Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 2/Chapter 8
from the Collection âGulliver's Travels. Part 2â
The division of this summary into sections is editorial.
A journey to the coast
After two years in a country inhabited by giants, the English traveller Gulliver still hoped to regain his freedom, though he could see no way to escape. His ship had been the first known to reach the coast, and he had left his family behind in England.
The King, who treated Gulliver kindly, had ordered that any other ship reaching the coast be brought inland with everyone aboard. He hoped to find Gulliver a woman of his own size so that they could have children.
Gulliver recoiled from the thought that his descendants might be caged and sold as curiosities. Although he was a favourite of the King and Queen, he felt that his position at court denied him the dignity of an ordinary human being. He longed for his family and for company his own size:
I wanted to be among people with whom I could converse upon even terms, and walk about the streets and fields without fear of being trod to death like a frog or a young puppy.
Early in his third year, Gulliver and his young nurse Glumdalclitch accompanied the King and Queen on a journey towards the southern coast.
Gulliver travelled in a box fitted as a small room. To soften the jolts when a servant carried it on horseback, he had a hammock slung inside. He also had a sliding opening cut in the roof to let in air while he slept.
The royal party stopped at a palace near the city of Flanflasnic, not far from the sea. Gulliver had a slight cold, while Glumdalclitch was ill enough to remain in her room. Wanting to see the ocean, his only possible route home, he pretended to be sicker than he was and asked to take the sea air with a page who had looked after him before.
Glumdalclitch reluctantly agreed. She warned the page to take great care and burst into tears. The boy carried Gulliverâs box towards the rocks by the shore and set it down. After looking wistfully out to sea, Gulliver decided to sleep in his hammock, and the page closed the window to keep out the cold.
The box is carried out to sea
Gulliver supposed that, while he slept, the page went off among the rocks to search for birdsâ eggs. A violent pull on the carrying ring atop the box suddenly woke him. The box rose high into the air and moved swiftly forward; through the windows he could see only clouds and sky. Hearing wings above him, he concluded that an eagle had seized the ring and intended to break open the box and eat him.
The beating of wings grew louder, and the box was shaken by what sounded like blows. Gulliver believed that other eagles had attacked the bird carrying him. It released the box, which plunged into the sea. For a moment Gulliver was in darkness; then the box rose until light appeared at the tops of its windows.
Iron plates on the bottom had helped keep the box balanced during its fall, and its tightly fitted joints and sliding door kept most of the water out. The weight of Gulliver, his possessions and the plates left it floating several feet deep. Almost suffocated, he managed to slide open the air hole in the roof and climb out of his hammock.
Gulliver feared that a wave would overturn the box or break a window, drowning him. He tried to stop water entering through the cracks, but could not lift the roof to climb on top. If the box stayed afloat, he faced death from cold and hunger. For four hours he waited in distress, at times wishing the end would come.
He also grieved for Glumdalclitch, who had been separated from him so suddenly. He imagined her sorrow at losing him, the Queenâs anger and the possible ruin of her prospects.
At last he heard a scraping sound near the metal fittings on the windowless side of the box. As he felt it being pulled through the water, he dared to hope that help was near. He unscrewed a chair from the floor and fixed it beneath the roof opening. Standing on it, he called for help in every language he knew and waved a handkerchief tied to a stick through the hole.
The box continued moving for more than an hour before striking something hard. Gulliver feared it was a rock. Then he heard a cable pass through the ring overhead, and the box rose slightly. He waved and called again. Three answering shouts filled him with joy, and someone above the opening called to him in English:
If there be any body below, let them speak.
Gulliver answered that he was an Englishman in desperate trouble and begged to be released. The voice assured him that his box was secured to a ship and that a carpenter would cut a hole in the roof. Still accustomed to giants, Gulliver suggested that a sailor simply lift the box by its ring and carry it into the captainâs cabin. The crew laughed or thought him mad: he had forgotten that his rescuers were people of his own size. The carpenter sawed an opening and lowered a ladder, and Gulliver was brought aboard in a very weak condition.
The captain hears Gulliverâs story
The sailors crowded around Gulliver with questions. Their size bewildered him too: after so long among giants, they looked like tiny people. Seeing that he was close to fainting, the captain, Thomas Wilcocks, took him to his cabin, gave him a restorative drink and put him to bed.
