Latest / Classic Adventure Books Collection / 37 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
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- Chapter ten, the Author's economy and happy life among the Whinnams, his great improvement and virtue by conversing with them. Their conversations, the author has notice given him by his master that he must depart from the country. He falls and was swoon for grief, but submits. He contrives and finishes a canoe by the help of a fellow's servant, and puts to sea at a venture. I had settled my little economy to my own heart's content. My master had ordered a room to be made for me after their manner, about six yards from the house, the sides and floors of which I plastered with clay and covered with rush mats of my own contriving. I had beaten hemp, which there grows wild, and maid of it a sort of tickling. This I filled with the feathers of several birds I had taken with springs made of yahoo's hairs, and were excellent and food. I had worked two chairs with my knife, the sorrel nag helping me in the grosser and more laborious part. When my clothes were worn to rags, I made myself others with the skins of rabbits and of a certain beautiful animal about the same size called nahano, the skin of which is covered with a fine down. Of these I also made very tolerable stockings. I sold my shoes with wood, which I cut from a tree and fitted to the upper leather, And when this was worn out, I supplied it with the skins of yahoos dried in the sun. I often got honey out of hollow trees, which I mingled with water or ate with my bread. No man could more verify the truth of these two maxims, that nature is very easily satisfied, and that necessity is the mother of invention. I enjoyed perfect health of body and tranquility of mind. I did not feel the treachery or inconsistency of a friend, nor the injuries of a secret or open enemy. I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping to procure the favor of any great man or his minion. I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression. Here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune, no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire. Here were no geibers, censures, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, boards, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, whits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos. No leaders or followers of party and faction. No encouragers to vice by seducement or examples. No dungeon axes, gibbers, whipping posts or pillories. No cheating shopkeepers or merchants. No pride, vanity or affectation. No fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling haws or boxes. No ranting, lewd expensive wives, no stupid proud pedants. No importunate, overbearing quarrelsome noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions. No scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues. No lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing masters. I had the favor of being admitted to several Whinnhams who came to visit or dine with my master, where his honor graciously suffered me to wait in the room and listen to their discourse. Both he and his company would often descend to ask me questions and receive my answers. I had also some time the honor of attending my master in his visits to others. I never presumed to speak except in answer to a question, and then I did it withinward regret because it was a loss of so much time for improving myself. But I was infinitely delighted with the situation of a humble auditor in such conversations, where nothing passed but what was useful expressed in the fewest and most significant words. Where As I have already said, the greatest decency was observed without the least degree of ceremony, where no person spoke without being pleased himself and pleasing his companions, where there was no interruption, tediousness, heat, or difference of sentiments. They have a notion that when people are met together, a short silence does much improve the conversation. This I found to be true, for during those little intermissions of talk, knew I ideas would arise in their minds, which very much enlivened the discourse. Their subjects are generally on friendship and benevolence, on order and economy, sometimes upon the visible operations of nature or ancient traditions, upon the bounds and limits of virtue, upon the unerring rules of reason, or upon some determinations to be taken at the next general assembly, and often upon the various excellences of poetry. I may add without vanity that my presence often gave them sufficient matter for discourse, because it afforded my Master an occasion of letting his friends into the history of me and my country, upon which they were all pleased to discount in a manner not very advantageous to humankind. And for that reason I shall not repeat what they said. Only I may be allowed to observe that his Honor, to my great admiration, appeared to understand the nature of yahoos much better than myself. He went through all our vices and follies and discovered many which I had never mentioned to him. By only supposing what qualities are yahoo of their country, with a small proportion of reason, might be capable of exerting, and concluded with too much probability, how vile as well as miserable such a creature must be. I freely confess that all the little knowledge I have of any value was acquired by the lectures I received from my Master, and from hearing the discourse of him and his friends, to which I should be prouder to listen, then to dictate to the greatest and wisest assembly in Europe. I admired the strength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants, and such a constellation of virtues in such admirable persons produced in me the highest veneration. At first, indeed, I did not feel the natural oree which the yahoos and all other animals bear toward them. But it grew upon me by decrees much sooner than I imagined, and was mingled with respectful love and gratitude that they would condescend to distinguish me from the rest of my species, all the human race in general. I considered them as they really were, Yahoos in shape and disposition, perhaps a little more civilized and qualified with the gift of speech, but making no other use of reason than to improve and multiply those vices, where of their brethren in this country had only the share that nature allotted them. When I happened to behold the reflection of my own form in a lake or fountain, I turned away my face in horror and detestation of myself, and could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo than of my own person. By conversing with the Whuinnums and looking upon them with delight, I fell to immitate their gait and gesture, which has now grown into a habit. And my friends often tell me in a blunt way that I trot like a horse, which however, I take for a great compliment. Neither shall I disown that, in speaking I am apt to fall into the voice and manner of the Whunnums, and hear myself ridiculed on that account without the least mortification. In the midst of all this happiness, and when I looked upon myself to be fully settled for life, my master sent for me one morning a little earlier than his usual hour. I observed by his countenance that he was in some perplexity and at a loss how to begin what he had to speak. After a short silence, he told me he did not know how I would take what he was going to say. That in the last General Assembly, when the affair of the Yahoos was entered upon, the representatives had taken offense