As the King and his courtiers gained more faith in Gulliver, and became less afraid of his breaking loose and doing some mischief, they began to treat him in a more friendly way than they had hitherto done, and showed him more of the manners and customs of the country.  Some of these were very curious.

One of the sports of which they were most fond was rope-dancing, and there was no more certain means of being promoted to high office and power in the state than to possess great cleverness in that art.  Indeed, it was said that the Lord High Treasurer had gained and kept his post chiefly through his great skill in turning somersaults on the tight rope.  The Chief Secretary for private affairs ran him very close, and there was hardly a Minister of State who did not owe his position to such successes.  Few of them, indeed, had escaped without severe accidents at one time or another, while trying some specially difficult feat, and many had been lamed for life.  But however many and bad the falls, there were always plenty of other persons to attempt the same or some more difficult jump.

Taught by his narrow escape from a serious accident when his horse first saw Gulliver, the King now gave orders that the horses of his army, as well as those from the Royal stables, should be exercised daily close to the Man Mountain.  Soon they became so used to the sight of him that they would come right up to his foot without starting or shying.  Often the riders would jump their chargers over Gulliver’s hand as he held it on the ground; and once the King’s huntsman, better mounted than most of the others, actually jumped over his foot, shoe and all—­a wonderful leap.

Gulliver saw that it was wise to amuse the King in this and other ways, because the more his Majesty was pleased with him the sooner was it likely that his liberty would be granted.  So he asked one day that some strong sticks, about two feet in height, should be brought to him.  Several of these he fixed firmly in the ground, and across them, near the top, he lashed four other sticks, enclosing a square space of about two and a half feet.  Then to the uprights, about five inches lower than the crossed sticks, he tied his pocket-handkerchief, and stretched it tight as a drum.

When the work was finished, he asked the King to let a troop exercise on this stage.  His Majesty was delighted with the idea, and for several days nothing pleased him more than to see Gulliver lift up the men and horses, and to watch them go through their drill on this platform.  Sometimes he would even be lifted up himself and give the words of command; and once he persuaded the Queen, who was rather timid, to let herself be held up in her chair within full view of the scene.  But a fiery horse one day, pawing with his hoof, wore a hole in the handkerchief, and came down heavily on its side, and after this Gulliver could no longer trust the strength of his stage.

IV