frequently run over the whole system how I should employ myself,
and pass the time, if I were sure to live for ever.
“That, if it had been my good fortune to come into the world
a struldbrug, as soon as I could discover my own
happiness, by understanding the difference between life and
death, I would first resolve, by all arts and methods,
whatsoever, to procure myself riches. In the pursuit of
which, by thrift and management, I might reasonably expect, in
about two hundred years, to be the wealthiest man in the
kingdom. In the second place, I would, from my earliest
youth, apply myself to the study of arts and sciences, by which
I should arrive in time to excel all others in learning.
Lastly, I would carefully record every action and event of
consequence, that happened in the public, impartially draw the
characters of the several successions of princes and great
ministers of state, with my own observations on every point.
I would exactly set down the several changes in customs,
language, fashions of dress, diet, and diversions. By all
which acquirements, I should be a living treasure of knowledge
and wisdom, and certainly become the oracle of the nation.
“I would never marry after threescore, but live in a
hospitable manner, yet still on the saving side. I would
entertain myself in forming and directing the minds of hopeful
young men, by convincing them, from my own remembrance,
experience, and observation, fortified by numerous examples, of
the usefulness of virtue in public and private life. But
my choice and constant companions should be a set of my own
immortal brotherhood; among whom, I would elect a dozen from the
most ancient, down to my own contemporaries. Where any of
these wanted fortunes, I would provide them with convenient
lodges round my own estate, and have some of them always at my
table; only mingling a few of the most valuable among you
mortals, whom length of time would harden me to lose with little
or no reluctance, and treat your posterity after the same
manner; just as a man diverts himself with the annual succession
of pinks and tulips in his garden, without regretting the loss
of those which withered the preceding year.
“These struldbrugs and I would mutually communicate
our observations and memorials, through the course of time;
remark the several gradations by which corruption steals into
the world, and oppose it in every step, by giving perpetual
warning and instruction to mankind; which, added to the strong
influence of our own example, would probably prevent that
continual degeneracy of human nature so justly complained of in
all ages.
“Add to this, the pleasure of seeing the various revolutions
of states and empires; the changes in the lower and upper world;
ancient cities in ruins, and obscure villages become the seats
of kings; famous rivers lessening into shallow brooks; the ocean
leaving one coast dry, and overwhelming another; the discovery
of many countries yet unknown; barbarity overrunning the
politest nations, and the most barbarous become civilized.
I should then see the discovery of the longitude, the perpetual
motion, the universal medicine, and many other great inventions,
brought to the utmost perfection.
“What wonderful discoveries should we make in astronomy, by
outliving and confirming our own predictions; by observing the
progress and return of comets, with the changes of motion in the
sun, moon, and stars!”
I enlarged upon many other topics, which the natural desire
of endless life, and sublunary happiness, could easily furnish
me with. When I had ended, and the sum of my discourse had
been interpreted, as before, to the rest of the company, there
was a good deal of talk among them in the language of the
country, not without some laughter at my expense. At last,
the same gentleman who had been my interpreter, said, “he was
desired by the rest to set me right in a few mistakes, which I
had fallen into through the common imbecility of human nature,
and upon that allowance was less answerable for them. That
this breed of
struldbrugs was peculiar to their country, for there were
no such people either in Balnibarbi or Japan, where he had the
honour to be ambassador from his majesty, and found the natives
in both those kingdoms very hard to believe that the fact was
possible: and it appeared from my astonishment when he first
mentioned the matter to me, that I received it as a thing wholly
new, and scarcely to be credited. That in the two kingdoms
above mentioned, where, during his residence, he had conversed
very much, he observed long life to be the universal desire and
wish of mankind. That whoever had one foot in the grave
was sure to hold back the other as strongly as he could.
That the oldest had still hopes of living one day longer, and
looked on death as the greatest evil, from which nature always
prompted him to retreat. Only in this island of Luggnagg
the appetite for living was not so eager, from the continual
example of the
struldbrugs before their eyes.
“That the system of living contrived by me, was unreasonable
and unjust; because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, health,
and vigour, which no man could be so foolish to hope, however
extravagant he may be in his wishes. That the question
therefore was not, whether a man would choose to be always in
the prime of youth, attended with prosperity and health; but how
he would pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages
which old age brings along with it. For although few men
will avow their desires of being immortal, upon such hard
conditions, yet in the two kingdoms before mentioned, of
Balnibarbi and Japan, he observed that every man desired to put
off death some time longer, let it approach ever so late: and he
rarely heard of any man who died willingly, except he were
incited by the extremity of grief or torture. And he
appealed to me, whether in those countries I had travelled, as
well as my own, I had not observed the same general
disposition.”
