Gulliver’s travels
On the 16th of June 1730 we discovered land. Our captain sent a dozen men with vessels for water, if any could be found. When we came to land we saw no river or spring nor any inhabitants. I went on to explore. The country was barren and rocky. I turned back to join the crew, only to see them getting into the boat and rowing for life to get to the ship. Before I could reach them I observed a huge creature walking after them in the sea as fast as he could. The water of the ocean reached only till his knees! However, the monster was unable to overtake the speeding boat. I turned back quickly and climbed up a steep hill with fields of barley on either side and the corn rising upto forty feet.
There was a fence to pass from one field to the other.
It was impossible for me to climb because every step was six feet high. I was trying to find a gap in the hedge when I discovered one of the inhabitants in the next field walking towards the fence. He was of the same size as the creature chasing the boat. I was struck with utmost fear and astonishment and ran to hide myself. He called in a voice much louder than a trumpet. It sounded like thunder ! Seven monsters like him came towards the field ready to reap the corn. They carried a reaping hook which was very big. When one of the reapers approached where I lay hidden I screamed as loud as I could. The creature stopped reaping, picked me up between his thumb and forefinger and brought me close to his eyes, sixty feet above the ground. He looked at me with curiosity and blew my hair aside to get a better view of my face.
He called his friends and gently placed me on the ground.
They all sat on the ground to take a good look at me. I walked slowly backward and forward, pulled off my hat and made a low bow towards the farmers. I tried to speak to them loudly in several languages. Each time I did so the farmer who picked me up held his ear very close to me but in vain. The farmer took me to his house and placed me at some distance on the dining table which was thirty feet high from the floor.
Dinner was brought for the farmer in a dish which was ten feet in diameter. The farmer's wife crumbled some bread and placed it before me. In the middle of the dinner I heard a noise behind me. It was the purring of a cat that was ten times larger than an ox. The farmer's wife was stroking him. Then entered the farmer's one year-old son in the arms of a lady. On seeing me the child grabbed me from the table and put my head into his mouth. I shouted so loudly that the baby dropped me. I would have broken my neck if the mother had not held her apron under me. Later she put me on her own bed and covered me with a clean white handkerchief.
I slept dreaming of my home, my wife and my children.