I was very desirous to see the chief temple, and particularly
the tower belonging to it, which is reckoned the highest
in the kingdom. Accordingly one day my nurse
carried me thither, but I may truly say I came back
disappointed; for the height is not above three thousand
feet, reckoning from the ground to the highest pinnacle
top; which, allowing for the difference between the
size of those people and us in Europe, is no great
matter for admiration, nor at all equal in proportion
(if I rightly remember) to Salisbury steeple.
But, not to detract from a nation, to which, during
my life, I shall acknowledge myself extremely obliged,
it must be allowed, that whatever this famous tower
wants in height, is amply made up in beauty and strength:
for the walls are near a hundred feet thick, built
of hewn stone, whereof each is about forty feet square,
and adorned on all sides with statues of gods and
emperors, cut in marble, larger than the life, placed
in their several niches. I measured a little
finger which had fallen down from one of these statues,
and lay unperceived among some rubbish, and found
it exactly four feet and an inch in length. Glumdalclitch
wrapped it up in her handkerchief, and carried it
home in her pocket, to keep among other trinkets, of
which the girl was very fond, as children at her age
usually are.
The king’s kitchen is indeed a noble building,
vaulted at top, and about six hundred feet high.
The great oven is not so wide, by ten paces, as the
cupola at St. Paul’s: for I measured the
latter on purpose, after my return. But if I
should describe the kitchen grate, the prodigious
pots and kettles, the joints of meat turning on the
spits, with many other particulars, perhaps I should
be hardly believed; at least a severe critic would
be apt to think I enlarged a little, as travellers
are often suspected to do. To avoid which censure
I fear I have run too much into the other extreme;
and that if this treatise should happen to be translated
into the language of Brobdingnag (which is the general
name of that kingdom,) and transmitted thither, the
king and his people would have reason to complain
that I had done them an injury, by a false and diminutive
representation.
His majesty seldom keeps above six hundred horses
in his stables: they are generally from fifty-four
to sixty feet high. But, when he goes abroad
on solemn days, he is attended, for state, by a military
guard of five hundred horse, which, indeed, I thought
was the most splendid sight that could be ever beheld,
till I saw part of his army in battalia, whereof I
shall find another occasion to speak.
CHAPTER V.
[Several adventurers that happened to the author.
The execution of a criminal. The author shows
his skill in navigation.]
