I remember, when I was at Lilliput, the complexions of those diminutive people appeared to me the fairest in the world; and talking upon the subject with a person of learning there, who was an intimate friend of mine, he said that my face appeared much fairer and smoother when he looked on me from the ground than it did upon a nearer view, when I took him up in my hand and brought him close, which he confessed was at first a very shocking sight.  He said he could discover great holes in my skin; that the stumps of my beard were ten times stronger than the bristles of a boar, and my complexion made up of several colors, altogether disagreeable; although I must beg leave to say for myself that I am as fair as most of my sex and country, and very little sunburnt by travels.  On the other side, discoursing of the ladies in that emperor’s court, he used to tell me, one had freckles, another too wide a mouth, a third too large a nose; nothing of which I was able to distinguish.  I confess this reflection was obvious enough; which, however, I could not forbear, lest the reader might think those vast creatures were actually deformed:  for I must do them justice to say, they are a comely race of people; and particularly the features of my master’s countenance, although he were but a farmer, when I beheld him from the height of sixty feet, appeared very well proportioned.

When dinner was done, my master went out to his laborers, and, as I could discover by his voice and gesture, gave his wife a strict charge to take care of me.  I was very much tired and disposed to sleep, which my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail of a man-of-war.

I slept about two hours, and dreamed I was at home with my wife and children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked, and found myself alone, in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet wide, and above two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide.  My mistress was gone about her household affairs, and had locked me in.  The bed was eight yards from the floor.  I durst not presume to call; and if I had, it would have been in vain, with such a voice as mine, at so great a distance as from the room where I lay to the kitchen where the family kept.  While I was under these circumstances, two rats crept up the curtains, and ran smelling backwards and forwards on the bed.  One of them came up almost to my face, whereupon I rose in a fright, and drew out my hanger to defend myself.  These horrible animals had the boldness to attack me on both sides, and one of them held his forefeet at my collar; but I had the good fortune to rip up his belly before he could do me any mischief.  He fell down at my feet; and the other, seeing the fate of his comrade, made his escape, but not without one good wound on the back, which I gave him as he fled, and made the blood run trickling from him.  After this exploit, I walked