Page 187 - gullivers-travels

which I observed him to examine with great curiosity, and
found he had a fancy for it. He received it with abundance
of thanks, more than such a trifle could deserve. It was
drawn by an unskilful surgeon, in a mistake, from one of
Glumdalclitch’s men, who was afflicted with the tooth-ache,
but it was as sound as any in his head. I got it cleaned, and
put it into my cabinet. It was about a foot long, and four
inches in diameter.
The captain was very well satisfied with this plain rela-
tion I had given him, and said, ‘he hoped, when we returned
to England, I would oblige the world by putting it on pa-
per, and making it public.’ My answer was, ‘that we were
overstocked with books of travels: that nothing could now
pass which was not extraordinary; wherein I doubted some
authors less consulted truth, than their own vanity, or in-
terest, or the diversion of ignorant readers; that my story
could contain little beside common events, without those
ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and
other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of
savage people, with which most writers abound. However,
I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to take
the matter into my thoughts.’
He said ‘he wondered at one thing very much, which was,
to hear me speak so loud;’ asking me ‘whether the king or
queen of that country were thick of hearing?’ I told him,
‘it was what I had been used to for above two years past,
and that I admired as much at the voices of him and his
men, who seemed to me only to whisper, and yet I could
hear them well enough. But, when I spoke in that country,

1 Gulliver’s Travels