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31 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books Collection

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  Chapter four, the Huinnan's Notion of Truth and falsehood. The author's discourse disapproved
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  by his master. The author gives a more particular account of himself and the
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  accidents of his voyage. My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in
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  his countenance, because doubting or not believing are so little known in this country
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  that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances. And I
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  remember, in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood in other
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  parts of the world, having occasioned a talk of lying and false reputation.
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  It was with much difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had
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  otherwise a most acute judgment, For he argued thus that the use of speech
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  was to make us understand one another and to receive information of facts. Now,
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  if any one said the thing which was not, these ends were defeated,
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  because I cannot properly be said to understand him, and I am so
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  far from receiving information that he leaves me worse than in ignorance. For I
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  am led to believe a thing black when it is white, and short when
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  it is long, and these were all the notions he had concerned in the
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  faculty of lying, so perfectly well understood and so universally practiced among human creatures.
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  To return from this digression, when I asserted that the Yahoos were the
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  only governing animals in my country, which my master said was altogether past his
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  conception, he desired to know whether we had hunums among us, and what
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  was their employment. I told him we had great numbers, that in summer
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  they grazed in the fields, and in winter were kept in houses with hay
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  and oats, where Yahoo servants were employed to rub their skin smooth, comb
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  their manes, picked their feet, serve them with food, and make their
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  beds. I understand you well, said my master. It is now very
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  plain from all you have spoken that whatever share of reason the Yahoos pretend to,
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  the Whinnams are your masters. I heartily wish our Yahoos would be so
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  tractable. I begged his honor would please to excuse me from proceeding any further,
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  because I was very certain that the account expected from me would be highly
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  displeasing. But he insisted in commanding me to let him know the best and
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  the worst. I told him he should be obeyed. I owned that the
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  whinnams among us, whom we call horses, were the most generous and comely
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  animals we had. That they excelled in strength and swiftness, And when they
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  belonged to persons of quality were employed in traveling, racing, or drawing chariots,
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  they were treated with much kindness and care till they fell into disease or
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  became foundered in the feet. But then they were sold and used to all
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  kinds of drudgery till they died, after which their skins were stripped and sold
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  for what they were worth, and their bodies left to be devoured by dogs
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  and birds of prey. But the common race of horses had not so good
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  fortune, being kept by farmers and carriers and other mean people, who put
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  them to great labor and fed them worse. I described as well as I
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  could our way of riding the shape and juice of a bridle, a saddle,
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  a spur, and a whip of harness and wheels. I added that
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  we fastened plaits of a certain hard substance called iron at the bottom of their
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  feet, to preserve their hoops from being broken by the stony ways on which
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  we often traveled. My master, after some expressions of great indignation, wondered
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  how we dared to venture upon a Whynham's back, For he was sure that
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  the weakest servant in his house would be able to shake off the strongest yahoo,
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  or by lying down and rolling on his back, squeezed the brute to
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  death. I answered that our horses were trained up from three or four years
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  old to the several uses we intended them for, that if any of them
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  proved intolerably vicious, they were employed for carriages, that they were severely beaten
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  while they were young, for any mischievous tricks. That the males designed for
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  the common use of riding or draft were generally castrated about two years after their
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  birth, to take down their spirits and make them more tame and gentle.
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  That they were indeed sensible of rewards and punishments. But his Honor would please
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  to consider that they had not the least tincature of reason any more than the
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  Yahoos in this country. It put me to the pains of many circumlocutions to
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  give my master a right idea of what I spoke, for their language does
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  not abound in variety, of words, because their wants and passions are fewer
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  than among us. But it is impossible to express his noble resentment at our
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  savage treatment of the Huinnhum race, particularly after I had explained the manner and
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  use of castrating horses among us to hinder them from propagating their kind and to
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  render them more servile. He said, if it were possible, there could
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  be any country where yahoos alone were endued with reason, they certainly must be
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  the governing animal, because reason and time will always prevail against brute strength.
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  But considering the frame of our bodies, and especially of mine, thought,
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  no creature of equal bulk was so ill contrived for employing that reason in the
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  common offices of life. Whereupon he desired to know whether those among whom I
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  lived resembled me or the Yahoos of his country. I assured him that I
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  was as well shaped as most of my age, but the younger and the
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  females were much more soft and tender, and the skins of the latter generally
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  as white as milk. He said, I differed, indeed from other Yahoos,
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  being much more cleanly and not altogether so deformed. But in point of
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  real advantage, he thought I differed from the worse, that my nails were
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  of no use either to my four or hinder feet, as to my forefeet.
