I answered, it was very true:  and I wondered how I could forbear when I saw his dishes of the size of a silver threepence, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, a cup not so big as a nutshell; and so I went on, describing the rest of his household stuff and provisions, after the same manner.  For, although the queen had ordered a little equipage of all things necessary for me, while I was in her service, yet my ideas were wholly taken up with what I saw on every side of me, and I winked at my own littleness as people do at their own faults.

The captain understood my raillery very well, and merrily replied with the old English proverb, that he doubted mine eyes were bigger than my belly, for he did not observe my stomach so good, although I had fasted all day; and continuing in his mirth, protested, that he would have gladly given a hundred pounds to have seen my closet in the eagle’s bill, and afterward in its fall from so great a height into the sea, which would certainly have been a most astonishing object, worthy to have the description of it transmitted to future ages; and the comparison of Phaethon[25] was so obvious that he could not forbear applying it, although I did not much admire the conceit.

[Footnote 25:  Phaethon was, according to Greek mythology, the son of Apollo, the sun god.  One day he prevailed upon his father to allow him to mount the chariot of the sun and drive the white cloud-horses across the heavens.  He was unable to guide his steeds, however, and they worked great havoc by dragging the sun up and down and from one side of the sky to the other.  Finally, Jupiter hurled the youth into a river.]

The captain having been at Tonquin was in his return to England driven north-eastward to the latitude of 44 degrees, and of longitude 143.  But meeting a trade-wind two days after I came on board him, we sailed southward a long time, and coasting New Holland kept our course west-southwest, and then south-south-west till we doubled the Cape of Good Hope.  Our voyage was very prosperous, but I shall not trouble the reader with a journal of it.  The captain called in at one or two ports, and sent in his long boat for provisions and fresh water, but I never went out of the ship, till we came into the Downs which was on the third day of June, 1706, about nine months after my escape.  I offered to leave my goods in security for payment of my freight; but the captain protested he would not receive one farthing.  We took kind leave of each other, and I made him promise he would come to see me at my house.  I hired a horse and guide for five shillings, which I borrowed of the captain.

As I was on the road, observing the littleness of the horses, the trees, the cattle, and the people, I began to think myself in Lilliput.  I was afraid of trampling on every traveler I met, and often called aloud to have them stand out of the way, so that I had like to have gotten one or two broken heads for my impertinence.