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I had, in this
closet, a field-bed and a hammock, hung from the ceiling, two
chairs and a table, neatly screwed to the floor, to prevent being
tossed about by the agitation of the horse or the coach. And
having been long used to sea-voyages, those motions, although
sometimes very violent, did not much discompose me.

Whenever I had a mind to see the town, it was always in my
travelling-closet; which Glumdalclitch held in her lap in a kind of
open sedan, after the fashion of the country, borne by four men,
and attended by two others in the queen's livery. The people, who
had often heard of me, were very curious to crowd about the sedan,
and the girl was complaisant enough to make the bearers stop, and
to take me in her hand, that I might be more conveniently seen.

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

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