Gulliver's Travels

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,