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and my complexion made up of several colours altogether
disagreeable:" although I must beg leave to say for myself, that I
am as fair as most of my sex and country, and very little sunburnt
by all my travels. On the other side, discoursing of the ladies in
that emperor's court, he used to tell me, "one had freckles;
another too wide a mouth; a third too large a nose;" nothing of
which I was able to distinguish. I confess this reflection was
obvious enough; which, however, I could not forbear, lest the
reader might think those vast creatures were actually deformed:
for I must do them the justice to say, they are a comely race of
people, and particularly the features of my master's countenance,
although he was but a farmer, when I beheld him from the height of
sixty feet, appeared very well proportioned.

When dinner was done, my master went out to his labourers, and, as
I could discover by his voice and gesture, gave his wife strict
charge to take care of me. I was very much tired, and disposed to
sleep, which my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and
covered me with a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser
than the mainsail of a man-of-war.

I slept about two hours, and dreamt I was at home with my wife and
children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked, and found
myself alone in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet
wide, and above two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide.
My mistress was gone about her household affairs, and had locked me
in. The bed was eight yards from the floor. Some natural
necessities required me to get down; I durst not presume to call;
and if I had, it would have been in vain, with such a voice as
mine, at so great a distance from the room where I lay to the
kitchen where the family kept. While I was under these
circumstances, two rats crept up the curtains, and ran smelling
backwards and forwards on the bed. One of them came up almost to
my face, whereupon I rose in a fright, and drew out my hanger to
defend myself. These horrible animals had the boldness to attack
me on both sides, and one of them held his fore-feet at my collar;
but I had the good fortune to rip up his belly before he could do
me any mischief. He fell down at my feet; and the other, seeing
the fate of his comrade, made his escape, but not without one good
wound on the back, which I gave him as he fled, and made the blood
run trickling from him. After this exploit, I walked gently to and
fro on the bed, to recover my breath and loss of spirits. These
creatures were of the size of a large mastiff, but infinitely more
nimble and fierce; so that if I had taken off my belt before I went
to sleep, I must have infallibly been torn to pieces and devoured.
I measured the tail of the dead rat, and found it to be two yards
long, wanting an inch; but it went against my stomach to drag the
carcass off the bed, where it lay still bleeding; I observed it had
yet some life, but with a strong slash across the neck, I

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