Journeys Through Bookland, Volume 5 | Page 9

could reach them.
I took these vehicles, and soon emptied them all; twenty of them were
filled with meat, and ten with liquor; each of the former afforded me
two or three good mouthfuls, and I emptied the liquor of ten vessels,
which was contained in earthen vials, into one vehicle, drinking it off at
a draught. The empress and young princes of the blood, of both sexes,
attended by many ladies, sat at some distance in their chairs, but upon
the accident that happened to the emperor's horse they alighted and
came near his person, which I am now going to describe.
He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court,
which is alone enough to strike an awe into the beholders. His features
are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose; his
complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well
proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He
was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three-quarters
old,[5] of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and
generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him I lay
on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three
yards off; however, I have had him since many times in my hand, and
therefore cannot be deceived in the description. His dress was very
plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the
European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with

jewels, and a plume on the crest. He held his sword drawn in his hand
to defend himself if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three
inches long, the hilt and scabbard were gold enriched with diamonds.
His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly
hear it when I stood up.
[Footnote 5: Swift uses his reducing imagination even on the time,
perceiving that it would not seem natural for his tiny manikins to have
as long lives as the "man mountain" on which they gazed with such
wonder.]
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR VISITS GULLIVER]
The ladies and courtiers were all most magnificently clad, so that the
spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat spread on the
ground embroidered with figures of gold and silver.
His imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers, but
neither of us could understand a syllable. There were several of his
priests and lawyers present (as I conjectured by their habit), who were
commanded to address themselves to me, and I spoke to them in as
many languages as I had the least smattering of, which were High and
Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca,[6] but
all to no purpose.
[Footnote 6: Lingua Franca was the name given to a mixed dialect
used in some parts of the Mediterranean coasts as means of
communication between people of different nationalities. It consisted
largely of corrupted Italian words.]
After about two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong
guard to prevent the impertinence and probably the malice of the rabble,
who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst, and
some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me as I sat on
the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed
my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ringleaders to be seized,
and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my
hands, which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them

forward with the butt ends of their pikes into my reach. I took them all
in my right hand, put five of them into my coat pocket, and as to the
sixth, I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man
squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain,
especially when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put them
out of fear, for looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he
was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I
treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my
pocket, and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly
delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very
much to my advantage at court.
Toward night I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on
the ground, and continued to do so about a fortnight, during which time
the emperor gave orders to have a bed prepared for me. Six hundred
beds of the common