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with a fair wind to the Cape of Good Hope, where we stayed only to take in fresh water. On the 10th of April, 1710, we arrived safe at Amsterdam, having lost only three men by sickness in the voyage, and a fourth, who fell from the foremast into the sea, not far from the coast of Guinea. From Amsterdam I soon after set sail for England, in a small vessel belonging to that city.

On the 16th of April we put in at the Downs. I landed next morning, and saw once more my native country, after an absence of five years and six months complete. I went straight to Redriff, where I arrived the same day, at two in the afternoon, and found my wife and family in good health.

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CHAPTER I.

THE AUTHOR SETS OUT AS CAPTAIN OF A SHIP.-HIS MEN CONSPIRE AGAINST HIM, CONFINE HIM A LONG TIME TO HIS CABIN, AND SET HIM ON SHORE IN AN UNKNOWN LAND. HE TRAVELS UP INTO THE COUNTRY.-THE YAHOOS, A STRANGE SORT OF ANIMAL, DESCRIBED.-THE AUTHOR MEETS TWO HOUYHNHNMS.

CONTINUED at home with my wife and children about five months in a very happy condition, if I could have learned the lesson of knowing when I was well. I left my poor wife once more, and accepted an advantageous offer made me to be captain of the Adventure, a stout merchantman of 350 tons for I understood navigation well, and being grown weary of a surgeon's employment at sea, which, however, I could exercise upon occasion, I took a skilful young man of that calling, one Robert Purefoy, into my ship. We set sail from Portsmouth upon the 7th day of

From satires against individuals, institutions, and philosophers-against kings and courts, ministers and politicians-which have occupied us during the three preceding voyages

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September, 1710; on the 14th we met with Captain Pocock, of Bristol, at Teneriffe, who was going to the Bay of Campechy to cut logwood. On the 16th, he was parted from us by a storm; I heard since my return, that his ship foundered, and ncne escaped but one cabin boy. He was an honest man, and a good sailor, but a little too positive in his own opinions, which was the cause of his destruction, as it has been of several others; for if he had followed my advice, he might have been safe at home with his family at this time as well as myself.

I had several men die in my ship of calentures, so that I was forced to get recruits out of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, where I touched, by the direction of the merchants who employed me; which I had soon too much cause to repent; for I found afterwards that most of them had been buccaneers.* I had fifty hands on board; and my

of Gulliver, we now turn to an attack more comprehensive in its range, for it assails humanity on every point that is vulnerable; more malignant, for it dwells with malicious pleasure upon all that is loathsome and degrading; and more unjustifiable, as it tends but little to any good purpose. If we are frequently forced to admire the genius and power of Swift when thus unworthily employed, a feeling of regret is ever present with us that he has so prostituted his talents. Whatever can be pleaded in excuse, or in favour of the "Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms," Sir Walter Scott has put forward, with all the ingenuity of an advocate, and all the charity of a kindly nature:-"The source of such a diatribe against human nature could only be that fierce indignation which he has described in his epitaph as long gnawing his heart. Dwelling in a land where he considered the human race as divided between petty tyrants and oppressed slaves, and being himself a worshipper of that freedom and independence which he beheld daily trampled upon, the unrestrained violence of his feelings drove him to loathe the very species by which such iniquity was done and suffered. To this must be added his personal health, broken and worn down by the recurring attacks of a frightful disorder; his social comfort destroyed by the death of one beloved object, and the daily decay and peril of another; his life decayed into autumn; and its remainder, after so many flattering ambitious prospects, condemned to a country which he disliked, and banished from that in which he had formed his hopes, and left his friendships. When all these considerations are combined, they form some excuse for that general misanthropy which never prevented a single deed of individual benevolence. The picture of the Yahoos, utterly odious and hateful as it is, presents to the reader a moral use. It was never designed as a representation of mankind in the state to which religion, and even the lights of nature, encourage man to aspire; but of that to which our species is degraded by too wilful subservience of mental qualities to animal instincts; of man such as he may be found in the degraded ranks of every society, when brutalised by ignorance and gross vice. In this view, the more coarse and disgusting the picture, the more impressive is the moral to be derived from it, since, in proportion as an individual indulges in sensuality, cruelty, or avarice, he approaches in resemblance to the detested Yahoo." To approve of this terrible libel on human nature is impossible; to extenuate it is difficult; and it is only the sense that an entire omission of this fourth voyage would be unwarrantable which induces us to present it, dealing with it, however, in such a manner as shall make it as suitable for general reading as any of the former ones.

