Gulliver's Travels eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 181 pages of information about Gulliver's Travels.

Gulliver's Travels eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 181 pages of information about Gulliver's Travels.

When we came to land, we saw no river or spring, nor any sign of inhabitants.  Our men therefore wandered on the shore to find out some fresh water near the sea, and I walked alone about a mile on the other side, where I observed the country all barren and rocky.  I now began to be weary, and seeing nothing to entertain my curiosity, I returned gently down toward the creek; and the sea being full in my view, I saw our men already got into the boat, and rowing for life to the ship.  I was going to holla after them, although it had been to little purpose, when 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 about half a league, and the sea thereabouts being full of pointed rocks, the monster was not able to overtake the boat.  This I was afterwards told, for I durst not stay to see the issue of the adventure; but ran as fast as I could the way I first went, and 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 that seemed to be kept for hay, was about twenty feet high.

[Illustration:  “A HUGE CREATURE WALKING ...  IN THE SEA.”  P. 6.]

I fell into a high road, for so I took it to be, though it served to the inhabitants only as a footpath through a field of barley.  Here I walked on for some time, but could see little on either side, it being now near harvest, and the corn rising at least forty feet.  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 feet high, and the trees so lofty that I could make no computation of their altitude.  There was a stile to pass from this field into the next.  It had four steps, and a stone to cross over when you came to the uppermost.  It was impossible for me to climb this stile because every step was six feet high, and the upper stone above twenty.

I was endeavoring to find some gap in the hedge, when 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, from whence I saw him at the top of the stile, looking back into the next field on the right hand, and heard him call in a voice many degrees louder than a speaking trumpet; but the noise was so high in the air that at first I certainly thought it was thunder.  Whereupon seven monsters, like himself, came towards him with reaping-hooks in their hands, each hook about the largeness of six scythes.  These people were not so well clad as the first, whose servants or laborers they seemed to be; for, upon some words he spoke,

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Gulliver's Travels from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.