I was endeavoring to find some gap in the hedge, when I discovered one of the inhabitants in the next field, advancing toward 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 toward 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, they went to reap the corn in the field where I lay.

I kept from them at as great a distance as I could, but was forced to move with extreme difficulty, for the stalks of the corn were sometimes not above a foot distant, so that I could hardly squeeze my body betwixt them.  However, I made a shift to go forward till I came to a part of the field where the corn had been laid by the rain and wind.  Here it was impossible for me to advance a step; for the stalks were so interwoven that I could not creep through, and the beards of the fallen ears so strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes into my flesh.  At the same time I heard the reapers not above an hundred yards behind me.  Being quite dispirited with toil, and wholly overcome by grief and despair, I lay down between two ridges, and heartily wished I might there end my days.  I bemoaned my desolate widow and fatherless children.  I lamented my own folly and willfulness in attempting a second voyage, against the advice of all my friends and relations.  In this terrible agitation of mind I could not forbear thinking of Lilliput, whose inhabitants looked upon me as the greatest prodigy that ever appeared in the world; where I was able to draw an imperial fleet in my hand, and perform those other actions which will be recorded forever in the chronicles of that empire, while posterity shall hardly believe them, although attested by millions.  I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us.  But this I conceived was to be the least of my misfortunes; for, as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk, what could I expect but to be a morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous barbarians that should happen to seize me?  Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.  It might have pleased fortune to let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them as they were to me.  And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.