After this preface, he gave me a particular account of the
struldbrugs among them. He said, “they commonly acted
like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by
degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both
till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their
own confession: for otherwise, there not being above two or
three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form
a general observation by. When they came to fourscore
years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this
country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of
other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful
prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative,
peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of
friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never
descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent
desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects
against which their envy seems principally directed, are the
vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By
reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all
possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they
lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to
which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have
no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in
their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and
for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend
on common tradition, than upon their best recollections.
The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to
dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more
pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which
abound in others.
“If a struldbrug happen to marry one of his own kind,
the marriage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the
kingdom, as soon as the younger of the two comes to be
fourscore; for the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence, that
those who are condemned, without any fault of their own, to a
perpetual continuance in the world, should not have their misery
doubled by the load of a wife.
“As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years,
they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately
succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for
their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public
charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any
employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or
take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any
cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of
meers and bounds.
“At ninety, they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that
age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can
get, without relish or appetite. The diseases they were
subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing.
In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and
the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest
friends and relations. For the same reason, they never can
amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not
serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end;
and by this defect, they are deprived of the only entertainment
whereof they might otherwise be capable.
“The language of this country being always upon the flux, the
struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of
another; neither are they able, after two hundred years, to hold
any conversation (farther than by a few general words) with
their neighbours the mortals; and thus they lie under the
disadvantage of living like foreigners in their own country.”
This was the account given me of the struldbrugs, as
near as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of
different ages, the youngest not above two hundred years old,
who were brought to me at several times by some of my friends;
but although they were told, “that I was a great traveller, and
had seen all the world,” they had not the least curiosity to ask
me a question; only desired “I would give them slumskudask,”
or a token of remembrance; which is a modest way of begging, to
avoid the law, that strictly forbids it, because they are
provided for by the public, although indeed with a very scanty
allowance.
They are despised and hated by all sorts of people.
When one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their
birth is recorded very particularly so that you may know their
age by consulting the register, which, however, has not been
kept above a thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed
by time or public disturbances. But the usual way of
computing how old they are, is by asking them what kings or
great persons they can remember, and then consulting history;
for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin his
reign after they were fourscore years old.
They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the
women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual
deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional
ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is
not to be described; and among half a dozen, I soon
distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above
a century or two between them.
The reader will easily believe, that from what I had hear and
seen, my keen appetite for perpetuity of life was much abated.
I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed;
and thought no tyrant could invent a death into which I would
not run with pleasure, from such a life. The king heard of
all that had passed between me and my friends upon this
occasion, and rallied me very pleasantly; wishing I could send a
couple of
struldbrugs to my own country, to arm our people against
the fear of death; but this, it seems, is forbidden by the
fundamental laws of the kingdom, or else I should have been well
content with the trouble and expense of transporting them.
I could not but agree, that the laws of this kingdom relative
to the struldbrugs were founded upon the strongest
reasons, and such as any other country would be under the
necessity of enacting, in the like circumstances.
Otherwise, as avarice is the necessary consequence of old age,
those immortals would in time become proprietors of the whole
nation, and engross the civil power, which, for want of
abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the public.
CHAPTER XI.
The author leaves Luggnagg, and sails to
Japan. From thence he returns in a Dutch ship to
Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam to England.
I thought this account of the struldbrugs might be
some entertainment to the reader, because it seems to be a
little out of the common way; at least I do not remember to have
met the like in any book of travels that has come to my hands:
and if I am deceived, my excuse must be, that it is necessary
for travellers who describe the same country, very often to
agree in dwelling on the same particulars, without deserving the
censure of having borrowed or transcribed from those who wrote
before them.
There is indeed a perpetual commerce between this kingdom and
the great empire of Japan; and it is very probable, that the
Japanese authors may have given some account of the
struldbrugs; but my stay in Japan was so short, and I was so
entirely a stranger to the language, that I was not qualified to
make any inquiries. But I hope the Dutch, upon this
notice, will be curious and able enough to supply my defects.
His majesty having often pressed me to accept some employment
in his court, and finding me absolutely determined to return to
my native country, was pleased to give me his license to depart;
and honoured me with a letter of recommendation, under his own
hand, to the Emperor of Japan. He likewise presented me
with four hundred and forty-four large pieces of gold (this
nation delighting in even numbers), and a red diamond, which I
sold in England for eleven hundred pounds.
