Having thus prepared all things as well as I was able, I set sail on the 24th day of September, 1701, at six in the morning; and when I had gone about four leagues to the northward, the wind being at the south-east, at six in the evening I descried a small island, about half a league to the north-west. I advanced forward, and cast anchor on the lee-side of the island, which seemed to be uninhabited. I then took some refreshment, and went to my rest. I slept well, as I conjecture at least six hours, for I found the day broke in two hours after I awoke. It was a clear night. I ate my breakfast before the sun was up; and heaving anchor, the wind being favourable, I steered the same course that I had done the day before, wherein I was directed by my pocketcompass. My intention was to reach, if possible, one of those islands which I had reason to believe lay to the north-east of Van Diemen's Land. I discovered nothing all that day; but upon the next, about three in the afternoon, when I had by my computation made twentyfour leagues from Blefuscu, I descried a sail steering to the south-east ; my course was due east. I hailed her, but could get no answer; yet I found that I gained upon her, for the wind slackened. I made all the sail I could, and in half an hour she spied me, then hung out her ancient, and discharged a gun. It is not easy to express the joy I was in, upon the unexpected hope of once more seeing my beloved country and the dear pledges I left in it. The ship slackened her sails, and I came up with her between five and six in the evening, September 26th; but my heart leaped within me to see her English colours. put my cows and sheep into my coat pocket, and got on board with all my little cargo of provisions. The vessel was an English merchantman, returning from Japan by the North and South Seas; the captain, Mr. John Biddle, of Deptford, a very civil man, and an excellent sailor. We were now in the latitude 30 degrees south; there were about fifty men in the ship; and here I met an old comrade of mine, one Peter Williams, who gave me a good character to the captain. This gentleman treated me with kindness, and desired I would let him know what place I came from last, and whither I was bound; which I did in a few words, but he thought I was raving, and that the dangers I had undergone had disturbed my head; whereupon I took my black cattle and sheep out of my pocket, which, after great astonishment, clearly convinced him of my veracity. I then showed him the gold given me by the emperor of Blefuscu, together with his majesty's picture at full length, and some other rarities of that country. I gave him two purses

I

"I took my black cattle and sheep out of my pocket."-Page 83.

of two hundred sprugs each, and promised, when we arrived in England, to make him a present of a cow and a sheep.

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

The consistency with which Swift sustains his fiction is everywhere visible. A less careful writer would have put the cattle in a pasture, where the inequalities of the ground and the coarseness and length of the grass would have made it impossible for them to live. Gulliver puts them in the short, fine grass of a smooth bowling-green, after having fed them through the voyage on finely-powdered biscuit. Nor does he forget to comment on the

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 their 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, 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 my account of this voyage must be referred to the second part of my travels.*

fineness of the fleeces, as calculated to improve the woollen manufacture, a subject which, at the time, occupied the Legislature a good deal. Indeed, the interference with the woollen trade of Ireland, by imposing protective duties in favour of English wool, was very injurious to the former country, and brought down upon the Ministry the indignant remonstrances of Swift.

A discussion, of little practical value, has arisen as to the origin of the name of Gulliver. Mr. Henry T. Riley ("Notes and Queries," 2nd ser., 229) says: “It appears to me by no means improbable that 'Gulliver' is a hybrid word, coined in the sarcastic corner of Swift's brain, and that its components are the words gull in verity; it being his meaning that he gulled the world in telling them the truth." This hypothesis is more ingenious than probable. The account given by a writer in the same volume (p. 423) is more natural :-"The names of Gulliver and Gulliford are quite common in parts of Somerset. . . . Many years ago, I remember passing a cart, in that neighbourhood, with the name of Gulliver on it, and remarked to my father, with whom I was walking, that it was the same name as the hero of Swift's book. Upon which my father told me Swift had met with the name precisely in the same manner; that he was, when contemplating his intended work, much in want of a name, and that, when out walking or riding one day, I know not where, a cart passed him with 'Gulliver' on it, which he at once decided should be the name of his hero, as it was quite uncommon. For the same reason, my father informed me, he also chose 'Lemuel.' I do not know my father's authority for this little history."

[After the first edition of the "Travels" had appeared, Gay wrote a Lilliputian ode, addressed to Quinbus Flestrin, by Titty Tit, Poet-laureate to His Majesty of Lilliput. Pope thus refers to it in a letter to Swift, March 8th, 1726-7: "You received, I hope, some commendatory verses from a horse, and a Lilliputian, to Gulliver; and an heroic epistle to Mrs. Gulliver. The bookseller would fain have printed them before the second edition of the book, but I would not permit it without your approbation; nor do I much like them." We concur in the last observation. The ode of the Lilliputian laureate is rather ingenious than clever; the lines, except the last of each stanza, being trisyllabic, to represent the pigmy proportions of Lilliputian poetry. We subjoin the ode.]