He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which is alone enough to strike an awe into the beholders.  His features are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose; his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic.  He was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three-quarters old,[5] of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally victorious.  For the better convenience of beholding him I lay on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three yards off; however, I have had him since many times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the description.  His dress was very plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels, and a plume on the crest.  He held his sword drawn in his hand to defend himself if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three inches long, the hilt and scabbard were gold enriched with diamonds.  His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly hear it when I stood up.

[Footnote 5:  Swift uses his reducing imagination even on the time, perceiving that it would not seem natural for his tiny manikins to have as long lives as the “man mountain” on which they gazed with such wonder.]

[Illustration:  THE EMPEROR VISITS GULLIVER]

The ladies and courtiers were all most magnificently clad, so that the spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat spread on the ground embroidered with figures of gold and silver.

His imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers, but neither of us could understand a syllable.  There were several of his priests and lawyers present (as I conjectured by their habit), who were commanded to address themselves to me, and I spoke to them in as many languages as I had the least smattering of, which were High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca,[6] but all to no purpose.

[Footnote 6:  Lingua Franca was the name given to a mixed dialect used in some parts of the Mediterranean coasts as means of communication between people of different nationalities.  It consisted largely of corrupted Italian words.]

After about two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong guard to prevent the impertinence and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst, and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me as I sat on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed my left eye.  But the colonel ordered six of the ringleaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my hands, which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forward with the butt ends of their pikes into my reach.