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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
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Title: Gulliver's Travels
into several remote nations of the world
Author: Jonathan Swift
Release Date: June 15, 2009 [eBook #829]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GULLIVER'S TRAVELS***
Transcribed from the 1892 George Bell and Sons edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS
into several
REMOTE NATIONS OF THE WORLD
BY JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D.,
dean of st. patrick’s, dublin.
[
First published in
1726–7.]
THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
[
As given in the original edition
.]
The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and intimate friend; there is
likewise some relation between us on the mother’s side. About three years ago, Mr. Gulliver
growing weary of the concourse of curious people coming to him at his house in Redriff, made a
small purchase of land, with a convenient house, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, his native
country; where he now lives retired, yet in good esteem among his neighbours.
Although Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father dwelt, yet I have heard him
say his family came from Oxfordshire; to confirm which, I have observed in the churchyard at
Banbury in that county, several tombs and monuments of the Gullivers.
Before he quitted Redriff, he left the custody of the following papers in my hands, with the liberty
to dispose of them as I should think fit. I have carefully perused them three times. The style is very
plain and simple; and the only fault I find is, that the author, after the manner of travellers, is a little
too circumstantial. There is an air of truth apparent through the whole; and indeed the author was
so distinguished for his veracity, that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbours at Redriff,
when any one affirmed a thing, to say, it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver had spoken it.
By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with the author’s permission, I communicated
these papers, I now venture to send them into the world, hoping they may be, at least for some time,
a better entertainment to our young noblemen, than the common scribbles of politics and party.
This volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made bold to strike out
innumerable passages relating to the winds and tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the
several voyages, together with the minute descriptions of the management of the ship in storms, in
the style of sailors; likewise the account of longitudes and latitudes; wherein I have reason to
apprehend, that Mr. Gulliver may be a little dissatisfied. But I was resolved to fit the work as much
as possible to the general capacity of readers. However, if my own ignorance in sea affairs shall
have led me to commit some mistakes, I alone am answerable for them. And if any traveller hath a
curiosity to see the whole work at large, as it came from the hands of the author, I will be ready to
gratify him.
As for any further particulars relating to the author, the reader will receive satisfaction from the first
pages of the book.
RICHARD SYMPSON.
A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN
SYMPSON.
Written in the Year 1727.
I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and
frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels,
with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct
the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called “A Voyage round the world.”
But I do not remember I gave you power to consent that any thing should be omitted, and much less
that any thing should be inserted; therefore, as to the latter, I do here renounce every thing of that
kind; particularly a paragraph about her majesty Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious memory;
although I did reverence and esteem her more than any of human species. But you, or your
interpolator, ought to have considered, that it was not my inclination, so was it not decent to praise
any animal of our composition before my master
Houyhnhnm
: And besides, the fact was altogether
false; for to my knowledge, being in England during some part of her majesty’s reign, she did
govern by a chief minister; nay even by two successively, the first whereof was the lord of
Godolphin, and the second the lord of Oxford; so that you have made me say the thing that was
not. Likewise in the account of the academy of projectors, and several passages of my discourse to
my master
Houyhnhnm
, you have either omitted some material circumstances, or minced or
changed them in such a manner, that I do hardly know my own work. When I formerly hinted to
you something of this in a letter, you were pleased to answer that you were afraid of giving offence;
that people in power were very watchful over the press, and apt not only to interpret, but to punish
every thing which looked like an
innuendo
(as I think you call it). But, pray how could that which I
spoke so many years ago, and at about five thousand leagues distance, in another reign, be applied
to any of the
Yahoos
, who now are said to govern the herd; especially at a time when I little thought,
or feared, the unhappiness of living under them? Have not I the most reason to complain, when I
see these very
Yahoos
carried by
Houyhnhnms
in a vehicle, as if they were brutes, and those the
rational creatures? And indeed to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one principal
motive of my retirement hither.
Thus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself, and to the trust I reposed in you.
I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want of judgment, in being prevailed upon by the
entreaties and false reasoning of you and some others, very much against my own opinion, to suffer
my travels to be published. Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to consider, when you
insisted on the motive of public good, that the
Yahoos
were a species of animals utterly incapable of
amendment by precept or example: and so it has proved; for, instead of seeing a full stop put to all
abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as I had reason to expect; behold, after above six
months warning, I cannot learn that my book has produced one single effect according to my
intentions. I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished;
judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and
Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education entirely changed; the
physicians banished; the female
Yahoos
abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts
and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all
disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and
quench their thirst with their own ink. These, and a thousand other reformations, I firmly counted
upon by your encouragement; as indeed they were plainly deducible from the precepts delivered in
my book. And it must be owned, that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and
folly to which
Yahoos
are subject, if their natures had been capable of the least disposition to virtue
or wisdom. Yet, so far have you been from answering my expectation in any of your letters; that on
the contrary you are loading our carrier every week with libels, and keys, and reflections, and
memoirs, and second parts; wherein I see myself accused of reflecting upon great state folk; of
degrading human nature (for so they have still the confidence to style it), and of abusing the female
sex. I find likewise that the writers of those bundles are not agreed among themselves; for some of
them will not allow me to be the author of my own travels; and others make me author of books to
which I am wholly a stranger.
