disposed of my closet).  I opened it in his own presence, and showed him the small collection of rarities I made in the country from whence I had been so strangely delivered.  There was the comb I had contrived out of the stumps of the king’s beard.  There was a collection of needles and pins, from a foot to half a yard long; four wasps’ stings, like joiners’ tacks; some combings of the queen’s hair; a gold ring, which one day she made me a present of in a most obliging manner, taking it from her little finger and throwing it over my head like a collar.  I desired the captain would please to accept this ring in return of his civilities, which he absolutely refused.  Lastly I desired him to see the breeches I had then on, which were made of a mouse’s skin.

I could force nothing upon him but a footman’s tooth, which I observed him to examine with great curiosity, and found he had a fancy for it.  He received it with abundance of thanks, more than such a trifle could deserve.  It was drawn by an unskilful surgeon, in a mistake, from one of Glumdalclitch’s men, who was affected with the toothache, but it was as sound as any in his head.  I got it cleaned, and put it in my cabinet.  It was about a foot long, and four inches in diameter.

The captain was very well satisfied with this plain relation I had given him, and said he hoped when we returned to England I would oblige the world by putting it on paper, and making it public.  My answer was, that I thought we were already overstocked with books of travels; that nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary; wherein I doubted some authors less consulted truth than their own vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers, that my story could contain little besides common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound.  However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to take the matter into my thoughts.

He said he wondered at one thing very much, which was, to hear me speak so loud, asking me whether the king or queen of that country were thick of hearing.  I told him it was what I had been used to for above two years past, and that I wondered as much at the voices of him and his men, who seemed to me only to whisper, and yet I could hear them well enough.  But when I spoke in that country, it was like a man talking in the street to another looking out from the top of a steeple, unless when I was placed on a table, or held in any person’s hand.  I told him I had likewise observed another thing, that when I first got into the ship, and the sailors stood all about me, I thought they were the most contemptible little creatures I had ever beheld.  For indeed, while I was in that prince’s country, I could never endure to look in a glass, after my eyes had been accustomed to such prodigious objects, because the comparison gave me so despicable a conceit of