On the 6th of May, 1709, I took a solemn leave of his
majesty, and all my friends. This prince was so gracious
as to order a guard to conduct me to Glanguenstald, which is a
royal port to the south-west part of the island. In six
days I found a vessel ready to carry me to Japan, and spent
fifteen days in the voyage. We landed at a small port-town
called Xamoschi, situated on the south-east part of Japan; the
town lies on the western point, where there is a narrow strait
leading northward into along arm of the sea, upon the north-west
part of which, Yedo, the metropolis, stands. At landing, I
showed the custom-house officers my letter from the king of
Luggnagg to his imperial majesty. They knew the seal
perfectly well; it was as broad as the palm of my hand.
The impression was, A king lifting up a lame beggar from the
earth. The magistrates of the town, hearing of my
letter, received me as a public minister. They provided me
with carriages and servants, and bore my charges to Yedo; where
I was admitted to an audience, and delivered my letter, which
was opened with great ceremony, and explained to the Emperor by
an interpreter, who then gave me notice, by his majesty’s order,
“that I should signify my request, and, whatever it were, it
should be granted, for the sake of his royal brother of
Luggnagg.” This interpreter was a person employed to
transact affairs with the Hollanders. He soon conjectured,
by my countenance, that I was a European, and therefore repeated
his majesty’s commands in Low Dutch, which he spoke perfectly
well. I answered, as I had before determined, “that I was
a Dutch merchant, shipwrecked in a very remote country, whence I
had travelled by sea and land to Luggnagg, and then took
shipping for Japan; where I knew my countrymen often traded, and
with some of these I hoped to get an opportunity of returning
into Europe: I therefore most humbly entreated his royal favour,
to give order that I should be conducted in safety to Nangasac.”
To this I added another petition, “that for the sake of my
patron the king of Luggnagg, his majesty would condescend to
excuse my performing the ceremony imposed on my countrymen, of
trampling upon the crucifix: because I had been thrown into his
kingdom by my misfortunes, without any intention of trading.”
When this latter petition was interpreted to the Emperor, he
seemed a little surprised; and said, “he believed I was the
first of my countrymen who ever made any scruple in this point;
and that he began to doubt, whether I was a real Hollander, or
not; but rather suspected I must be a Christian. However,
for the reasons I had offered, but chiefly to gratify the king
of Luggnagg by an uncommon mark of his favour, he would comply
with the singularity of my humour; but the affair must be
managed with dexterity, and his officers should be commanded to
let me pass, as it were by forgetfulness. For he assured
me, that if the secret should be discovered by my countrymen the
Dutch, they would cut my throat in the voyage.” I returned
my thanks, by the interpreter, for so unusual a favour; and some
troops being at that time on their march to Nangasac, the
commanding officer had orders to convey me safe thither, with
particular instructions about the business of the crucifix.
On the 9th day of June, 1709, I arrived at Nangasac, after a
very long and troublesome journey. I soon fell into the
company of some Dutch sailors belonging to the Amboyna, of
Amsterdam, a stout ship of 450 tons. I had lived long in
Holland, pursuing my studies at Leyden, and I spoke Dutch well.
The seamen soon knew whence I came last: they were curious to
inquire into my voyages and course of life. I made up a
story as short and probable as I could, but concealed the
greatest part. I knew many persons in Holland. I was
able to invent names for my parents, whom I pretended to be
obscure people in the province of Gelderland. I would have
given the captain (one Theodorus Vangrult) what he pleased to
ask for my voyage to Holland; but understanding I was a surgeon,
he was contented to take half the usual rate, on condition that
I would serve him in the way of my calling. Before we took
shipping, I was often asked by some of the crew, whether I had
performed the ceremony above mentioned? I evaded the
question by general answers; “that I had satisfied the Emperor
and court in all particulars.” However, a malicious rogue
of a skipper went to an officer, and pointing to me, told him,
“I had not yet trampled on the crucifix;” but the other, who had
received instructions to let me pass, gave the rascal twenty
strokes on the shoulders with a bamboo; after which I was no
more troubled with such questions.
Nothing happened worth mentioning in this voyage. We
sailed with a fair wind to the Cape of Good Hope, where we staid
only to take in fresh water. On the 10th of April, 1710,
we arrived safe at Amsterdam, having lost only three men by
sickness in the voyage, and a fourth, who fell from the foremast
into the sea, not far from the coast of Guinea. From
Amsterdam I soon after set sail for England, in a small vessel
belonging to that city.
On the 16th of April we put in at the Downs. I landed
next morning, and saw once more my native country, after an
absence of five years and six months complete. I went
straight to Redriff, where I arrived the same day at two in the
afternoon, and found my wife and family in good health.
