CAPTAIN His brain is turned; I cannot with honour accept his wager.

SURGEON I am of a different opinion; he is quite sane, and depends more upon the scent of his dog than he will upon the judgment of all the officers on board; he will certainly lose, and he richly merits it.

CAPTAIN Such a wager cannot be fair on my side; however, I’ll take him up, if I return his money afterwards.

During the above conversation Tray continued in the same situation, and confirmed me still more in my former opinion.  I proposed the wager a second time, it was then accepted.

Done! and done! were scarcely said on both sides, when some sailors who were fishing in the long-boat, which was made fast to the stern of the ship, harpooned an exceeding large shark, which they brought on board and began to cut up for the purpose of barrelling the oil, when, behold, they found no less than six brace of live partridges in this animal’s stomach!

They had been so long in that situation, that one of the hens was sitting upon four eggs, and a fifth was hatching when the shark was opened!!!  This young bird we brought up by placing it with a litter of kittens that came into the world a few minutes before!  The old cat was as fond of it as of any of her own four-legged progeny, and made herself very unhappy, when it flew out of her reach, till it returned again.  As to the other partridges, there were four hens amongst them; one or more were, during the voyage, constantly sitting, and consequently we had plenty of game at the captain’s table; and in gratitude to poor Tray (for being a means of winning one hundred guineas) I ordered him the bones daily, and sometimes a whole bird.

CHAPTER XVIII

A SECOND TRIP TO THE MOON.

A second visit (but an accidental one) to the moon—­The ship driven by a whirlwind a thousand leagues above the surface of the water, where a new atmosphere meets them and carries them into a capacious harbour in the moon—­A description of the inhabitants, and their manner of coming into the lunarian world—­Animals, customs, weapons of war, wine, vegetables, &c.

I have already informed you of one trip I made to the moon, in search of my silver hatchet; I afterwards made another in a much pleasanter manner, and stayed in it long enough to take notice of several things, which I will endeavour to describe as accurately as my memory will permit.

I went on a voyage of discovery at the request of a distant relation, who had a strange notion that there were people to be found equal in magnitude to those described by Gulliver in the empire of BROBDIGNAG.  For my part I always treated that account as fabulous:  however, to oblige him, for he had made me his heir, I undertook it, and sailed for the South seas, where we arrived without meeting with anything remarkable, except some flying men and women who were playing at leap-frog, and dancing minuets in the air.