which the workmen had girt round my neck, my hands, my body, and my legs.  Nine hundred of the strongest men were employed to draw up these cords, by many pulleys fastened on the poles; and thus, in less than three hours, I was raised and slung into the engine, and there tied fast.  All this I was told; for, while the whole operation was performing, I lay in a profound sleep, by the force of that soporiferous medicine infused into my liquor.  Fifteen hundred of the emperor’s largest horses, each about four inches and a half high, were employed to draw me toward the metropolis, which, as I said, was half a mile distant.  About four hours after we began our journey, I awaked by a very ridiculous accident; for the carriage being stopped awhile to adjust something that was out of order, two or three of the young natives had the curiosity to see how I looked when I was asleep; they climbed up into the engine, and advancing very softly to my face, one of them, an officer in the guards, put the sharp end of his half-pike a good way up into my nostril, which tickled my nose like a straw, and made me sneeze violently; whereupon they stole off unperceived, and it was three weeks before I knew the cause of my awaking so suddenly.

We made a long march the remaining part of that day,[3] and rested at night with five hundred guards on each side of me, half with torches, and half with bows and arrows, ready to shoot me if I should offer to stir.  The next morning at sunrise we continued our march, and arrived within two hundred yards of the city gates about noon.  The emperor and all his court came out to meet us, but his great officers would by no means suffer his majesty to endanger his person by mounting on my body.

[Footnote 3:  Notice the skill with which Swift adjusts all things to his tiny Lilliputians.  The half-mile journey would have been but a few minutes’ walk for Gulliver, but the six-inch men and the four-and-one-half-inch horses spent almost a day and a half in covering the distance.]

At the place where the carriage stopped there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom; which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked on as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away.  In this edifice it was determined I should lodge.  The great gate fronting to the north was about four foot high, and about two foot wide, through which I could easily creep.  On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground:  into that on the left side the king’s smiths conveyed fourscore and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady’s watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with thirty-six padlocks.