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 distance, 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 a 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 wilfulness 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 among 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?

Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with these reflections, when one of the reapers, approaching within ten yards of the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the next step I should be squashed to death under his foot, or cut in two with his reaping-hook.  And, therefore, when he was again about to move, I screamed as loud as fear could make me.  Whereupon the huge creature trod short, and looking round about under him for some time, at last espied me as I lay on the ground.  He considered awhile, with the caution of one who endeavors to lay hold on a small dangerous animal in such a manner that it shall not be able either to scratch or to bite him, as I myself have sometimes done with a weasel in England.