I find likewise that your printer has been so careless as to confound the times, and mistake the dates,
of my several voyages and returns; neither assigning the true year, nor the true month, nor day of
the month: and I hear the original manuscript is all destroyed since the publication of my book;
neither have I any copy left: however, I have sent you some corrections, which you may insert, if
ever there should be a second edition: and yet I cannot stand to them; but shall leave that matter to
my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as they please.
I hear some of our sea
Yahoos
find fault with my sea-language, as not proper in many parts, nor now
in use. I cannot help it. In my first voyages, while I was young, I was instructed by the oldest
mariners, and learned to speak as they did. But I have since found that the sea
Yahoos
are apt, like
the land ones, to become new-fangled in their words, which the latter change every year; insomuch,
as I remember upon each return to my own country their old dialect was so altered, that I could
hardly understand the new. And I observe, when any
Yahoo
comes from London out of curiosity to
visit me at my house, we neither of us are able to deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to
the other.
If the censure of the
Yahoos
could any way affect me, I should have great reason to complain, that
some of them are so bold as to think my book of travels a mere fiction out of mine own brain, and
have gone so far as to drop hints, that the
Houyhnhnms
and
Yahoos
have no more existence than the
inhabitants of Utopia.
Indeed I must confess, that as to the people of
Lilliput
,
Brobdingrag
(for so the word should have
been spelt, and not erroneously
Brobdingnag
), and
Laputa
, I have never yet heard of any
Yahoo
so
presumptuous as to dispute their being, or the facts I have related concerning them; because the
truth immediately strikes every reader with conviction. And is there less probability in my account
of the
Houyhnhnms
or
Yahoos
, when it is manifest as to the latter, there are so many thousands even
in this country, who only differ from their brother brutes in
Houyhnhnmland
, because they use a sort
of jabber, and do not go naked? I wrote for their amendment, and not their approbation. The united
praise of the whole race would be of less consequence to me, than the neighing of those two
degenerate
Houyhnhnms
I keep in my stable; because from these, degenerate as they are, I still
improve in some virtues without any mixture of vice.
Do these miserable animals presume to think, that I am so degenerated as to defend my veracity?
Yahoo
as I am, it is well known through all
Houyhnhnmland
, that, by the instructions and example
of my illustrious master, I was able in the compass of two years (although I confess with the utmost
difficulty) to remove that infernal habit of lying, shuffling, deceiving, and equivocating, so deeply
rooted in the very souls of all my species; especially the Europeans.
I have other complaints to make upon this vexatious occasion; but I forbear troubling myself or you
any further. I must freely confess, that since my last return, some corruptions of my
Yahoo
nature
have revived in me by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly those of my own
family, by an unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that
of reforming the
Yahoo
race in this kingdom: But I have now done with all such visionary schemes
for ever.
April
2, 1727
PART I. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT.
CHAPTER I.
The author gives some account of himself and family. His first inducements to travel. He is
shipwrecked, and swims for his life. Gets safe on shore in the country of Lilliput; is made a
prisoner, and carried up the country.
My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire: I was the third of five sons. He sent me to
Emanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied
myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty
allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an
eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years. My father now and then sending
me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics,
useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time or other, my
fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father: where, by the assistance of him and
my uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds a year
to maintain me at Leyden: there I studied physic two years and seven months, knowing it would be
useful in long voyages.
Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be
surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannel, commander; with whom I continued three years
and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant, and some other parts. When I came back I
resolved to settle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was
recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and being advised
to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier,
in Newgate-street, with whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion.
But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to
fail; for my conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my
brethren. Having therefore consulted with my wife, and some of my acquaintance, I determined to
go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six years,
to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My hours of leisure I
spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number
of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well
as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory.
The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay
at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to
Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After three
years expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William
Prichard, master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the South Sea. We set sail from
Bristol, May 4, 1699, and our voyage was at first very prosperous.
It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures
in those seas; let it suffice to inform him, that in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we
were driven by a violent storm to the north-west of Van Diemen’s Land. By an observation, we
found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by
immoderate labour and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the 5th of November,
which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a
rock within half a cable’s length of the ship; but the wind was so strong, that we were driven
directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the
boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation,
about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labour while we
were in the ship. We therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in about half an
hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in
the boat, as well as of those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but
conclude they were all lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed
forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was
almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the
storm was much abated. The declivity was so small, that I walked near a mile before I got to the
shore, which I conjectured was about eight o’clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near
half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least I was in so weak a
condition, that I did not observe them. I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the
weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined
to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I
remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked, it
was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back,
I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which
was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across
my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot,
and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture I lay, could
see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which
advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes
downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow
and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the mean time, I felt at least forty more of the
same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so
loud, that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with
the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground. However, they soon returned, and one
of them, who ventured so far as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes by way
of admiration, cried out in a shrill but distinct voice,
Hekinah degul
: the others repeated the same
words several times, but then I knew not what they meant. I lay all this while, as the reader may
believe, in great uneasiness. At length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings,
and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my face, I
discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and at the same time with a violent pull, which
gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that
I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I
could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased I
heard one of them cry aloud
Tolgo phonac
; when in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows
discharged on my left hand, which, pricked me like so many needles; and besides, they shot another
flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body, (though I
felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this
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