Page 129 - Child's own book

hands and face a pleasant-smelling ointment, which in a few
minutes removed all the smart of the arrows j and this, added
to the refreshment I had received, disposed me to sleep. 1 was
afterwards told that the physicians, by the emperor’s order, had
infused a sleepy potion into my wine, that I might he raised
and slung into a vehicle prepared to convey me to the metro­
polis, without being able to resist. Five hundred men were
employed in this operation, which was most ingeniously per­
formed by means of ropes and pulleys; fifteen hundred horses
were employed to draw me to the metropolis of Lilliput,
which was half an English mile distant, I did not awake till
we had been four hours upon our journey. We Tested that
night upon the road. Five hundred guards were placed on
each side of me, half with torches, and half with bows and
arrows to shoot me if I offered to stir.
W e recommenced our journey at sunrise, and about noon
came within two hundred yards of tbe city gates. The emperor
and all his court came out to meet u s; bat his great officers
would not suffer his majesty to endanger bis sacred person by
coming too near me. The carriage by which 1 was conveyed
stopped near an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in
the kingdom. In this edifice it was determined I should
lodge. The great gate was about four feet high and two wide,
through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate
was a small window, and through that on the left side the
king's smith conveyed four-scorc and eleven chains, like tho3e
that hang to a lady-swatch in Europe, which were locked with
six-and-thirty padlocks. It was estimated, that on this day
above a hundred thousand of the inhabitants came out of the
city to look at me j and not less than ten thousand mounted
by means of ladders upon my body. But a proclamation was
soon issued to forbid that, oil pain of death. When the chains