I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set
me in a box upon a window, as she usually did in fair
days to give me air (for I durst not venture to let
the box be hung on a nail out of the window, as we
do with cages in England), after I had lifted up one
of my sashes, and sat down at my table to eat a piece
of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps,
allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming
louder than the drones of as many bagpipes.
Some of them seized my cake, and carried it piecemeal
away; others flew about my head and face, confounding
me with the noise, and putting me in the utmost terror
of their stings. However, I had the courage to
rise and draw my hanger, and attack them in the air.
I dispatched four of them, but the rest got away,
and I presently shut my window. These insects
were as large as partridges: I took out their
stings, found them an inch and a half long, and as
sharp as needles. I carefully preserved them
all; and having since shown them, with some other
curiosities, in several parts of Europe, upon my return
to England I gave three of them to Gresham College,
and kept the fourth for myself.
CHAPTER IV.
[The country described. A proposal for correcting
modern maps. The king’s palace; and some
account of the metropolis. The author’s
way of travelling. The chief temple described.]
I now intend to give the reader a short description
of this country, as far as I travelled in it, which
was not above two thousand miles round Lorbrulgrud,
the metropolis. For the queen, whom I always
attended, never went farther when she accompanied the
king in his progresses, and there staid till his majesty
returned from viewing his frontiers. The whole
extent of this prince’s dominions reaches about
six thousand miles in length, and from three to five
in breadth: whence I cannot but conclude, that
our geographers of Europe are in a great error, by
supposing nothing but sea between Japan and California;
for it was ever my opinion, that there must be a balance
of earth to counterpoise the great continent of Tartary;
and therefore they ought to correct their maps and
charts, by joining this vast tract of land to the north-west
parts of America, wherein I shall be ready to lend
them my assistance.
The kingdom is a peninsula, terminated to the north-east
by a ridge of mountains thirty miles high, which are
altogether impassable, by reason of the volcanoes
upon the tops: neither do the most learned know
what sort of mortals inhabit beyond those mountains,
or whether they be inhabited at all. On the
three other sides, it is bounded by the ocean.
There is not one seaport in the whole kingdom:
and those parts of the coasts into which the rivers
issue, are so full of pointed rocks, and the sea generally
so rough, that there is no venturing with the smallest
of their boats; so that these people are wholly excluded
