1726 "A Voyage to Brobdingnag" from Gulliver's Travels
During this storm...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....
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...[with] a creek too shallow to hold a ship of above one hundred tuns. 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, that I might see the country, and make what discoveries I could. When we came to land we saw no river or spring, nor any sign of inhabitants....I returned gently down towards the creek; and the sea being in full view, I saw our men already got into the boat, and rowing for life to the ship....I observed a huge creature walking after them in the sea, as fast as he could: he waded not much deeper than his knees, and took prodigious strides: but our men had the start of him half a league, and...the monster was not able to overtake the boat....[I] then climbed up a steep hill, which gave me some prospect of the country.
I found it fully cultivated; but that which first surprised me was the length of the grass, which in those grounds seemed to be kept for hay, was above twenty foot high....I was an hour walking to the end of this field; which was fenced in with a hedge of at least one hundred and twenty foot high, and the trees so lofty that I could make no computation of their altitude....I discovered one of the inhabitants in the next field advancing towards the stile, of the same size with him whom I saw in the sea pursuing our boat. He appeared as tall as an ordinary spire-steeple; and took about ten yards at every stride, as near as I could guess. I was struck with the utmost fear and astonishment, and ran to hide myself in the corn...I came to a part of the filed where the corn had been laid by the rain and wind: here it was impossible for me to advance a step....Being quite dispirited with toil, and wholly overcome by grief and despair, I lay down between two ridges, and heartily wished I might there end my days....In this terrible agitation of mind I could not forbear thinking of Lilliput, whose inhabitants looked upon me as the greatest prodigy that ever appeared in the world; where I was able to draw an imperial fleet in my hand, and perform those other actions which will be recorded for ever in the chronicles of that empire, while posterity shall hardly believe them, although attested by millions.
I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation, as one single Lillipution would be among us. But, this I conceived was to be the least of my misfortunes: for, as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk; what could I expect but to be a morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous barbarians, who should happen to seize me? Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right when they tell us, that nothing is great or little, otherwise than by comparison: it might have pleased fortune to let the Lilliputions to find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery?
Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745: Swift, an Irish clergyman, was perhaps the foremost satirist in the English language. Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726, is a political satire purporting to detail the travels of Lemuel Gulliver.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991, pp. 85-89.
