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my book of travels a mere fiction out of mine own brain, and have
gone so far as to drop hints, that the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos have
no more existence than the inhabitants of Utopia.

Indeed I must confess, that as to the people of Lilliput,
Brobdingrag (for so the word should have been spelt, and not
erroneously Brobdingnag), and Laputa, I have never yet heard of any
Yahoo so presumptuous as to dispute their being, or the facts I
have related concerning them; because the truth immediately strikes
every reader with conviction. And is there less probability in my
account of the Houyhnhnms or Yahoos, when it is manifest as to the
latter, there are so many thousands even in this country, who only
differ from their brother brutes in Houyhnhnmland, because they use
a sort of jabber, and do not go naked? I wrote for their
amendment, and not their approbation. The united praise of the
whole race would be of less consequence to me, than the neighing of
those two degenerate Houyhnhnms I keep in my stable; because from
these, degenerate as they are, I still improve in some virtues
without any mixture of vice.

Do these miserable animals presume to think, that I am so
degenerated as to defend my veracity? Yahoo as I am, it is well
known through all Houyhnhnmland, that, by the instructions and
example of my illustrious master, I was able in the compass of two
years (although I confess with the utmost difficulty) to remove
that infernal habit of lying, shuffling, deceiving, and
equivocating, so deeply rooted in the very souls of all my species;
especially the Europeans.

I have other complaints to make upon this vexatious occasion; but I
forbear troubling myself or you any further. I must freely
confess, that since my last return, some corruptions of my Yahoo
nature have revived in me by conversing with a few of your species,
and particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable
necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project
as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this kingdom: But I have
now done with all such visionary schemes for ever.

April 2, 1727




PART I--A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT.




CHAPTER I.



[The author gives some account of himself and family. His first
inducements to travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life.
Gets safe on shore in the country of Lilliput; is made a prisoner,
and carried up the country.]

My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire: I was the third
of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge at
fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself
close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I
had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune,
I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in
London, with whom I continued four years. My father now and then
sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning
navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those who

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