[Illustration:  “THE SMALLER BIRDS DID NOT APPEAR TO BE AT ALL AFRAID OF ME.”  P. 57.]

Her majesty said, if I could contrive a boat, her own joiner should make it, and she would provide a place for me to sail in.  The fellow was an ingenious workman, and, by my instructions, in ten days finished a pleasure-boat, with all its tackling, able conveniently to hold eight Europeans.  When it was finished, the queen was so delighted that she ran with it in her lap to the king, who ordered it to be put in a cistern full of water, with me in it, by way of trial; where I could not manage my two sculls,[68] or little oars, for want of room.

But the queen had before contrived another project.  She ordered the joiner to make a wooden trough of three hundred feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep; which, being well pitched, to prevent leaking, was placed on the floor along the wall in an outer room of the palace.  It had a cock near the bottom to let out the water, when it began to grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in half-an-hour.  Here I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained with my skill and agility.  Sometimes I would put up my sail, and then my business was only to steer, while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans; and when they were weary, some of their pages would blow my sail forward with their breath, while I showed my art by steering starboard[69] or larboard, as I pleased.  When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my boat, into her closet, and hung it oh a nail to dry.

In this exercise I once met an accident, which had like to have cost me my life; for one of the pages having put my boat into the trough, the governess, who attended Glumdalclitch, very officiously lifted me up to place me in the boat, but I happened to slip through her fingers, and should infallibly have fallen down forty feet upon the floor, if, by the luckiest chance in the world, I had not been stopped by a corking-pin[70] that stuck in the good gentlewoman’s stomacher;[71] the head of the pin passed between my shirt and the waistband of my breeches, and thus I held by the middle in the air, till Glumdalclitch ran to my relief.

[Illustration:  “GAVE ME A GALE WITH THEIR FANS.”  P. 60.]

Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my trough every third day with fresh water, was so careless as to let a huge frog (not perceiving it) slip out of his pail.  The frog lay concealed till I was put into my boat, but then seeing a resting-place, climbed up, and made it lean so much on one side that I was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to prevent overturning.  When the frog was got in, it hopped at once half the length of the boat, and then over my head backwards and forwards.  The largeness of its features made it appear the most deformed animal that can be conceived.  However, I desired Glumdalclitch to let me deal with it alone.  I banged it a good while with one of my sculls, and at last forced it to leap out of the boat.