GULLIVER’S
TRAVELS
PART 20
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.
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.
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.
To be continued