This society of freebooters, one of the most extraordinary that ever existed, had been completely broken up in the early part of the eighteenth century, and its remaining members

orders were, that I should trade with the Indians in the South Sea, and make what discoveries I could. These rogues, whom I had picked up, debauched my other men, and they all formed a conspiracy to seize the ship, and secure me; which they did one morning, rushing into my cabin, and binding me hand and foot, threatening to throw me overboard if I offered to stir. I told them I was their prisoner, and would submit. This they made me swear to do, and then they unbound me, only fastening one of my legs with a chain, near my bed, and placed a sentry at my door with his piece charged, who was commanded to shoot me dead, if I attempted my liberty. They sent me down victuals and drink, and took the government of the ship to themselves. Their design was to turn pirates, and plunder the Spaniards, which they could not do till they got more men. But first they resolved to sell the goods in the ship, and then go to Madagascar* for recruits, several among them having died since my confinement. They sailed many weeks, and traded with the Indians; but I knew not what course they took, being kept a close prisoner in my cabin, and expecting nothing less than to be murdered, as they often threatened me.

Upon the 9th day of May, 1711, one James Welch came down to my cabin, and said he had orders from the captain to set me ashore. I expostulated with him, but in vain; neither would he so much as tell me who their new captain was. They forced me into the long-boat, letting me put on my best suit of clothes, which were as good as new, and take a small bundle of linen, but no arms, except my hanger; and they were so civil as not to search my pockets, into which I conveyed what money I had, with some other little necessaries. They rowed about a league, and then set me down on a strand. I desired them to tell me what country it was. They all swore they knew no more than myself; but said that the captain (as they called him), was resolved,

dispersed through the world, so that Swift very naturally supplies Gulliver's crew with them. Originally the name was applied to the first French settlers in St. Domingo, who hunted animals for their skins, supporting themselves on fish and flesh, which they used to dry and smoke (boucaner). The term was subsequently assumed by those famous piratical adventurers, chiefly English and French, who joined together to commit depredations on the Spaniards of America. Their last great exploit was in 1697, when 1,200 of them, in seven ships, under the command of Pointis, assaulted and took Carthagena, and gained a booty of £1,750,000. Without any regular system, without laws, without subordination, and even without any fixed revenue, they became the astonishment of the age in which they lived, as they will be of posterity. Every

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The Island of Madagascar was a principal rendezvous of the buccaneers. one of their chiefs had, at one period, a sort of settlement upon the island.

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after they had sold the lading, to get rid of me in the first place where they could discover land. They pushed off immediately, advising me to make haste, for fear of being overtaken by the tide, and so bade me farewell.

In this desolate condition I advanced forward, and soon got upon firm ground, where I sat down on a bank to rest myself, and consider what I had best do. When I was a little refreshed, I went up into the country, resolving to deliver myself to the first savages I should meet, and purchase my life from them by some bracelets, glass rings, and other toys, with which sailors usually provide themselves in those voyages, and whereof I had some. The land was divided by long rows of trees, not regularly planted, but naturally growing; there was plenty of grass, and several fields of oats. I walked very circumspectly, for fear of being surprised, or suddenly shot with an arrow from behind or on either side. I fell into a beaten road, where I saw many tracks of human feet, and some of cows, but most of horses. At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of the same kind sitting on trees. Their shape was very singular and deformed, which a little discomposed me, so that I lay down behind a thicket to observe them better. Some of them coming forward near the place where I lay, gave me an opportunity of distinctly marking their form. They climbed high trees as nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and behind, terminating in sharp points, and hooked. They would often spring, and bound, and leap with prodigious agility. The females were not so large as the males; they had long lank hair on their heads, but none on their faces. Upon the whole, I never beheld, in all my travels, so disagreeable an animal, or one against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy; so that thinking I had seen enough, full of contempt and aversion, I got up, and pursued the beaten road, hoping it might direct me to the cabin of some Indian. I had not gone far, when I met one of these creatures full in my way, and coming up directly to me. The ugly monster, when he saw me, distorted several ways every feature of his visage, and stared, as at an object he had never seen before; then approaching nearer, lifted up his fore-paw, whether out of curiosity or mischief I could not tell; but I drew my hanger, and gave him a good blow with the flat side of it, for I durst not strike with the edge, fearing the inhabitants might be provoked against me, if they should come to know that I had killed or maimed any of their cattle. When the beast felt the smart, he drew

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