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  He could not properly call them by that name, for he never observed
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  me to walk upon them, That they were too soft to bear. The
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  ground that I generally went with them uncovered near the was the covering I sum
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  times worn them of the same shape or so strong as that on my feet
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  behind. That I could not walk without any security, for if either of
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  my hinder feet slipped, I must inevitably fail. He then began to find
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  fault with other parts of my body, the flatness of my face, the
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  prominence of my nose, mine eyes placed directly in front, so that I
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  could not look on either side without turning my head. That I was not
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  able to feed myself without lifting one on my four feet to my mouth,
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  And therefore nature had placed those joints to answer that necessity. He knew not
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  what could be the use of those several clefts and divisions in my feet behind.
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  That these were too soft to bear the hardness and sharpness of stones without
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  a covering made from the skin of some other brute, That my whole body
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  wanted a fence against heat and cold, which I was forced to put on
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  and off every day with tediousness and trouble. Lastly, that he observed every
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  animal in this country naturally to abhor the yahoos, whom the weaker avoided and
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  the stronger drove from them, So that, supposing us to have the gift
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  of reason, he could not see how it were possible to cure that natural
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  antipathy which every creature discovered against us, nor consequently how we could tame and
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  render them serviceable. However, he would, as he said, debate the
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  matter no farther, because he was more desirous to know my own story,
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  the country where I was born, and the several actions and events of my
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  life before I came hither. I assured him how extremely desirous I was that
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  he should be satisfied in every point. But I doubted much whether it would
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  be possible for me to explain myself on several subjects whereof his honor could have
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  no conception, because I saw nothing in his country to which I could resemble
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  them. However, that I would do my best and strive to express myself
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  by similitudes, humbly desiring his assistance when I wanted proper words, which he
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  was pleased to promise me. I said, my birth was of honest parents
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  in an island called England, which was remote from his country, as many
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  days journey as the strongest of his honored servants could travel in the annual course
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  of the sun. That I was bred a surgeon whose trade it was to
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  cure wounds and hurts in the body gotten by accident or violence. That my
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  country was governed by a female man, whom we called Queen. That I
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  left to get riches whereby I might maintain myself and family when I should return.
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  That in my last voyage, I was commander of the ship and had
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  about fifty yahoos under me, many of which died at sea, and I
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  was forced to supply them by others picked out from several nations. The towership
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  was twice in danger of being sunk, the first time by a great storm
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  and the second by striking against a rock. Here my master interposed by asking
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  me how I could persuade strangers out of different countries to venture with me.
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  After the losses I had sustained and the hazards I had run, I said
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  they were fellows of desperate fortunes, forced to fly from the places of their
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  birth on account of their poverty or their crimes. Some were undone by law
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  suits, Others spent all they had in drinking, houring and gaming. Others
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  fled for treason, many for murder, theft, poisoning, robbery, perjury,
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  forgery, coining false money, for committing rapes or sodomy, for flying
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  from their colors, or deserting to the enemy, and most of them had
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  broken prison. None of these durst return to their name countries for fear of
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  being hanged or of starving in a jail, and therefore they were under the
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  necessity of seeking a livelihood in other places. During this discourse, my master
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  was pleased to interrupt me several times. I had made use of many circumlocutions
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  in describing to him the nature of the several crimes for which most of our
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  crew bedween forced to fly their country. This labour took up several days conversation
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  before he was able to comprehend me. He was wholly at a loss to
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  know what could be the use or necessity of practicing those vices. To clear
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  up which I endeavored to give some ideas of the desire of power and riches,
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  of the terrible effects of lust, intemperance, malice, and envy.
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  All this I was forced to define and describe by putting cases and making suppositions,
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  after which, like one whose imagination was struck with something never seen or
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  heard of before, he would lift up his eyes with amazement and indignation.
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  Power, government, war, law, punishment, and a thousand other things
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  had no terms wherein that language could express them, which made the difficulty almost
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  insuperable to give my master any conception of what I meant. But being of
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  an excellent understanding, much improved by contemplation and converse, he at last arrived
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  at a competent knowledge of what human nature in our parts of the world is
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  capable to perform and desired. I would give him some particular account of that
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  land which we call Europe, but especially of my own country, and apart
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  four Chapter four