I shall not trouble the reader with a particular account of this voyage, which was very prosperous for the most part. We arrived in the Downs on the 13th of April, 1702. I had only one misfortune, that the rats on board carried away one of my sheep; I found her bones in a hole, picked clean from the flesh. The rest of my cattle I got safe ashore, and set them a grazing in a bowling-green at Greenwich, where the fineness of the grass made them feed very heartily, though I had always feared the contrary: neither could I possibly have preserved them in so long a voyage, if the captain had not allowed me some of his best biscuit, which rubbed to powder, and mingled with water, was their constant food. The short time I continued in England, I made a considerable profit by showing my cattle to many persons of quality, and others: and before I began my second voyage, I sold them for six hundred pounds. Since my last return I find the breed is considerably increased, especially the sheep, which I hope will prove much to the advantage of the woollen manufacture, by the fineness of the fleeces.

I stayed but two months with my wife and family; for my insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries, would suffer me to continue no longer. I left fifteen hundred pounds with my wife, and fixed her in a good house at Redriff. My remaining stock I carried with me, part in money and part in goods, in hopes to improve my fortunes, My eldest uncle John had left me an estate in land, near Epping, of about thirty pounds a year; and I had a long lease of the Black Bull in Fetter-Lane, which yielded me as much more; so that I was not in any danger of leaving my family upon the parish. My son Johnny, VOL. VI. named

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named so after his uncle, was at the grammar school, and a towardly child. My daughter Betty (who is now well married, and has children) was then at ⚫ her needle-work. I took leave of my wife, and boy and girl, with tears on both sides, and went on board the Adventure; a merchant-ship of three hundred tons bound for Surat, captain John Nicholas of Liverpool commander. But But my account of this voyage must be referred to the second part of my travels.

A VOYAGE

A

VOYAGE

то

BROBDINGNAG.

CHAP. I.

A great storm described, the long-boat sent to fetch water, the author goes with it to discover the country. He is left on shore, is seized by one of the natives, and carried to a farmer's house. His reception, with several accidents that happened there. A description of the inhabitants.

HAVING been condemned, by nature and fortune, to active and restless life, in two months after my return, I again left my native country, and took shipping in the Downs on the 20th day of June 1702, in the Adventure, captain John Nicholas, a Cornish man, commander, bound for Surat. We had a very prosperous gale, till we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, where we landed for fresh water ; but discovering a leak, we unshipped our goods, and wintered there; for, the captain falling sick of an ague, we could not leave the Cape till the end of March.

We then set sail,

and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of Madagascar; but having got northward of that island, and to about five degrees south latitude, the

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winds,

winds, which in those seas are observed to blow a constant equal gale between the north and west, from the beginning of December to the beginning of May, on the 19th of April began to blow with much greater violence, and more westerly than usual, continuing so for twenty days together: during which time, we were driven a little to the east of the Molucca islands, and about three degrees northward of the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2d of May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm, whereat I was not a little rejoiced. But he, being a man well experienced in the navigation of those seas, bid us all prepare against a storm, which accordingly happened the day following for the southern wind, called the southern monsoon, began to set in,

Finding it was likely to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the fore-sail; but, making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizzen. The ship lay very broad off, so we thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying or hulling. We reefed the fore-sail and set him, and hauled aft the foresheet; the helm was hard a weather. The ship wore bravely. We belayed the fore-down-haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard, and got the sail into the ship, and unbound all the things clear of it. It was a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous. We hauled off upon the lanniard of the whip-staff, and helped the man at the helm. We would not get down our topmast, but let all stand, because she scudded before the sea very well, and we knew that the top-mast

being aloft the ship was the wholesomer, and made better way through the sea, seeing we had searoom. When the storm was over, we set fore-sail and main-sail, and brought the ship to. Then we set the mizzen, main-top-sail, and the fore-topsail. Our course was east-north-east, the wind was at south-west. We got the star-board tacks aboard, we cast off our weather braces and lifts; we set in the lee-braces, and hauled forward by the weatherbowlings, and hauled them tight, and belayed them, and hauled over the mizzen-tack to windward, and kept her full and by as near as she would lie.

During this storm, which was followed by a strong wind west-south-west, we were carried, by my computation, about five hundred leagues to the east, so that the oldest sailor on board could not tell in what part of the world we were. Our provisions held out well, our ship was staunch, and our crew all in good health; but we lay in the utmost distress for water. We thought it best to hold on the same course, rather than turn more northerly, which might have brought us to the north-west part of Great Tartary, and into the frozen sea.

On the 16th day of June, 1703, a boy on the top-mast discovered land. On the 17th, we came in full view of a great island or continent, (for we knew not whether) on the south-side whereof was a small neck of land jutting out into the sea, and a creek too shallow to hold a ship of above one hundred tons. We cast anchor within a league of this creek, and our captain sent a dozen of his men well armed in the long-boat, with vessels for water, if any could be found. I desired his leave to go with them,

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