eat nor drink nor talk with each other.  We compute the Tramecksan, or high heels, to exceed us in number; but the power is wholly on our side.  We apprehend his imperial highness, the heir to the crown, to have some tendency towards the high heels; at least, we can plainly discover that one of his heels is higher than the other, which gives him a hobble in his gait.  Now, in the midst of these intestine disquiets, we are threatened with an invasion from the island of Blefuscu, which is the other great empire of the universe, almost as large and powerful as this of his majesty.  For, as to what we have heard you affirm, that there are other kingdoms and states in the world, inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon or one of the stars, because it is certain, that an hundred mortals of your bulk would, in a short time, destroy all the fruits and cattle of his majesty’s dominions.  Besides, our histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions than the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu.  Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six-and-thirty moons past.  It began upon the following occasion:  It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty’s grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers.  Whereupon the emperor, his father, published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs.  The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account, wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown.  These civil commotions were constantly fomented by the monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire.  It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.  Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy, but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable, by law, of holding employments.  During the course of these troubles, the Emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate, by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran)[24] This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these:  That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end.  And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man’s conscience, or, at least, in the power