Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 3/Chapter 11
from the Collection “Gulliver's Travels. Part 3”
The divisions of this summary into sections are editorial.
In Luggnagg, the traveller Lemuel Gulliver prepared to return to England after describing the struldbrugs to his readers.
He thought Japanese writers might also have described the struldbrugs, since their country traded regularly with Luggnagg. He could not investigate during his short stay in Japan because he did not know the language, but hoped the Dutch would do so.
The king equips Gulliver for departure
The King of Luggnagg had repeatedly urged Gulliver to take a position at his court. Once convinced that his guest was determined to go home, he permitted him to leave and wrote a personal recommendation to the Emperor of Japan.
The king also gave him 444 large gold pieces and a red diamond, which Gulliver later sold in England for £1,100. Gulliver took leave of the king and his friends on 6 May 1709. A royal guard escorted him to the port of Glanguenstald; six days later he found a ship, and after a fifteen-day voyage he landed at Xamoschi in Japan.
A discreet favour from the emperor
At Xamoschi, customs officers recognised the seal on the king’s letter. The local magistrates treated Gulliver as an official envoy and paid for his journey to the capital, Yedo. There he presented the letter to the Emperor of Japan.
An interpreter who dealt with Dutch traders recognised Gulliver as a European and spoke to him in Dutch. Gulliver claimed to be a shipwrecked Dutch merchant and asked for safe passage to Nangasac, where he hoped to find a ship to Europe. He also asked to be excused from a ceremony required of Dutch visitors: trampling on a crucifix.
The emperor was surprised that a supposed Dutchman should object and suspected that Gulliver was a Christian. Nevertheless, chiefly to please the King of Luggnagg, he agreed to the request. Gulliver reported the emperor’s warning about keeping it secret:
For he assured me, that if the secret should be discovered by my countrymen, the Dutch, they would cut my throat in the voyage.
Gulliver thanked him. The emperor ordered the officers to let him pass as though they had forgotten the ceremony, and placed him under the protection of troops travelling to Nangasac.
A Dutch ship carries Gulliver to Europe
After a long and difficult journey, Gulliver reached Nangasac on 9 June 1709. He met sailors from the Amsterdam ship Amboyna and gave them a plausible but largely invented account of his life. Having studied at Leyden and lived in Holland, he spoke Dutch well and knew enough about the country to maintain his story.
The ship’s captain, Theodorus Vangrult, agreed to take him to Holland for half the usual fare if he would serve as surgeon.
Before departure, crew members asked Gulliver whether he had performed the crucifix ceremony. He evaded them by saying that he had satisfied the emperor and his court. One skipper denounced him to an officer, but the officer had been instructed to let Gulliver pass and beat the accuser with a bamboo. Gulliver was not questioned about it again.
The Amboyna sailed by the Cape of Good Hope, stopping there for fresh water, and reached Amsterdam on 10 April 1710. Three men had died of sickness during the voyage, and another had fallen from the foremast into the sea near Guinea. Gulliver soon took a small vessel to England.
The vessel reached the Downs on 16 April. Gulliver landed the next morning, after an absence of five years and six months, and went directly to Redriff. He arrived that afternoon to find his wife and family in good health.