Before sleeping, Gulliver asked that his box and its valuable furnishings be brought into the cabin. Wilcocks again thought him delirious but promised to see to his possessions. The sailors removed the contents and the padded lining, damaging furniture that had been screwed to the floor. They took useful boards from the box and let the broken remains sink. Gulliver was glad not to have witnessed the destruction, which would have recalled painful memories.
After several hours of troubled sleep, Gulliver woke much recovered. Wilcocks ordered supper and, finding his guest more composed, asked how he had come to be adrift in such an enormous chest.
The captain explained that he had first spotted the box around noon and mistaken it for a sail. Short of biscuits, he had altered course in the hope of buying provisions. His men had returned from investigating in a boat, frightened by what they called a floating house. Wilcocks went to look for himself, saw the protected windows and the metal fittings, and had a cable attached so the box could be towed to the ship. The crew could raise it only a few feet. When they saw the handkerchief emerge from the roof, they realised someone was trapped inside.
Gulliver asked whether anyone had seen enormous birds. One sailor had noticed three eagles flying north, though they had seemed no larger than usual, perhaps because they were so high. Wilcocks reckoned the ship was at least a hundred leagues from land. Gulliver insisted it must be much closer, since he had left the shore less than two hours before falling into the sea.
The disagreement renewed the captainâs doubts about his guestâs sanity. He also wondered whether Gulliver had committed a serious crime and been set adrift as punishment. Even if that were true, Wilcocks promised to put him safely ashore at the first port. Gulliver asked him to listen patiently and related everything that had happened since he had last left England.
The account convinced the captain of Gulliverâs honesty. To support it, Gulliver opened a cabinet saved from the box and showed him objects collected in the giantsâ country: combs made from the Kingâs beard hairs, enormous needles and pins, wasp stings, strands of the Queenâs hair, and a gold ring the Queen had given him. The ring had been small enough for her little finger but large enough to pass over Gulliverâs head like a collar. He also showed Wilcocks his breeches, made from a mouseâs skin.
Gulliver offered the captain the gold ring in thanks, but Wilcocks refused it. He accepted only a giant footmanâs tooth, about a foot long, which Gulliver had cleaned and kept after it was mistakenly pulled by an unskilled surgeon.
Wilcocks urged Gulliver to publish his travels when they reached England. Gulliver replied that there were already too many travel books and suspected that some authors preferred vanity, profit or entertaining readers to telling the truth. He thanked the captain and promised to consider the suggestion.
The two men also discussed Gulliverâs strange behaviour. Wilcocks had wondered why he spoke so loudly; Gulliver explained that for more than two years he had needed to make himself heard by people far above him. The captainâs voice and those of the sailors, by contrast, sounded like whispers.
At supper Gulliver had nearly laughed at the apparent smallness of the dishes and food. He admitted that, though the Queen had supplied him with things suited to his own size, his eyes had grown accustomed to the giantsâ possessions. Wilcocks understood and joked that Gulliverâs eyes were bigger than his stomach. He added that he would have paid to see the box in the eagleâs beak and its fall into the sea.
A disorienting return home
Wilcocks was returning from Tonquin when his ship had been driven north-eastward. After taking Gulliver aboard, he sailed south, past New Holland and around the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage went well. Although the ship stopped for provisions and water, Gulliver did not go ashore until they reached the Downs on 3 June 1706, about nine months after his escape.
Gulliver offered his goods as security for the cost of his passage, but Wilcocks refused payment. They parted warmly, with the captain promising to visit Gulliver at his home in Redriff. Gulliver borrowed money from him to hire a horse and guide.
On the road, the houses, trees, animals and people seemed so small that Gulliver imagined himself back in Lilliput. Afraid of trampling travellers, he shouted for them to get out of his way and nearly provoked several of them to strike him.
At home he ducked through the doorway, fearing he would hit his head. When his wife ran to embrace him, he stooped below her knees so she could reach him. He failed to see his daughter while she knelt for his blessing, and when she rose he tried to pick her up with one hand. He told his wife that she and their daughter had grown thin through excessive thrift. His family and friends, like Wilcocks at first, concluded that he had lost his wits.
Gulliver offered his homecoming as an example of the power of habit and prejudice. He and his family soon came to understand one another again. His wife declared that he must never go to sea, but he ended the second part of his travels by hinting that she would be unable to prevent another voyage.