y victuals, and leave their loathsome excrement, or spawn
behind, which to me was very visible, though not to the natives of that
country, whose large optics were not so acute as mine, in viewing smaller
objects. Sometimes they would fix upon my nose, or forehead, where they
stung me to the quick, smelling very offensively; and I could easily
trace that viscous matter, which, our naturalists tell us, enables those
creatures to walk with their feet upwards upon a ceiling. I had much ado
to defend myself against these detestable animals, and could not forbear
starting when they came on my face. It was the common practice of the
dwarf, to catch a number of these insects in his hand, as schoolboys do
among us, and let them out suddenly under my nose, on purpose to frighten
me, and divert the queen. My remedy was to cut them in pieces with my
knife, as they flew in the air, wherein my dexterity was much admired.

I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set me in a box upon a
window, as she usually did in fair days to give me air (for I durst not
venture to let the box be hung on a nail out of the window, as we do with
cages in England), after I had lifted up one of my sashes, and sat down
at my table to eat a piece of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty
wasps, allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder
than the drones of as many bagpipes. Some of them seized my cake, and
carried it piecemeal away; others flew about my head and face,
confounding me with the noise, and putting me in the utmost terror of
their stings. However, I had the courage to rise and draw my hanger, and
attack them in the air. I dispatched four of them, but the rest got
away, and I presently shut my window. These insects were as large as
partridges: I took out their stings, found them an inch and a half long,
and as sharp as needles. I carefully preserved them all; and having
since shown them, with some other curiosities, in several parts of
Europe, upon my return to England I gave three of them to Gresham
College, and kept the fourth for myself.

CHAPTER IV.

The country described. A proposal for correcting modern maps. The
king's palace; and some account of the metropolis. The author's way of
travelling. The chief temple described.

I now intend to give the reader a short description of this country, as
far as I travelled in it, which was not above two thousand miles round
Lorbrulgrud, the metropo