that his keeping a Yahoo, meaning myself in his family more like a wyinnum than a brute animal that he was known frequently to converse with me as if he could receive some advantage or pleasure in my company, that such a practice was not agreeable to reason or nature, or a thing ever heard of before among them. The Assembly did therefore exhort him either to employ me like the rest of my species, or command me to swim back to the place whence I came that. The first of these expedients was utterly rejected by all the Winnams who had ever seen me at his house or their own, for they alleged that because I had some rudiments of reason added to the natural gravity of those animals, it was to be feared I might be able to seduce them into the woody and mountainous parts of the country, and bring them in troops by night to destroy the Winnam's cattle, as being naturally of the ravenous kind and averse from labour. My master added that he was daily pressed by the Hunyms of the neighborhood to have the Assembly's exhortation executed, which he could not put off much longer. He doubted it would be impossible for me to swim to another country, and therefore wished I would contrive some sort of vehicle resembling those I had described to him, that might carry me on the sea, in which work I should have the assistance of his own servants as well as those of his neighbors. He concluded that for his own part, he could have been content to keep me in his service as long as I lived, because he found I had cured myself of some bad habits and dispositions by endeavoring as far as my inferior nature was capable to imitate the whinnams. I should here observe to the reader that a decree of the General Assembly in this country expressed by the word hun holnayan, which signifies an exhortation, as near as I can render it. For they have no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised or exhorted, because no person can disobey reason without giving up his claim to be a rational creature. I was struck with the utmost grief and despair at my master's discourse, and being unable to support the agonies I was under, I fell into a swoon at his feet. When I came to myself, he told me that he concluded I had been dead, for these people are the subject to know such imbecilities of nature. I answered, in a faint voice, that death would have been too great a happiness. That although I could not blame the assembly's exhortation or the urgency of his friends, yet in my weak and corrupt judgment, I've thought it might consist with reason to have been less rigorous that I could not swimmer league. Probably the nearest land to theirs might be a distance above a hundred That many materials necessary for making a small vessel to carry me off were wholly wanting in this country, which, however, I would attempt in obedience and gratitude to his honor. Although I concluded the thing to be impossible, and therefore looked on myself as already devoted to destruction, that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils. For supposing I should escape with my life by some strange to venture, how could I think, with temper of passing my days among yahoos and relapsing into my old corruptions, for want of examples to lead and keep me within the paths of virtue, That I knew too well, upon what solid reasons all the determinations of the wise Whinnhams were founded not to be shaken by arguments of mine, a miserable yahoo, And therefore after Brazil entering him with my humble thanks for the offer of his servant's assistance in making a vessel, and desiring a reasonable time for so difficult a work, I told him I would endeavor to preserve a wretched being, and if I ever returned to England, was not without hopes of being useful to my own species by celebrating the praises of the renowned Twinnhams and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind. My master, in a few words, made me a very gracious reply, allowed me the space of two months to finish my boat, and ordered the sorrel nag my fellow servant for so at this distance, I may presume to call him to follow my instruction. Because I told my master that his help would be sufficient, and I knew he had a tenderness for me in his company. My first business was to go to that part of the coast where my rebellious crew had ordered me to be set on shore. I got upon a height, and looking on every side into the sea. Fancied, I saw a small island towards the northeast. I took out my pocket glass and could then clearly distinguish it above five leagues off, as I computed. But it appeared to the sorrel Nag to be only a blue cloud. For as ye had no conception of any country beside his own, so he could not be expected in distinguishing remote objects at sea, as we who so much converse in that element. After I had discovered this island, I considered no further, but resolved it should, if possible, be the first place of my banishment. Leaving the consequence to fortune. I returned home, and, consulting with a sorrel nag, we went into a copse at some distance, where I, with my knife and tea with a sharp flint fastened very artificially after their manner to a wooden handle, cut down several oak wattles about the thickness of a walking staff, and some larger piece. But I shall not trouble the reader with a particular description of my own mechanics. Let it suffice to say that in six weeks time, with the help of the sorrel Nag, who performed the parts that required most labor. I finished a sort of Indian canoe, but much larger, covering it with the skins of yahoos, welstched together with hemp and threads of my own making. My sail was likewise composed of the skins of the same animal, but I made use of the youngest I could get, the older being too tough and thick, And I likewise provided myself with four paddles. I laid in a stock of boiled flesh of rabbits and fowls, and took with me two vessels, one filled with milk and the other with water. I tried my canoe in a large pond near my master's house, and then corrected in it what was a miss, stopping all the chinks with yahoo's tallow till I found its staunch and able to bear me and my freight. And when it was as complete as I could make it, I had it drawn on a carriage very gently by yahoos to the sea side, under the conduct of the sorrel Nag and another servant. When I was ready and the day came from my departure, I took leave of my master and lady, and the whole family my eyes flowing with tears, and my heart quite sunk with grief. But his honor, out of curiosity, and perhaps, if I may speak without vanity, partly out of kindness, was determined to see me in my canoe, and got several of his neighboring friends to accompany him. I was forced to wait above an hour for the tide, and then, observing the wind very fortunately bearing towards the island to which I intended to steer my course, I took a second leaf of my master, But as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the honor to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. Detractors are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious a person should descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a creature so inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some travelers are to boast of extraordinary favors they have received. But if these censures were better acquainted with the noble and courteous dispositions of the Whinnhums, they would soon change their opinion. I paid my respects to the rest of the Whinnhums in his honors company, then getting into my canoe, I pushed off from shore and apart four Chapter ten